One True Mate 7_Shifter's Paradox

by Lisa Ladew

  She rolled her head to the doorway. It didn’t go. She doubled down. Tried harder. How was she going to talk to Jaggar? Call to him? She needed Leilani.

  A breeze touched the skin of Leilani’s face and Evie felt it. The window was open, the air cold. Leilani was chilled. Not even a blanket. The body had been catatonic, so why was the window open?

  She caught the scent she was searching for so hard. Jaggar was in the building, coming fast. Harlan, too. Evie yearned. She had to move this body. Had to figure it out. Everything rested on it.

  She was on her back, Leilani’s back, in the bed. She could feel the room around her. Could sense the movement in the hallway. Something crashed to the floor at the nurse’s station. Someone cried out, startled, scared.

  His scent. He was there. Right there. Both of them. Her mate and her friend. Blink. Blink. OPEN. She dragged Leilani’s eyes open. Jaggar was there, his face stricken, his jaw set, peering at her, at Leilani. He looked good. He looked pissed. Murderous pissed.

  OOOOOH.

  Jaggar’s prophecy fell into her head like a lead weight and she cursed herself up and down. Why had they not considered the prophecies? Evie had tried, years ago, but when nothing had lead to anything she could make sense of she’d filed them away for later consideration. Leilani belonged to Jaggar, not Harlan. An absurd spike of sadness hit her. Harlan had been alone for so long, she would give anything to see him happy, including deliver him a new mate, wish him well, and even watch his new love from afar, if that was required from her. She would do anything to see him smile, even if someone else put that smile on his face.

  And there he was. Harlan, his handsome face worried, frowning. She loved the short salt and pepper beard he’d let grow, so handsome on him.

  Jaggar spoke. Evie struggled to hear his echoing words.

  “Why is she tied?” Evie felt a jerk on Leilani’s arm. Jaggar had split the leather, he pulled the soft cuff off of her wrist. Someone spoke from the doorway. Evie couldn’t see him. A male. Joel. Yes. She needed to tell Jaggar… tell Harlan about Joel… oh Harlan, she missed him so badly. She concentrated. Let Leilani’s eyes slip closed so she could spend all her mental energy on Leilani’s ears. What were they saying?

  Joel’s voice. “What do you think you are doing?” He yelled down the hall. “Call security!”

  Jaggar growled. Actually growled. Uh oh. Then he spoke. “What the fuck is this shit? These electrodes? What were you doing to her?”

  Joel’s voice was obstinate. Obtuse. He was blind and stupid if he didn’t tell Jaggar anything he wanted to know. But no, his voice was scheming. “I’m calling the cops.”

  Harlan snorted. “Good luck with that.”

  But Jaggar wasn’t going to let it go. His voice shook with tightly controlled anger. “You aren’t going anywhere. I want answers.” Evie hated the rage in her friend’s voice, but with any luck, Joel was about to get exactly what he deserved.

  “She’s dangerous. Fights and bites. Protocol says we can tie—”

  But Jaggar had heard enough. He moved away from the bed. Evie couldn’t see him anymore. She could see Harlan though, watching the exchange, and hear Jaggar’s low snarl, then a flat snap like a twig, a gurgle, and a thump, like someone had dropped a bag of laundry to the floor, then Harlan’s eyes went wide and he was moving away from the bed.

  “Oh shit, Jaggar, what did you do?” he moaned from somewhere near the door..

  Evie struggled to see. Struggled to move, to sit up, to do anything, but Leilani’s body lay there like a block of dead wood.

  Jaggar’s portable radio squelched. “Central, this is KSRT11 at the Roosevelt Asylum. I need two ambulances, a patrol unit, and rank.”

  “10-4, KSRT11, which rank?”

  Jaggar didn’t say anything for a moment until Harlan spoke, his voice so soft. “Shit, Jaggar, you didn’t just break his neck, you destroyed it.”

  Oh no. Strategy change needed asap. Evie’s mind worked. Jaggar would be suspended, fired, tried, probably put in jail eventually, if the guy was dead. Crime of passion. You didn’t mess with the beast’s mate, especially if she was unconscious. Would that help him? Probably not. Maybe. Evie didn’t know.

  Jaggar on the radio, his voice hard. “All the rank you got, Central.”

