by D. Fischer
THE
LIAR
AMONG
CREATURES
HOWL FOR THE DAMNED
BOOK TWO
BY D. FISCHER
The Liar Among Creatures (Howl for the Damned: Book Two)
Copyright © 2020 by D. Fischer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any printed or electronic form, without written consent from the author. This book is fictional. All names, characters, and incidents within are pure fiction, produced by the author’s vivid imagination.
To my readers –
When times are darkest, know that someone, somewhere, loves you.
Everything in this book is fictional. It is not based on true events, persons, or creatures that go bump in the night, no matter how much we wish it were…
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
“The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.”
—Minquass Proverb
CHAPTER ONE
Jinx Whitethorn
I’m startled awake by the sound of something crashing. It’s still dark outside, and upon glancing at the clock, I curse at the time.
Sitting up abruptly, I throw back my covers and scramble from the bed. My ankles tangle in the sheets, and I stumble twice once my feet are on the floor. I know exactly what’s going on – it’s happened three times this week already.
After nearly tripping over my bag of belongings I refuse to put away, I hastily make my way to the door, throw it open, and stumble down the cold, dark hall. The chill immediately nips at my toes.
Cinder and Damien had retrieved my things from the bar’s apartment a few days ago. Jacob had said they smelled the Bane’s scent, different from the shifters who had trespassed on the Riva Pack’s territory and sought to kill me in the woods. These new Bane shifters have been lingering around Be Deviled, Cinder’s bar, and Cinder thought it was a good idea to make it seem like I was no longer there nor coming back. Otherwise, it puts the customers – both shifters and witches – in danger, and he’s right. If someone who resembles me saunters into the bar . . .
The Bane shifters can’t shift. They’re hell-bent on either causing my death or stealing the cursed necklace my father gave me. My father, a shaman of a nearby tribe, had cursed the Bane Pack and captured their wolves’ spirits inside the necklace’s pendant. The pendant is carved from a wolf’s bone, and I’ve felt the magic pulse inside it on more than one occasion.
Now, it’s I who pays the price for my father’s damnation, in more ways than one.
Just thinking about the Bane sends shivers down my spine, making the dark hallway’s shadows leap out at me. Whispers. I hear whispers of one of the men who tried to kill me in the forest a week ago. “Little girl,” it taunts. It, because I know it isn’t real. It’s not real. It’s not . . .
I dash to the next bedroom door and quickly enter without knocking, running from myself at the same time I’m dashing to help. Jacob’s massive form dominates most of the bed. Still asleep, he’s kicking, moaning, dreaming, and the lamp, which once sat on the side of his bed, is shattered. The pieces are scattered across the guest bedroom floor, glinting like sharp knives.
It’s been a week since the Bane Pack came onto the Riva Pack’s land. An entire week full of mundane things like moving out of the bedroom-turned-hospital and back into Jacob’s master suite. I had insisted I give it back to him, allow him to sleep in his own bed, but he had refused. Even after the kiss we shared . . .
At least his temporary bedroom is next to mine.
Ever since the invasion, when the Bane Pack tried to steal my necklace and leave me a corpse among the puddles and piles of soggy fall leaves, Jacob’s been having nightmares. Strong ones. Violent enough to where they wake me because even though he’s asleep, his mind continues to torment him. It makes me feel guilty.
Amelia, the pack’s bonafide shrink, calls Jacob’s episodes PTSD from the Realms War. The Realms War was months ago. Months! According to my shrinky-friend, fearing for my life has brought back the memories of losing his friend, Cinder’s sister Allie. Amelia calls it ‘triggers.’
“He’s triggered. Give him time,” she had said after the second night of these night terrors.
That’s what plagues his dreams. War. War and Allie. Allie, whose lucky rubber band still circles his wrist. Allie, who’s buried in the ground behind the compound.
The covers are in a heap at the end of the bed, seemingly avoiding the thrashing feet, and his arms swing wide like elephant trunks. Every muscle in his neck is taut, and his lips are pulled back in a feral snarl. My Divine, whatever memory his brain is forcing him to relive . . .
The first time I had tried to gently wake him, I was rewarded with a knee to the jaw. It had throbbed for the rest of the day, but it wasn’t his fault. I was overly confident I could wake a sleeping man who was throwing punches at invisible people. I had learned from that mistake.
Dashing to the bedroom’s bathroom, I fill a cup of water in the sink. I watch his thrashing, biting my lip as he calls out Allie’s name while the cup fills. My feet tap against the cold tiles until the water splashes over the rim. Then, I rush back to the bedside, dodge a swinging arm, and chuck the cold water on Jacob’s head.
The alpha roars his outrage, and I leap back. I swear the walls tremble at the force of his voice. His flaying limbs move wholly different than during his dream, slower and sluggish. He sits upright in bed, eyes wildly searching while water dribbles down his cheeks and shaved head.
Clenching the cup tightly, I cringe. “Sorry,” I whisper, holding up my free hand. “I didn’t want to wake you, you know, normally, and I didn’t think I had time to get Cinder.”
