Chapter 6 - Kiara

I stared at the woman in front of me, her steel resembling a storm. It was strange looking at her. The way that she held my hand and reached for my cheek was like she was a grandmother who was just trying to take care of me.

I gulped. Almost. But not really. She’s not really my family.

I almost didn”t like the sensation of familiarity, how comforted I felt just being near her. My own mother hadn”t even been like this. Why should any other woman in my life be like this? Other than Regina, of course, who had taken on the role of stepmother as well as a best friend.

Yet, even she didn”t treat me like this. My own father didn”t treat me like this. Not with this kind of gentleness. He was protective, he loved me, and he did everything in his power to protect me, but he wasn’t like this. The way Nora handled me, the way she guided me back to my cot, made me feel like everything was going to be okay.

She rested my hands on her knee and clasped her hands over mine. The way she did this made me feel like she was wrapping a warm blanket around me. At the same time, looking into her eyes told me about the demon that resided within her. A flash of black over the steely gray, like a mast appearing through a sea of fog, signaling the arrival of something powerful. It was a ship that sailed on the horizon and intended to seek port inside of my soul.

Hold on, was possession like that transmittable? Was it like a flu or a cold, something viral that could infect the people around them? I knew very little of possession other than what I had been told in the meetings, or what I had vaguely known before. All I knew was that I had to avoid these types of people.

“I understand you were captured in the woods.” She gave me a small smile at the twitch of anxiety inside of me, almost like she had felt it herself.

“Yeah, but that’s the least of my worries.”

She nodded. “And what are your worries?”

“This ritual—whatever it is—and how I’m not allowed to choose whether I want to participate.” My gaze flickered with aggravation over to the man who was keeping me captive before returning to Nora. “This isn’t exactly consensual.”

“Don”t worry about that. There”s a pond nearby that we will take you to. You will take your ritual bath there.”

I frowned. “You mean I have to bathe in front of all of you?”

She gave me a wistful smile. “I”m sure you”ve shifted in front of plenty of people in your pack, so you’re accustomed to being seen in your natural form. Why should it bother you that we’ll see you naked?”

I turned to look through the bars at Harvey, who was sitting at a miniature desk across the room. Some dusty old scrolls sat there. Bits of parchment, paper, and folders, along with a couple of pens, caught my eye; they looked so modern against the ancient wood of the desk. Then I looked at him, and I was taken aback by his gaze. I sensed a wounded heart underneath that demon facade. I felt fear, of course, but I also felt a curious intrigue that kept me staring. I wanted to respond to Nora, but at the same time, I wanted to talk to Harvey more. I wasn”t sure which of those desires to feed.

I tilted my head, thinking about how I didn’t want to argue with the old woman. I didn’t know if she was powerful or whether she would take my side in the event I tried to run. I wanted to get on her good side as much as possible. “Yeah, I’ve been naked in front of plenty of people. That”s true.”

But this is different.

Nora gave my hand a light squeeze. “After your bath is complete, a purification ritual will be performed. You”ll then walk barefoot to the alpha”s home and meet him for the mating ritual.”

A knot formed in my throat. “What do you mean purification?”

“It”s nothing invasive. It is simply an application of oils. Do you not have a mating ritual of your own in your pack?”

I nodded while breaking eye contact. “Of course we do.” I had seen it a thousand times and attended a million of those events. “But we definitely don”t do it naked, or even barefoot, unless people are into that sort of thing. I don”t think we”ve ever even partied naked.”

Nora laughed. It was a welcome sound to hear in the musty basement. The way the jovial tone carried seemed to cut through the tension in the air. I felt a lightness entering the room. I glanced at Harvey for a second to see him giving something of a gentle smile. His eyes were glossy, wide, and alert, attentive to everything that I did.

My heart leaped. He’s watching me.

I found myself wanting to impress him while also wanting to rebel at his every command. I already had an alpha, I didn”t need another one. And I certainly didn”t need to meet with one. Who did this sort of thing? Why the hell was I running in the woods like that last night?

I recognized a sadness creeping in—a nostalgic yearning for something greater. Good goddess, my family must be worried about me, I thought. I know Dad has to be looking for me by now. I’ve been gone for a while, and I don’t have my phone.

