4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Being drawn so heavily to Jack had been a problem from the start. Maltin Graves stared at the door that had slammed shut upon Jack’s leaving, and his eyes stayed there for more than an hour as thoughts crowded his mind.

He’d opened his mouth to call out to Jack, to beg him to stay and recover more, but the words fell away from him, and he’d closed his mouth again.

At the bathroom sink, he stared at his image, looking for and finding the tiny lines that had formed around his eyes.

To anyone else, they’d be nearly invisible.

Every time Maltin Graves used his magic, he was closer to death. It was a menacing truth of his very long life.

You see, Maltin Graves was a half-breed, and while the world had changed during his time on it, where that term didn’t gather derision, it did mean he had a finite level of magic. His family, for instance, those on the witch side, could cast spells to lengthen their lives. He had an aunt that was close to nine hundred years old. For him, however, those spells couldn’t be cast. They took too much magic, and the trying of them would likely kill him.

The line of magic he was from was so powerful that his people were revered throughout the magic realms. His father, however, wasn’t a witch. His mother had fallen in love with a shifter on a trip to Denmark one icy winter.

Since his father’s animal form was never seen, Maltin didn’t know what creature he would be once he shifted. Most find out at a young age. His mother told him that his father died without shifting once, and she’d learned that some won’t until they meet their mates. His poor mother spent the rest of her years pining for that lost love. He’d died so young, not yet forty.

The magic he’d used to slow Jack’s fall from the roof had taken a lot out of him. A lot of energy and a lot of magic. Out of practice, he hadn’t used magic for more than twenty years. He sat on the bed in his room, staring down at his hands, especially the one Jack had touched. That energy that was cast between them wasn’t normal magic. It was dark, but it was alive.

Feeling pulled to Jack from the first, he’d passed it off, thinking it had just been too long since he’d been in close company with such an attractive man. Sure, he had been around gorgeous men at the studios when he was forced to go in them to take his scripts or do rewrites in person, which he hated.

No one made him feel the things that Jack had made him feel. Longing, need, bordering on desperation. Thinking back on his mother’s words, they sat in his gut and ate away like acid.

“We were in love, but if he’d met his fated mate before he’d died, he would have had to leave me for her.”

Wondering, not for the first time, if his mother had been secretly happy that his father had died first before he could meet his mate…Maltin wondered if he’d just met his own.

That touch. That all-consuming touch so strong as to throw Jack into the air was nothing short of powerful magic. Maltin lay on his bed, letting his lids slide closed and thinking about Jack, that beautiful face, that amazing body, and those hazel eyes that were gray at times and olive-green at others, and he dared to let himself hope that he’d met his mate at long last.

***

The Carmichael Library was near downtown Valleywood, right down the road from The Valleywood Mall. It was a vast, grey brick building with two winged lions guarding the front on either side of the marble steps.

The inside boasted hundreds of stacks of books, including novels and reference books, but they didn’t stop with those. Sections of the library were dedicated to every form of magic, magical beings, and other worlds.

The books on magic alone were half the library, and he didn’t know where to start. He got on one of the computers and started adding words to the search, but the possibilities were so great that Jack knew he’d never find what he was looking for.

Then the librarian came creaking over to him, her hunchback not stopping her from rushing around, telling one group of kids to hush their loud talking, and gathering books left behind on tables.

She had the whitest hair he’d ever seen. It was so white that it fairly glowed. She came over to him, gnarled finger pointing at him, making him remember that strange woman from a few days previous who’d told him he’d find his mate…

“You have a heck of a stack, there, son. Don’t forget to return them all to the cart. My back is aching to beat the band today.”

She turned to leave, but Jack stopped her with a hand on her arm. Keeping his voice low like the librarian, he stopped her with, “Excuse me, Missus…”

“ Ms . Sunny Jim. Ms. Tempest. What can I do you for?”

With wrinkles and creases covering her face, she could have been a roadmap of the world. Still, her icy blue eyes were kind as they locked with his. “I’m not sure of what I’m looking for.”

“Oh?” She pushed around some of the titles on the table surrounding him and commented, “Magic, obviously.”

“But I’m not sure…what kind. I guess. I mean, what does it mean when you touch someone, and you get this weird…I don’t know, jolt? It threw me backward; it was so strong. I’ve never felt anything like it. I’ve never even heard of anything like it.”

As Ms. Tempest looked around, she whispered, “Come with me, son.”

He got up and followed her, walking much quicker than he anticipated. She scurried along like a mouse after a block of cheese.