Not to mention, the one time I went to ask Cinder for help, he wasn’t the only one I found in his bed. Sara hadn’t noticed I had barged into Cinder’s room. She was fast asleep, nestled against a pillow. There were no blankets draped over her, and the drawn back curtains exposed the night sky, which gleamed the moon across her absolutely naked body. With Cinder’s sensitive hearing, he woke to me gasping at the audacity of fully exposed breasts. He was as naked as her, but that was nothing new. I’ve seen him naked before.
Since Cinder brought her here to fret by my make-shift hospital room’s bedside, she hasn’t left. I had wondered which room she was staying in, but after seeing all that, I need not worry. Not only has she made room for herself, but she also has a personal sex toy and bed warmer. The thought makes a small smile grace my face. At least someone is finding some happiness in this sea of bullshit.
Jacob flicks one of his drenched hands and glares at me. Beads of water fling in every direction. It’s a friendly glare though I can tell how annoyed he is behind the ‘mask’ he likes to wear. Even in the darkness, I can see the dark bruised circles under his eyes and puffiness of his lips. He’s not getting the rest he needs. Not by a longshot.
Hi
s light brown eyes roam from my head, down to my chest, to my bare wiggling toes. I follow his scrutiny to the water splashes on my oversized black graphic t-shirt, which reads “I’m a badass with a nice ass,” across the chest. The red lettering doesn’t hide the evidence of my coldness. The shirt reaches right below my underwear and leaves nothing to the imagination of my bare legs. At least I shaved, I tell myself.
This is Jacob’s shirt. A shirt he had been given as a joke. A shirt I did not ask permission to wear, but it smells like him, and when I found it, I couldn’t resist.
Jacob has his unique scent that soothes something inside me even while I’m sleeping. It chases away the bad dreams better than any dream catcher could. I’ve been wearing it all week, tucking it between the mattresses when I change so Glenda doesn’t wash it and Jacob doesn’t find it. Today, I had forgotten to change before dashing from my room.
Embarrassed for both getting caught and the peak of my nipples, I pull the hem of the large shirt down and shrug nonchalantly. “What else was I supposed to do?”
Sighing deeply, he glances at his phone on the nightstand now void of a lamp. It miraculously didn’t get a drop of water on it.
“It’s the ass-crack of dawn,” he grumbles. Reaching to the end of the bed, he untangles a section of the sheet and uses it to dab at his cheeks. The sheet resists the water though, and all he ends up doing is smearing the droplets.
“Tell that to your dreams,” I say, setting down the empty cup. I sit on the edge of his bed, not caring that the water is soaking into my underwear. “Still the same one?”
He nods warily. “The same one. The same war. The same loss.”
I smile sadly at him and reach to touch his face with my cold fingers, but he grasps my hand midair and kisses my palm. The warmth of his lips feels lovely.
“Thanks for waking me.” His voice is deep and raspy.
“Well, I couldn’t let you continue to break the furniture,” I say, eyeing the broken lamp. When he only stares at the shards, I lower my voice. “It’s the events lately, isn’t it? They’re bringing on the dreams?”
He raises an eyebrow. “Amelia tells me everything. I know she told you.” I blush, pull back my lips, and expose my bottom teeth as the picture of innocence. Packs share everything with one another, sometimes to an annoying extent.
“Is nothing sacred anymore?” I blurt with mock rage. He chuckles, and it warms my insides.
A few days ago, when I was still in the bedroom-turned-hospital, he teased the hell out of me because I was going stir crazy. Sara was doing her best to keep me occupied, but chick flicks were never my thing, and if I had to hear the word ‘fetch’ again, I would have hurled the TV into another realm.
When she wasn’t shoving teenage romance down my throat, she would talk about the gossip she overheard while using a simple spell to push sound her way. Being a witch has its perks, but the last thing I wanted to learn about was Amelia and Reese’s sex life . . . apparently, with each other.
Unable to get it off my mind, I had asked Cinder about it. He shrugged and assured me they weren’t mates. “It’s normal for shifters to scratch itches.” His words come back to me as my eyes stray to Jacob’s bare chest. I’m not a shifter, but I certainly have an itch.
“Do you want me to get Amelia?” I ask, my voice soft.
He shakes his head and rubs at the nape of his neck. “Yesterday, Amelia left with Rex. They’re visiting another pack to check on the mental status of their wolves.”
I double blink, offended. “How did I not know?”
“You were too busy digging into the alcohol cabinet with Sara. Glenda should have never shown you where it was, but, like you, Glenda enjoys her spirits.”
I snort. “Are they on their way back?”
He nods. “They called before I fell asleep and reported everything was fine.”
“Fine?” I sit up straighter. “Are you expecting trouble?”
“With you around, I trip over trouble.” I slap his leg. He doesn’t flinch. “They just wanted to make sure the pack was mentally healing. They lost their alpha in the Realms War.”
