by Lisa Ladew
In the door. Push it all the way open. Leilani sleeping quietly in the bed, face smooth and unlined, Trent at the window, sitting alert, standing the most serious guard Harlan had ever seen and his freaking heart hurt and he was old already would this shit ever stop hurting?
Trent looked at him. Harlan could only shake his head. Could not speak.
He hit the wall, bounced, headed back out.
No one knew. No one knew he had hallucinated Evie inside Leilani. No one knew he had kissed Leilani. No one knew the Beast had shifted because Harlan had kissed his mate in front of him. He could walk right out the door, never come back, and they wouldn’t know the difference. Would they even miss him? Was he even here? Did that really just happen? Shit, there was nothing like a dead-mate-comes-back-in-your-best-friend’s-mate’s-body drama to shake shit up, get a good old existential crisis going. He didn’t even know what the fuck existential meant, but he bet he was going all existential up in his brain at that moment. Just call him Albert Fucking Einstein.
A do-over was what he needed. A turn-back. Time fucking travel, he needed it, and wasn’t that just some ironic bullshit that made him want to punch fate in the face. Where was JK Rowling with a time-turner when shit got real? He would turn that thing, once, twice… and not do what he had done. Not kiss her again. Wait. Would he kiss her again?
…
Yes.
You never ever ever, got a second chance at a first kiss. Harlan covered his mouth with his hand and burst into pathetic tears right there in the hallway.
***
“Dude.”
Harlan was wrung out. Over it all. Ready to call it a day. He leaned against the corner in the hallway and pressed his palm against his forehead like he had a headache, head bent so no one could see his face. But someone wanted to talk to him. Conri.
“Dude, you ok?”
Dude. Don’t make me call you a name so you’ll cry and go away. Dollar-store Bruin outta do it. Cheap Bru. Knock-off Bru. He felt guilty already and he hadn’t even said it.
Harlan mirrored Conri, his voice dark, his head still down. “Dude,” was all he said in response. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.
But wait, why not? Conri was perfect. He didn’t know Harlan well, or Jaggar, he didn’t even know who Evie was. He didn’t know wolven drama and legends, whispers and rumors that reached back centuries.
Harlan tried to speak. “I ah, I had a mate.” His voice strengthened. “Way back when the females died, I had a mate and I ah, I think she's not really dead and she’s in the body of that, of Leilani back there.” He said it softly and quickly. No one else needed to hear and if he strung his syllables together fast enough maybe Conri would have no idea what he’d said.
Conri rubbed the back of his head. “Ah shit. So that’s why you and the other wolf have been circling around her like that.”
Harlan was confused. Conri thought of Jaggar as a wolf? So did Harlan, sometimes, but he didn’t think Conri would.
Before he could ask about it, Conri spoke again. “So… you gonna get your mate a body?”
Wait. What? Hold the phone, scratch the fucking record, burn the house down cuz I saw a spider, and back that thing up, Conrad. “Um. What?”
Conri nodded eagerly. “Yeah, call Mrs. White in here. She can do stuff like that. She’ll take a look, tell you what she recommends. She’s expensive, but she’s good.”
Harlan was interested now, but also a little pissed. This was one big ass bear who was gonna get a stressful day taken out on his hide if he was yanking Harlan’s dick. And how could he not be?
“Mrs. White,” he said carefully. The name was familiar to him, but he could not place it.
Conri relaxed a bit, thinking Harlan was being reasonable maybe, when in reality, Harlan was putting his considerable mess of a temper on a leash until he knew what was what.
“You know, Mrs. White. She was the one who called in Khain when B3 lost his damn mind.”
“B3. Your dad.” Still trying to figure it out. It should get clear any second. Work with me here, Conrad. Give me more than a sentence. Try a paragraph maybe. Two. Shit, I can sit still for a full page, I swear.
“Yeah.” Conri hit him on the shoulder.
Harlan stared at the bear, cracking under the strain. “MAC,” he shouted into the living room, not taking his eyes off of Conri.
Mac bounced up, pup Treena in his arms, chewing the buttons off his button-down. Now it was just a down. “Conri, you should grow a beard,” he said. “You would look more like Bru.”
