Chapter 3 - Harvey

Clancy and I were just trying to get our damn ducks in a row. The thing about trying to do this while being a wolf was that the ducks ran away whenever they got lined up. That was how it felt going through all the papers that Clancy had collected on the black market earlier this evening—like birds scattering away from a curious beast.

The time was just approaching midnight, and everything felt like it was eluding me. Trying to find a non-possessed wolf woman who was unattached and in the area seemed a lot more complicated than just stating it out loud as a wish. I didn”t have any magical powers to make her appear in front of me. I wasn’t like my best friend.

So, I wasn”t sure what else I could do. At least there was a list that ended at the bottom of the page. Since it wasn’t long, it wouldn’t take too much time to go through the names. Clancy had collected enough information about each woman so I could peruse the files like an analog dating profile.

Clancy sighed while hunching extra hard over my desk. “Please tell me we”re not going to do this all night. We could do other things, you know.”

I stared at him over the top of a folder. “You don”t have to stay here, you know.”

Maybe I sounded bitter, maybe I sounded ungrateful, but I just figured that my friend would want to sit and help me figure out how to save our pack. Instead, he seemed like he wanted to run off somewhere. In fact, he looked like his mind was wandering.

They had a strange sheen to them that told me he was stuck inside his own head, stuck inside with his demon, arguing about one thing or another. Maybe they were arguing about the power that they shared, the power of the demon that imbued him with the strength that he gave to our pack. Our healer. Our makeshift witch.

Clancy ultimately shook his head. “No, I”m with you until the end, and if the end means that the morning comes, then that”s just the way it is.”

He added a little smirk to the end of his sentence, and then he went back to looking down at the files in front of him, shuffling through the disorganized mess. How was one supposed to organize something like this? It was strange and entertaining how Clancy’s demon could make him super straightforward or completely bewildered at the same time. But I assumed that was just the nature of being possessed, because that was just the way things were at this point.

A couple of photographs fell out of the files that Clancy was searching through. One of them caught my attention, drawing me from the chair near the fireplace toward the desk.

Had I been inside this cabin all night? It was hard to say. My demon made it particularly impossible to tell. Which way was up or down? Which way was left or right? What was north? What was south? My internal compass was off. The wolf inside of me begged to be let out, begged to be released from the bonds of the demon that caused me to manipulate others. I was losing control over the demon, losing control over the ability to fight him. This was why it was so important for me to find a mate.

I had to find her now before things got worse. I pulled the photographs toward me. They were out of order because of the way Clancy was running his vessel today, or rather, because of the way the demon was running Clancy”s vessel today. I lifted the photographs to inspect them—some of the women looked pretty decent. I wasn”t necessarily concerned about looks more than I was about personality. I needed a mate who could handle my demon and would know intuitively what to do in any given situation, especially when things went wrong.

Though multiple demons could possess the same vessel, we weren”t entirely sure if those demons could jump from one vessel to the other. Once the vessel was possessed, it usually held the same demon until the vessel met its ultimate end. That ending could range from suicide to complete acceptance of the evil that lurked inside. It was a messy business being shifters like us.

Then, something caught my attention. One of the photographs had a woman standing in a field with a few others. She was picking flowers. I didn”t really pay attention to the other people around her—I was more focused on her. She had olive skin with sepia brown freckles, a slim figure, and long black hair that flowed around her shoulders, almost like an onyx river.

The way she gazed up at the camera was almost bashful, yet her posture was confident. That alone could have made me focus on her. Her blue-green eyes were like a cosmic ocean. Though she only wore a baggy t-shirt and baggy jeans, she carried an obvious grace and gorgeousness about her that lured me to her instantaneously, and it wasn”t just because she was attractive. It was because she was the woman from my dream. I stood there staring at the picture for quite a while—so long that I missed something that Clancy said, something that was actually quite important.

Clancy snatched the picture from my fingers. “Did you hear me?”

I stared at him, almost too stunned to realize that he was actually waving the picture in front of my face. I blinked away whatever spell had come over me and focused on him. “What, what is it? Spit it out. Stop waving that thing in front of my face.”

“I can probably—I don”t know—wave my hands over the fucking pages and get you your mate.”

I blinked again. “Are you making a joke right now?”

He smiled, and as playful as it was, I could tell he was actually being honest. “No, I mean it. I can actually do a ritual for you to find your mate.”

I actually knew what he meant. I knew that he would have to get in touch with his demon to connect with the magic that lived inside of him—magic that was ancient and dark. Magic that would probably require some kind of sacrifice, which was something that we might not be able to afford. Something that Clancy might not be able to afford.

I was afraid for him then, as I had been many years ago when he started dabbling in this dark sort of demonic, ritualistic magic.

As if he read my thoughts, he waved his hand nonchalantly. “It”s just a little pinch of blood for me. It”s not going to be anything too significant. We”ll drop some blood over a map, and we”ll locate your mate. Alright?”