I looked at Nora again and found her to be a lot more compassionate in her demeanor than Harvey, or anybody else that I had encountered so far. It was good that she was here, and it was good that she was holding my hand. It felt like with every new rise of anxiety, she gave me a look or a touch or a squeeze that chased it away—or at least reduced it enough so I could focus on everything else.

I bowed my head toward her and let my hair fall into my face, listening to the steady thump of heartbeats around me. I homed in on hers, hearing that crooked rhythm that elders usually had in their hearts that signaled their old age. On top of that was the lively thrum, the incessant beat of Harvey’s from across the room, which seemed to flutter and increase in intensity every time I spared a glance in his direction.

“Non-invasive,” Nora repeated with another quick squeeze of my hand. “The oil smells nice. It’ll make you more agreeable to the event.”

I grimaced as I looked at her. “Event? Is that what you people call sex?”

She laughed louder this time; the sound was so wonderful and infectious that I couldn”t help but join her. It felt so girlish in nature and, at the same time, like a wise understanding of how finicky language could be and how interesting it could be when applied to different situations.

“Yes. Well, I was being polite. I was trying to be polite. Anyway…” She gave my hand another squeeze. “If you think about it, every encounter we have is an event, isn”t it?”

I appreciated her philosophy for a second. “You kind of remind me of somebody.” I almost didn”t mean to say it. I almost didn”t mean to do a lot of things right now. But the words came unbidden. I teared up slightly as I realized exactly who that philosophical statement reminded me of.

Oh, Dad.

I missed my father so much. I missed my best friend and everyone else in the pack. I missed my alphas. My heart seemed to shrink at the thought of never being able to see them again. I wasn”t sure how this was going to work out, if it even could work out, or if I would simply be lost to whatever this pack wanted for me.

They were possessed, and they were demons. How did I know that they weren”t trying to trick me? Was any of the comfort I felt actually real? Again, as if hearing it, as if sharing my feelings, Nora offered comfort, and she waited a little while as I dried my face with my shirt. I”d been crying so much that my cheeks were soaked, but I hadn”t noticed at all. Then, I felt the strangest thing; I felt like there was someone in the room who was deeply upset by me being so intensely upset.

I glanced around the room again, trying to find a sense of grounding, or anything at all. That was when I once again noticed the basement door leading to the outside. This door was rather small, but it didn’t appear too small for me to fit through. I could see sunlight peeking from around the cracks. That door did lead to the outside. If I could get to it, then I could get away and maybe return to my pack. They wouldn”t expect it right now. They couldn”t have predicted it. The door to my cage was wide open, and Nora was sitting beside me while Harvey sat at the desk across the room. Neither of them was near that door, and neither of them seemed to realize that I had noticed it.

Quickly, I turned back to Nora and became engrossed in her image. Wispy, white hair was braided around her face, and her expression brightened as her eyes began to glow. The room dimmed even more as she became the only thing I wanted to look at. “It’s alright. Take your time and ask whatever you want to know. We have all day.”

“We don’t have all day,” Harvey chirped, his voice sounding far away.

I took a shuddering breath to center myself, trying not to feel like I was dancing on the line between reality and sleep. I felt funny. Was something in the tea they had given me?

“What happens after the event then?”

Shoot, if I was drugged, then I didn’t have much time. I had to keep her talking. I had to inch my way out somehow.

Nora nodded to Harvey. “The alpha decides what happens next. If you want to have his pups, then you discuss how child rearing would look between the two of you.”

I didn”t look at Harvey because I didn”t want to, even as my body begged me to do it. Do I have to get pregnant? Do I have to have kids? Something inside me cried, Yes. But I didn’t understand why I would secretly desire such a thing with a demonic wolf—regardless of his sad, caring eyes.

Whatever. I just had to keep her talking. “How does this whole demonic thing work?”

Nora frowned. Some of the eerie glow faded from her eyes, and I felt like I had some of my faculties back. She hummed, sounding defeated. “We”re not sure, but according to the alpha, mating with a non-possessed person is supposed to help relieve the curse.”

Oh, so I’m just demon bait.

I shook my head. “That”s a whole lot to put on one person, isn”t it?”

She chortled, but I could hear the feeling of hopelessness that was hidden beneath her laughter. She was trying so hard to be positive and look toward a future that could potentially be better than right now.

