by Zoe Chant
They aren’t the ones we’re looking for, it muttered, its voice the crackle of splintering wood. They’re not the ones our mate is hunting!
Caine clutched his forehead. The demon’s voice hurt as much as the other shifters’ telepathy did.
But there was something else, as well. When the hellhound said our mate, something like a matchstick flared inside Caine, in the center of his soul where he chained his hellhound away. A soft, golden light.
His hellhound wrapped itself around the light. Our mate, it growled softly. Ours.
Strong hands led him back to the kitchen table. He sat with his head in his hands.
“It won’t let her go,” he whispered. “Will it?”
“No.” Opal’s voice was gentle, but firm.
“Then I need to do what I came here to do.” Caine raised his head and met her eyes. “I need you to help me destroy it.”
18
Meaghan
“Ouch.” Meaghan clutched her chest and swayed.
“Are you all right?” Olly looked up at her from the pile of puppies. She still had her arms stretched over as many of them as she could reach, like a broody chicken on a nest of strange, barking eggs.
Or like an owl on… whatever owls did.
“I’m…” fine. The word was on the tip of her tongue. Meaghan frowned and rubbed her chest again. “Just a cramp, I think.”
“Is it your neck again?”
Meaghan stared at Olly in surprise. “I never told you there was anything wrong with my neck.”
Somehow, without moving at all or breaking eye contact, Olly managed to convey a whole-body eye-roll. “Meaghan, I have a tiny, asshole predator living inside my brain. It noticed you rubbing your neck about twenty seconds after we first met. Why do you think I kept slipping you instant handwarmers?”
Meaghan realized she was still rubbing her neck subconsciously. She snapped her hand down again. “So that my hands didn’t freeze when I was out with the dogs?”
“No, because heat is good for sore muscles! I know humans don’t heal up as well as shifters do, so I researched this very thoroughly! I always—” Olly’s face fell. “But maybe I’m wrong. Like with Jackson. I thought that I had that all sorted out, too.”
“You’re right. Heat does help. I guess my neck’s been bad for so long, I forget about it unless it’s really bad.”
“Like now?” Olly’s pale hazel eyes blinked at her and Meaghan dropped her hand again.
Her face felt hot and cold at the same time. There was no way she was going to explain to Olly that she’d been touching her neck because she was remembering how wonderful it felt when Caine massaged all the knots out of it.
All the knots were back now, of course. And the happy memory was all twisted up with the misery of Caine rejecting her. Hating her.
“Why?” she said out loud, and shook her head when she saw Olly’s face crease. “I mean, why did you care?”
“Because I like you,” Olly replied. “I’m not good at making friends, and I know you’d already decided I was your friend when you moved all your stuff into my living room, but I wanted to be friends back at you.”
Meaghan knelt beside her and scruffled Loony’s ears. “So you said it with handwarmers?”
“It’s better than saying it with a freshly killed mouse.” Olly smiled shyly.
“God, was that the other option? Handwarmers, please.” Meaghan laughed as Parkour scooched past Loony to wriggle onto her lap. She gave up on kneeling and sat down, letting the dogs climb over her like wriggly, wet-nosed blankets.
Like when they’d all cuddled up with Caine in the back of her truck.
Meaghan’s stomach lurched. Can’t be unhappy around sled dogs, huh? When will you learn how wrong you are about everything?
She hugged Parkour tighter, trying desperately to ignore the ache in her chest.
“For the record, someone moving into your house without even asking if you’re okay with them staying isn’t the sort of thing a friend does. It’s the sort of thing a weird, pushy person with no boundaries does.”
“Hmm. Sounds like you all right.” Olly lay back. She didn’t look happy, not exactly, but the tense wariness was easing from her face.
“Just don’t let anyone else do it.”
Olly peered at her over the sea of dogs. “I’m not a total pushover, Meaghan. I wouldn’t have let you take over my living room if I didn’t want you there.”
“Oh.” Meaghan had never even considered that. She always pushed herself in, and eventually people got annoyed enough that they pushed her out again.
They never actually wanted her to be there.
“Why are you saying all this, anyway?” Olly asked, her eyes narrowing. “This sounds suspiciously like the advice my parents loaded me down with before they packed me off up here.”
Meaghan rested her chin on Parkour’s head. She didn’t look at Olly, but she didn’t need to; she could practically feel the younger woman’s eyes boring into her.
“Caine thinks he’s a monster.”
She realized, too late, that she wasn’t just staring into space; she was looking out towards the valley she’d already started thinking of as Caine’s valley. She blinked and focused on Parkour’s ears.
“But we both know that’s not true, right?”
Meaghan blinked. “What?”
“You said he’s a hellhound shifter, and so are the guys who stole the dogs yesterday. They were monsters. When they looked at me it was like they could see straight into my worst memories. All the things I felt guilty about. Like not telling Jackson how I felt.” Olly grimaced. “And we both know how well that went. But Caine’s different.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because of how he was looking at you. I couldn’t tell what sort of shifter he was yesterday, but I knew he had to be something. There was just a hint of something different about him. Plus he had that dopey, smitten look. Like he’d do anything you asked.”
