One True Mate 7_Shifter's Paradox

by Lisa Ladew

  Someone was looking at him. Harlan looked around. Jaggar was asleep in the chair. No one else was in the room. His eyes went to the bed, where Leilani lay quietly.

  Her eyes were open. Staring. At him. Knowing him.

  Evie. The sense was stronger this time. He would know his Evie anywhere, could sense his petite red wolf coiled inside this one true mate... somehow. Not possible. He was losing his mind. Insane. Evie could not be in Leilani.

  She struggled in the bed and pushed on her elbows like she was trying to sit up. Harlan rushed to her, put his arm around her shoulders and lifted her, whispering to her. “You want to sit up? I’ll sit you up. It’s ok. Tell me if it hurts. Just make a noise. Any noise. I’ll stop.” He moved her slowly, expecting her head to loll like a baby, but it didn’t. Her neck muscles were corded from the effort of holding it up, but they were managing. He got her into a sitting position, then swept his eyes slowly toward hers.

  She was regarding him dispassionately, her expression completely blank, but her eyes! The passion of something he’d always known was there, staring out at him.

  Leilani. Evie? Leilani. Jaggar’s mate. His friend’s mate. Not his mate. NOT his mate!

  Mine! came from inside him.

  Nowl?

  All you, hoss.

  Shit. She’s not mine.

  Don’t I know it. Get out of here, now, leave her to Jaggar.

  He couldn’t. Leilani, not Evie. Jaggar’s, not his, and her hands were on his arm and they were pulling at him and she whimpered, the smallest noise and she leaned into him and their lips touched and he was positive that Leilani belonged to Jaggar, and yet here he was kissing her.

  Shit, this was going to be bad, this was going to be so very bad and still he couldn’t stop himself, couldn’t hold himself back from pressing into her.

  Evie.

  His heart ached.

  His eyes closed.

  Oh fuck. What a mess. Jaggar…

  A growl split the room, monstrous and idling, like a hand-built Harley.

  The Beast.

  Nowl tensed inside him.

  Back up, back the fuck up, Nowl growled at him. Get your stupid ass lips off of hers you motherfucking idiot.

  Harlan had never heard Nowl swear before. In 47 years of talking to him, not one curse word. Harlan pulled back from Leilani and gently released her upper body back to the pillow, pulling the blanket up to her chin as the Beast snarled like a stuck idle. Harlan did not look around.

  Quit touching her, are you fucking brain-dead? Go out the window, seriously, now!

  Harlan pulled his hands back to himself and eyed the open window with no screen, tensing for the leap, knowing he was too slow.

  He won’t catch you

  No way, I’ll trigger his shift. Go, just straight out the window, don’t even look at him. If you can get outside and leave him alone with her, you might not be reunited with Evie in the Haven in exactly 42 seconds.

  Shit, if you put it like that, he tried to joke, but he was already moving. He did not want to die at the teeth of his friend.

  But something in the room had changed, a strong alpha wolfen scent spreading through the room. And something richer, deeper, more… complicated. Something Harlan did not try to identify. He did not want to know.

  Harlan didn’t look, he launched himself at the window like Nowl had said to do, but the Beast caught him around the middle, sinking meat hook claws into him. Harlan screamed, he couldn’t help it really, then shifted, howled, but those claws were still around his middle, and crap, he really was going to die today, and he deserved it, deserved to die, did he want it, too—?

  “Jaggar, stop!” Leilani cried, her first words she’d said since they’d found her at the Roosevelt three days before. She was sitting up, her eyes wild, unseeing, her voice grating.

  Those claws tightened.

  Harlan moaned, fighting to stay alive but not fighting his friend, shifting again, he and Nowl both doing their level best not to die in a twisted mess of bloody claws and limbs and wolven near the window.

  The last thing Harlan saw before he blacked out was that the door to the room was closed. Would no one even know what had happened until it was too late?

  32 - Leilani, I need you!

  Evie whirled and ran for Rhen’s meadow, sprinting through Leilani’s mind, screaming for Leilani. Jaggar had paid her almost no attention when she’d yelled his name. He’d known she wasn’t Leilani. She couldn’t stand, could barely move, that one word had been an agony for her.

