by Zoe Chant
Jackson stared at her, eyes hard as though he was winding himself up to throw her anger back at her. Then he glanced behind her. His face creased and he looked away.
Meaghan spun around, catching Olly in the middle of walking up to her. Sneaking up to her.
“And what do you want?” she demanded.
Olly froze and blinked at her. Meaghan glared at her, then over her shoulder at Jackson again. Neither of them said anything.
“Oh come on,” she burst out. “I know, okay? I know about shifters. I know that the Heartwells are dragons and that you, Jackson, have been keeping me away from investigating the ghost gang because everyone thought they were shifters too. And they are, by the way. Hellhound shifters. So you might as well tell me whatever else there is to know.”
Jackson opened his mouth, but Olly got in first.
“It sounds like you know the big stuff already,” she burst out. “So there’s no point keeping everything else a secret. I’m an owl shifter.”
Meaghan stared at her and she waved back, a half-hearted smile on her face.
“Snowy owl shifter. That’s why my folks were so keen for me to come and work for Uncle Bob for a while. Let my owl stretch its wings a bit, somewhere it wouldn’t be as obvious as the city.”
Her eyes flicked past Meaghan to where Jackson was standing, and the barely-a-smile dropped off her face.
“Not that it deserves it,” she muttered, folding her arms and ducking her head. “Stupid bird.”
Meaghan looked back at Jackson in time to see him hide a pained expression. “What am I missing here?” she demanded. “You might as well tell me. It can’t be bigger than freaking dragons.”
Jackson’s lips pressed together. “Nothing,” he said, a trace of resignation in his voice. “Unfortunately.”
“What do you mean, unfortunately?” Meaghan heard her own voice getting higher and higher. “Is there some other horrible thing I don’t know about?”
Jackson drew in a breath that made him wince.
“Ma’s a deer shifter. I’m not. She was keen for me to move to Pine Valley for the same reason Olly’s parents were. Hoped being around other shifters might make a switch flip inside me, or something. But it didn’t. There. Now you know everything.”
Meaghan’s neck was aching from looking back and forth between Olly and Jackson. She leaned against the workbench so she could see them both at once, and frowned.
Was it her imagination, or without her as a buffer standing between them, were Olly and Jackson even more awkward around each other than usual?
Remember Jackson’s text message? They were together last night. And now…
They must be mates. And they’re awkward because I’m here, getting in the way.
“Go on,” Jackson muttered. “I know you’re dying to ask.”
Meaghan opened her mouth—then shut it and shook her head. “It’s none of my business. None of this is any of my business, is it? I don’t belong here and everything I’ve done has only made things worse.”
She stared at the floor. She didn’t even feel like crying, now. Just empty and exhausted. Can’t even be sad properly. Figures.
“Meaghan…”
She could almost feel Olly looking at her. Inspecting her, in that careful, consider-all-angles way that she did everything. Tipping her head from side to side. Owlishly. Hah.
Any other time, Meaghan might have laughed.
Olly leaned against the workbench beside her and slipped one arm tentatively around her shoulder.
“What happened with Caine?”
“It didn’t work out.” Meaghan’s voice was a tiny, unhappy thread. Her ribs were aching with the pressure of holding herself together and suddenly, she couldn’t do it anymore. “Caine thinks he’s a monster. Everything was going so well, and then his hellhound popped up and I’m his mate, apparently, and since he hates his hellhound so much that means he doesn’t want anything to do with me. The end.”
“So he is a shifter. You were right about that, Olly.” Jackson said carefully. “And you’re his mate.”
“Yes. Apparently.” Meaghan didn’t look at either of them.
“But that’s a good thing,” Olly objected.
“Except it’s me. And if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making good things go bad.”
“That’s not true!” Olly squeezed her shoulders. “What about yesterday? You found the dogs.”
“And left you alone after a group of hellhound shifters scared the h— scared you!”