Meaghan laughed despite herself. “When I first saw him, I told him not to run away, and it was like his feet were glued to the ground.”
“There! See?”
Just for a moment, hope flared in Meaghan’s heart. Then she shook herself. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? Either he manages to get rid of his hellhound and he has no reason to want anything to do with me anymore, or he doesn’t, and I’m just an add-on to something he hates.”
Olly reached out and nudged Meaghan’s leg with her foot. “Come on. There’s a third option. Out with it.”
Meaghan stared at her and she rolled her eyes.
“You must be thinking it! Come on. You say he thinks he’s a monster. But what do you think? You must have seen his hellhound, if it decided you’re his mate.”
“I…” Burning eyes. Bright, heart-leaping joy. “I think so.”
“And was it a monster? Did it make you feel like your brain was being melted away with acid until the only thing left was all the things you hated about yourself?”
“No!” I don’t need a hellhound shifter for that.
“Well, then, what are you waiting for?” Olly laughed. “I don’t know why I’m asking. You’re you. Of course you’re going to go and get him.”
Go and get him?
“Olly, I—”
Meaghan buried her face in Parkour’s fur to stop herself talking. Her head was reeling.
Olly had so much trust in her. She acted like there was no question that Meaghan would storm back up the mountain and demand Caine take her back.
Because that was the Meaghan she knew. Headstrong. Take-no-shit-from-anybody. Pushing herself in where she wasn’t wanted. Running at life like it was a road full of potholes, thinking that at least if she went down hard she’d bounce out again.
It had gotten her this far in life. But it always came crashing down in the end. And it was too late to wish that when everything did come crashing down at last, it would hurt less.
Wasn’t she ever going to learn?
Face still buried in Parkour’s warm fur, Meaghan rubbed her chest. The wrenching pain that had struck before had faded, but a ghost of it was still there, like a pulled muscle that still hurt.
She’d never thought having a broken heart would be so literal. But…
Olly couldn’t be right, could she?
She thought back to that first moment she’d set eyes on Caine. To the smoky fire in his eyes that she’d told herself she was imagining. And the sheer joy that had poured out of them.
If that was his hellhound, his so-called “monster”, then maybe he was wrong about it. Maybe it wasn’t a monster at all, just something new and strange that he didn’t entirely understand.
Hope sparked in Meaghan’s chest, a brief, fluttering burst of light in the exact place that had hurt only a few moments ago.
And if Caine’s hellhound wasn’t a monster then maybe he—
Meaghan shook her head. Stop fooling yourself. Olly hasn’t even seen Caine’s hellhound. Jasper and the other Heartwells have, and you saw how they reacted.
Whatever they saw in him, it scared them. And if it didn’t scare you…
Her neck and shoulder muscles clenched. Pain shot down from the knot in her neck, straight to her chest, and the tiny golden spark of hope vanished.
When will you learn how wrong you are about everything?
If it didn’t scare you, then there must be something wrong with you.
19
Caine
DECEMBER 23
(CHRISTMAS EVE EVE)
Meaghan’s skin was soft under Caine’s hands. He ran the backs of his fingers along her waist, and her delighted shiver of laughter filled him with a joy deeper than anything he’d ever felt. He leaned over her, lowered his face towards hers, and frowned.
“Why are we back in the city?” He looked around. They weren’t lying on his bed; they were on pavement. Asphalt grated against Caine’s knees. Graffiti covered the alley walls.
I know this place.
He looked down. Meaghan was gone. He was alone. Not even his hellhound was with him.
Ice ran down his spine.
Not this nightmare again.
He tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn’t obey. His lungs cramped.
This is just a dream. I can make it stop. Just wake up, wake up, WAKE UP—
Silence poured from the end of the alleyway. Fiery eyes burned, turning even the puddles of light from the streetlights into pitchy shadows.
It’s a dream. I can control this. I’m not in the alleyway. I’m asleep in my bed. In my home.
He turned a corner and stopped. The alleyway was gone. Early morning sun filtered through narrow blinds, catching motes of dust in the air. He was in his old office, where he’d worked so many long hours.
Caine sat down at his desk.
What was I working on?
A property scam. That was it. Something Angus had asked him to look into. Let’s see if you can crack this, he’d said.
All the information was here. Everything they needed to take the scam down. Caine opened the manila file, sorting through newspaper articles and his own notes and photos.
Well, he’d cracked it. Last night. The last missing link had slotted into place and he’d been on his way home, before…
Dread pooled in his gut. Caine looked down. Blood was pouring from his leg, spilling over the chair, onto the dusty office floor.
“Caine? What the shit are you doing here?”
Caine looked up. Angus was standing in the door, his face slack with shock.
The room spun around Caine. It was all coming back to him. The terrifying, demonic creatures. The chase. The bite on his leg…
He stood up slowly.
And something woke up inside him.
“No!”
Caine woke up gasping. He sat up on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, stomach churning.
The nightmare had never gone on that long before. It had always stopped in the alley.
He stumbled to the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. The face that stared back at him from the mirror was wan and drawn.
Caine’s hellhound whined, and he flinched.
