by Zoe Chant
She took a deep breath. Let go. Let go. Her arm shook.
“Abigail? What’s wrong?” Jasper burst through the door.
Meaghan let go of Caine’s hand.
Ruby started to scream.
Abigail cupped the baby’s head and turned to her husband. “What’s happening?”
Meaghan hovered, still at Caine’s side. Her stomach twisted. Ruby’s screams were like knives in her ears. Jasper was staggering, his face white, and Caine—
Meaghan’s world spun down until all she could hear was her own breathing. Caine was pale as death and completely still. She hadn’t noticed that she could see his chest moving with each breath until it stopped.
Opal rushed past her and checked Caine’s pulse. His head fell to one side.
All the sound flooded back into the universe.
“—call the doctor. Now, I don’t care if she isn’t a shifter. We’ll work something out. Abigail, you know CPR, don’t you?”
Abigail nodded. “Jasper, take Ruby, I’ll—”
“What’s happening?” Meaghan whispered. Her hand felt cold. Her whole body felt cold. She closed her eyes and saw a roaring empty darkness with no end.
She opened her eyes, gasping. “Wake up!” she yelled, so loudly the windows rattled. “Damn it, Caine, wake up! Don’t you dare die! Wake up right now!”
15
Caine
Everything was dark. And cold. Caine was falling—and his creature was falling too, he realized now, not dragging him down but tumbling into the darkness, as helpless as he was, following a tiny fleck of golden light that was disappearing into the shadows below them.
He hadn’t realized how weak the monster was. It had always seemed so strong and wild. But he’d told it Meaghan despised what it was, what he was, and now it was dying. Just like he’d dreamed of for so long.
And he was falling too. Dying, too.
“Wake up!”
Meaghan’s voice blazed through the darkness. Caine gasped. Far away, he felt his heart start to beat again.
“Wake up right now!”
Her command wrapped around him like a lasso. The sheer force of her will, her longing, pulled him up out of the darkness.
Her name was on his lips the moment he was back in his body. He tried once, twice, convincing his tongue to form the word.
“Meaghan?”
“Caine! Don’t you dare scare me like that!”
He opened his eyes. Meaghan’s face was inches from his, blurry and unfocused. He blinked. Her eyes were still blurry. A hot tear fell onto his cheek and she wiped her face hurriedly.
“What happened?” Caine asked. He remembered… darkness. And the tiniest fleck of light, preceding them into the dark and cold.
He rubbed his chest and searched inside himself. His demon was still there, wrapped in a tight unhappy ball in the shadows of his soul. The weakest glimmer of light flickered from between its claws.
“You were—I thought you were—” Meaghan wiped her eyes again and paused with her hands over her face. “But you’re… you’re fine. And I need to go. I need to go, now.”
“Wait!” Caine pushed himself up on his elbows. His head spun. The room was crowded. Jasper and Abigail and their baby, Opal and Hank, even Cole standing wide-eyed in the doorway.
“Did you die?” Cole’s eyes were like dinner plates. “Mom, did he die? My dragon says he died.”
“He’s fine now, kiddo.” Opal’s voice was reassuring, but the skin around her eyes was tight. Caine glanced at her, and then back to Meaghan.
“Did you all feel it?” Abigail sounded faint. “Ruby did. I think I got an… echo.” Her voice firmed up. “I think I’ll sit down.”
Caine sat up to make space on the sofa. Jasper was at Abigail’s side at once, helping her sit down. His dragon was an almost physical presence, wrapping its care and attention around Abigail and Ruby.
Someone touched his shoulder. Not Meaghan. She was still standing a few feet away, hands clasped white-knuckled in front of her.
“How do you feel?” Opal asked.
Caine considered. He didn’t take his eyes off Meaghan. “It’s still there,” he said at last. “The monster.”
Meaghan closed her eyes and looked down. “All right,” she whispered, so quietly that he wouldn’t have heard it if the demon hadn’t lent him its sensitive hearing. She unclasped her hands and clenched them into fists at her sides.