  She needed his mate! So she ran and she screamed for Leilani, praying that Leilani would be able to calm him, or even to speak to him.

  “Leilani, I need you!” she cried, racing up the forest path to the meadow in her bare feet. “Lani! Emergency!”

  Leilani came running for her from the meadow. They met on the forest path, Evie turning as Leilani grabbed her hand and pulled her back the way they had come. “I know, Rhen told me.”

  Leilani jumped, jerking Evie out of Rhen’s meadow, into Leilani’s body. Slam, bam, she didn’t know up from down, but Leilani was there, her eyes leaking tears as she held her head with both hands. It hurts so bad, she said quietly, but she stilled inside her mind, and Evie saw the eyes of her body snap open.

  She sat straight up in bed. “Jaggar! No! Please!” she cried, torment for Harlan, for Evie’s mate, in her voice.

  Evie could see out Leilani’s eyes, not well, but enough to see that Jaggar had stopped savaging her mate. He was still. A true beast in that he took no form she could recognize. She saw catamount here and wolf there and something she couldn’t even describe, lumped up together in one massive being. The Citlali had always been terrified of this beast, and now she knew why.

  Jaggar had two animals, and they were at war in one form.

  The beast retracted his claws from her mate’s wolf, Nowl, whose eyes were closed on the bloody floor, his muzzle twisted and foamed and his sides running blood.

  The beast’s snarl was set on a constant deadly, rumbling idle, like a purring scream.

  Leilani cried to see Harlan’s blood on the floor, his large form still and silent. The Beast looked from Leilani to Harlan, back to Leilani, and then he was gone. Out the window in a smooth leap Evie would not have thought a misshapen beast like him could have made.

  Unconscious, Harlan shifted from wolf to human, then lay still. Naked. Curled. Still.

  Leilani, yell for help.

  But Leilani had already withdrawn back to Rhen’s meadow.

  Evie was on her own. And now she knew what she had to do. She had no choice. She lay on Leilani’s back in the bed and stared up at the green-grass ceiling, struggling to get Leilani’s body to respond. She was still sitting. Stay up. Stay up. Yell. Call out. Get some help in here. She turned Leilani’s head. Harlan was stirring, oh thank goodness.

  He pushed himself to his feet with a shaky groan, his naked and healed body a work of muscular art. Smears of his own blood were on his legs and belly and he brushed at them with his hands unseeingly. He looked at her first, shame, guilt, and horror in his eyes, then he scrambled to the window and stuck his head out. After a few moments, he pulled his head back in and found a stash of clean police clothes in a dresser. Trent didn’t wear them, but they had clothes of all sizes stashed everywhere. He eyed his blood on the floor, his face slack with shock, his mind obviously whirling.

  Evie’s heart went out to him. Her mate and he was hurting so bad right now. Had been hurting for so long. He didn’t need anything else, no more burdens on his shoulders. He loved Jaggar like a brother, and yet—

  Evie stared at him, her own guilt flaring. Why had she done it? Kissed him? His guilt must be horrendous

  He had to know she was there… It was too late to wallow over poor choices. Drive on, move forward, that was all there ever was to do. She tried to speak to him.

  “Har-.”

  Leilani’s vocal cords responded to her but not well, like they were rusty or too-s
hort. She knew how vocal cords worked, these just weren’t hers, so she did her best, but the voice that came out sounded scary to Evie.

  “Harlan—”

  He came to her, his eyes sad, an apology written in his expression. “I shouldn’t have-”

  She tried again.

  “It’s me, Evie.”

  ***

  Harlan’s heart seized and he clutched for Nowl, for some sort of inner support. Evie. Evie. It didn’t make any sense. But it did. All of it.

  “Evie,” he whispered, touching her face, her lip, glad that the door was still closed. But it wasn’t Evie. This was Leilani. “Are you... reincarnated?” He felt stupid just saying it, knowing it wasn’t the answer. Except… her renqua.

  33 - Does the Wolf Exist Outside of the Forest?

  Harlan meandered out of the room where Evie...no Leilani no Evie oh fuck... was sleeping. Trent had come in through the window, promised to watch over Leilani, and here he was, trying to walk. His nerves didn’t want to fire, his muscles didn’t want to move. And still he walked. His thoughts were ground to a frozen halt inside his head and still he couldn’t stop seeing everything all at once. He didn’t say a word, just trudged down the hallway through the lively house. Wolven were everywhere. Their mates. Their young.

