Matefinder

by Leia Stone

  “You think if we wanted her dead that you four could stop it?” roared the female council woman.

  She began to walk towards me. Kai growled and stood in front of me.

  ‘If anyone makes a move against us, I want you to run. You are fast, you can get out. They won’t expect it,’ he told me.

  ‘If anyone makes a move against us, I’m going to rip their head off. I’m not leaving you,’ I sent back to him.

  The council member stood a few feet from Kai.

  “Kai, I thought better of you. You are such a wise and powerful wolf. We have asked you thrice to join the council and thrice you have denied us. It would be a shame to dispose of you.”

  I growled deeply and prepared to pounce. No one was disposing of my mate.

  Kai’s father stepped forward. “She’s a werewolf!” he roared. I could feel power radiating off of him. Would he fight for us?

  The council woman looked back over her shoulder at him. “Don’t protect your son. Has she bewitched you, too? I know what I smell! My nose does not lie.”

  I looked the council woman in the eyes. I didn’t care if it was against the rules. This bitch needed to know she wasn’t hurting my family; no one was. The second I locked eyes with her, her face fell. She stumbled back in shock. That’s when the vision hit me.

  ‘Oh shit, bad timing,’ I muttered before collapsing in weakness. The council woman’s name was Jane and she was lonely. A lifetime of loneliness had made her bitter. When she rose to a position of council woman, it had satisfied her to a certain degree but she yearned for more. She yearned for a mate and children. She had many lovers but nothing compared to the bond you had with a mate. She knew something was missing and I knew where her mate was. And every other persons mate in this room. It was painful. My visions had never hurt before. This one crippled me. My head threatened to explode. I heard Kai whine.

  I was vaguely aware of Jane approaching me and Kai growling.

  “At ease, wolf. She is one of us. I see that now. What is happening to her?” she asked Kai. Was that concern in her voice?

  Kai took a deep breath. “She’s a Matefinder,” There was a collective gasp of the surrounding wolves, “And with all due respect, if you touch her, I will kill you.”

  In my vision I could see the councilwoman’s mate playing cards with his fellow pack members in a small pack in Utah. He was a mid-level pack member with a nice smile. Then I saw her wedding and later, her laughing children running through the snow. I became aware of energy signatures. Each wolf in this building had different energy. I was out of my body now. I could see my wolf lying on the floor shaking as Kai whined. My soul walked around to each wolf and touched their face or looked into their eyes. With each contact I was given the exact location of their mate. If they were already mated, I moved on. Sometimes, I was given multiple people in their pack’s mate location. An hour must have gone by. I made my way back to my body. Kai was human and half dressed. My wolf form lay in his lap and he stroked my fur. There was a crowd now. Jane sat patiently in human form a few feet from my body. Just as I was going to fall back into my body, I heard a wind chime behind me and I turned towards the noise.

  The Shaman Nahuel was standing a few feet from me.

  “Trust your people with the truth. It’s all you have to protect you. The war has begun. The future you see in your visions can change. The future is always changing. Emma may not survive long enough to see her pup born. You may not survive long enough to wed Kai. Now more than ever, the wolves are on the brink of extinction. The vampires have waged war.” He raised his hand and bowed his head and then he was gone.

  “Aurora! You come back to me this instant!” Kai was screaming now. I fell into my body all at once and woke up. I immediately began to shift into human form. Jane threw a tablecloth over me.

  I looked at Jane. “I know who your mate is,” I told her and her hand flew to cover her mouth.

  “Is this a sick joke? The Matefinder is dead. She’s a witch.” A council member screamed on the stage.

  Jane extended her hand and looked at Kai. “Let me use my power on her. To make them see.”

  I looked at Kai confused.

  “She’s a Projector,” he told me. “She can project your vision to anyone’s mind. She will be able to see inside your head. You won’t be able to keep anything from her. Makes for a useful gift when interrogating people.” Kai mumbled the last part.

