Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Lisa Ladew. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original One True Mate remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Lisa Ladew, or their affiliates or licensors.
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One True Mate: Shifter’s Solace
Copyright 2017 by Georgette St. Clair
This book is intended for readers 18 and older only, due to adult content. It is a work of fiction. All characters and locations in this book are products of the imagination of the author. No shifters were harmed during the creation of this book.
License Statement
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Chapter One
“Yo, Rory, make me a sammich, will ya?”
Rory threw half an onion at his fellow firefighter’s head, and missed. “You wanna cook instead, Ben?”
There was a chorus of dismay and the sound of someone mock-barfing.
From the Chief’s office, a deep voice called out, “I forbid it.”
“Thought so.” Rory shook his head sadly. “Man, those biscuits you made – could’ve used them for hockey pucks.”
Ben picked up the half onion and took a big, crunchy bite, then grinned while the rest of the shift groaned with disgust. He would famously eat anything, which meant that his cooking had to be tasted to be believed. Tunafish and jelly sandwiches, a substance he swore was oatmeal but they’d privately agreed was tile grout…he could even fuck up bacon. They’d unanimously voted him off the kitchen rota.
“That was my grandmother’s recipe,” he said with his mouth full, hand on his heart as though mortally offended.
Rory pointed his knife at him. “I won’t listen to you slander an innocent old lady,” he rumbled, and went back to chopping onions for the lasagne he was building for the next day.
The trick to cooking for the squad was to make something that could be abandoned halfway through if a call came in, and reheated without turning into rubber. And something that could be made in bulk, of course – bearen ate a lot, and every man in Firehouse 206 near Serenity, Illinois was a bear shiften.
It had been a quiet shift. The ambulance had been dispatched a couple of hours before to a kid who had his head stuck in the park railings, and when a tub of Vaseline and a lot of pulling had failed to get him free, the truck had been sent out with a high-speed steel saw to cut through the wrought iron. There had been a call about a cat in a tree, but the Chief had got on the line and suggested that they open a can of tuna. Nothing else so far.
In fact the whole week had been quiet. Most of it had been spent up at the water tower, cleaning off the graffiti that kept reappearing there: They walk among us. Werewolves are real!
To clean it off, they had to use fire department equipment to either climb up or abseil down. They couldn’t work out how it was even getting up there, but it kept coming back.
Everyone on the squad knew, though, that a quiet shift could turn on a dime. It only took one call – one dropped match, one spark from faulty wiring, one tipsy smoker falling asleep with a lit cigarette, one building site collapse or industrial accident…
The squad were ready to drop everything and move out when the call came, their boots lined up next to the engine, their turnout pants and jackets ready to shrug on. Even when the station was quiet, they ran drills, and they could go from suppertime to sirens in less than a minute.
When the stove timer beeped, Rory abandoned his prep work and pulled out big pans of chicken stew, thick with vegetables and topped with golden-brown cheddar biscuits. Good, rich smells filled the air.
Ben inhaled deeply. “You’ll make somebody a lovely wife one day, princess,” he said.
The laughter in response was half-hearted, and Rory fought not to let the pain those words caused him show. “You’ll make someone a lovely rug one day,” he shot back as the guys helped themselves to platefuls of the fragrant stew and sat down to eat. But his heart wasn’t really in it.
The fact was, none of them were likely to find wives. Ever. Almost all the female shiften had been killed off years before, victims of the demon Khain. The demon’s plan was one final generation of shiften, mateless and suffering, and then nobody to stand in his way; the human race completely at his mercy without its protectors.
Rory joined the others at the table, and they ate their food in silence, listening to the clink and scrape of silverware against plates. Mostly it was just because bearen rarely let anything get in the way of filling their bellies – they were big and brawny, and since almost all of them worked as firefighters, they needed the fuel. Rory was quiet for a different reason, though. Their paramedic, Brady, always with an uncanny knack for knowing when one of the others was hurting, spoke up.
“They’re still out there, you know,” he said to Rory. “The women. The ones from the prophecy. The ones who’re meant for us. You shouldn’t give up hope.”
Rory shook his head. “They’re not meant for us,” he said. “They’re going to be for the wolven. They’re the humans’ protectors, not us.”
There was a sudden bang, and the table shuddered. Ben had slammed his fork down on the tabletop and was on his feet, glowering. His usual infuriating good humor was gone, and his face was dark with anger. “Bullshit,” he said furiously. “That’s bullshit. We’re their protectors too. We risk our lives every damn day to keep people safe. Fuck you, Rory. Fuck you.”
And he stormed out of the room, slamming the door so hard it bounced back open again, which kind of ruined the effect.
Nobody laughed, though. The emotion in the room was too raw for that. Rory stared down at the table, fists clenched on either side of his plate, afraid to open his mouth in case he roared.