“I see,” I say then swallow thickly. I’ve heard it’s hard on wolves to lose their alpha. It’s the one shifter who links all the rest, and without the link – that mental and emotional bond – they shatter into pieces like the lamp shards still partying on the floor.
I sigh and stretch my back, twisting this way and that. I must have slept in an odd way for this kind of muscle chink. “There’s no point in going back to sleep. My father’s sister will be here soon.” If she is indeed his blood relative. I’m still skeptical on the matter.
The idea was to go and see her in person, but with everything going on lately, Jacob had refused for even Reese to leave the pack’s territory. Amelia and Rex must have been a special exception.
Travis and Trevor, the pack twins, have taken to adding cameras all over the territory. They’re technological wizards and solely responsible for the pack’s high-tech home, albeit an ancient, remodeled compound that was once a beautiful catholic school. Sara had told me all this amid of bedside gossip.
“The Bane could be watching the territory, and the last thing we need is to be tailed, or worse, have anyone taken as hostages for your damn jewelry,” she had huffed.
During supper two nights ago, I asked some of the pack why this school they now call home had closed down. It couldn’t have been long after it was built, brick by brick.
According to Bia, the tribe, which is also my deceased father’s, waged war on the settlers. Many settlers had moved, abandoning the school and tiny town in favor of survival. It was a long while before anyone returned to the land. Eventually, a city erupted from the tiny town and prospered. The pack’s ancestors had occupied the school by that time, and no one has questioned it. It’s so secluded I doubt anyone knows the place is here besides the mailman.
Sara didn’t hear the explanation and had asked me the same question last night.
I twist my lips and peek at Jacob from under my lashes. “Are you sure you’re okay with Sara staying here?”
He yawns and stretches. “She’s your friend.”
I had thought I had grown comfortable with the pack, but nothing stirs these creatures more than a witch under their roof. She’s made it a point to raise the hackles on any and every single one of them, a situation I more often than not find hilarious. It’s part of Sara’s charm. They’ll get used to it.
The lab is her most treasured area. She set up potion brewing space in an unoccupied corner of it, and Chip has learned a lot about herbs and magic as a result.
To Chip’s mate, Bia’s despair, Sara spends a lot of time with him. She’s even taught Reese a few things - something I hadn’t dared try to do when I first arrived here. Despite everyone else's opinion, Reese has taken a quick liking to her. Even Damien, the reformed witch-blood-hater, adores her.
I frown. I suppose Bia is truly the only one who hasn’t fallen for Sara’s backward charm. Perhaps it’s the skimpy outfits. The brash colors? The loud voice? Sara building a friendship with Chip can’t be the only reason she hates my friend. Sara would never touch a man already claimed by another woman.
Bia can’t hide her distaste, however. Sara picked up on it right away and, as a result, has become the object of Sara’s tricks for laughs. It’s entertaining, but I worry it’s disrupting the pack’s lifestyle. Jacob’s answer of, ‘She’s your friend,’ doesn’t do anything in the way of easing my worries.
“What’s the plan, anyway?” I ask, pulling back my hair and tying it into a bun to avoid the charging space between us. I’m aware he’s watching me like a hawk, absorbing every detail and gesture I make. I wonder if he feels the charge, too. It’s like a magnetic pull – there’s no way I’m the only one who does.
Tying my hair back makes me think of the rubber band around Jacob’s wrist. Did Allie ever use it to tie her hair back? Does it still have her scent? Amelia told me who the rubber band
belonged to. It doesn’t bother me that he wears it. It’s no different than me holding on to my father’s pendant even if it wasn’t a cursed object in need of protecting. He had a life before me, and though I know he and Allie were nothing but as close as siblings, I’m glad he still has a piece of her to remind himself she once lived. It’s telling of the intentions and goodness of his soul.
“Charm your aunt with Glenda’s cooking,” he says, his face the expression of total seriousness. “Then drop our bomb.”
I laugh quietly. Glenda’s cooking is divine. “Why does my aunt think she’s coming here?”
“Chip handled that conversation. You’d have to ask him.”
I raise an eyebrow, tighten my ponytail, and ask, “And you’re okay with another outsider?”
“I have some questions about your father’s book,” he says in the way of explanation. My father’s book is old and worn, passed down from generation to generation. My mother had given it to me with the necklace when I had learned who he was.
Stiffening, I whisper, “Oh.”
“It will go as it will, Jinx,” he adds, seeing right through me. “Either she’ll accept you and agree to help in any way she can, or –”
“Or, she’ll run away screaming when she realizes she’s surrounded by creatures. Probably monsters. She’ll see us as monsters.”
He purses his lips then lunges and pins me to the mattress. I laugh as the water beaded on his bare chest soaks into my shirt and try to wiggle my way out from under him.
“I’ll show you a monster,” he growls deeply and then nips the edge of my jaw.
The nip does something inside me. It sends an electric zap down my sternum, across my breasts, then down further and straight to my sex. I stiffen under him and his now glowing eyes. It’s the bright hue and tall-tale sign that he’s a shifter. It lightens the space between us as his wolf pushes forward to peer at me.