“I was fine,” Olly insisted. “Besides, if you’d waited around for Bob to come back, he never would have given the go-ahead for you to go out on your own. Because of the…”
“Hellhound shifters.” Jackson’s voice was heavy. “That’s what you said they were. The same as Caine?” Meaghan nodded and he scrubbed one hand through his hair. “First I couldn’t stop you from investigating the mystery shifters, and now you’ve gone and solved it on your own.”
“I wanted to save Christmas, not… discover a secret world of people who can turn into crazy animals,” Meaghan replied. “And I haven’t done that. We still don’t know where the hellhound shifters are, or what they’re going to do next. Or why they’re doing all this in the first place.”
“But we know what they are. That’ll help. You’ve helped.”
Meaghan sighed.
Maybe things aren’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I haven’t ruined everything.
“I just hope you two had a better night than I did,” she muttered, and Olly’s arm went stiff around her shoulders. Meaghan raised her head, confused, but neither of them met her eyes. “But I thought you two…?”
“It didn’t work out,” Jackson said shortly. “One more thing that’s wrong with me—forget it. I’d better go and keep an eye on the front desk.”
He stomped out. Olly watched him go, pained yearning in her eyes. Meaghan’s heart twisted in sympathy. She knew that if Caine were here, she’d be looking at him with exactly the same expression.
But what hap—
She didn’t let herself finish the thought.
Don’t stick your nose in. Don’t make it worse. Don’t get into other people’s business…
But Olly had chased her out here when she saw she was upset. Maybe, just once, she could barge in and help, instead of screwing things up worse.
Meaghan took a deep breath. “You want to talk about it?”
Olly sniff-gulped and sagged against Meaghan’s side. “I thought I had it all figured out!”
“You’d inspected the situation from all possible angles?” Meaghan joked weakly, putting an arm around her.
“I liked Jackson from the moment I saw him. He got the deputy job a few months before you moved to Pine Valley, and came around to introduce himself to all the local businesses. I thought my snowy owl was interested, too, but…” She gnawed on her lip. “Maybe I waited too long. I don’t know if that’s even possible. But last night I made a move, and my owl was just like… No, thank you.”
“But that’s not so bad, is it? I mean… isn’t that just a normal relationship? And Jackson’s human, so if he likes you and you like him…”
Olly was shaking her head. She sniffed again and said in a small voice, “He knows it’s not the real thing. That there’s still someone out there that my owl wants more than him. You know Jackson’s mom brought him up by herself?”
“Yeah.” Meaghan had needled that out of him the first week she was in Pine Valley.
“His dad was a shifter, too, but they weren’t mates. He says he doesn’t want to make the same mistake his mom made.” Olly was crying now, but they were angry tears. “He thinks he’s a mistake! Can you believe that? He’s not, he’s grumpy and reliable and wonderful and my owl is an asshole.”
Olly wiped her face and hiccupped. “I’m sorry. I came out here to check if you were all right, not…”
Her voice trailed off. Meaghan knew what she was going to say, though. Not talk about
my own troubles.
Olly was her closest friend in Pine Valley—and not just because she’d been the first person Meaghan met with a spare sofa. Her strange mixture of being chill and carefully scoping out situations before she got into them had meshed perfectly with Meaghan’s complete lack of chill and tendency to throw herself into things without looking. Not to mention the fact that she was always filling Meaghan’s pockets with useful things like handwarmers.
And there was one thing they always agreed on. The Puppy Express was magical not just because of the amazing snowy tracks and view across the mountains, or the dogsled-delivered Christmas cards. It was because no one could be around sled dogs and be unhappy.
“I know something that might help.” Meaghan stood up, pulling Olly with her. “Come on.”
There was no sign of Jackson outside. Meaghan kept an eye out for him as she took Olly over to the kennels, but her gaze kept slipping up over the trees to the cloud-covered mountaintops and the hidden snowy valley where Caine was staying.
