Chapter 22

22

I can’t sleep in this little house.

The moon isn’t full, and no wolves prowl nearby, but an amorphous energy from the night called to me. The stones, separated and hidden, still hummed with energy and demanded to be brought together.

Tossing and turning didn’t help, so I started a hot shower to relax. Naked in front of the mirror, the mark on my chest glowed at me from my reflection. It’s changed since I last looked. Vein-like tendrils branched out from the center in all directions.

I can’t be rid of it soon enough.

But even though the spreading terrified me, I wondered how it would feel to increase my power, as Moira suggested.

It felt so good to reach out and touch every knothole in the wooden paneling, the unevenness of the grout between the bathroom tiles, and smell the Spanish moss outside the kitchen window in the back.

It was better than being a wolf.

I could run the night streets and track any human or preternatural I wished, and without a doubt, I knew I could hunt them without being caught.

Oh, this was not right.

I looked myself over again, and the darkly glowing veins of power pulsed hypnotically.

What would it be like if I had another stone? Thorn’s removing one. Would it be so bad to remove two? How would the power feel then?

Rolling my shoulders and taking a deep breath, I dragged my eyes away from the mirror. Shower, sleep, and tell Thorn about my thoughts in the morning if he wasn’t already monitoring them. But I didn’t feel him, and for the first time, it was disappointing.

I wished I’d returned to the apartment and Chastity instead of doing what Thorn commanded and going to bed alone in this house. Or I could have even stayed in the warehouse instead.

Showered and still restless, the night sky beckoned, and who was I to refuse? I took off into the woods behind the house in nothing but my tank top and sleep shorts, my bare feet hardly making a sound in the grass and undergrowth beneath the cedars and cypress trees.

The insects quieted as I passed, the small, scurrying things keeping to the shadows and the ferns to avoid detection. But I can find them. I focused and pushed out tendrils of power through the undergrowth, searching for heartbeats.

I find the mice that live in the tree roots and the hungry fox that’s been hunting but has had no luck yet. There’s a stray dog, too, snuffling somewhere ahead of me, and beyond him lies the swamp.

The swamp is full of things to hunt, and I’m hungry.

With more care to hide my presence, I moved toward the water. I wanted bigger prey, and up ahead was something I couldn’t resist. Warm-blooded, nice, steady heartbeats. At this time of night, I figured them to be poachers who could use a good scare.

I climbed the nearest tree, barely feeling the bark scrape the bottoms of my feet. Scooting to the end of the limb, I pushed my energy toward the men. Two of them, both armed, their reddish auras visible thanks to the marks. The moon peeked out from a wispy cloud, and I turned my face up, shivering from the energy that coursed through me.

The demon stone wanted to hunt these men. I jumped down, landing as silent as any shifter, and crept closer, walking almost on all fours to stay in the foliage understory. A few more steps and I’m behind the older man, a well-built forty-something with broad shoulders and a rifle slung across his back.

The mark warmed, and I glimpsed a vision of myself attacking the man, sliding up behind him, holding him against my body, and sinking my teeth into his throat, blood pouring from the gaping wound as I tore the wound open.

The unbidden mental image froze me in place.

What was I doing?

The mark sings in my head. “They are bad, they deserve this.”

Bile rises in my throat at the thought of the man’s flesh in my mouth, but the mark fights me, and my feet move against my will, sidling me closer to him.

The younger man yelped and cursed, and my gaze moved to him. He’s slight, maybe only in his late teens or early twenties, with tobacco stains on his fingertips and a plug of chew pushing out his cheek. The mark wants him, too. Images and sensations assault my mind, his body torn apart, blood hot and slick all over me.

Overwhelmed, I fell back into the brush, breaking the small twigs of a wild dewberry bush. Both men pivot, their guns in their hands in a flash.

Shit.

I stayed still, willing myself invisible, as the older one slowly walked toward me, his headlamp throwing light in an arc as he turned his head from side to side. I was right in his path, impossible to miss. They’re just looking for alligators. It’s not reason enough to kill them, but there’s the thrill of realizing I have to kill —or be killed.