  Harlan’s scent shifted, and Evie tried hard to catch it, discern what it meant. Leilani’s nose caught no nuance—

  Harlan spoke, his voice tight, controlled. Evie heard a soft noise that was probably the door shutting. “Ok, look, here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m the one who relocated his larynx, you got me?” Evie heard the males struggling, grunting softly, like maybe they were wrestling. She could see them in her mind’s eye. Two big males, not quite best friends, but they could be if they could just get over old hurts, so stubborn both of them, locked in a wrestling embrace, doing their best to handle this nightmare of a situation.

  And one of them was out of the KSRT forever.

  11 - Whose Mate is She?

  Harlan bent over Leilani and fluffed the pillow under her head. They’d had her there at VF, in Trevor’s house, for three days. They were in Trent’s room because it was on the first floor and he didn’t mind being kicked out, had been happy to offer it. Harlan hadn’t left the room since she’d arrived. Neither had Jaggar, once he’d been released by Internal Affairs. He’d refused to let Harlan take the blame. That guy had been pretty dead, and the investigation had turned up some gnarly stuff about him, but unless he had been hiding bodies under the Roosevelt, it wasn’t going to help Jaggar. He was suspended. Maybe soon to be fired, so he was there completely unofficially. Like they would be able to keep him away.

  Harlan fluffed the pillow again, then rounded to the other side of the bed and fluffed it one more time, arranging her hair on the pillow, but hiding what he was doing with his body. Jaggar was out of the room for a minute or two, and if he came back to see Harlan touching Leilani’s hair he would strain his growl-cords. Harlan shook his head, wishing the stupid ass had let him take the blame for Joel. Harlan would have sat in jail for Jaggar without a second thought. For the rest of his life with a smile on his face to see his friend happy with his mate. He stared down at Jaggar’s mate, his heart twisting. If only she would wake. Move. Say a word. Open her eyes and look at Jaggar. Touch him. Just a touch would soothe so much.

  “Catatonic,” Remington had said. “Let the drugs clear from her system, then let’s see,” Remington said. They’d been turning her. Her sisters had taken turns bathing her, washing, brushing and braiding her hair. She might have had a touch of lipstick on her lips and some blush on her cheeks. She looked better than she had in the Roosevelt when they’d first gotten there, dressed in a soft nightgown, her hair fanned on the pillow, color in her cheeks and lips.

  They’d torn the files at the Roosevelt Asylum apart. Leilani’s had no file, no personal effects, no letters, no street clothes, no records. It was like she had always been there.

  Jaggar came into the room, his teeth gripped tightly together. He was keeping ahold of himself, had not touched her yet, purposely it seemed, even when they’d been in The Roosevelt and Jaggar had slit the leather binding her to the bed, he’d been careful not to touch her. Harlan had been watching, wanting to see if he had a mate reaction when he did. But it had never happened.

  Jaggar moved between Harlan and the bed, fluffing her pillow, being careful not to touch her. Still.

  Harlan stepped back, retreated to the chair they slept in, in shifts. “Jag, man, we gotta talk about it.”

  Jaggar grunted.

  “Seriously. Is she your mate?”

  Jaggar didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t.

  “Jaggar, come on, if we can say she’s your mate, it will help your case.” Wade had been pressing him to find out but Jaggar wouldn’t talk to anyone, not even him.

  But then he did. “I think so.”

  “But you won’t touch her to know for sure?”

  Jaggar shook his head. Looked out
the window. “I shouldn’t.”

  “Why? Is it because the Beast will wake up? Or is it because she’s… not awake? Tell me what you’re scared of, we need to know.” Harlan didn’t know what to be more worried about at that point. The beast, the dragengel, or the twins.

  Track and Treena were home, he could hear Treena grab-assing around in the next room, knocking something over, biting someone. A baby cried. Crap. She’d bit Track. The pups were a month old, and getting into trouble like toddlers. Troy howled from somewhere. Harlan stood up and paced.

  Jaggar fluffed the pillow again. “It’s the Beast,” he said quietly.

  Harlan looked away, studied the wall. What a clusterfuck. Evie would have called it massive moronathon, meaning whoever was in charge of shit was asleep at the wheel, fucking up left and right. Jaggar hadn’t asked to be born the bastardized child of a wolf and a cat, one who couldn’t shift, someone who had to fear the animal inside, instead of embrace it and befriend it.