It must be a warning from my subconscious, he decided. He started drying his face and had to stop and brace himself against the vanity as a wave of faintness rolled over him. A reminder not to forget what my hellhound is capable of.
He didn’t remember much of what had happened after his hellhound woke up that first time. Just flashes.
He’d transformed. It had hurt. And the shock in Angus’ eyes had turned to fear, and he’d chased his oldest friend like a demon out of hell, until…
Caine shook his head. His memories were all muddled up. The hellhounds chasing him. Him chasing Angus. Fighting the hellhounds again, being chased again, chasing him again… The flashes of memory ran together and over each other in his head until he wasn’t sure he could trust his own mind.
Whatever had happened that morning, Angus had made it out alive. That was the important thing.
And now Caine knew what he had to do. Opal hadn’t wanted to tell him, but apparently there were stories of shifters who’d starved their animals out. Kept them locked inside, not letting them take form… and eventually the creatures just faded away.
It’s been a year since I transformed into the monster. It’s fought me since then, seen out of my eyes—but never taken form.
I just need to keep it that way, until…
“Guinness? You awake?”
Caine grimaced. The Heartwell men were taking it in shifts to watch over him. Opal’s orders. Whoever was down there now would probably spend the day trying to convince him to keep his hellhound.
The nightmare had reminded him why that was a bad idea.
“Guinness? Caine?”
“I’m up!” he called, and gave the mirror one last glance. There was no smoke or fire in his reflection. Just exhaustion.
Good, he thought, and trudged downstairs.
Hank Heartwell was this morning’s babysitter. He mildly bullied Caine into eating more than just coffee for breakfast, and then broke the news.
“Come on. We’re helping out at the Puppy Express today.”
“No.” Caine set down his fork. “That’s Meaghan’s workplace. I told you, I can’t see her.”
“Then don’t. Bob needs someone to clear a fallen tree from across the Sweethearts Lake track. They’ve got a big corporate booking for Christmas Day. Last-minute thing. And who knows, maybe some of them will be after a bit of a holiday romance.”
Caine looked at his plate without seeing it. “That’s good for the town.” Good for Meaghan.
“Corporate credit cards? Could be, yeah.” Hank stood up, looked at Caine, who wasn’t moving, and sighed. “Meaghan and Olly are in town today, checking the route for the parade. We’re not going to bump into them.”
Caine stood up and grabbed his coat.
The drive to Puppy Express seemed shorter, or maybe it was just that Hank’s SUV had better suspension than Meaghan’s old truck. Bob waved Hank and Caine in with hardly a glance, and Caine started to think that maybe this was a good idea, after all.
Having something to do will be better than sitting around with nothing but my own thoughts all day.
That lasted about an hour, until Hank’s careful lack of mentioning anything to do with shifters, or Meaghan, or the ghost gang started to get on Caine’s nerves.
“So what’s the plan?” he said as Hank pointed out the fallen pine lying across the track ahead. “To stop the ghost gang.”
“Stop them? Not sure how we’re meant to do that.”
“But you have to. They won’t just leave.” Caine panted as he followed Hank to the tree. “Whatever has brought them here, whatever’s behind these attacks, they haven’t got any reason to stop. Even if it’s just pure sadism. Pine Valley is an easy target. Like fish in a barrel.”
“Even more so, if we get a big dump of snow and the ro
ads get cut off.” Hank whistled softly. “But… Stop an enemy we can’t see, or scent, or feel any psychic trace of. That’s a hell of a task, and we’ve failed at it so far.”
“But now you know what you’re hunting.”
“Sure. As soon as you said you thought the gang were hellhounds, the girls started digging into some research. It all matches up. Glowing fiery eyes, impossible for even other shifters to trace. That must be what we’ve been dealing with the last few months.” He sighed. “Or failing to deal with.”
Caine’s spine tingled. His hellhound pricked up its ears. The girls? Does he mean Meaghan? Why would she be looking into hellhounds?
To find a way to protect Pine Valley. That must be it. She’s made it clear she doesn’t want anything to do with you.
But… Frustration crackled under his skin. “You can’t just sit and wait for them to attack again.”
“You want to tell us what else we can do?” Hank knelt by the tree. “You take the other side. We’ll try to pivot it off the track.”
Caine’s mind was whirring. The nightmare had done more than remind him of his hellhound’s nature; it had reminded him of who he used to be. Someone who solved other people’s problems.
What had he told Meaghan? I’m just a man who wants to help out where I can. Maybe it was true after all.
He straightened his shoulders. “This is a small town. Tourist numbers are down. Olly knows what the hellhound shifters look like in human form.”
Hank nodded. “Jackson’s gone door-to-door all the hotels and rentals. No one matches Olly’s descriptions.”
“They have a base out of town, then. If they’re shifters, they’re hardy. They might be in a hunting shack, or even camping.”
“We can’t sense any of them from the air, and that’s a hell of a lot of square footage to cover by foot. Lift!”
Caine channeled his frustration into his muscles. He and Hank hoisted the tree easily between them and moved it off the track.
Hank dusted off his hands. “Bit of strength left in you yet, eh?”
Caine opened his mouth, and closed it. “Unfortunately,” he muttered.