by Kat Bostick
If she ruled any part of him, it would only ever be his heart.
But wait, was that doubt worming through her resolve? How could she know with such certainty? When so much strength lived inside of her, so much potential for dark and evil deeds? Was it not her future to use them? To shed blood with them at her back?
The fog blackened, making even Jasper invisible to her. It reached out for her with wispy fingers, caressing her cheek, her arms, all of her. “I’ve felt what you carry inside of you. The wolves think you fragile, but it is you who holds all the power.”
“What are you?” Mari batted uselessly at the intangible hands leaving goosebumps on her skin.
“A friend.”
“I’m going to wake up now.” She’d been practicing methods used to wake from lucid dreams, giving herself the ability to slip from a magic dream when it was too much. It was a helpful tool when she accidentally tapped into a dream that wasn’t her own, invading the headspace of one of the pack and seeing fantasies, nightmares, and memories that she had no business seeing.
Mari tumbled from sleep, the bed smacking into her as if she’d been floating above it. Jasper’s naked torso was draped over hers, a man-shaped blanket. Each breath from his open mouth ruffled her hair, his fingers twitching in response to his own dream.
She blinked up into the dark room. It was so unlike the all-consuming blackness from her vision. She took stock of her surroundings, using the chip on the ceiling and the edges of the paintings just barely visible on the wall across from the bed to ground herself. It hadn’t been the most terrifying dream she’d ever dreamt, not by far, but it unsettled her nonetheless. A threat she couldn’t identify was the scariest kind of threat.
“Jasper?”
He groaned, curling his arm tighter around her and pulling her closer. “Hmm?”
“Will you look at me?”
“Are you okay?” Glowing green appeared from behind his heavy lids. His eyes were always alight at night, the wolf alert even as the man slept. Mari had seen him go from dead asleep to battle ready in a heartbeat.
She studied his irises, seeing genuine concern. With a smile, she answered, “Yes.”
He combed hair from her neck, the same move he’d done in her dream. This time his fingers traced from her ear to her collar bone. “A dream?”
“Yes.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No.” She rolled over, pressing her back to his chest. “Go back to sleep.”
Silence hovered between them and Mari felt herself slipping back into sleep. “Why did you want me to look at you?”
“You have pretty eyes.” She couldn’t see him with her back turned but somehow, Mari knew he was smiling that cocky smile. Werewolves were all ego.
Maybe it was just an ordinary nightmare.
Just an ordinary nightmare.
Chapter 8
Jasper
“I think I understand why you picked her.” Charlie said quietly from behind his desk as Jasper sauntered in.
“You don’t sound happy about that.”
“Each member of my pack has personal demons that come out to cause chaos from time to time. Your mate hasn’t learned to deal with hers yet.” With a sigh he dropped his pen and reclined in his chair. “She came by to apologize this morning.” Jasper knew that because he’d all but forced Mari down the stairs to do it. “I imagine that was your doing.” His raised brows made it a question.
“I offered encouragement.”
“Try harder next time. It was a God awful apology.” He laughed, easing Jasper’s anxiety, if only a little. “Generally they mean more if the person giving them is genuine. I felt the need to hide my letter opener while she was in the room.”
Jasper couldn’t resist a half grin. “She’s a good mate. Doesn’t like it when the bigger kids pick on me.”
Charlie readjusted in his chair, hardness taking position on his features. “It doesn’t change what I said last night. I fear we will lose ground beneath our feet very soon if I don’t intervene.” He picked up the mug of coffee to his right and took a sip. It was in these moments that Jasper got a glimpse of the mechanics behind Charlie’s power. Each and every move was calculated. Laughter to ease his subject before setting into the interrogation. A casual drink to preface what was sure to be an uncomfortable topic. “The question is,” And here it is. ”Which one of you is the problem? You display most of the symptoms, but I have my doubts about this sickness being yours.”
Jasper chewed the inside of his cheek, debating how much he wanted to divulge to Charlie. If it was putting the pack at risk, he should tell his alpha everything. But he wouldn’t if it would put his mate at risk. There was also the problem of Mari’s personal boundaries. She understood the structure of a pack in theory, but she still didn’t understand it in action. Charlie preferred to run his pack like a family, thus he was more like a father than a leader. That didn’t mean he wasn’t king. The alpha was the unrivaled ruler and it was important that he knew the inner workings of his pack.