  She would know I was part witch. She would know there was a war starting with the vampires. She would know everything about my past. I looked in her eyes and saw a kindness there. She wanted to believe me, she wanted to find her mate. I had to trust her.

  I reached for her hand. The second my skin touched hers, I felt her presence in my mind and that’s when it became too much. My body became heavy and a blackness hit me as I crumbled into Kai’s waiting arms.

  Emma

  I came to and was aware of whispering. I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying on a bed in a hotel room. The council members surrounded me, and Kai was inches from my face as usual. I had a splitting headache.

  “Ten hours.” Kai breathed, and his eyes turned yellow.

  I grabbed my head. “Huh?”

  “You were unconscious for ten hours. Don’t ever do that again,” he scolded.

  “I don’t plan on it. Talk softly. My head is killing me.”

  Jane stepped forward. “Aurora, I saw everything. I projected your vision of the mates to the wolves in attendance here today. I withheld any knowledge of the Shaman’s prophecy about the vampire war. That, I have only shared with the council.”

  She pulled at the hem of her shirt anxiously.

  Kai’s face looked strained. His father wore an angry expression. I tuned into our pack bond and felt something… Rage.

  I sat up straighter. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  Kai held my hand softly. He spoke through gritted teeth. “While we were away here at the conference, the vampires kidnapped a female from our pack. It happened right after you collapsed.”

  “No!” I screamed, and my blood ran cold. “Who is it? Who did they take?”

  I knew before the word left his mouth. I could feel her energy through the pack bond. Fear.

  “Emma,” he whispered.

  I started to sob. How dare they! She was pregnant. She was ours! The lamp on the side table near the bed suddenly exploded. Everyone flinched except for me. My chest was rising and falling as I tried to contain my rage. A fine mist leaked out from my pores. The vampires were sending us a message. They were sending ME a message. How dare they take a pregnant female from MY pack. I felt murderous. A painting flew off of the wall and crashed to the floor.

  “Aurora!” Kai barked. I looked up. Two of the council members had shifted into their wolf forms and the rest regarded me fearfully. Kai’s father was the only one who looked intrigued. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Take me home, Kai. We need to get Emma back.”

  ***

  The second we landed at the airport in Portland, Kai was on his phone. The pack had been frantically following vampire scents all day but it hadn’t led to much. They found a few well known vampire bars and covens, but none that had Emma. She was taken from her home. Max and Devon nearly died trying to protect her. They were still recovering.

  We pulled our car up to the house. The entire pack was there. We had pulled in all of our peripheral wolves and every wolf from Portland. We had received a call from Shamus that he would send some of his wolves to help us get Emma back. Kai stood on a picnic table in the backyard and addressed the pack.

  “Someone has been taken from us today and we will not rest until she is back home. A pregnant female member of the pack is the most cherished, the most loved. The vampires have sent a message. They intend to wipe out our race.”

  The wolves shouted out in rage. A few shifted and howled.

  “That isn’t going to happen. I protect what is mine and Emma is MINE! Sh
e is yours!” Kai roared and his Alpha magic rippled through the pack bond sending a murderous rage with it. I had to fight the urge to shift. My wolf wanted out. I had to find Emma. I could vaguely feel her through the bond and what I felt wasn’t good. If they hurt her, if she lost her baby… I couldn’t even think about it.

  An idea crossed my mind. I broke into a run as Kai shouted my name. I ran from the backyard and towards Emma’s house and burst through the door. I went into the bathroom she shared with Devon and found what I was looking for, her hairbrush. The tiny red hairs gave me hope.

  ***

  Sylvia came the second I called. She didn’t come alone. She brought two other witches with her. Shamus had driven from Seattle with his wolves and we all gathered around our living room.

  I approached Sylvia. “The vampires have taken a pregnant female member from our pack. We have to find her. I have Emma’s hairbrush. I want you to do a spell to find her location.”

  Sylvia looked calm but the other two witches seemed nervous.