“Why do you call it a monster?” Opal’s question needled into his brain.
“Because that’s what it is.” He was answering for Meaghan’s sake. She needed to know why he had to stay away from her. “A monster. A hellhound. Something no other shifter I’ve met had seen, but they all knew to be afraid of it. Including you.”
He checked on the creature again. Its eyes were burning marbles, its lips stretched back over sharp fangs. But it didn’t move.
“It’s a hunter. It terrifies people, and when they’re scared enough, it chases them. Hunts them down.” He looked up at Meaghan, bracing himself for her horror and fear. “I don’t let it. I haven’t let it out since the new year and I won’t. Not ever again. I won’t let it hurt anyone.”
Meaghan tipped her head back. Her mouth was tight, but he couldn’t read the expression on her face. Not horror. Not fear. But…
“That’s twelve months.” Opal. And she sounded horrified. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is? Didn’t your parents tell you?”
“My parents aren’t shifters. None of my family is.” He laughed hollowly. “They’d have me locked up if I told them I thought I had some sort of monstrous creature in my soul. I wasn’t born like this, it was done to me. Last Christmas.”
“But—”
Hank put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “Opal. The poor guy just came back from the dead. You’re going to hound him back there with your questions.”
Opal put her hand over his and leaned against him. “Always the sensible one,” she murmured, and kissed his hand.
Caine’s heart twisted. Inside him, the creature whined, stretching its neck out towards Meaghan.
“There’s nothing about it that you don’t hate?” Meaghan’s eyes were guarded.
Caine straightened. “I need to get rid of it. It’s the only way I can be myself again.” He ran one hand over his jaw and stared up at Meaghan again. “This isn’t me. Maybe the man I used to be is gone forever. I can’t go back to who I was. But if I can get rid of this monster, I can be someone worth being again.”
And someone worth being with. Someone who can give you the love and protection you deserve.
The corners of Meaghan’s mouth tightened. Her head jerked back. “Okay. Understood.”
Caine stood up. He hadn’t meant to; but Meaghan’s breath had stuttered halfway through that last word and his legs moved before he even thought about it. “Meaghan—”
“I said I get it, okay? We don’t need to, to get into it in front of everyone.” She rubbed her hands over the tops of her thighs. “I should go. I have work. Hank, could you look at my truck? It wasn’t working last night.”
“Sure,” Hank said. He exchanged a look with Opal and pain throbbed against Caine’s skull. Hank nodded. “Ah, Meaghan. Nasty day out there, if you want to wait in—”
“I’ll come with you,” she declared. “If I knew more about how that hunk of junk works then none of this would have happened.”
That stung. Caine watched her go, head held high, spine so stiff he was worried it might snap.
The front door slammed with a sense of finality.
Caine’s head throbbed. “Do you mind?” he said, his voice harsher than he’d intended. “You talking like that gives me a headache.”
“And I can’t even tell when you are telepathing,” Abigail added. She slowly smoothed her shirt beneath the baby-carrier, and smiled mirthlessly at Ruby. “Well. What a mess, eh, bubs? Whoever called Christmas the most wonderful time of the year never visited Pine Valley.”
Jaspe
r made a face. “It’s not that bad—”
“Oh, believe me, darling, it definitely is.” Abigail stood up and pointed at Caine. “That woman is his mate, and he just told her that he wants to get rid of the part of himself that loves her.”
Everyone stared at Caine. He stared back.
“What’s a mate?”
The roar of Meaghan’s truck broke through the misty morning silence. Inside him, Caine’s hellhound howled.
16
Meaghan
Merry fucking Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve-Eve to me. The sign out the front of Puppy Express was like a slap in the face. This Christmas wasn’t even going to be regular bad, it was going to suck ass.
And the sign was out of date. Meaghan stripped off the fifth “Eve”, scraped the snow off her boots and kicked the front door with all her strength. It slammed open and crashed against the wall.
