Chapter Seven

A few hours passed, and I don’t think I was thinking rationally anymore. Why was I thinking about making love to him again? Because I couldn’t help myself, that’s why. I wanted nothing more than to be inside him. I’d heard about this kind of lust before for an omega mate, but I never thought I’d experience it myself.

I turned to him in bed, and he opened his eyes and looked up at me, his eyelids fluttering a little. I’d never seen anyone so desirable before in my life.

“From this time on, you belong to me. Only to me—is that understood?”

His eyes got so big, but he nodded his head slowly in agreement.

“You’re mine now.”

Another slow nod, and I suddenly wanted to hear him say it. “Talk to me, Levi. Tell me what I want to hear.”

“Yes. I’m yours, Alpha. I belong to you.”

His words electrified me, and that’s how I knew I must be pretty far gone. But how had this happened so fast? I barely knew this boy. I’d always heard it happened fast with fated mates, but this was ridiculous.

His dog was becoming insistent, so I managed to get up long enough to feed and water him. I opened the door to take him outside for a quick walk as Levi slept, and the door beside his opened. To my surprise, a tiny voice said, “Oh Lordy, you’re one of them Alphas, ain’t you?”

I turned to look down at the little human in surprise. She was elderly, but I think the word people used was “spry.” Her hair was snow white and her eyes were a luminous green, just like…

“Oh gods, you’re some relation to Levi, aren’t you?”

“I’m his grandma.”

Now that she mentioned it, she did have the same accent.

“Oh…I…nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“Humph…I’ll just bet it is. Where are you sneaking off to with Levi’s dog?”

“I’m not sneaking anywhere. I’m walking this thing. I mean, this dog. Levi says he walks him every morning before he leaves for work.”

“My grandson loves Nugget. You should watch what you say about him. Poor ole thing is ugly though, I admit. But Levi’s crazy about him.’

I shrugged. “Levi knows how I feel, and I’m not convinced Nugget is a dog.”

She looked down at him and seemed to consider it. “You do have a point,” she said, nodding. She gave me a long look. “Levi’s a sweet boy, you know. Takes after his mama.”

“Oh?”

She was the prettiest girl in the city and the sweetest too. Like I said, Levi takes after her. All except the sweetness. Too bad he didn’t get some of that, instead of his daddy’s quick temper. But Lordy, his daddy was crazy about her. He took one look at her and that was it for him. Never looked back. She was a witch, you know. But not a bad one. And I don’t mean her personality either. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love her like my own and don’t miss both of them every single day.” Her bright eyes started to fill with tears, and I couldn’t take that, so I awkwardly patted her shoulder and decided it was time for me to go.

“Well, it’s been nice meeting you ma’am and talking to you. I’d better take Nugget for his walk now.”

“You do that. You are coming back now, aren’t you? You’re not stealing Levi’s dog, are you?”

“Uh…stealing him? No, ma’am. No way.”

“I didn’t think so, but thought I’d ask. Well, you have a nice walk. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I made good time getting down the stairs and out on the sidewalk. Levi had an interesting family. For just a moment, I tried to imagine his grandmother meeting my mother, in her heels and pearls, but I couldn’t fix that image in my head. I dismissed the idea to worry about later and took Nugget on his walk.

But when we came back in, I shut him out of Levi’s bedroom. I fell down beside my new mate, and he turned to me and rubbed his hand over my groin. I groaned and the next couple of hours were another haze of making love and sleeping. We were in a heat frenzy, and there was little to be done except to give into it until it ran its course.

My wolf had already laid claim to him, and I simply had no choice. I would eat him up if I could, and I just might do that yet. Levi slept when he could, and I held his sweet body in my arms. He opened his eyes sometime later that afternoon and looked up at me with a dazed expression.

Good, that’s exactly how he should respond to his mate. He belonged to me, damn it, and only me. As if to prove it to myself, I moved my hands between his legs and stroked him through the sheet, watching his eyes go dark and hot.

“Oh,” he said, sighing into my mouth. “Yes, please.”

But it was too much, and I wanted him to come out of his lust haze now, not sink deeper into it. If there were any truth to the idea that he wasn’t fully omega, it might be too much for him.

Still, I handled his balls and his cock familiarly. Why shouldn’t I? He belonged to me. His cock wasn’t overly long, but it was still beautiful, like the rest of him, and I ran a finger over it as his cock filled out. I leaned down to kiss the head, and my breath must have swept over the over-sensitive flesh, because he flinched and moaned excessively, shoving his prick up toward me.

To distract myself, I licked over the mark where I’d bitten him again. I had held the bite for a long time when I gave it to him, putting in a good deal of venom and then finally pulling away, leaving a big mark that would be a permanent scar on his neck. I licked at it to sweep away the blood that kept welling up and to help with the pain.

I hoped my bite would lessen some of the aggression and independence that male wolves often felt no matter what their status. I’d seen hints of that in Levi already. Levi was mine now, and I wanted to eradicate any scrap of feeling for Willie Watusi, along with any vestige of regard he might still have for the man. If there were any emotions still lingering, I wanted to obliterate them. I didn’t want him to have anything else to do with that criminal bastard. Especially considering how much I despised the creature.