  The door to the room was open slightly and Smokey wandered in, looking for Trent. He jumped up on the bed, pressing up onto Leilani’s chest in that nasty delicate way of cats. Harlan jumped to his feet to push the cat away but Jaggar stopped him. “She likes cats.”

  Okkk. “She talking to you, then?”

  Jaggar shot him a nasty look that Harlan wasn’t sure how to interpret.

  Whatever. Harlan set into the area at the foot of the bed, pacing. He wasn’t leaving the room till Leilani woke. Till he could… talk to her. Until he could stare into her eyes and determine what had reminded him of Evie. Jaggar would not throw him out.

  He and Jaggar went way back...

  12 - Past - The Knotted Wolf Arrives in Illinois

  The Past - 29 years before on the Amtrak train from Louisville, Kentucky to Chicago, Illinois

  The night rushed by, or he rushed through the night, he wasn’t sure. The moon raced them, a silverish-white streak on the flat ground beyond the window. In six hours he would be in Chicago. Excitement coursed through him. Chicago. Serenity. His heart thudded hard and steady. On his way. He was on his way, in this noisy train, to the rest of his life. A total cliche. Still real.

  Harlan leaned back in the seat of his tiny private room and linked his hands behind his head. Thank you very much, Serenity Police Department, for providing him the private room, but he would rather be in a passenger car, where the people were, where women were. He’d gone through the train a few times, scenting for wolven, and found only two. One soldier in uniform, on her way somewhere, an arctic wolf with creamy dark skin and that made him want to lick his lips. He held himself back and checked her gaze and her scent. Hi, it said. Mated, it said. I’d welcome a bit of small talk, but that’s all the farther it will ever go.

  Harlan had smiled at her. Another time. Male and female wolven did not usually do friendships well, especially during the full moon or when her bloody wolf broke free, which it did once a month for a few dangerous days. Too much sexual energy crackled between unmated male and female wolven. Some did ok, most didn’t even try to be friends with the opposite sex. They ran in opposite circles and came together for families and fucking and work, or in mated pairs.

  The second wolfen on the train had actually been a half-breed, or probably more. Three-quarters, perhaps, with that raging wolf scent and a breeze of deep forest caught in her hair, like she’d been running a muddy path recently, maybe just before the train had pulled away from the station. She was train security with a sharp gaze. Her scent had not said she had a mate, but it had said that Harlan was entirely too male to interest her. And she was busy. Didn’t want to talk.

  That was cool. Harlan didn’t need to talk. He could figure out more than most people just by people watching. Did it for hours. The small town he’d come from had very little crime, so he and his family had been more diplomat than law keepers, walking from storefront to storefront, showing up at birthday parties and graduations in uniform, and attending all town functions. There had been a lot of time to sit around. The Mundeleins had run the Harlan, KY police department since there had first been one to run, and yes, he was named after the town he’d been born in. That’s how much his Ma had loved it. Had never wanted to leave. Harlan had thought he would never leave either. But here he was. On a train, heading to the police department where Rhen’s body lay, while her spirit tirelessly guided all shiften.

  He had a prophecy? Him? That fact still made him shake his head in wonderment. He was a KSRT wolf? “The Knotted Wolf,” his prophecy called him, because of the renqua on his left shoulder, like a tattoo, of a thick and twisting knot. His wolf had the same, and it was their connection to Rhen, the goddess and creator of all shiften. A source of incredible pride for any who had one, which all proper shiften should.

  When the Serenity Police Department Chief had called Harlan’s father and told him that twenty-two year old Harlan Mundelein, a local deputy for three years already, was being called up to work in Serenity, with the KSRT, the group of wolven police officers who were tasked with fighting the demon Khain? Harlan shivered at the swoopy feeling that had filled his brain and stomach when his father had managed to get the words out. Something like that was life changing. It would be like a human being called to join a group that actually fought Satan himself.

  Harlan had gone to school with humans. Had grown up with humans. Had lived the life of a human. Had been the high school football star and homecoming king. He dealt with humans who had no idea what he was every day. Like all shiften, he only acknowledged he was different, with an animal inside him, when he was in his own house, with others just like him. All shiften grew up like this. It was the only way to know exactly what humans thought and felt on all aspects of life.