  Sylvia nodded. “This morning we were sent a message from the vampires as well. They told us they were waging war with the wolves and if we interfered, they would burn our coven to the ground. Similar messages were given to other covens across the country.”

  Kai nodded. “We understand if you need to protect your coven.”

  Sylvia smiled. “Threatening to burn a witch doesn’t exactly make us like you. Vampires have always acted above us. They think they are the strongest race. Our coven will help you and any other wolf packs in need.”

  I stared at the two witches she brought with her. “And do you agree?”

  The older of the two nodded. “I won’t lie. I sense trouble for our coven if we help you. Witches are supposed to be neutral. But what’s neutral about watching an entire supernatural race get wiped out? Who will protect the humans if the wolves are gone? We must take a side, even if we don’t live to see the results.”

  Sylvia’s eyes flared white. “We will live. Everyone always underestimates a witch.” The hairs on my arms stood at her statement. Kai looked at me thoughtfully.

  Sylvia grabbed the brush from me. She spread out a map of the United States and pulled a pendulum from a black velvet sack. One of the witches walked around the room pouring a circle of white salt in a ring, encasing the wolves and witches inside. Sylvia pulled a few hairs from the brush and wound them around the pendulum. She turned to Kai. “I need powerful blood for this spell.”

  He extended his arm and she sliced him, taking a few small drops onto the point of a sharp, clear crystal.

  The three witches stood in a semi-circle, holding hands around the map.

  “This casting is blessed. Protect us from harm or prying eyes. With the power of three, I invoke thee!” Mist poured out of the three witches’ hands and I inched forward. There was a circle of mist hovering above the map.

  Sylvia took a deep breath and chanted. “A wrong has been done, help us make it right. Find this girl, on this night. The vampires stole her from her bed, we offer these hairs from her head. Point out her location, show us now. Help us find her, show us how!”

  She hovered the pendulum over the map and it spun wildly. The witches were holding hands in a circle above the map. The last witch had a hand resting on Sylvia’s shoulder to complete the circle while she held the pendulum. Mist was starting to move in a funnel above the witches’ heads.

  “We’re being blocked,” Sylvia grumbled.

  “Dark witches aid these vampires. Black magic keeps their location secret,” another witch said.

  “No!” I shouted and the mist started seeping out of my skin. This wasn’t happening. Emma would be the first werewolf in our pack to have a child. She brought so much hope and happiness to this pack. She was such a sweet person. She had become my best friend. We weren’t giving up that easy.

  Sylvia’s eyes met mine and something unspoken passed between us. I walked towards the circle and placed my hand inside Sylvia’s and held the pendulum with my other. I felt another hand clasp over my shoulder. The new circle was complete.

  “Emma is ours. We’re not giving up on her. She’s a good person and no amount of dark magic can conceal her from me!” I shouted. A blast of mist shot out of my hand and the spinning pendulum stilled. I heard the wolves suck in a breath and I glanced over to Kai.

  He looked disappointed.

  ‘I’m still a werewolf. I’m just a witch, too,’ I told him. He pursed his lips and nodded.

  I looked down to where the pendulum was pointing: Los Angeles, California. “Gotcha,” I said. If she was hurt, heads would roll. Who was I kidding? Heads would roll either way.

  Just then, I saw the face of a dark-haired witch in my mind’s eye. I grabbed my head and shrieked. Sylvia broke the circle and tossed the pendulum into a pile of white salt. “Be gone!” she shouted and the pressure in my head eased. The dark-haired witch was gone from my mind.

  ***

  Kai and Shamus stood together addressing their packs. Everyone had come together in an effort to go after Emma. Kai had ordered forty-five wolves to stay back and protect the territory. If this was a trap, we didn’t want any more wolves getting taken while we were gone. Sadie was out of town on her honeymoon. Kai tried to get me to stay back but I insisted on going. Devon was healing nicely and Kai allowed him to go. Kai went into the basement and returned with two large duffle bags. He unzipped them and pulled out a crossbow, silver stakes, and various other weapons.