I’d only asked for this assignment once I heard that Willie Watusi was involved. I had a score to settle with the Mongrel. Watusi didn’t know me. But I knew him.

A year earlier, I had worked on a case involving interstate human trafficking. I had looked at countless photographs of young victims, some as small as five or six years old. Most were human children, but I’d been assigned because Mongrels had been known to be involved in the kidnapping of their victims, and my SAIC knew I had a special interest in them. One of them had been a human boy who had been stripped naked for these pictures. His little mouth had been twisted with fear and his blue eyes were brimming with tears as he gazed hopelessly into the camera. We had managed to recover him at an auction a few weeks later. He had been taken from Valleywood, and we had learned that a Mongrel gang led by Willie Watusi was heavily involved in his abduction and transfer to the traffickers. He’d had to undergo months of therapy, and he had a lot more ahead of him.

We had rounded up Watusi and several of his gang members, but ultimately, we hadn’t been able to find enough evidence against them to prove the prosecutor’s case. The victims hadn’t been able to positively identify the men because most of them were so young and so traumatized. But I knew that Watusi had done it. I had made a promise to myself that I would find evidence of the crimes he’d committed, and I’d put him away so that he’d never be allowed to hurt another child ever again. That was one reason I had to find out if Levi had ever been in his gang. If I discovered that Levi had anything to do with any part of the child trafficking, I really didn’t know what I would do.

****

Levi

Rolf left my apartment after another hour had passed, giving me a long kiss and telling me he’d see me after work that evening. He reminded me sternly that I shouldn’t take any calls from any of the Mongrel gang and most especially not Willie Watusi. He made me promise him again and again.

He left me stretched out luxuriantly in bed. I had called my boss at the café and explained to him earlier that I was having my “problems” again, and I wouldn’t be coming in. My boss was a beta wolf shifter, so he understood things like that about omegas, though he wasn’t too happy about them. Luckily, he had some part time help he could call in to take my place today and I was a good enough worker that he made exceptions for me when he could.

I took Nugget for a walk in the park, though I knew it would make Rolf angry. It was mostly deserted during the week, though, and as long as Nugget was with me, I felt pretty safe from any Alphas who might decide to ravish me. I just wouldn’t mention it to Rolf, who would no doubt overreact. It was cold, so I wore a scarf wrapped around my neck and pulled up around my face.

When I got back home, my grandmother stopped by, full of questions about Rolf—she’d seen him in the hallway with Nugget that morning.

“He’s a handsome devil,” she said. “But you be careful, son. He’s not from around here, is he?”

“No ma’am. From New York, I believe.”

“New York City? That’s a little highfalutin, for the likes of our family. You be careful.”

“It’s nothing serious.”

“Oh? Then what’s that big mark on your neck?”

I clapped my hand over it, but it was too late. She’d got a good look at it already, and I wouldn’t hear the end of this.

“Well, I…”

“Mmhmm, that’s what I thought. You mind what I say. Pretty is as pretty does. I don’t think I trust him.”

“Gran…”

“No, you go ahead and do you. But mind what I said. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.”

That was so not what I wanted to hear. I managed to change the subject, and she finally left, but I thought about what she said all day. Gods, he was hifalutin, wasn’t he? What made me think he could ever be interested in me?

To distract myself, I decided to look for my mother’s old journals. Not that Rolf would allow me to get anywhere near Willie and his gang again, let alone any graveyards, but when I’d told Rolf about my mother, it had stirred up old memories and I was curious. I thought it would be nice to dig out those old books and maybe display them somewhere, or at least put them in my bookshelves. I didn’t have much to remember her by.

I started looking in my storage closet in the hallway for some old boxes, which led me to find my mom’s old, cheap, earthenware and some pretty but inexpensive jewelry she used to wear—but no journals. I moved on to some boxes in my storage unit in the basement, and that’s where I finally found them after an hour-long search. They were in a small, dusty box labeled “Lilly’s Books and Recipes” in my father’s handwriting and buried under a few boxes of women’s clothing. Lilly was my mother, so I knew these had to be hers. I wondered why my dad had kept my mother’s things. It had been such a long time. Maybe he couldn’t bear to part with them? It did seem so very final to dispose of some loved one’s clothing after they were gone. I’d had to do it for my father, and it was a sad and depressing task. Maybe it was easier to just shove it all in a box and not think about it.

I carried the box upstairs and put it aside while I fixed myself and Nugget some lunch. I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and had a glass of milk, and I made two more sandwiches for Nugget, because he loved them. I always gave him dog food for breakfast and dinner, but I’d gotten in the habit of making him a couple of sandwiches when I came home to give him lunch and a little treat and take him out for a walk before I had to go back.

I had jelly on my sandwich, but he got a thick layer of plain peanut butter of the organic variety. It was unsalted, unsweetened, natural peanut butter without any added ingredients. My boss at the café got it for me at his discount, so though it was a little more expensive, Nugget loved it so much that the vet said he could have it in moderation. For Nugget, two sandwiches were a drop in the bucket, I figured, and he practically inhaled them.