Her chest felt like it was about to burst.
The Heartwells are with him, she reminded herself. They’re shifters, like him. They’ll know how to help him.
Won’t they?
17
Caine
Opal put her hands on Caine’s shoulders and pushed him down into the kitchen chair. He sat down, too tired and miserable to object. The Heartwells had given him some time to recover after Meaghan left, but now they were all gathered around. Even baby Ruby looked serious.
“Right,” Opal said, crossing her arms. “Tell me everything you know about shifters.”
“I know lots about shifters!” Cole piped up from behind her. She sighed and reached out without looking to ruffle his hair.
“Yes, kiddo, but I’m asking Mr. Guinness.”
“I could help him!”
“I think you’ve helped enough today, champ,” Hank rumbled. Cole’s face fell.
Caine roused himself enough to defend the tiny dragon shifter. “Don’t blame him for what happened this morning. It’s all my fault. And it would have been worse if he wasn’t here.”
Hank dragged over another chair and Opal sat down in it, arms still crossed.
“What do you mean, it would have been worse?” she asked.
Caine’s gut twisted. His hellhound was hunkered down inside him, so thickly wreathed in black smoke that the only trace of it was the slight glow of its eyes.
“Because if I’d been the only shifter she ever met, she might not have seen how wrong I am. Now she’s gone, and that’s…” Caine dropped his head into his hands. “That’s the best outcome I could have hoped for.”
The room was silent. Even Cole didn’t say anything.
Opal cleared her throat. “You said you don’t know what a mate is?” she said slowly.
“No. But my hellhound thinks Meaghan is one, so it can’t be good.” Caine groaned. “She’s the best goddamned thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t let her get caught up in this nightmare.”
“If she’s your mate then she is the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Trust me.” Jasper wrapped an arm around Abigail’s shoulders and pulled her close to him.
“And good luck letting her do anything,” Abigail added, jiggling Ruby. “Meaghan’s only been here six months and she’s already a legend. Nothing stands in her way. Not even poor Jackson after you lot saddled him with keeping her away from the ghost gang problem.”
“Which she’s solved.” Jasper reached a finger out for Ruby to grab. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but having just spent the last two months flying my wings to stubs trying to track down the shifters who’ve been causing trouble, I’m feeling slightly embarrassed that Meaghan figured it all out despite our best efforts to solve it ourselves and keep her away.”
“It’s almost as though keeping humans in the dark is a bad thing,” Abigail teased. “Where have we learned that before, I wonder?”
Her teasing grin softened as Jasper caught her chin and kissed her on the forehead. Caine’s chest ached. Movement stirred inside him.
Burning eyes blazed through the smoke. His hellhound’s anger sent lightning down his spine.
He must have made some sort of noise, because the next moment, all eyes were on him.
“You knew?” he gasped out. Smoke blurred the edges of his vision. “You knew something was attacking the town, and you kept her in the dark? She could have been hurt!”
When he’d thought Meaghan’s presence had exorcised his hellhound from him, the idea of her chasing wrong-doers by herself had made him admire her. Now it terrified him.
“Mr. Guinness, we—”
“What if it had been the other hellhounds she found in the forest yesterday, not me?”
Caine had stood up so quickly that his chair clattered over behind him. Jasper was in front of him at once, his hands on Caine’s shoulders.
“Then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because I’m guessing by the way you just reacted that your hellhound would have smashed the mountain to pieces to save her. And then you’d have to admit your hellhound isn’t any danger to her.”
Caine grabbed Jasper’s wrists and glared into his eyes, but the dragon shifter didn’t back down.
“You don’t think my hellhound’s dangerous?” he growled. “I saw you flinch when it saw you outside. All of you. Or have you forgotten already?”
A shiver went down his spine. This is it. I’ve lost everything. My job. My old life. Meaghan. What more do I have to lose?