  “Whoa!” I exclaimed. “You’ve had these this entire time?”

  Kai nodded. “We have never needed them before. Vampires and werewolves generally leave each other alone. Guess we will be carrying them more often.”

  He began tossing them out to select wolves in the pack. He gave a bag to Shamus. “I want half the rescue party to be human with weapons and half on all fours. These bloodsuckers will pay for taking Emma.”

  Duff

  We were on the way to the airport, seventy-six wolves in all. Kai had his hand protectively on my thigh. I played with my engagement ring that I had strung on a silver chain around my neck. When I had shifted at the council meeting, it had fallen to the ground, later retrieved by Kai. I didn’t want that to happen again. Most of the mated wolves had rings around their necks and tattooed rings on their fingers. Since I was immune to silver, I thought it might make a nice secondary weapon.

  “If I could lock you up in the closet and leave you behind, I would. But then you wouldn’t trust me and I couldn’t live with that,” Kai told me.

  I glanced at him and took a deep breath. He smelled so good.

  “We’re getting Emma back, together,” was all I said. Truth was, I had a horrible feeling. There was a pit in my stomach and something told me we should turn back.

  “With all of the flying we have been doing, I might invest in a plane. Luke has his pilot’s license.”

  We had pulled around to a private entrance of the airport, where the private planes were kept. One of Shamus pack members was going to sneak all of our weapons on our private chartered jet. We dropped the bags off with him and made our way to the main entrance. It was late and this part of the airport was all but deserted. A man in a nice suit approached us asking for our names and the name of our private pilot. There were about fifteen SUVs in our party. I glanced in the rearview mirror at the line of cars behind me. As Kai rolled the window down, I got a whiff of something. Vampire. Kai must have smelled it too because instead of talking to the man, he gassed the car and charged the gate. The metal doors scraped against the car and I heard a thump on our roof. I glanced behind us to see dozens of vampires raining down on the cars from the roof of the airports small side building.

  “What the hell! Can they fly?” I asked Kai as he swerved hard to the right and the vampire holding onto the roof of our car tumbled off. Kai, myself, Devon, Max, and Isabelle were all in our car.

  “They can jump really high, kinda the same thing.” Kai got on his phone. He started s
peeding towards a long plane on the tarmac. The cars behind us made a barricade by parking themselves sideways to block the vampires from coming near the plane.

  I looked at Kai. He nodded. We were going to have to save Emma alone. Just the five of us. “Go! Start down the runway!” he screamed to the pilot over his phone. Luckily Kai had told me the pilot for hire was a wolf or this might be hard to explain. The plane started rolling and Kai slammed on the breaks. We opened the doors and got out of the car and started running. The door to the plane opened and a stewardess put her arm out and lifted Izzy up into the plane. Next was Max and then Devon. Max reached his arm out for me and I was about to take it when I heard Kai scream. I turned around to see a vampire on Kai’s back; he was biting Kai’s neck. I shifted instantly and changed direction. Max was screaming my name as I lunged through the air and pulled the vampire off of Kai as he shifted into his wolf form. The vampire took one look at me and smiled. Then he glided into the air away from us and back into the bigger fight. What the hell? Since when do they run?

  I could hear Max screaming now and looked to see the planes wheels just barely leave the tarmac about 100 feet away from us. The door was open. Kai and I shared a look. We took off running. I had never run so fast in my life. I almost tripped over my own paws, I was running so fast. I reached the plane first. With one giant leap, I lunged in through the small opening and scraped my back. I rolled and tumbled, smacking my shoulder into an interior seat.

  I quickly moved out of the way as Kai soared through the air and landed hard. He whimpered but seemed okay. The vampire bite on his shoulder was bleeding. It oozed a blackish fluid. I began shifting back into my human form when I noticed that the female stewardess smelled like a human. She pulled a first aid kit from an upper cabinet and laid it in front of Kai. Once we had both shifted I looked at Max. “Get us some clothes. Did the weapons make it on the plane?”