Jacques slept for a long time, determined to renew his strength. He woke only to feed briefly, to assure himself that she was alive and nearby. He contained his elation so that he would lose no more blood. He needed his strength now. She was so close, he could feel her. She was within a few miles of him. Twice he “saw” her cabin through her eyes. She was fixing it up, doing the things women did to make a rundown shelter a home. Later, Jacques began to awaken at regular intervals, testing his strength, drawing animals to him to give him much-needed blood. He haunted her dreams, called her continually, kept her awake when her body desperately needed sleep. She was already fragile, half-starved, weak from lack of feeding. She worked day and night, her mind filled with problems and solutions. He ignored all that to keep at her so that she would be so tired, he could easily hold her under compulsion to do his bidding.
He was patient. He had learned patience. He knew he was closing in on her. He had time now. There was no need to hurry this. He could afford to grow in strength. From his dark grave he stalked her, every touch of his mind to hers making the connection between them that much stronger. He had no real idea of what he was going to do to her once she was in his hands. He wouldn’t kill her right away; he had spent so long in her mind, it sometimes seemed as if they were one. But she would surely suffer. Once again he sent himself to sleep to conserve the remaining blood in his veins.
She was asleep at her computer, her head resting on a stack of papers. Even in her sleep, her mind was active. Jacques had learned many details about her. She had a photographic memory. He learned things from her mind that he had either forgotten or perhaps had never known. He often spent time studying before he subjected her to his harassment. She was a source of knowledge for him, knowledge of the outside world.
She was always alone. Even the flashes of long-ago memories he caught were of a small child isolated from others. He felt as if he knew her intimately, yet he really knew nothing personal about her. Her mind was filled with formulas and data, with instruments and chemistry. She never thought about her appearance or anything he would expect a woman to think about. Only her work. Anything else was quickly banished.
Jacques focused and aimed. You will come to me now. You will not allow anything to stop you. Awaken, and come to me while I am resting and waiting. He used every ounce of strength he possessed to embed the compulsion deep within her. He had forced her several times over the last two months or so to walk toward him, to be drawn through the darkened forest in the vicinity of his prison. Each time she had come his way as he had bidden her, but her need to complete her work had been so strong in her, she had eventually turned back. This time he was certain he had enough strength to force her compliance. She felt his presence within her, recognized his touch, but she had no real idea that they were linked. She thought of him as a dream—or rather, a nightmare.
Jacques smiled at that. But there was no amusement in the white flash of his teeth, only the promise of savagery, the promise of a predator stalking its prey.
Shea jerked awake, blinked to bring the room into focus. Her work was scattered everywhere, the computer on, the documents she had been studying a bit crumpled where her head had rested on them. The dream again. Would it never stop, leave her in peace? She was familiar with the man in the dream now, his thick mane of jet-black hair and the touch of cruelty around his sensuous mouth. In the first few years she had been unable to see his eyes in that nightmare dream, as if perhaps they were covered, but the last couple of years he had stared at her with black menace.