Harlan snapped his fingers in front of Mac’s face. “Pay attention. What the hell is the bear talking about?”
It took a few painful minutes, but Harlan was able to get across to Mac what was going on, what Harlan wanted to know. Mac had been at the bearen estate when Khain had been called there by… Wait a minute. Had he never heard that part of the story? He thought back to briefing, Wade talking to all of them. Khain was called by B3. But how could B3 even do that? No phone lines in the Pravus. But the whole conversation was blank in his mind. Like it hadn’t happened but it should have. Yep. You’ve hit whole new levels of not making sense, Harlan. Nice one. Fifty-three is gonna be a good year for you.
Mac shook his head, scratching Treena behind her teeny, tiny wolfy ears. One twitched and she sneezed, then licked Mac’s thumb. “I never saw any Mrs. White. There was no old woman when we were out there.”
Harlan turned to Conri, eyebrows raised high. One ass-kicking, getting shoved into the chute. He checked with Nowl.
Can we take him?
Not even in our dreams.
But you’ll try, right?
Nowl only laughed.
You scared?
Yes.
Harlan caught a glimpse of Conri’s bear, projected from Nowl. Whoa. Yeah, he was one big fucker. Still.
But Nowl, you’re meaner
Conri shook his head at Mac. “No, she was there. You just didn’t see her. Ask Bruin.”
Mac whipped his phone out of his pocket, put it to his ear. “Bru, you still there? Yeah, you heard that? Ok…. ok…. ok.”
Mac looked at Harlan nodding because Bru was still talking in his ear, but he told Harlan, “Bruin says there was an old woman. The Willow’s Woman. I never saw her because I was outside. He says she disappeared at some point before I went in.”
Rogue came up behind Mac, trying to take Treena from him. “Ella says it’s naptime.”
“Right,” Conri was nodding at Mac. “She’s magic. She’s a Woman of the Willows. Or the White Willows. Or the White. Or the moon when it shines.”
Mac shook his head. “Wait, what?”
Harlan knew exactly how he felt. Wait, what?
Rogue took the wriggly pup, and told Mac, “Just imagine Bruin saying it.”
Mac smiled. “Oh, ok. Got it. So what, this is some kind of bearen legend?”
Harlan held up a hand, speaking to himself, just out loud. He still was not convinced this all was not a dream. “Hold on, just because Mac can speak Bruhi does not mean anything Conri just said made sense.”
But Conri shook his head. He didn’t think it was a dream. “Oh no, Mrs. White, she’s a witch, or something. No one knows what she is. She has some sort of magic and B3 caught her doing something he still won’t talk about so he was able to get her to dissolve her magic over the bearen, but that was all years ago. But you wolves, her magic still works on you. You won’t even notice her, even if she’s right there talking to you. All you’ll see and smell is a human, even a wolfen. Maybe she clouds your instinct somehow, makes you not even be able to hear her name when someone says it or remember what she looks like. ”
Mac was nodding along. “She’s not human?”
“Foxen.”
Harlan shook his head, but his thoughts were with Evie. When he spoke, to himself again, his words didn’t have any conviction. “I don’t believe in magic.” A foxen who disguised her scent as wolven, magic or not, though, he made note of tha
t. Not good. Not allowed. He would be having a talk with Mrs. White about that little talent.
Rogue nodded at Harlan, trying to get pup Treena to lay on her back in her arms and keep still. It wasn’t happening. Treena bit her on the thumb. Ouch. Rogue swore and put Treena on the floor and whispered to her. “Get on your bed right now and I won’t tell your momma you bit me.” Treena loped off toward her room, tripped over one of her claws and went sprawling, bounced up, tiny pink tongue out, fuzzy ears perked, and jumped up the stairs, one clumsy leap at a time.
Rogue, smiling lightly, watched the pup till she was at the top, then turned to Harlan. “I feel you, really I do. But I gotta point out that I don’t believe in sexy badass men who can turn into wolves. And yet, somehow, one still pulls my hair and spanks my ass every night.”