  Harlan dragged his heavy feet past the kitchen. Out the window, he caught a glance of six bearen pulling a hose, trying to keep up with Kendra, who was still the temperature of fire. It had been a month since she’d been born, and no one could hold her but mom and dad. She didn’t sleep. She wanted her own way every second of the day. Graeme was scared Heather was going to take her breasts and move to the Arctic. The bearen were working around the clock, trying to save the forest and trying to convince Graeme and Heather to move to a cave by a stream and Graeme had almost fried one of Bruin’s brothers three times because he wouldn’t stop bringing it up. It wasn’t Conri, though. Conri did not go near the forest or Kendra.

  Their little cabin was empty, the roof burnt away, all their stuff melted and hauled out. They were sleeping wrapped in Graeme’s dragen wings, sometimes even walking around wrapped up in them, since Heather had a hard time keeping clothed. Kendra was always burning everything away. Kendra got a little scarier every day, but she seemed to like Harlan. She always giggled when he made faces at her from the window. He made sure she saw him a lot. Knew his face and voice looking happy and like someone she should keep around. He planned to sneak her candy as soon as he saw a tooth or two. Red hots maybe. Not Junior Mints, for certain. He didn’t want to be on the instant-fry list. Kind of like Santa’s naughty list, but with blowtorches. Graeme was certain she would get her temperature under control soon.

  Past the kitchen. Walking still. Thoughts smooth as long as he didn’t think about. Oh crap. Don’t think about it. A wall blocking his view of the kitchen. A smooth white wall. Had that wall been there earlier? Voices came to him as if through water. Evie. Evie. Evie! He had to tell someone… something. He couldn’t tell them that Evie was inside Leilani, they’d send him to the Roosevelt. Ok. He would tell them that Jaggar left. Why? Because I kissed his mate in front of him. Oh hey, Trevor, ah, Jaggar took off, and I don’t think he’s gonna come back anytime soon. Yeah, yeah, he shifted first. Yeah, I saw the Beast, well kind of, I know how big his claws are anyway. Pretty big. Oh totally, as scary as we all thought. Lucid? Sane? Does Jaggar have any control over him? He would theatrically suck in a breath through his teeth. Maybe put his hands on his hips and stare off into space. See, well, that’s a hard one to judge, cuz, ah, he didn’t seem to, but he was pretty pissed off. Why? Oh, well, my bad… the reason he took off back then. This is only strike two, though, I mean, he’ll be back, right?

  He winced. Did he want to be considered moonstruck, or the world’s biggest douche? Pick one, only one, finders keepers, losers weepers, catch a tiger by his toe eeny meeny miny MOE!

  The dining room opened up to his left as he passed that wall. He glanced behind him to see if it still existed. It did. Dahlia and Cerise lounged on a dark rug between the table and the kitchen area, playing with baby Track and baby Treena on the floor. Harlan put one foot in front of the other. He didn’t know where he was going.

  … and shit, hey, did I mention that like, well, I already fucking stole Evie from him 29 years ago. Rubbed it in his face, too. Yep, this is just strike two, though, right? Like, he’ll come back, right? And we’ll be ok, again, right? I mean, he’s 47, the army won’t take him this time. He’ll come back, I’ll explain how I kissed his mate cuz I thought she was my mate, and then he’ll forgive me, like he did before, and I won’t lose my friend, too, right? right?

  Cerise held a bright orange ball just out of Track’s reach, trying to get him to crawl to it. “Come on, Track, see how pretty it is?”

  Track got up on his hands and knees and rocked a bit, got himself moving a few inches, but not enough. He held out one chubby fist and cried for the ball.

  “Aww, give it to him,” Dahlia said. But before Cerise could, Track pushed himself onto his diapered bottom and touched his sister with one hand, holding the other hand out toward the ball. The squishy orange ball shot out of Cerise’s reach, right to Track, settling in between his two fat baby thighs. He giggled and snatched it up. His sister grabbed for it and he screeched at her. They babbled to each other, meaningless strings of vowels. Cerise gasped and made a face at Dahlia. Did you see that? I saw it. I saw it, too. Someone look at me. Do I exist?