I am invisible. I’m not even here. Just a fox, startled to find humans in her territory.

The man took another step, putting him less than six inches from me. He moved forward, his headlamp still bobbing like a pendulum as he searched. “I think it was just a fox. There are a few around here. Let’s keep moving. Nothing to catch here anyway.” He turned back toward his companion, and they moved off further down the edge of the water.

I sat in the thorny dewberry bush for a long time until my heartbeat slowed its hectic pounding, and my mouth no longer felt like the Sahara. I’ve had to fight. I’ve even hated people. Never in my life have I envisioned cold-blooded murder.

Not even as a shifter, but I still have the hunger.

Super fucking super.

It didn’t matter now, though. Thorn would take the mark, and I’ll be free of the temptation ever again. No shifter gets to say that.

But my stomach was still tied in knots, and I wouldn’t sleep tonight. Was it something Moira did or did I have this thing inside me for too long?

Whatever had changed in me, I needed to change it back. Because around here, there is no turning back when you turn into a monster.

Eventually, I regained enough control over my body to return to the house, barely noticing the wildlife around me. I couldn’t stand the thought of going to bed, more afraid of what I might do if I sleep, than I am of the pack.

I examined the scratches and cuts on my arms and legs and checked my feet for remaining burrs, then took another quick shower to get the blood off me, grateful that it was all mine this time.

I dressed in jeans, a white tank, and a hoodie and walked into town. The nice thing about living in or near a city that never sleeps is that I can always find something to eat and a place to be in the middle of the night. I don’t know if that’s due to the factions or the tourists, and tonight I don’t care.

George’s Barbeque is quiet when I walked in, but just the right kind of quiet. Enough patrons that it doesn’t feel lonely, not so many that I’ll be stuck waiting forever for a drink or listening to an obnoxious table chat about stupid shit all night.

Spencer’s girlfriend (“we’re not mated yet, Len,” he says) is working the late shift. Like her sweetie, she doesn’t care who she’s feeding as long as she gets her tips and nobody plays grab-ass with her while she’s working.

Those are fair goals which work out for me when I’m hungry.

“Hey, sugar, what’s got you down here all alone tonight?”

“Can’t sleep, too much on my mind. How’s life?”

She casually flashed me her left hand, a modest diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “Spence proposed.”

“Like, a human proposal?” I’d forgotten that Emily was an attack survivor, not born into the pack. “That’s really cool of him.” Surprising, too, but I’m not about to tell her that.

“I know. I had finally gotten over it all and would go through the mating ritual instead, but he said he wanted to wait. Then, instead of putting a down payment on a new truck, he said we should use the money to pay for a human wedding, to honor my humanity.”

“Shit. That is cool.”

“How about you? You smell different. Who’s the guy?”

“Partner. Work, not life.”

“But he’s part of you. What the hell kind of work is that?”

Having the bad timing to took a sip of the whiskey she’d set in front of me when she arrived, I choked and sputtered, my nose stinging from the amber stuff. “It’s just a metaphysical mark,” I gasped, “to protect me while I work for him.”

She gave me a heavy dose of side-eye as she examined her order pad. “Sure, and what would you like tonight?”

“What, no specials then?”

“You’re either getting the shrimp po’boy or the crispy fried catfish, because that’s all you ever get, but if you want to hear the specials, I’ll give ’em to ya.”

“When you’re right, you’re right. How about both?” My stomach grumbled in agreement. “Suddenly I feel like I’ve never eaten before in my life.”

“Pedro,” she called. “One crunchy little swimmers on a raft, and a smelly pussy on a pillow. Bag it and tag it.”

“Seriously?” I snickered.

But Em gave me a hard glance.

“How about you tell me you haven’t shifted lately, and I pretend I believe you?”