I began looking through my mother’s journals. I was charmed by them immediately, and as I read through them, I could almost hear her sweet, soft voice talking to me, reading off the ingredients to me. There were a lot of old recipes inside for food she made us—old southern dishes like peach cobbler and blackberry pies and barbeque with Brunswick stew. Yeast cakes and fried dough and delicious cornbread in cast iron skillets, and my favorite meal, which she made for me every Sunday. It was fried chicken and white gravy, fried potatoes, green beans cooked most of the day with fatback and cooked cabbage. None of it was particularly healthy, I guess, but it tasted so good.

Besides the food, there were recipes for little potions that she used for healing too. It was never for anything bad. They were for things like stopping a baby’s colic or helping bring pain relief to old people’s arthritis. There were things to rub on rheumatism or to stop the pain of an aching tooth. I found instructions to make a lotion to heal cracked skin and some to cure skin rashes and even acne. And these were all mixed in with some other spells, like love spells and spells for luck. She always included cautions and warnings with her spells, and none of them were dark or evil. Sometimes the spell was just instructions for making your garden grow better or for mending tears in your clothing.

And then I found a piece of paper stuck in the back of the book, like she’d put it in as an afterthought. I pulled it out and peered down at it. The ink had faded, and I had to hold it up to the light to be able to read it. It was a spell to stop a curse or a hex that someone put on you. At the top of the page were instructions to never do this if you didn’t know exactly who laid the curse. This wasn’t anything to play around with, according to what she wrote.

An easy but maybe dangerous spell to remove a curse laid on you.

Only use in self-defense and be careful to follow it exactly.

Some strong, peppery herbs — the stronger the better Something personal from the person who laid the curse on you, like hair or nail clippings.

Write their name on a piece of paper too and then cross it out with X’s.

A piece of red cloth (that you can part with) A red candle, not too long

Wrap the herbs and personal items in the red cloth, adding them slowly while imagining the other person and the reversing of the curse. Tie it up with string and bury the bundle at a crossroad or toss it into a natural body of water like a river or stream. Best to do it on a new moon (for banishing), or a full moon (for power), burning a red candle all the way down and adding the nub to the bag, carving the candle with a word or two of your intent (or their name) before burning. Say these words—I send back the curse you sent to me.

I cross you with it so that none of your deeds will prosper.

Only use this as a defense against a direct attack and never maliciously or with ill will.

The words were simple but dark compared to the rest of the little book, and I shivered a little as I read them. I read this passage again and again, and as I did, I began to picture my mother in my mind’s eye—something I hadn’t been able to do for years. She had passed away from complications of pregnancy when I had been really young, and I barely remembered her, or so I had thought. But as I read her notes, written in her own strong hand, her image came back to me, as bright and vivid as a star. Were these instructions written in her own handwriting? I thought they were, and I carefully compared it to the other recipes and things she’d written out. It all seemed to match. But why had she shoved this at the back like an afterthought? Had she been afraid the dark words of the spell might contaminate the rest?

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine her, sitting at our old kitchen table, writing in her little notebooks. She had a lovely, strong face with high cheekbones, a stubborn chin and remarkable eyes, and she always seemed to be smiling when she looked at me. That’s how I remembered it anyway. I sat down on the floor to finish looking through her notebooks, but I didn’t find anything else like the spell about the curse. I wondered why she’d written such a thing. Was she afraid someone had cursed her? But why would they?

I shoved the idea away from me. My mother had been a good person, and there had never been a reason for anyone to curse her. At least nothing I’d ever heard about. Feeling uneasy, I carefully put the piece of paper with the faded writing back in the notebook and put the book back in the box.

I didn’t think the spell I’d found—the only one like it I could find—would do Willie any good, even if I ignored Rolf’s orders and saw him again to tell him about it. For one thing, I had no idea who had laid the curse on the money that had been stolen and buried—supposedly, that is, and according to Willie. According to what the spell my mother had written had said, you had to know who had laid the curse to start with to be able to cross it out. I got the impression that Willie had no idea and that all his information had come to him second or third hand.

Then again, it was hard to know what to believe when it came to Willie and his stories. He could have been telling the truth—or not. Besides all that, Rolf had told me in no uncertain terms that I was to stay strictly away from Willie Watusi, and I intended to do just that. In fact, Willie was the last person on earth I wanted to see.

It was about an hour later, just before five in the afternoon, that my door suddenly burst open, propelling inward from a vicious kick and slamming back against the wall. Three of the Mongrels in Willie’s gang came bursting in, and one of them came prepared to handle Nugget.

He had jumped up with a startled bark as they burst inside but one of them threw down some chicken pieces in front of him and when he bent to inspect them, the Mongrel threw a thick blanket over him, wrapping him up in it. Nugget struggled and howled, but another one of them came over to help and they pushed Nugget into the bedroom and closed the door on him.

Meanwhile, the others grabbed me and though I fought them, they dragged me out of my apartment and down the stairs. I prayed to the gods that my grandmother didn’t come out and try to stop them. It was lucky that she was a little hard of hearing. When they got me to the street, one of them hit me on the back of the head with something that made everything fade to black around me.