At this point, I had to trust him. We weren”t getting anywhere by just shuffling through papers. I was never much of a pencil pusher, anyway. I”d always worked in kitchens or behind bar counters. That was how Clancy and I became friends. All those years ago, that was how I saved him from his old pack and brought him to my pack, the Grimpaws. This was the least he could do for me.

“Come on. It won”t take very long. Midnight is nearly upon us, and we”ll be able to tell exactly who your mate is. She”ll appear before you.”

I rolled my eyes. Maybe this was just his way of getting away from the pencil pushing and focusing on something else. But I was also admittedly tired of shuffling through papers. He grabbed a folded map from my desk and shoved it into his back pocket. Reluctantly, I followed him out back and a little way into the woods—not particularly far from a cabin, maybe about fifty feet or so. He procured a few magical instruments from his pockets, things that he liked to carry around; a small stone and a miniature cauldron about the size of his palm, along with a ritual dagger.

He pulled the map out and laid it on the ground, moonlight leaking through the canopy of the trees and revealing the spots on the page that were worn and scratched from being folded up. He invited me to sit across from him on the ground. No candles, nothing fancy. It was just Clancy and me sitting in the woods in the dark, with nothing but the moonlight to guide us. I held out my hand to him.

I watched his eyes turn black. As he tilted the point of the blade into my palm, I noticed that everything around me grew dark. Shadows crowded my vision and infected me more than my demon would have. I found myself lost to the sensation of the tip of the blade dragging across my skin. For a moment, I recognized that I was bleeding and that I could feel the warmth of it in my palm, the coolness of the night against my skin, and the way that the wound felt exposed to the rest of the world. I could even hear my demon whispering in the background, but I couldn”t make out anything distinct.

However, something else caught my attention. Beyond the shadows, I could hear something else—someone else. I could hear a woman chanting, and I could smell incense, something that resembled patchouli. I was drawn to it, drawn to the circle and to the lights around the circle, little lights that almost looked like orbs of fairies dancing in the woods.

Shadows lingered around the circle, more distinct than the ones that had taken over my vision. I could see better now; I could see lush gardens and a great towering house—a mansion, even. The way the gardens opened up with the circle in the center tugged at my soul. I had to go there. I had to find out what was calling to me.

I went directly to the center and then was suddenly face-to-face with someone who looked awfully familiar. The woman of my dreams was standing right there—and she was staring right back at me. The shock of seeing her made me feel inspired in so many ways. The sight of her gave me a comfort that I hadn”t felt in a very long time, at least a dozen years or so.

I reached for her, and she reached for me. I kept going after her, trying to reach her, and trying to grab her to make her come with me. She had to come with me. My pack was at stake.

Please, come with me. Please, let me find you.

Her eyes went wide as she stumbled back and fell to the ground, and then something penetrated my form. In a flash, I was transported back to Clancy and our little makeshift circle. My wound had already healed up; the blood in my palm had gone cold and pooled in little droplets on the map below me. They clustered on a location that was not too far from where we were.

I shot up from the ground. “Get Kirk, Demarcus, and Shiloh. Comb the woods. Clancy, get up. Did you see that? Did you see her?”

My mate. I thought about it for a moment. Did I actually see her? Or was that just my demon playing tricks on me? I wondered if Clancy was thinking the same thing as me. A trick. He nodded as if he could hear me, as if he could understand. Because he was the one who understood me best. We were connected through our bond more than we were through blood.

“So, what are we looking for?” he asked, a teasing smile on his lips.

I turned to the dark woods, to the shadows that I could see dancing underneath the strips of moonlight.

“Anything,” I replied. “Look for anything at all. Look for her. It doesn”t matter.”

Clancy didn”t question my authority, which was something he should never do, regardless. He simply gave me a nod and walked back to my cabin, back the way we came, leaving the map with the little droplets of blood on it for me to look over. I picked up the paper and stared at the blood that had now dried on the page. I focused on the location where the blood had clustered. It was right in the middle of the woods, right in the middle of what should have been abandoned territory. But obviously, it wasn”t abandoned if Clancy’s demon magic had located that woman.

There was something for me to find there. She was who I was supposed to find.

I started to walk back to my cabin, listening to the woods around me just to make sure that nothing was following me. I wondered why I would dream of a woman that I would never have met without doing a ritual to find her. Was that what mates did? Why had I seen her face in a random folder that Clancy had brought in? In a picture with people that I didn”t recognize? Yet, her face stood out. Looking at her, I felt a familiarity that I couldn’t understand. It could be fate.

No, that didn”t make any sense. I was cursed until the day that I could exorcise my demon, and I could only choose a woman in the hopes that she would provide what I needed. That was all I could do. If I couldn”t find a cure, I would find more members for my pack. I would expand. I would embrace the demon inside of me and make myself whole.

If you can’t beat ‘em, eat ‘em.