  His feet carried him past the living room where Troy was on the couch. Mac’s voice came from somewhere. Outside? Did he want to talk to Mac? Maybe. Would Wade be better? Or Trevor? He could tell them. He would just do it. Just do it. Swoosh. Do it. Dew it.

  Burton? Maybe he should tell Burton instead. No. Things weren’t that bad, were they?

  He ended up in a hallway on the other end of the house. He walked into the room it dead-ended into. Right through the room. Opened the door in the far wall. A closet. Harlan walked into it. Hit the back wall. Turned around. Walked back the way he had come.

  He heard the front door open and Mac and Rogue entered the house, their voices low but volleying. Someone else was with them. Big. Bear. Conri. Big bear Conri. He liked it. That’s what he would call Conri from now on. It would be their, “thing.” Jaggar would—no.

  Harlan was still in the hallway, couldn’t see anyone, but he could hear everything, and the sounds painted pictures of what was happening on the theatre of his mind. When Track and Treena saw Mac, they both started whining for him, trying to catch his attention, trying to get to him. Track sounded on the verge of tears. They all loved Mac, even Kendra. Mac had been burnt a few times already.

  The hallway spilled Harlan back out between the living room and the dining room and he could actually see little Track and Treena struggling to get to Mac, about how he had imagined them doing.

  “Hey rugrats,” Mac said, heading toward them. Track got in front of his sister with a grunt. She shifted into a tiny little dark-furred pup with a little scrap of a white renqua on her shoulder, an angle, like a little less-than sign, bit her brother on the calf, and rushed Mac.

  Mac scooped her up. “No, Treena. That’s bad. Don’t bite your brother. At least not until he manages to shift.” He went to Track, trying to scoop him up too, but Ella was already there. Where had she come from? Magic? Harlan was losing his mind. Ella hugged Track to her chest, her face worried.

  Harlan’s traitor feet carried him past all of them, but he could hear Ella talking about Track. “I’m so worried about him, because…” She was silent for a moment. “Because it runs in the family, and well, maybe Remington knows someone. A doctor or a citlali who could help him.”

  Behind Harlan, Troy’s claws clicked onto the hardwood floor. He’d jumped off the couch where Harlan hadn’t even seen him, and was now pacing. Agitated?

  Couldn’t anyone see that Harlan was going out of his mind! Quick or slow, quick or slow? Was this quick or slow, he didn’t know. But the
y didn't’ know that Jaggar was gone, and Harlan might be as crazy as Burton, that there were secrets in the village and Harlan couldn’t take one more secret.

  No one talked about Burton. No one talked about Evie. He bet none of these women, these mates, not a one of them even knew who Burton Risson was, even understood the actual magnitude of what had happened all those years ago. That there was an entire generation of males who had lost their mates and their sisters and their daughters at the same time and these males had not been inconvenienced or saddened or even destroyed. No, this older generation had been devastated. Unable to work or function, certainly unable to raise the younger generations the same way they’d been raised. This younger generation like Trevor, and Mac and Crew and Beckett, none of them would understand how it was for Burton, for Harlan, hell, even for Jaggar, even though he hadn’t lost a mate that Harlan knew of. He’d never mentioned a mate, but he’d been gone all those years...

  Those younger males had lost their mothers. Grandmas. Sisters. Aunts. Friends. But they still had a future. Harlan? Burton? There was nothing for them. Leilani was Jaggar’s. He didn’t know how Eventine was in Leilani’s body but he knew damn well that Leilani’s body could not be borrowed. No matter what was going on with Evie, she was not back. She was still dead. Dead to him. And his heart hurt in a way it hadn’t in ten years, maybe fifteen. His lungs felt wooden, leaden, full of something. Cement maybe. Fuck. He was going to smother on his own inner bullshit and no one would ever know. Maybe he’d imagined what he thought he’d heard and seen. He’d imagined it. Yes. That was the answer. Ok. What was the question?

  The hallway carried him back to Trent’s room. The door was partially open and Harlan could see that forest-green wall and ceiling and the climbing ivy and the plants. Evie would like it in there, it was a little like her office in the tunnels. Except he’d imagined the answer and there was no question.