by Stella Blaze
I stood up straight again, glaring at the old woman. “She says we need to be patient.”
“Now I know it’s her,” he growled. “That’s her favorite saying. You have no patience, be patient… show a little patience!”
She pursed her lips and gripped her purse tight enough to make her knuckles turn white.
So the wind didn’t affect her, but she could make her knuckles turn white.
Ghosts are a mass of complications.
“I’m hoping you’ll stick around long enough to… to let this thing sort itself out.”
I pointed my finger at her. “Look, lady, I have no plans on staying here or anywhere for very long. I…”
I had someone to get over…
I had an enormous hole in my life, in my freaking chest…
“I don’t need to stick around here trying to fix your grandson. So if you really want him and his bear fixed, then you’re going to have to spit it out!”
I suddenly realized Maddox and his grandmother were both watching me.
Maddox had this indescribable look on his face. His gaze was burning right into me, but not in the violent, rage-filled way it had been before. This was…
Different.
Made my face warm and…
Damn…
His gaze made my body start to thrum, like a guitar string.
The old woman, though, had a look of concern on her face.
“Fixing his bear is going to help you too.”
That I doubted.
“How’s that?”
She took a breath, and I thought she was going to tell me…
But then she said, “And there’s a monster out in the woods behind my house.”
I blinked at her. “A monster.” I looked at Maddox. “She says there’s a monster in the woods behind her house.”
He laughed. “I’m staying there while I…” He waved that away. “I think I would know if there was anything back in those woods.”
I looked to her. “And since, technically, we’re all monsters here, I think we’ll be safe enough.”
She pounded her little fist on the tabletop. And the thud it made must’ve been something Maddox could hear because he spun around and looked to where his grandmother was sitting.
“What was that?”
“Your Nonna beat her fist on the table. Very dramatic.”
“The monster,” she said, steel in her voice, “is a dark fae.”
I didn’t know much about the fae. They had come to this land far after my people, so they weren’t as ingrained in my culture or our stories. But Gram had spoken of them with reverence and fear.
“Salt,” I said. “Salt and iron are their weakness… that’s all I know about them.”
“Yes,” she said, “but that isn’t going to be enough with this one.”
“Why not?” I was getting tired and needed to sleep. So I didn’t sound all that kindly.
She seemed to know that, her expression softer somehow. “Because it’s old and sneaky, and I didn’t even know it was there until it was too late.”
I stared at her as that little nugget of knowledge seeped into my brain.
“Is it what killed you?”
Maddox turned toward me. “What?” Anger was like a whip in his voice.
“Careful, dear,” she warned.
He kept looking from me to where his grandmother was seated. I could feel the agitation radiating from him. He was only hearing my part of the conversation.
“The monster in the woods is a dark fae, and it killed her,” I said. Better to just put it right out there.
A growl rumbled out of his chest, making my heart skip a beat.
I saw the gold shimmering through the cracks in his irises.
He spun and demanded, “How do I kill it?” of his grandmother.
He needed to calm down, and right now.
His bear was trying to get out, and with us out in the open, and a town of innocent people surrounding us, I had to do something.
I reached out and touched his hand.
I don’t know why I did it. It just felt like what I should do.
Something snapped the instant I touched him: an electrical, magical, chemical thing. It was as if a light switch had been turned on, and we were both bathed in a nearly narcotic, blissful light.
I saw his body sag as the breath whooshed out of his lungs. My hand went all tingly where I was touching him, and I swear I could hear the wind singing to me as it blew through us, washing away our anger and fear effortlessly.
He looked over at me, and the golden cracks in his eyes were gone, only the dark, drowning deep brown of his eyes remaining.
Oh boy… What the heck was happening?
He looked down at where we were holding hands. Slowly his brow furrowed, and he bared his teeth.
With a deep growl, he pulled his hand from mine, making whatever magic we’d fallen into snap off as if it had never been there.
I fell forward against the table and luckily sat down in the chair I’d been in, instead of falling flat on my butt.
Maddox held his hand to his chest, his nostrils flaring. “What the hell are you?”
Hell if I knew. A couple weeks ago I’d been a bartender at my family’s bar and grill, and a werepuma. Now I could see dead people and magic things without even knowing what I was doing, or how… or that it was even going to happen.
“Don’t do that again!” he roared at me.
There were a couple of middle-aged women not twenty feet away, across the street, and they were watching us with rapt attention.
I panted, suddenly winded. “Deal.”
He staggered to the side a few paces, turning as he looked around him.
If he felt anything like I just felt, he was pretty darn dizzy. And had a slight case of dry mouth.
I reached for my cherry pop.
“Ask him how he feels,” the old woman said to me.
I glared at her. “Probably pretty crappy, with a side of dizzy as hell.”
Her fierce eyes bore into me. “Ask him how his bear feels.”