I would become the demonic wolf king of the underground shifter world. If I could never escape this thing, if I truly could never exercise my demon, then I had every intention of embracing it.

***

Nights lasted so long with my demon, although I still didn’t know his name. I didn”t know what name to give it, how to address it, or how to even ignore it. There was no ignoring a thing like that constantly whispered in my mind. I couldn’t get away from it. I could barely get away from myself. I had no choice but to acknowledge it while trying to resist at the same time.

I found myself thinking about the woman, trying to figure out how to find her and understand why I was drawn to find her. Again, I thought about being fated to meet her and how that didn”t make sense to me—it was almost laughable. I was just mulling over her picture when a series of knocks came from the backdoor, interrupting my thoughts. I abruptly stood up and opened the door, watching with silent curiosity as Clancy and Kirk dragged an unconscious woman into my cabin.

This wasn”t exactly my idea of searching the woods for unknown dangers. She didn’t look dangerous to me. In fact, she looked tiny. But I guess this worked. She was slim and short, with long, dark hair that seemed to coil around her shoulders and across her face. She was unconscious, which was probably Kirk”s doing. Knocking people out was his thing.

He glanced at me with an expectant look on his face. I studied him, trying to figure out if he was okay or not. The way he looked at me—with his red eyes that matched his red hair, making his tan-brown skin look all the more golden—was like he was waiting for me to acknowledge that he had done something great. Sometimes, he just looked like a puppy who had caught a rabbit and brought it happily back to his owner. I was tempted to praise him for being a good boy but thought better of it. Especially since we had company, albeit unconscious company.

Clancy stepped toward me, his hunch making him stoop lower than usual. He shrugged the shoulder on which the hunch sat, which seemed to make him uncomfortable. “We found her lurking around in the woods.”

Kirk nodded in ferociously excited agreement. I sighed. Goddamn puppy.

Clancy took a deep breath. “I don”t know why she was just wandering around out there.” He shrugged again and then gestured to the basement door, which was just a few paces behind me, right next to the desk. “We should really take her down there and contain her.”

“Where are Demarcus and Shiloh?”

Kirk flinched at the demanding tone of my voice while Clancy met my gaze head-on. Clancy was the only one who could respond to that tone without any emotion. “They”re back in the woods making sure that whatever was chasing this woman isn”t coming for us.”

I hummed curiously. It seemed like a strange night for that sort of thing—or a strange morning, rather, because the sun was now peeking through the window and starting to give me a headache. I wanted to retreat to the shadows; I wanted to go to my room where the blinds were drawn, the curtains were closed, and I could crawl into my bed, acting like it was a cave instead of a room.

Another sigh escaped me. “Basement it is.” I reached down to scoop her into my arms, watching the hair slide away from her face to reveal the sepia freckles that I knew belonged to someone else, someone familiar to me. I paused at the doorway. There was no way it was her. There was no possible way that Clancy and Kirk had found the woman of my dreams, the woman who had been revealed as my mate in a blood ritual. The very same woman I was supposed to be with had been caught wandering around in the woods behind my cabin.

Fate didn”t work like that. It just wasn”t realistic. Right?

Her lips widened with a little bit of a yawn—or something like a yawn mixed with a silent wail. Her eyes remained closed as her jaw slacked. I thought she was going to wake up, but she remained asleep. I started to carry her to the basement door. Clancy ran forward to open the door for me and turned on the light so I could see the stairs.

Down in the basement, things were darker, softer, earthier. Everything felt calmer down here, and I often thought about moving my bedroom to this area so I could be closer to the earth. Or at least buried underneath it, where I belonged. To the left was a small door located at the top of a set of stone steps that led to the woods outside. I made a mental note to keep the woman far away from it.

She stirred once again, but she didn”t wake. I placed her on the cot inside the cage in the corner of the basement, which wasn”t any bigger than the cabin above her head. Then, I smelled her. I inhaled the delicious combination of azaleas and sweet water, like petals soaked in sea salt. It was so sweet and so tangy at the same time that I couldn”t help nuzzling my nose right into the skin beneath her earlobe.

The softest sigh came from her. I took my time noticing her flesh, and the rough texture of goosebumps that erupted as I traced her neck with the tip of my nose. What was I doing? I released her and took a step back. I tried to control the urge in my body to drop to my knees and take her into my arms. It had to be her, right? If she had really come to me, had really appeared to me, if she was really here now, then that meant…

That meant that this was supposed to happen. Everything had aligned and come together to make this moment happen. Clancy was standing behind me, waiting for my next order. I turned to him and told him to head back upstairs, where Kirk was undoubtedly wagging his tail obediently.

I stepped out of the cage and shut it behind me, pushing the lock into place. It was at that moment that she lifted her head. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked directly at me. Just as her cheeks flushed with a luscious scarlet, she whispered, “It”s you—you’re my mate.”