Between two long stacks they went, his eyes trying to take in volumes around him to guess where they were headed, but once they went through a door into an entirely different section, he saw immediately they were in the section that had all books about shifters.

His disappointment was hard to mask as he said, “I, uh, I’m not a shifter. I’m…I come from a family of witches.”

She turned to him with a smile on her thin, heavily lined lips. “Oh? Is that so? I never heard of a witch having a fated mate.”

The shock of her statement made him speechless at first. She turned back to the aisle ahead of her, moving as swiftly until they came to the very end of that row, where she stopped and pulled out a thick, leather-bound tome that must have weighed twenty pounds. But the tiny old woman hefted it like it was nothing.

She took it to a table in the back of the room and set it down with a dull thud. “There. Read over the chapter about hellhounds.”

Unable to voice his shock, he simply stared at her.

“I’m going to head over to another area and get you another book while you learn a little about yourself.”

Jack sat at the table and stared at the book's cover. The gold embossed lettering was faded but legible.

A Guide to Uncommon Shapeshifters, Author Clarence Reginald

“I can’t be. I just can’t be! You don’t get a shifter from a witch.”

Noticing that his hand was shaking as he lifted it to open the book, he shook it hard and made a tight fist before he opened it again and opened the book to the table of contents.

When he saw the section on hellhounds, he swallowed, suddenly more terrified than he’d been in his life.

Hellhounds were evil creatures, he’d always thought. He didn’t feel evil, not much anyway. He was no saint, surely, but not an evil being. Basically, a damn demon?

Skimming over the first page of the section, he started to calm down. Early on, it disclosed that hellhounds, unlike their prey, were servants needed for the cycle of life. They were simply taking those from one plane of existence to another.

He sat back and took his eyes off the page, scoffing, “Sure. Dragging people to hell is just part of the circle of life. Great.”

Ms. Tempest was back, and she pushed the shifter book away from him, opening the book she’d brought. “Now, I am guessing your family had no idea about you. There are six families that have been known to produce hellhounds, but there are others that have claimed it, though no one was witness to it. There are thirty names here. Don’t bother telling me who you are before you look at these.”

The page of the book she’d brought had lists of all the hellhound families known to the author, with the disclaimer that not all hellhounds were aware of their roots. “That would be me,” he said mostly to himself.

“Adoptions have always been, son. Even before there was paperwork and courts. A parentless child would be given to a family for raising, unknowing of where they came from and what their powers might be.”

“But…I’m not adopted. I know I’m not. In fact, that would be the best-case scenario for me, because it would explain a lot.”

She sat in the other chair and gazed at him with the utmost sympathy. “Child, you look at the names, and if you don’t find your family here, maybe someone has some explaining to do. I’ve only ever heard of one before, a woman that found her fated mate by accident, the same way you did, with a jolt like that. That jolt…it’s killed a lot of folks like you. It killed that poor girl and her fated mate lived out the rest of his life in misery and never fully became.”

“Became? Became what?”

“Why, a hellhound, dear. Without your mate, you’re…well,” she said then patted his hand like he was a child. “Read for yourself. I wouldn’t trust the word of a crazy old librarian over the experts.”

She left him then and the books sat in front of him for a few minutes as he tried to wrap his mind around what he was learning. There was a thread left of pure disbelief. After all, she said it herself, she was a crazy old librarian. For all he knew, she didn’t know more than what she read in the cheap novels she was surrounded by.

That thread was unraveling, though. All of it struck home, and that, along with the dreams he was having…

Not to mention fated mates.

He knew about mates, of course. It was hard not to hear about them growing up in a magical family. Of course, his family had looked down their pointed noses at the thought of it, animals that were expected to wait until their true mates were revealed. Witches chose their own, but their hypocrisy knew no bounds. They only chose other witches to marry, to keep their lineage magically strong.

Fated mates…those were a whole other can of worms. To wait for that one special person, and once you found them, your entire life made sense. It was rumored that was the reason humans believed in soulmates.

Thinking of Maltin Graves as the one being he was meant to be with didn’t sit well with him. Sure, the man was gorgeous, but that was where his interest in him stopped.

He pulled the book with the family names over and started to scan it, looking desperately for the Pengrove name. He passed right over the Ps and didn’t see it, and his heart sank.

He decided to check out the books, his head beginning to ache so badly that the words blurred on the pages. At the front desk, Ms. Tempest sat with a novel open, though she wasn’t reading it. “Checking it out?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Take your time and read up on things. I’ll give you an extended checkout because I believe you’ll need it to take it all in. I’m sorry that I had to be the one to tell you.”