Brady was the first one to speak, always the peacemaker. “He’s just hurting,” he told Rory. “He wants a mate – we all want a mate – and he’s scared it’s never going to happen for him.”
“Yeah, well for once the meathead is right,” Rory growled.
“Don’t be so sure,” said the Chief, drawing looks of surprise from along the table. He rarely got involved in arguments between the men, intervening only if he thought words would escalate into blows, or a disagreement would get in the way of their duties. “A bearen in Serenity has found a mate, one of the half-angel pledged.”
A prophecy twenty-five years before had foretold the coming of hundreds of women, half human, half angel, who would be True Mates for the shiften, bearing them offspring that would save their race.
There was a murmur of interest from the guys, but Rory snorted. “Yeah, and he buddies up to the wolven cops, works with the KSRT. Do you really think it’s gonna be the same for us? Nah, we’ll never get a look-in. Get used to the idea of making sweet love to your right hands, bearen. I
t’s the best you’re gonna get.”
A brief, tense silence. Then, “I’ve bunked with you, Rory,” came a voice from down the table. “Good thing you’ve been getting some practice in.”
The laughter eased the tension, and that was good. The squad needed to have each other’s backs. They couldn’t afford to fight amongst themselves or be distracted by uncomfortable realities. You didn’t need a lovelorn bearen watching your six when the building was in flames and the roof was coming down.
Rory found it difficult to shake the conversation, though. He joined in with the banter, but it was half-hearted and automatic. Was it really possible he could find a mate? He didn’t think so. He thought he was going to spend the rest of his days on the job. Then one day there’d be a flashover, or a falling joist, or a tumble through a burning floor, and he’d be killed. And maybe that would be for the best.
Chapter Two
The door scraped open reluctantly, leaving a sweeping arc in the dust on the floorboards. Ms. Renard, the property manager, stepped through in front of Ivy, and sneezed. The place smelled of dust, and old paper, and neglect. Something musty and animal, too. Ivy noticed a pile of old furs behind the cluttered counter, and scrunched her face up in disgust. One of them, from the faded russet color, had belonged to a fox. Poor little thing.
“Well, it’s yours now.” Ms. Renard said, handing over the keys. From the tone of her voice, she might have been disposing of a dead mouse.
And to be fair, the thought didn’t make Ivy want to jump for joy. Actually, it made her want to turn straight around and run screaming down the road.
Instead, she took a deep breath and stepped inside her mother’s shop, closing the door behind her.
“Well,” she said brightly. “I’m sure with some hard work and a lick of paint…” She trailed off.
…it will be an absolute dump, she thought.
Ms. Renard’s expression told her that she agreed. She was a fussy, sharp-faced little woman in a boxy business suit. She had an expensive-looking scarf knotted at her throat.
Suddenly, her pinched expression irritated Ivy. The shop wasn’t much, okay, but it had been important to her mom.
Her mom had called it The Antique Boutique, but it was a junk shop, the shelves piled high and overflowing with unloved toys, mismatched china, costume jewelry, and revoltingly cute ornaments of simpering shepherdesses and rabbits in waistcoats. She knew the living area upstairs was even worse, stacked high with old newspapers that formed the walls of a maze, with little rat-runs between the tiny bathroom, the stairs, the cooker, and the fold-out couch where her mother had slept.
Ivy’s mom had showed signs of being a hoarder since she’d first met her ten years ago, at the age of fifteen, after growing up in the system – sometimes in a succession of short-lived foster situations, but more often thrown in with a bunch of equally spiky and defensive kids in a group home. It seemed like she’d gotten worse over the years, though, and by the time she’d died the shop had been running at a loss for years, too full of old junk for even the keenest bargain-hunters to want to bother rummaging through it.
Now it was up to Ivy to clear the place out, put it on the market, and hope the purchase price would be enough to cover her mom’s debts. It’d probably be a better idea just to put a match to the place and walk away. It’d go up like dry tinder.
She realized Ms. Renard was still looking around the room with a critical eye, pointed nose turned up, her body language practically screaming “Yuck”.
“Yes, thank you, that’s fine,” Ivy said. “I can take it from here. Let me have a business card, please.”
The property manager jumped, then rummaged in her purse. She handed her card over with a distinctly sour expression, then strode towards the door, heels clacking.
Ivy sighed and rolled up her sleeves. She’d start upstairs, where she’d be more likely to find anything of sentimental value that she might want to keep. She doubted she would, though.
She trudged up the stairs, stacked on both sides with pairs of old shoes that “still had some wear in them”, in various sizes. The steps creaked and groaned under her feet. It was the only sound she could hear, since the noise of traffic from outside was muffled by the stacks of paper and the piles of clothes pushed against the walls.