  Harlan stared out the window and let his mind go. He was too keyed up to sleep, but thinking wasn’t really his thing either. He needed to be moving, needed to be working, needed to be following steps, going from task to task, the harder and more physical the better. But he couldn’t. He flexed the big muscles in his thighs and put his feet up on the seat across from him so he could run with the moon in his mind.

  He let go inside his head, just a tiny, tiny bit, loosing his hold on his wolf just enough…

  Nowl, Harlan’s wolf, unfolded himself from Harlan’s being enough to loom large in the room, filling all the empty space with his presence, some of him energetically encroaching into the hall. His gray and black and silver energy even spilling outside of the train, held in place by something as the wind tore by. Will, perhaps.

  Harlan was always glad to see his wolf, even in this dreamy form. He thought this must be the way humans felt about their souls, their inner selves. The world’s best traveling companion.

  His wolf was big. Strong looking. A timber wolf with a gray and silver coat and a black muzzle. The renqua on his left shoulder was a thick, twisting knot drawn in his gray fur with white fur that ruffled in the whoosh of the overhead air-conditioning ducts.

  Nowl snarled and the gleam of moonlight on his canines filled the room savagely, making Harlan squint. One of Nowl’s tricks.

  It begins, Nowl growled, deep and throaty, and savage in Harlan’s head. The connection soothed Harlan, settled his body and mind.

  What begins? Harlan intoned back silently, a teasing note in his mind’s voice. This was all the ruhi Harlan had ever managed, but it was all he needed. Ruhi, telepathic communication with another shiften, was not something every shiften mastered, and Harlan was the only one he knew who spoke to his wolf in this way.

  Nowl smirked at the tease in Harlan’s voice. They got each other, the two of them. Nothing was out-of-bounds between them.

  Harlan popped an uncontrollable grin, his knotted muscles relaxing just a bit. Nowl would never just say, Fuck, I’m excited. He had to be all dramatic. It begins. Harlan loved everything about Nowl, his dramatic flair, his proud stance, and the way he completed Harlan with growl and bite and fight and fang.

  Harlan gazed out the window of the train
. Nowl did also. The moon said it was 1:18 in the morning. Harlan could scent that he was not the only one awake in his train car, but he was one of only three. The sleeping scents and waking scents swirled into his tiny room, telling him even where the mice in the walls were.

  It begins. Yeah, that was accurate. The rest of his life, right here, and it would be bigger than any he had ever imagined for himself. He wished briefly for someone to share the moment with. A female. But she would come when she came. He’d had plenty of practice for his mate... but never caught her scent yet.

  Harlan felt like talking. He lifted his chin to catch Nowl’s attention. Give me a prediction. What awaits us in Serenity?

  Our mate.

  Fuck. Deep. Had he just been thinking of her?

  Harlan flipped Nowl off. Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious.

  Nowl rolled a wolf eye to Harlan, filling the room with the image, and Harlan grinned and ignored it, watching the moon outside, not having to pretend there was a pull there. The man and wolf felt it equally. How much difference was there, really, between man and wolf, when one could morph into the other so seamlessly?

  He projected his thoughts at Nowl. Seriously. I hope she’s there. Cuz Chief Risson told my father this is now our permanent duty station. We’ll be here till we die.

  Harlan didn’t bother to try to keep the wistfulness out of his voice. Nowl was part of Harlan, and knew exactly how excited Harlan was. How ready to prove himself as the go-to guy. The guy who got shit done in Serenity, Illinois. That’s what he’d always been, that’s what he was good at. How he shone. Tell Harlan what needs to be done and it gets done, his mother had said proudly from the time when she needed to kneel a bit to ruffle his hair as he stood next to her, quietly proud at the praise, during his entire childhood, to adulthood, when she had to raise her hand up to place it on his shoulder, because he wouldn’t let her ruffle his hair anymore. He would catch her hand instead and kiss it and place it over his heart. He had the soul of a soldier his dad had always said about him. Harlan had always secretly loved that and tried to perform heroics daily to make his dad say it about him. A cop he was destined to be, but a soldier at heart? Yeah, that was him.