Disciple: DreamWalkers, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF

enhancement—in and out of the dreamsphere. He should have been a good enough mentor to help her get past it. “I won’t always be available.”
    “You’re available now.”
    He considered it. It had been a rough night. Why the hell the wraiths wanted to eat Maggie so bad, he had no idea. When she was in the dreamsphere, the bastards practically ignored everything and everyone else.
    This hinted wraiths might be finite, which had always been a subject of debate. Not that he could broach the topic with anyone besides Lillian. He suspected Adi knew some details about the situation via the counseling sessions, but perhaps not the extent of it. Besides, as the vigil in charge of the coma station, where the Somnium’s specialized medical patients were tended, she was used to more wraiths hanging around. It was believed the monsters could sense where there was likely to be a breach in the barrier caused by the vulnerability of an alucinator trapped in a dream coma.
    Maggie wasn’t a coma patient…but her crappy shield was a huge vulnerability. He couldn’t have her weak, defenseless, in danger. He was determined to toughen her up.
    “Try one more shield alone,” he insisted. “Maybe you’ll do even better.”
    “I’ve done it ten times alone tonight. I’m tired. Hayden says his shield walls don’t turn black like mine do. He thinks I’m exaggerating.”
    “You’re L5,” he hedged. He hadn’t exactly told Maggie how disproportionate her wraith experience was. “That makes you magically delicious. High levels have to deal with more of the bastards than the rest of the Somnium.”
    Zeke couldn’t keep a lid on it forever, but he could try—at least until she mastered shields. He needed to be able to defend her with, “Sure, she attracts a lot of wraiths…but she can handle it. The curators don’t need to be involved.”
    Maggie’s lips twisted. “Hayden’s L5 too.”
    “I thought this was a Hayden free zone?”
    “Would you just give me your hand?” She reached for him. “I’ll do another solo after this one.”
    He hadn’t elaborated to Maggie about the unease her delayed training was causing in much of the East Coast base. The suspicion she was going to turn out as psycho as Karen, paired with him and his dented brain and his stupidity. She probably knew something was up—she was smarter about interpersonal relationships than he was, that was for damn sure—but they didn’t discuss it.
    He decided to cut her some slack.
    “All right.” He slid his fingers through hers. The sensation wasn’t as intense as it was in the terra firma, but he enjoyed the contact. “Say when.”
    She exhaled like she was exasperated. Her shield tightened around the two of them. “When.”
    He dropped his barrier. The wraiths swarmed, splashing against Maggie’s smaller bubble like busting paint balls. They clung, denser and denser, until the space around them darkened to ink. Because her shield was so small, they swamped the normal lightness of the sphere that emanated from the ground. It became difficult for them to see one another.
    Maggie muttered in her mind, gibberish he couldn’t catch.
    Her conduit, the exit from dreamspace that wraiths mindlessly sought, was shut like a vault door. In the sleep sphere, that was the best wraiths could hope for—escape. They couldn’t hurt alucinators in this phase. However, when Maggie’s shields fell, which they would, the smell and feel of the wraiths was going to suck.
    Zeke scruffed his hair with his free hand and braced himself for the inevitable.
    “Why don’t you widen it up some?” he suggested.
    “I’m practicing shield longevity. Size matters.”
    The bubble barrier extended several feet in every direction, a nice, unbroken oval. Consistent instead of blobby. She could hold a small shield longer, but the ominous blackness and hints of sparkle deep in the wall of wraiths were starting tense Zeke’s ass up.
    Tension begat fear. If he got agitated, how