His bear…
“Now!” she demanded.
I held up my hand to her. I got it.
“How does your bear feel?”
His eyes locked on me and for a split second, he looked normal and calm… but a moment later I saw the golden cracks start to appear again, though dimmer.
“Just like he always feels…,” he growled, “like he wants to kill something, and kill it now!”
Okay, that answered that.
He slammed his hand down on the table, and the metal bent, leaving the impression of his hand on the tabletop.
He stared at me with utter hatred. “Tell… whatever it is that’s talking to you that I’ll kill whatever’s in the woods behind the house. But I never want it or you coming anywhere near me again. Got it?”
My bout of dizziness faded and I felt the icy claws of fear scratch up and down my spine.
This man, this bear, was dangerous.
And if I didn’t get the hell out of here he was going to be the death of me.
Literally.
I licked my dry lips and forced my voice not to break, squeak, or wobble. “Consider it done.”
Maddox stood there for another few moments, his eyes crackling with the gold of his bear, the muscles in his jaw tense and pulsing as he stood there.
And then he just turned and walked away. He walked away at a rather fast, somewhat inhuman gait, but technically it was a walk.
When he was out of sight I started to collect my still half full takeout containers and shove them back in the bags.
I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I didn’t think I’d need to sleep for a week with the adrenaline pumping through my veins right then.
“You can’t leave,” Nonna said.
I looked down at the handprint in the metal table.
“Watch me.”
I turned and shoved my bags of half-eaten food in the big trashcan by
the front doors of Carly’s.
“He has no idea what he’s getting into,” she said as I climbed up into my truck and slammed the door shut.
“He’s a big bear, he can figure it out.”
The old Chevy roared to life and before the old woman could holler anything else at me I slammed my foot on the gas and peeled out of the parking lot.
My heart was hammering in my chest as I lurched through town, stopping for a light here, and trying not to rush through a stop sign by the post office.
I just wanted the hell out of this town.
I could hear the rage in Maddox’s voice as he said, “I never want it or you coming anywhere near me again. Got it?”
I got it.
But that didn’t mean that same heart that was beating so fast from fear wasn’t a little broken.
Something, somewhere inside me wouldn’t stop pinging.
Something stupid inside of me was urging me to turn around and drive back.
He needs me…
He needs a therapist.
“He really does need you,” Nonna said from the passenger seat of my truck.
I jumped and swerved, just missing someone’s curbside mailbox.
“Cripes! Don’t do that!” I ground out through gritted teeth.
“Do what?” she asked, her eyes innocent.
I was just about to tell her where to shove that innocent routine when she said, “The dark fae already has its claws in him. He has no idea. And with her hold on him, if he leaves the house tonight, she will take him.”
She looked into my eyes as I slowed my truck to a stop at the side of the road.
“It will kill him.”
This isn’t my problem.
I gripped the steering wheel and willed my foot to stomp on the gas again.
He doesn’t want my help.
I closed my eyes and all I could see were those broken brown eyes, cracked with his bear’s gold.
“He might just try to kill me.” I leaned back in the seat of my truck and stared at the old woman.
She waved my statement off with a flick of her hand. “He was just being dramatic. He was raised a gentleman. He’d never hurt a lady.”
My eyebrows rose. “Think his bear’s a gentleman too?”
“He needs your animal to safely release his bear.”
I shook my head. “No, he needs a pack and an Alpha, and a freaking miracle.”
She just kept talking. “And he’ll need your magic to sever that thing’s hold on him.”
Magic…
Until a minute ago I had no idea I even had magic.
“I don’t know how to do that.”
I didn’t know if I ever would.
“He still needs you,” she said. “Without your help he’ll die tonight… and you know it.”
The chance that that man would stay in the house when the thing that killed his grandmother was just outside his backdoor was slim to none. I know I’d be out there, claws and teeth ready to tear into her.
And that meant that tonight really was the night he would die.
Whether I could stop that from happening was up in the air.
I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop it.
But part of me couldn’t bear the thought of losing Maddox. Not to the dark fae, not to his crazed bear. Not to anyone.
Shiiit…
“Tell me what you know about the Fae.”
Chapter 4
Maddox
My brothers and I had come here after our parents were murdered.
I stood in the kitchen of Nonna’s house, staring out the back window.
The woods behind the house had been where my brothers had played, and where I’d watched them, to ensure they were safe.
And this was where Nonna had watched over us, washing dishes, or cleaning vegetables.
Always watching out after us.
And I hadn’t been here when she’d died.
When she’d been murdered…
I hadn’t even suspected.
But that fae in the woods would die bloody tonight.
I’d picked an old iron carving knife from the back of Nonna’s knife drawer. It had a good balance. Obviously—from the dark though gleaming patina of the blade—made before mass production.