Six feet away, Olly jumped, sending a display of plushie sled dogs flying. “Meaghan!”
The door bounced back off the wall and clicked shut. Meaghan stared at it without seeing it. She was panting.
Hank had fixed the truck so quickly and easily, Caine was sure to think she’d been lying about it having broken down. He’d think—
She shook her head and kicked the door again. This time it didn’t move.
It doesn’t matter what he thinks, remember? He doesn’t want anything to do with you. He’s probably over the freaking moon that you left so quickly. One more part of his shifter life he wants to get rid of.
Just file this one under monumental fuckups and move on with your life. Like maybe to Canada this time. It’s not like anyone here will want anything to do with you now.
The door opened just as she was aiming another kick at it.
“Meaghan?” Olly’s pale hazel eyes were wide. “What happened? Are you okay?”
Meaghan’s heart hammered in her chest. She could feel tears at the edge of each breath, waiting to take over. A part of her she thought she’d left behind years before wanted to collapse into tears and have someone, anyone, look after her.
But that wasn’t going to happen. It never happened.
“I’m fine,” she choked out.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think you are?” Olly looked flustered, which was so un-Olly-like that Meaghan felt the ground swoop under her feet again. Her eyes flew to Olly’s face. Specifically, to her red, puffy eyes.
Meaghan’s ribs felt tight.
“What happened? Did they come back?”
“What?” Olly blinked at her.
Meaghan breathed in with difficulty. Her ribs were so tight it hurt. “Olly, you look almost as freaked out as you did yesterday. Did the hellhounds come back and do something else?”
Olly touched the puffy skin under her eyes. “Oh, no, I just… didn’t sleep well…” She was obviously tiptoeing around the truth.
You and Jackson? Meaghan choked on the words. Right now, she didn’t want to hear about anyone else’s happy new relationships.
Olly turned her head from side to side, as though she was inspecting Meaghan carefully with each eye.
“If I’m looking freaked out, it’s probably because you just kicked your way in here looking as though you’re about to burst out crying,” she said slowly.
And no one wants to see headstrong, bull-in-a-china-shop Meaghan sobbing. What a horrifying thought.
Meaghan plastered on a grin. “I’m fine. Really. Is Bob in?”
“He’s out checking the tracks. Meaghan—”
“But he brought the sleigh in from the woods, didn’t he? I’ll go check it. Make sure it’s ready for the parade.” There has to be something I can do right, even if it’s just tying tinsel to a dogsled.
She edged past Olly, into the building. The twinkling lights and decorations hurt her eyes, and the heat from the cheerful log fire was stifling.
Good thing I’m heading outside, then. This is fine. Everything’s going to be fine.
“But what happened? Did Caine—”
The fragile grip Meaghan had on the emotion boiling inside her slipped. “I don’t want to talk about what happened with Caine!”
She pushed out through the back door to the kennels before she could say anything else and gasped as an icy blast hit her face.
Without meaning to, she turned to face the valley where Caine was staying. The low clouds hid that part of the mountains completely. There was no trace of the valley, or the cottage...
... Or any dragons, or ghost gang, or Caine. Or his… hellhound. She gulped down another lungful of air so cold it burned.
Burning. Like Caine’s eyes the first time she looked at him. Like that strange feeling of joy that had radiated out of them.
Had that been his hellhound? But it hadn’t felt dangerous. Just joyful.
Another thing she’d gotten wrong.
“Meaghan!” Olly burst through the door after her.
“I’m busy!” Meaghan bawled back.
She didn’t know why Olly was being so persistent. After everything she’d put her through since she moved to Pine Valley, and then abandoning her yesterday after the ghost gang had stolen the dogs—the hellhound shifters, she corrected herself—she was surprised Olly was even speaking to her at all.
Excited barks followed her as she strode past the kennel yard where the dogs were relaxing. The tight band around her chest relaxed a bit. The dogs usually made her feel better. They were so boundlessly cheerful and easy to please.