Touché, bitch, not to mention TMI. Harlan snarled at her cuz he was feeling grumpy and surreal and dramatic and now he was gonna have to dump his brain in the trash bin after that bit of Mac imagery. She snarled back cuz that’s how she was. She wasn’t really a bitch in Harlan’s eyes, just tough like a man should be, something not everyone accepted in a female, but the line in his head felt like it needed a bitch, so he’d added a bitch. Not out loud, though. He liked his nuts where they were, thank you.
Mac snarled, cuz that’s what you did when your mate snarled, and cuz he was a bit of a fucking dweeb, but he’d been a happy dweeb since Rogue had been around-which was both a blessing and a curse, because now people were starting to notice how grumpy Harlan was.
Now what?
They had no plan to find this Mrs. White the bears said existed, not even a shitty one.
And he still hadn’t told anyone that Jaggar was gone.
34 - What Special Wolf Hell is This?
Harlan pulled the big truck around the back of Trevor’s house, along the new extended driveway that led to the back where VF was growing into a proper subdivision. Each cabin had a driveway and a garage now, and driveways led to five more empty lots in the back where cabins were planned to be built. Harlan didn’t know who was funding it, but their optimism was cute.
Conri was next to him and Rogue and Mac were in the back seat. He hated when they sat together cuz they were always touching each other, couldn’t keep their hands or their lips off each other, but at least they were in the back and not right up next to him.
Fifty-two hours. That’s how long it had been since Harlan had kissed his best friend’s mate in front of his best friend, not his best friend anymore cuz Harlan was the worst friend on the planet. His picture was next to the word, “frenemy,” in the dictionary, and those dictionary people had dug to find the most unflattering image possible.
Everyone knew that Harlan had kissed Leilani and Jaggar had seen it and left and that Leilani was probably Jaggar’s mate. For some reason, the little teeny unimportant detail that he had done it because he thought it was really Evie, Harlan’s mate, talking to him from Leilani’s body, had escaped most everyone’s notice.
He’d finally managed, with Conri’s help, to tell Mac and Rogue what she’d said. The words that had come from Leilani’s mouth. Evie’s words. But no one believed him.
Mac and Rogue had shared a look. They were hive mind already. He wanted to call them one name, like the media did with celebrity couples. Problem was, it didn’t work. Rac. Mogue. He could give them nicknames and try to blend the nicknames. Ditch. Bick. Nope. still didn’t work. Why couldn’t they be named Priscilla and Richard? Oh my fuck inner self, thoughts, teeny electrical impulses I hear as inner monologue, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up! Before I go insane!
Harlan pulled the truck into Crew’s new driveway and put it in park, his face set, not giving a hint to the barrage of crazed thoughts in his mind. He’d always been one to talk to himself, talk to Nowl, have inside jokes with himself, but it had never been quite so… relentless before. His brain was cracking.
Trent and Troy were guarding Leilani. Harlan trusted the brothers completely. Jaggar had not returned, a fact that made Harlan's guts churn. He was not eating, barely sleeping. He knew he was going full deep drama, but he could not stop himself. Someone would notice soon. Put him out to pasture like Burton. They'd taken away Burton's range rights a few years back, thinking he'd gotten too unstable. Would Harlan get range rights? Shooting was something to do all day long when you didn't have a job anymore. Or was he already too unstable?
Who would decide? Who knew him the best? No one. Not anymore, not with Jaggar gone. He hung with Canyon and Timber sometimes, never Sebastian, cuz that fucker hated everyone. Mac was ok in short doses. Mac, maybe, would decide if Harlan was stable enough to use the range when they committed him to the farm, like they had Burton. Mac had been in charge of the KSRT since the young had been imminent, Wade and Trevor both having too much else to do, and Rogue balancing Mac out well, keeping him from going all loose-cannon when he got upset.
Mac was in charge of the little expedition they were about to head on, which meant they were gonna do whatever Rogue thought they should do. Luckily she was smart as shit. Thought like a criminal and was always one step ahead of them.
Leilani was practically catatonic. Her sisters could get her to go to the bathroom, get her to drink and eat a little, but that was it. Her eyes sometimes opened for twenty minutes here and there, but they never focused on anything. When you looked in them, you knew they were empty.
The investigation at the Roosevelt said Leilani’s files had been removed, and when officers had gone there before to show Leilani’s picture, the orderly who had looked at it said they had no patient like that there, never had.