I had a container of iodized salt too, one with a picture of a little girl with an umbrella on it.
I should have been afraid, right?
But I wasn’t.
That probably wasn’t good.
But all I could think was that I wanted to carve up this piece of otherworldly crap and feed it to the fishes in Grayslake.
I felt the bear inside me growling its approval. It wanted blood too.
I would never let it out, though.
Since that day, when I’d killed those loupes who’d murdered my parents, and had come, covered in their blood, to kill my brothers and I, I had never shifted again.
And I would never.
I would never claim the sick and twisted animal inside me either.
It was an abomination.
Others of my kind were connected with their bears.
That was nice, for them, but I could never be like that.
I’d fought many shifted bears in the past, and had won every single time.
But I’d never killed again.
But now I would.
The sun had set, and somehow I just knew that dark fae was out there waiting for me.
How long had it been out there, watching me?
How long had it been preying on my grandmother?
I gripped the knife harder. It felt good in my hand.
I thought of the beautiful, infuriating woman from earlier. Her flesh had been tanned with a splash of freckles, and her hair had been long and straight, almost dark enough to be black, but not.
Stormy…
Was that her name?
She hadn’t told me. But I was almost positive it was Stormy.
As if someone had just whispered it in my ear.
My heart pounded harder just thinking about her.
If only I wasn’t broken.
And if only she was the one for me.
But she wasn’t.
She couldn’t be.
She deserved someone better.
The moment I walked outside, the night air seemed to tingle against my flesh, like walking through a spider web. I should have suspected it wasn’t just the cool of the night. But my anger and the need to make that thing bleed led me straight out through the backyard and out into the dark woods, knife in one hand, the canister of salt in the other.
***
I’d been in the state of New York, far to the north of the fabled city, when the authorities there had tracked me down.
I’m a lone bear, or so Nonna had called me. She’d said that’s why neither I nor my brothers could stay in one place very long. My father had been like that.
That’s why we’d been on our own and not in a pack like there was in Grayslake.
That’s why the loupes had chosen to hunt us—we were easy pickings.
Two bears and three cubs.
We hadn’t had a chance.
The policewoman and her male rookie partner had tracked me down, having been notified by Grayslake PD.
They hadn’t been able to find my brothers. They’d only found me from a postcard I’d sent a few days before.
I’d thanked the police officers, quit my job and started driving south to Grayslake. Took less than a day, since I only stopped to use the restroom and fill the gas tank.
I had a key still and let myself into the house.
There had been no crime scene tape.
Nonna had been found out back in the woods.
They’d said it was probably a heart attack, that she’d been lying on the ground, no signs of a struggle.
I’d slept on the floor beside her bed, trying not to let the anger rise in me.
I needed to be in control.
I was always in control.
<
br /> I would bury Nonna, sell her herb shop, or close it down.
And sell the house?
I didn’t think I could do that. Not for anything.
Maybe I’d give it to her pack when I left. I think she would like for other bears to live in her house, to have a family live here.
When I woke the next morning there had been dishes of food left on the kitchen table, all smelling delicious—I hadn’t eaten since I’d left New York.
Had I left the door unlocked, or did someone have the key?
There was a note pinned to the top of a plate of still warm sausage and bacon.
We’re sorry for your loss and hope this helps in the days ahead.
It was signed Regina Florents.
She lived over the hill, and I remembered her coming over to have tea with Nonna in the winter, and lemonade on the front porch in the summer.
They probably had keys to each other’s homes. Probably had for decades.
That day, after eating and taking a shower, I’d driven into town, took a look around Nonna’s herb shop. She’d had it since I could remember. I was pretty sure it was one of the first shops in the town, first being a general store, and then slowly narrowing its focus into just herbs.
She owned the building and had remodeled it way back then into several shops, hers being in the middle. There was now a beauty salon, a sporting goods store, and a trendy looking coffee shop.
I’m not sure why, but I opened the shop and started working in the shop. She had regular customers, and I’d done my fair share of working in the shop in my teen years. Somehow, it just made me feel like she wasn’t really gone.
Now, walking out into the night-shadowed woods, I saw that I had just been deluding myself.
She wasn’t coming back, and no matter what I told myself, I was just staying here to not feel her loss.
I would kill the thing that killed her, and then I would go to Ty, the local pack Alpha, and ask him to end me.
I hoped he would see how necessary it was, for me, for everyone else too. For their safety.
I stood in the middle of a stand of trees, right where Nonna had been found a few weeks before.
But I didn’t feel anything…
Not angry, not guilty…
I felt numb.
And that’s when the creature showed itself.
Tall, willowy, and unearthly.
I tightened my hold on the carving knife.
But as it came closer, it seemed to change. Its stark lines turning to feminine curves, its naked, husk-like skin turning to soft, silky flesh, a sheer gown of green draping from her shoulders—she was a vision.