I sobered quickly. “Honest, no fur for me.” She continued her stare until I added, “Some fur-adjacent stuff happening lately, though. I tried to hunt two poachers tonight. I didn’t like what I was thinking and feeling. But it wasn’t about food, just—”

“The hunt.”

“But honestly, I haven’t met my wolf. I don’t think I ever will.”

She leaned over the counter and stared into my eyes from only inches away, her blue eyes softening into their wolfish gray. “Like you said, there’s no fur. But I can see the changes in you, and there is absolutely a beast in there. Get this job over with and get you some distance from whoever you’re working with. I don’t like how scared you smell.”

I looked down at my hands. Everything she said was true.

“You heard about Peta,” she said softly.

I sucked on my lips and nodded.

“Marvin said it was your fault. That you were on pack lands, and startled Peta.”

I looked her square in the eyes. “That’s not what happened. I—”

Em held up her hand. “I’m more inclined to believe you than Marvin, but you’ve placed me in a difficult position here.”

“Order up,” called Pedro.

Em turned to the order window and deftly turned and set a bag with the aromas of the two sandwiches clashing before me.

“It’s really best if you don’t come around here for awhile.”

I nodded. It stung being ostracized from another place, and it felt like my world was getting smaller by the day.

“Yeah, okay,” I finally managed, dropping my gaze to my lap.

“And watch out for the pack, Len. They want blood now. They won’t be holding back.”

I scrubbed my face, feeling a little moisture pool at the corners of my eyes.

“For what it’s worth, what happened to Peta—”

“Don’t Len. If it wasn’t your fault, then it wasn’t. More than one pack member told them they shouldn’t go on patrol together until the pup got born.”

I bit my lip, because in one small measure, it was my fault, or rather the thing in my chest.

“You better go now,” said Emily.

“Thanks, Em, for everything. How much do I owe you.”

“Forget it.”

For some reason, her voice sounded as if she delivered a death row prisoner’s last meal.

The door opened and a late crowd rolled in, and surrounded by half-drunk, laughing couples and groups of friends, I take this as my cue. I grabbed the bag and walked out in the humid Louisiana night, not sure where I would go now, so I just walked until I came upon a little park. There on a bench, under a lamppost, I sat and considered eating my food.

Then I decided to check my phone, I’ve got a bunch of missed texts from Thorn.

Thorn: It’s time to remove the Hand.

Thorn: You can’t wait for another full moon, so we’ll get the ignitor for the ritual from somewhere else.

Thorn: Tomorrow, dusk.

Thorn: Bring all the stones.

A few minutes later, he added:

Thorn: There’s an abandoned church on Old Thomas Road. Mary of the Sacred Heart. Meet me there by sunset. Don’t tell anyone. Not even your witch.

Did he see my little trip down predator lane earlier and move up his plans to keep me from being a mess he has to clean up later? Then there’s the possibility that he has more nefarious schemes, which is why I’m going alone.

But this is real life, and I’m no virgin, and Thorn isn’t some storybook dark lord I have to swear my allegiance to. I dug into my food with relish, my stomach alternately complaining at me for eating too fast and growling like I’d neglected it for years.

So, this is the aftermath for shifters. I’m glad I didn’t have to hunt for my dinner.

I looked up Sacred Heart. The church is abandoned all right. According to the ghouls on the internet, it’s defiled, and a place for dark rites and summoning demons.

Made sense.

I text Thorn back in the affirmative and read more about the church. The site of murders, ritualistic sacrifices, and all manner of evil (for which there are no corresponding police or news reports, mind you), Sacred Heart is the only abandoned church in the area.

Giving the stories their pound of salt, it still makes sense that unholy ground is the place to do a demon stone-sucking ritual. It leaves me with another question I’m still pondering as I start on the peanut butter pie that Emily left at my elbow the last time she swung by the table.

With all these stories online and warnings about how dangerous and terrifying Sacred Heart is, how will we keep the teenagers away long enough to do the ritual?

Whatever. Tomorrow night we’re sucking this demon rock from my chest, and I’ll will have won my freedom from both marks I now bear.