Harlan flipped through the news on his phone while he waited for Crew to get his shit together. It was not good. Jaggar was heading West, and he wasn’t staying undercover. They’d had sightings of him all the way up in Canada, and every day they got a bit farther away.
Mountain Lion with Rabies Roaming Winnipeg Streets
Bigfoot sighting in Fargo, Destroys Street Lamps Downtown
Abandoned Farms Destroyed by Large Animal
If they knew more about his past, maybe they would have some idea where he was heading, but no one did. Harlan knew him best, and Harlan couldn’t imagine. Alaska maybe?
Wade wanted to send Trent and Troy to track him, to convince him to come back, to keep him safe and out of trouble. Trevor said that wasn’t enough, they needed a whole team to head out but they couldn’t spare one, they didn’t have enough wolfpower. Wade said they had to send them NOW and Trevor said no way, the internet is tracking him. And still no one could tell what he was, what he really looked like.
They’d seen trail images of him, but all had been dark or him facing away. He only moved at night.
He looked even bigger than a bear, taller and longer, almost looked like a bison, all shaggy brown and black and reddish hair and lumps and bumps all over his body, but his hindquarters were misshapen and too big, and no bison ever had teeth or ears like that. His eyes sometimes glowed silver, and that was the thing that was freaking people out the most, a silver sheen that could be seen in two fuzzy pictures, so far.
Wade was having a fucking canary.
Harlan was avoiding the shit out of him.
Crew finally made it to the door and stumbled outside, his hair mussed, still buttoning his pants. He stumbled down to the truck. Yeah, it was o-dark-thirty. Oh well. Fools got up early and bigger fools let them. It was Crew’s day off, but something had told him he would need Crew. He’d woken up certain of it. So he’d made it happen.
Crew slid into the front next to Conri and Conri moved into the middle. Harlan grunted his irritation, not even sure why Conri was with them. Mac grabbed him whenever he could. So far he’d been game, but only because Mac kept saying how much they always got hurt when they were out on police business.
“What is going on?” Crew pouted. Big fucking baby. Harlan had no sympathy for him. He might have been pulled out of his bed, but there was a female in t
hat bed. Crew might have had to go through hell to get her, but she was there, had been there for months. Crew was blessed, so fuck his grumpiness. Only Harlan got to be grumpy.
Harlan pulled out of VF and headed into town. He knew exactly where they were going. You Need It, Mrs. White’s business. They’d already been there once, but the place had been shut down, a Closed Until Further Notice sign in the door. The address they had for her in the computer actually belonged to her granddaughter, but no one had been there either. They’d spent the last two days heading from empty house to empty house, following lead after lead, until Harlan’d had enough.
“So why?” Crew said. “Why are we looking for her?”
Conri whispered into his ear. “What?” Crew said. Conri nodded. Harlan angled his body so he couldn’t see them. Shit, he was right here, he knew what Conri was saying. Was this how it started? Did they all think he was crazy already? (he was) Were they talking about him behind his back?
“Right,” Conri said, his tone twisted up, pointedly talking to Crew. “So I told him we should find Mrs. White and talk to her. Maybe she can stick Harlan’s mate into someone’s body who isn’t using it anymore. Like a coma person.”
Crew didn’t even act like that was the most moonstruck thing he’d ever heard come out of someone’s mouth. Instead, he nodded. “Her granddaughter was the one Khain used to lure Dahlia to her death.”
“Keep talking,” Harlan grated. They had been looking through Mrs. White’s history with the wolven for a few days, but it was slow going. He needed intel.
“I’ve been in her mind. It seemed normal then, but left echoes.”
I’ve been in her mind. Perfect. Something only Crew would say, and no one else could dream of understanding. “Echoes?” Harlan asked.
Crew shook his head. “I can’t explain it. I couldn’t even see it at the time, thought she was nothing but a human, but when I revisit it now, I can see that hers was a mind who knew Khain.”
By the time he was done speaking, Harlan was steaming. Knew Khain? Wolven couldn’t sense her? This wild goose chase they’d been on? This was some bullshit, and he was going to personally dedicate himself to finding this twisted foxen and forcing her to spill her game.