She knew her mom had never been altogether stable – there was a reason she hadn’t been able to raise Ivy, after all. She’d had various diagnoses over the years, none of which had stuck, and she hadn’t been the greatest about taking her medication. Lately Ivy had been wondering if her…eccentricity was something genetic. If her mom’s fragile mental health might have been passed down in her blood. Bluntly, she was starting to wonder if she was losing her shit.
First of all there were the dreams. Dreams about completely mundane things – a broken coffee cup, a brief conversation, the specific piece of muzak playing in an elevator. She’d certainly had much weirder dreams, but the thing about these particular dreams was…she thought they were coming true. She remembered the feeling of numb shock as her coffee cup had slipped from her fingers and seemed to be falling in slow motion, before hitting the floor and cracking down the middle, spilling its contents in a constellation of fat droplets just so, just like it had in her dream.
But they couldn’t be coming true, of course, because that was nuts. Which meant she was nuts.
She shook the thought away. She’d got a busy few hours ahead of her, and spending the time fretting wouldn’t make it go any faster.
* * * * *
Two hours later, and she’d cleared away most of the stacks of paper between the cooker and the couch. Her hands and forearms were filthy with newsprint, and her hair was sticking to her sweaty face. She ran the back of her hand over her forehead, then swore when she realized she’d probably just smeared herself with ink. She flumped down onto the couch. It coughed out a cloud of dust, making her choke.
Next to the couch, she spotted a pile of clothes – relatively clean; presumably the things her mom had actually worn day-to-day rather than “stock”, which was how she’d referred to the rest of the junk she hoarded. Ivy reached down, intending to find something to tie around her mouth and nose before she tried to tackle the couch, but instead her fingers encountered something cool and smooth – a little wooden box.
She picked it up and looked at it curiously. She knew it wouldn’t contain a wedding band - her parents had never been married. In fact, she didn’t know very much about her father at all. Usually when she’d asked about him, her mom had changed the subject, or got either snappish or sad. The only times she’d talked about him had been when she was off her meds, and then the things she’d told Ivy had been… Well, obviously unreliable. Delusional. She’d said he was an—
She opened the lid of the box and gasped as she hooked her finger into the delicate chain and lifted the pendant from the box. It looked like real gold. It depicted the shining form of an angel, its head bowed, a glittering crystal sphere cradled between its tiny hands. Its wings swept up behind it, as if it was preparing for flight.
As the jewelry spun on the end of its chain, she saw that the other side of the pendant depicted the towering form of a bear, rearing on its hind legs, its jaws open in a ferocious bellow. Its eyes were tiny chips of the same crystal.
She lifted the piece, watching as it twisted on the end of its fine gold chain, first the angel, then the bear, then the angel. She felt hypnotized, as if an old-timey stage magician were swinging a watch in front of her eyes. Angel. Bear. Angel.
Ivy let the pendant dangle just above her hand, hesitating for a moment, then lowered it onto her palm. It felt cool and heavy.
She jerked as though a bolt of electricity had gone through her, and her fingers spasmed shut around the piece of jewelry. Her hand locked into a fist. She tried to cry out, but the sound choked off in her throat.
The room disappeared – the stacks and sprawling piles of paper, the battered old stove, the dusty couch – and was replac
ed by darkness and a sensation of dread. She couldn’t move, and she didn’t know whether she was bound with ropes or by fear. She was blind and helpless, and there was a wild, pungent scent in the air – musk and fur; something feral and unpleasant. Like an animal.
But worst of all was the feeling that came over her. A sense of being held against her will. Of helplessness, and impotent anger. And beneath that, vast and dark, like a gigantic rising shadow under the waves, a sense of great evil.
It was so strong, so fundamentally wrong, that it made her retch. The world slammed back, like a blow to the face, and she gasped for breath, the pendant dropping from her suddenly nerveless fingers and falling into a pile of papers.
She stared down at it, her heart banging in her chest, trying to slow her breathing from panicky gasps to something more measured. Had the pendant given her a…a vision? Or was this another delusion? Was she losing her grip on reality?
She hesitated, then she reached down for the golden angel, wrapping the chain around her fingers, careful not to touch the pendant itself. Okay, so probably she was going crazy, but she didn’t intend to take any chances. The vision, or delusion, or whatever it had been, had rocked her.
As she picked up the pendant, a spider ran over the back of her hand, all skittering multi-jointed legs and jerky stop-motion movement. She shrieked and jerked back, dislodging the spider, but now there were more. Another six, another dozen, running over the pile of papers and scattering across the room, fast and erratic on their eight spindly legs.
Ivy turned, then stopped in her tracks, frozen to the spot. The stacks of paper around the room were swarming with fat spiders, their bodies like glistening blood blisters, their legs spiky and horribly quick. There were hundreds of them. Thousands.
And where their legs brushed the paper, it started to smoulder. As the spiders scurried over the stacks, sparks and tiny flames started up, spreading quickly until ribbons of fire crackled across the stacks.
One True Mate: Shifter's Solace (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 1