Keep her talking. What else can I ask? I gulped. “Can I just call somebody in my pack? Can you tell my alphas where I am?”

I heard the chair creek across the room, and Harvey’s voice came next. “If we do that, it might ruin everything. You have to stay put for now and trust me.”

I scoffed. “How am I supposed to trust you when you snatched me out of the woods?”

He growled. “You were running through my woods. How am I supposed to react to that kind of thing?”

I stood up and whirled around to face him. “Your goons snatched me out of thin fucking air. I don”t even know how I got out there, okay? One moment I was sitting quietly, trying to have some goddamn tea, and the next, I was barefoot in the fucking forest wearing clothes that I don’t even remember putting on.”

Nora hovered her hand in front of my face. The movement was so sudden, so abrupt, that it snapped my attention back to her. Her eyes were closed, and her gray lashes were batting together as her lips parted and closed repeatedly, much like a goldfish that was just sitting in a bowl of water. She then made an odd moaning sound, which almost sounded like an elongated grunt that would never end. When she came back, she dropped her hand, and her eyes returned to normal. She squinted at me. “Your pack did a ritual. You saw Harvey, and you were announced as mates.” Pleasure echoed from her smile. “You were running to find him.”

I gaped at her. “How do you know all that?”

“Well, I guess you could say my demon has a little bit of power that I can tap into every so often. It hurt me, but you wanted to know so badly. You wouldn”t have known otherwise, but your body, soul, and wolf were seeking your mate, following the threads of fate.” She looked at Harvey. “Isn’t that romantic, Alpha?”

I was terrified of what she was saying. The fact that my body could be completely out of my control made my head spin. I had to get out of here before things got worse.

Harvey sighed. “Yeah, I guess you could say that about a potential wife.”

I blinked. Wow. I felt more like a rat in a cage than I did a potential wife, let alone a potential future mother. Nora stood up and helped me to my feet. She walked me to the exit of the cage, and I felt a weird hypnotic sensation fall over me.

She rubbed my arm. “Don”t worry too much about it. Let’s get you into better clothes. Come with me, and we can go upstairs, run you a nice hot bath, and have some fresh fruit…”

I didn”t hear the rest of what she said as I stood there in the center of the basement, staring at Harvey, completely entranced by the way he was gazing at me. He was standing there like he was waiting for me at an altar at the end of an aisle. There was some kind of silent exchange between us that made me feel an uncontrollable urge to approach him and press my lips to his. He was so tall I would probably have to stand on the tips of my toes just to reach his lips, or he would have to scoop me up.

And by goddess, both of those things sounded amazing right now. I wanted it so much that I started to stumble toward him. But then, I came to my senses and realized the basement door was within five feet of me. I could make a break for it.

My heart thudded against my ribcage. It’s now or never.

I side-stepped Harvey, raced to the door, and barged into it with my left shoulder. I partially shifted right through the splintering wood with a crash, and fell through to the other side. Yelling and shouting commenced behind me. The sudden appearance of sunlight blinded my eyes, causing me to raise my arms to shield my face. My jaw ached. Come on, shift! I heard my clothes tear as I felt my bones cracking painfully from having been stuck in the same position all night.

I was nearly there. In my throat was a mighty howl, one that desperately wanted to be released. I had made it to the tree line. I had pushed through the ache in my legs and shifted. Finally in my full wolf form, I darted through the trees and hauled ass to get back home. I just wanted to get back to the people that I knew. I didn”t want to be in the middle of something that crazy. Fated mate or not, this guy was crazy.

I really didn”t know where to go. I had no idea where I was. I was all turned about, and ran in circles for a second trying to get my bearings. Like a confused dog, I chased my own tail, trying desperately to find which way was north or south. How could I tell when the trees were so dense? Where was that pond that Nora mentioned? Shoot, I couldn’t even see Harvey’s cabin anymore.

Beneath me, the ground tilted like the world was on its axis and lost its sense of gravity. I felt like I was tipping over the edge of something. My energy felt totally off, like I had stood up too fast or was trying to walk while drunk. I pumped my legs, working my muscles as hard as I could. I panted and cried through the pain, whimpering through the terrible longing that I felt in my heart to go back to Harvey. Before I knew it, a series of howls broke out behind me. They were coming for me now.

I had to keep running.