Nodding, Jack wished the same.

Taking the books back to his apartment, he set them on the table by the kitchenette and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Falling back on the couch, his mind suddenly blank for its own benefit, he figured. He had just sipped the cold beer when Garvey came in the door.

“Hey, Jackie boy. How’s it going?”

“It sucks. That’s how. Why are you home? I thought you worked all day.”

“Took the day off to go and register with Colin.”

Jack’s head spun to him as Garvey plopped on the couch on the other end. “Colin? My boss?”

“Yeah. I told ya.”

He had, but Jack hadn’t taken him seriously. “You know…not all the clients are women, and the men you’ll be fucking aren’t good-looking, right?”

“Who cares? I get ugly ass now. At least I’ll get more out of it than the damn crabs.”

Breathing a laugh, he took another sip and said, “Gross.”

“Exactly. He wasn’t gonna give me a shot until he had me take off my shirt. That seemed to do it.”

Garvey wasn’t good-looking per se, but his body was kicking. He inspired Jack to work out harder when they’d first met. “Well, it’s better money than bussing tables, for sure.”

“Exactly. Might as well, you know? Make some good cash.”

He stared at the books and asked Garvey, “What do you know…about fated mates?”

“Fated mates? What everyone knows, I guess. A person you’re meant to be with, breed with, whatever. If I ever find mine, well…I guess I’ll become a dad. Why? You don’t have to worry about that, being a witch.”

“Yeah, sure. It’s just…my client, he…he’s a shifter, and I just wanted to know about them.”

“Oh, right. Well, no worries, if you get down and dirty with him, and he’s not the one, he won’t knock you up. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“If I’m the one that can get knocked up.”

“You think you’d be the alpha? Come on,” he said, laughing.

“I could be if…you know, I was a shifter.”

Garvey shook his head and took the beer from Jack’s hand. “Sure, buddy.”

“How do you know? If you’re the one that, you know, gets knocked up?”

After he shrugged his shoulder and handed him back the beer, Garvey said, “Easy. You’ve got the parts inside you. I don’t.”

“How do you know? Do you check?”

“Sure. I got checked during my first school physical. I’m no alpha, but I don’t have to be to get someone preggers.”

Realizing how little he knew about shifters, he decided it might be a good idea to start reading up on them—just in case. Then something else came to him, and he waited until Garvey went into the bathroom to shower.

Opening the book that listed the names of the families producing hellhounds, he used his finger to guide him down the list until he came to the Gs. He’d passed right over them before when he’d looked for his own name.

The end of the Gs, it was there. Graves.

“No fucking way.”

He left in a rush and felt like time was chasing him as he waited impatiently for the bus. It felt worse the many times the bus stopped on the way to his stop. He drummed his hands on his thighs until the man across from him cleared his throat and scowled at him. After shoving his hands in his pockets, he watched the city go by agonizingly slowly before he came to his stop, where he jumped up and exited the bus like the devil was chasing him.

When he saw the warehouse, his heart started to pound in his chest. He felt the man. From a hundred yards away, he felt Maltin like they were near enough to touch. Warmth started in his chest and quickly consumed him. Jack hungered for Maltin like he’d been starving all his life, and Maltin was the only food that would satisfy him.

He slowly walked up the slight rise, despite how impatient he was to get there. With each step, he got warmer, like the sun was falling from the sky right over him, and the nearer it got, the more he burned.

Then, like magic, Maltin stood outside the warehouse as if he’d felt Jack coming, and Jack’s heart leaped into his throat. He stopped, staring at the man, and suddenly, the doubts ended. He knew beyond a doubt that Maltin was meant to be his.

Maltin began to close the distance between them, and Jack followed suit, taking one step, then another. The closer he got, the more he felt the man.

When they stood beside the road a foot apart, tears began to spring to his eyes, and the world blurred until they ran down his cheeks.

Maltin went to him quickly, grabbing his upper arms, and that touch didn’t throw him, but Maltin’s hands burned into his flesh. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

“I’m…I’m confused and…I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“I don’t know either, but maybe we’re supposed to find out together.”

Dark, deep eyes stared into his, and Jack’s breath caught in his throat. He wanted to kiss Maltin, but he also knew that if he started, he’d be unable to stop. They’d be naked and writhing in the middle of the parking lot with cars driving by, witnessing their coupling.

Coupling. He’d never called it that before, even in his own mind. “We should go into your house.”

“Yes,” Maltin agreed, letting his hands slide down Jack’s arms until he took both of Jack’s hands in his. “Come with me, Jack. Don’t be afraid.”