She paused to scratch a few ears, but their happy faces just reminded her of Caine, lounging in the dog box with them. Shirtless. Happy.
“Where’s that stupid sleigh?” she muttered angrily.
“The one we brought back from the woods? It’s in the shed.” Jackson was leaning against the shed in question, arms folded. There were purple shadows under his eyes.
Someone else who ‘didn’t sleep well’, Meaghan thought. Her ribs ached. And who probably can’t wait to see the back of me.
“Thanks,” she muttered. She put her head down and headed for the shed door, but not quick enough. Jackson’s voice followed her.
“Everything all right, Megs?”
“Fine,” she gritted out as she stormed past him.
He peeled himself off the side of the shed. His voice was strangely desperate. “How did last night—"
“I don’t want to talk about it!”
Whatever he said next sounded like swearing, but she slammed the shed door too quickly to hear it properly. She leaned against it, panting.
Why are they pretending to care that I’m upset? I’m just going to mess up everyone’s day. Like I always do.
I should have gone home. Except it isn’t home, it’s just a place with all my stuff, and Pine Valley isn’t my home anymore, it can’t be. And not for the usual reason. Not because they’re all normal and I’m a freak. Because they’re all magical, and I’m—I’m—
Jackson knocked on the door and called through it, “Hey, Megs, everything all right?”
“I’m fine!” she yelled back, pounding her fist into the wood. Something clattered to the concrete floor.
She looked down. The ‘Eve’ sign she’d been carrying, which was only made of thin plywood, had cracked in two.
Good job ruining it, Meaghan. She squeezed her eyes shut until the hot feeling in them went away.
“Shit,” she muttered, and scooped up the broken pieces. She looked around the shed. Half of it was used for storage for the Puppy Express hire sleds—the cutesy two-person ones for couples on romantic snow rides, and the big family-sized ones with seatbelts to stop kids running off into the winter wonderland. The far end was set up as a workshop, and Meaghan stomped towards it.
The Santa sleigh that the hellhound shifters had stolen was sitting in the middle of the workspace. Now that it was out of the snow, Meaghan could see how much damage the joyride had done. The old-fashioned wooden runners were scraped and pitted, and there were long scratches in the red and green paint on the bod
y. Almost all the tinsel and fake holly had been torn off and the only bell left tied to it looked like it had been smashed flat with a hammer.
She gently placed the broken sign on the workbench and sighed. At least fixing that all up is going to keep you busy, she told herself.
Something moved in the corner of her eye. Meaghan looked up just in time to see a shadow flit away from one of the shed’s windows.
She narrowed her eyes. Olly?
Behind her, the door creaked. “Meaghan?”
Meaghan blinked. That wasn’t the voice she’d been expecting. It was Jackson.
Jackson, calling her Meaghan, not Megs.
Her stomach went cold. Something must be really wrong, if Jackson was using her full name.
“Hey, Meaghan,” Jackson said awkwardly, standing with his hands in his pockets. “Are you… is everything okay?”
She spun around to face him. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“Oh, I dunno. Probably because you look like you’re about to fall down crying, and none of us really thought that was possible.” Jackson eased his way into the room. “What’s up?”
“What’s up is I’ve got three days to fix up this sleigh for the Santa parade and you’re distracting me from my work and—and creeping around like I’m some wild animal you’re trying not to scare off,” Meaghan snapped. “I thought you were a deputy, not a park ranger. Or—or whatever you really are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jackson’s eyes were suddenly wary, and something inside Meaghan snapped.
“Fine. Fine! You want to know what’s wrong? I thought I’d finally found somewhere I actually fit in, and now it turns out all the people I thought were my friends here were lying to me the whole time.”
Jackson looked like a deer in the headlights. “Ah, shit,” he muttered.
Meaghan threw her arms up. “That’s all you have to say?”
Wood creaked behind her, and a soft breeze chilled the back of her neck.
Great. Here comes Olly, inspecting the situation from all angles before she makes her presence known.