“Abigail, you’d better take the baby and Cole and get out of here,” he said, his voice gravely with exhaustion. “I’m going to show the dragons what happens when I let go of my hellhound’s leash.”
Jasper stepped in front of his wife and child. Caine’s heart twisted. He’s protecting them. Like I have to protect Meaghan, by staying away from her.
His hellhound was straining to be free. All he had to do was let go of its chains. It jumped up, muscles bunching with months of repressed energy, fire blazing from its eyes.
Caine braced himself as it rose closer to the surface. His senses. Thick hairs sprouted on his arms. His teeth lengthened. His eyes burned.
As terrified as he was at the thought of his hellhound being free, he was relieved, as well. Once the dragon shifters saw what he really was, they would lock him up, and he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else.
Sparks flared and burst in the smoke edging his vision as he stared at each of the gathered Heartwells. The monster was behind his eyes, in his eyes, looking out at them all.
But this time, none of them flinched.
And he didn’t transform. The monster retreated, its frustration a blackboard-scratch down Caine’s spine.
They aren’t the ones we’re looking for, it muttered, its voice the crackle of splintering wood. They’re not the ones our mate is hunting!
Caine clutched his forehead. The demon’s voice hurt as much as the other shifters’ telepathy did.
But there was something else, as well. When the hellhound said our mate, something like a matchstick flared inside Caine, in the center of his soul where he chained his hellhound away. A soft, golden light.
His hellhound wrapped itself around the light. Our mate, it growled softly. Ours.
Strong hands led him back to the kitchen table. He sat with his head in his hands.
“It won’t let her go,” he whispered. “Will it?”
“No.” Opal’s voice was gentle, but firm.
“Then I need to do what I came here to do.” Caine raised his head and met her eyes. “I need you to help me destroy it.”
18
Meaghan
“Ouch.” Meaghan clutched her chest and swayed.
“Are you all right?” Olly looked up at her from the pile of puppies. She still had her arms stretched over as many of them as she could reach, like a broody chicken on a nest of strange, barking eggs.
Or like an owl on… whatever owl
s did.
“I’m…” fine. The word was on the tip of her tongue. Meaghan frowned and rubbed her chest again. “Just a cramp, I think.”
“Is it your neck again?”
Meaghan stared at Olly in surprise. “I never told you there was anything wrong with my neck.”
Somehow, without moving at all or breaking eye contact, Olly managed to convey a whole-body eye-roll. “Meaghan, I have a tiny, asshole predator living inside my brain. It noticed you rubbing your neck about twenty seconds after we first met. Why do you think I kept slipping you instant handwarmers?”
Meaghan realized she was still rubbing her neck subconsciously. She snapped her hand down again. “So that my hands didn’t freeze when I was out with the dogs?”
“No, because heat is good for sore muscles! I know humans don’t heal up as well as shifters do, so I researched this very thoroughly! I always—” Olly’s face fell. “But maybe I’m wrong. Like with Jackson. I thought that I had that all sorted out, too.”
“You’re right. Heat does help. I guess my neck’s been bad for so long, I forget about it unless it’s really bad.”
“Like now?” Olly’s pale hazel eyes blinked at her and Meaghan dropped her hand again.
Her face felt hot and cold at the same time. There was no way she was going to explain to Olly that she’d been touching her neck because she was remembering how wonderful it felt when Caine massaged all the knots out of it.
All the knots were back now, of course. And the happy memory was all twisted up with the misery of Caine rejecting her. Hating her.
“Why?” she said out loud, and shook her head when she saw Olly’s face crease. “I mean, why did you care?”
“Because I like you,” Olly replied. “I’m not good at making friends, and I know you’d already decided I was your friend when you moved all your stuff into my living room, but I wanted to be friends back at you.”
Meaghan knelt beside her and scruffled Loony’s ears. “So you said it with handwarmers?”
“It’s better than saying it with a freshly killed mouse.” Olly smiled shyly.