Frankly, he was terrified of his new reality. When he was led to the loft and Maltin helped him to sit on the sofa, he finally found his voice again and asked weakly, “Did you know?”

“Know? Know what, Jack?”

“That you were…are…we are…hellhounds?”

Maltin stopped moving like he’d been frozen solid, and his eyes glazed over as he stared at Jack. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t know?”

It was Maltin’s turn to sit as he paled and started to shake.

Jack knew then that Maltin had no idea.

“I didn’t know what…we are. I mean, it’s not for sure or anything, but with the force of…well, me flying off that ladder, the librarian said?”

“The librarian? You told someone?”

He looked like that bit of news frightened him more than learning what he was.

“Just her, and…I didn’t tell her. She told me. I researched what might have happened, and I had a stack of books on the table. She wanted to help, so I told her what happened to me, and…she gave me books to read.”

“Jack, if anyone knew-I mean anyone, we could be…we would be outcasts!”

That didn’t seem likely. There were rumors of actual gods living in Valleywood, and they didn’t have the best reputations, though it was all just gossip. “Why?”

“Jack, do you realize what hellhounds are?”

He was still pale, and his chest was moving so fast, Jack worried he’d hyperventilate. “Kind of. I mean, I thought they were like evil beings, but the books say they’re needed.”

“Of course they are! They’re needed to drag people into the underworld! No one wants to go into the underworld, Jack, unless they come from there and call it home to begin with! It’s hell, Jack!”

He was shaking, and for some reason, his distress over the matter made Jack become the caregiver. In the corner of the room, across from the kitchen, was a small table Maltin used as a bar. He poured them both what he assumed to be whiskey by the amber color of it and brought them to the couch, where he handed one to Maltin. “Drink this.”

“Not even the best cognac can calm me over this, Jack.”

He held the glass in both hands and stared at the liquid, but then he did drink, slugging it back quickly.

Jack sat beside him and drank his own glass. It warmed him, but it wasn’t like he was chilled. Being near Maltin made him sweat with the heat they were gathering between them.

“I don’t know anything about it, Maltin. I barely read a few sentences. I was freaking out, you know? Your name…it’s in the list of families known to produce hellhounds.”

He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Jack. His voice was low and far away as he said, “My father never knew what he was. He never shifted. He and my mother were never meant to be together, but they fell in love regardless.”

“Don’t most shifters know, like, pretty early on? My friend, Garvey, he knew.”

“Yes, of course. Others, however, don’t shift unless they find their fated mates.”

“It said that about hellhounds. So, your father, he was one, he just never knew? Can that be? If your names are in a book, wouldn’t those families know?”

“What book?” Maltin demanded, and Jack saw the Maltin he knew coming back. Angry, hateful of the rest of the world.

Jack took the glass from him and handed Maltin his, gently pushing it to his lips. “Calm down. It’s a book from the library. It lists names of shifter families and the shifters they’ve produced.”

“So, others know?”

“The book was pretty dusty, so I doubt anyone’s checked it out in years, if not a century. Besides, it’s not your fault, or I guess mine. I don’t know how I am, though. I come from a witch family.”

“You have powers? Why didn’t you save yourself when you were falling? You made me do it, and I have finite powers, Jack!”

He was nearly hysterical, and Jack knew he’d get worse if Jack weren’t careful. And, if he had powers, he could kill Jack pretty easily as Jack couldn’t defend himself from magic.

After pouring himself another drink, he watched Maltin get up and start to pace, his casual clothing the most expensive money could buy, white linen shirt, matching pants, how they rippled when he moved, like the waves of a lake during a soft breeze.

The cloth draped perfectly over his body, the rounded cheeks of his ass flexing and relaxing with each quick step, the shirt rising a bit to show the flesh of his stomach each time he ran fingers through his thick dark hair. The man was even more beautiful than Jack had first observed. If they were fated mates, he could have done much, much worse.

“I can’t believe this. If we’re found out, we’ll be cast out of Valleywood and any other city bearing magical people. My family, they’ll never speak to me again.”

Speaking of families, Jack wondered about his own. They already barely had anything to do with him because he wasn’t a witch like them. To find out he was a hellhound…

That raised the question again for him, and he spoke it aloud. “How did I become a shifter from witch parents?”

Maltin stopped and turned his head slowly to Jack. “Yes, indeed, how?” He raced to his small desk near the bar and sat in the chair, flipping open his laptop, fingers flying over the keys. “We’re going to find out. We’ll find out everything, then… then decide what to do.”