And more than for the security of the pack, sharing with the alpha meant seeking support. Charlie was more inclined to counsel them than he was to order them around. Right about now, Jasper was in desperate need of some wisdom. Maybe it would upset Mari if he told Charlie the whole truth of it. But this was what she signed up for by deciding to stay with the pack—with him—and sooner or later she would have to adjust.
Sooner was preferable.
So, Jasper flopped into one of the plush leather recliners in Charlie’s office and shared everything that weighed on his mind. He opened his heart and showed Charlie every gory nightmare that was keeping him from his normal life.
“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid.” Said Charlie when Jasper was finished.
There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. He’d told Mari the same thing on numerous occasions. Apparently he was a hypocrite, because he saw plenty wrong with him being afraid. Fear was weakness. If he wanted to protect his family, he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of fear.
“And what exactly is it you need to protect us from? I seem to recall a rather violent end to the last enemy that threatened us.” Charlie flashed a lupine smile.
He was right, to an extent. There were still two witches and one wizard unaccounted for from Lyses’ coven. It was very unlikely they would dare show their faces in Charlie’s territory again after Mari killed their luminary, but they couldn’t know that for certain. It made Jasper uneasy.
“Everything. Anything.” He answered.
The alpha’s grin faded and he softened his voice. “She lived. And she’s stronger for it.”
Yes, Mari lived, but barely. It was too close and even now, the memory of her lying in a pool of her own blood haunted him. Most of his waking moments were consumed by that memory, mingled with old, painful visions of a death that mirrored the close call with his mate.
Mari stirred those memories even before her confrontation with Lyse. Her initial rejection of their mating dredged up buried feelings from a lost young man. Jasper didn’t blame his mother for her death. She died trying to protect him. Yet, there were weak moments when he was alone, huddled under an overpass or in the woods along a highway, cold and hungry, where he was irrationally angry with her.
She abandoned him. The only person in the world that cared for him, that even knew his real name, and she left him. Left him to figure out how to live as the beast he’d become, left him with no knowledge of who he was. There was an empty, aching hole where stories about grandparents, his mother’s childhood, and the man that fathered him should have been. She’d never even told him where he was born or for what purpose she uprooted them every six months.
And why? Why did she so easily throw down her life? Didn’t she know that he was a monster too, a match to the one that killed her? He could have protected her. Of course, that thought quickly spiraled into he should have protected her. Jasper failed and that wasn’t his mother’s fault.
It was too much like his early days as a wolf. Jasper was changed at only fifteen years old. He wandered the countryside for an unknown length of time, losing track of who he was, his name, his birthday, his life before the wolf. He remembered only flickers of his mother. Mostly, he remembered that she was taken from him.
More often than not he walked on four legs, slipping through shadows, hunting when he could and scavenging when he couldn’t. Eventually the wolf and the boy worked out an agreement; the boy took the reins around people so he could go unnoticed. With his dirty, gaunt face, stained clothes, and overstuffed backpack, he was just another runaway. Until they found more forest to roam. Then wolf took the reins and he would run free, kill and drink blood as a hunter was meant to. Wolf kept them alive. He kept their belly full and protected them from even the harshest winter days.
And finally, when the day came that wolf stumbled upon his own kind, he was rejected there too. Nikolai’s pack took him in, but for what reason, Jasper never knew. They loathed him for being bitten and treated him like the feral savage he was. For the entire year he was trapped under Nikolai’s rule, Jasper spoke only a handful of words.
“Someday,” He told the alpha of the Twelve Lakes pack. “You will fear me.” When Nikolai laughed at his gravelly, unused voice, the pitch still high with boyhood, Jasper added, “Maybe I’ll even kill you.”
Jasper would take pleasure in it. The wolf didn’t usually cling to memory as the man did, but he often revisited the face of his tormenter and envisioned his jaws around that dark neck. Someday, He would whisper to himself as he watched the alpha prowl around his cage with cruel amusement in his eyes.
“Jasper,” Charlie stood from his desk abruptly, his eyes alight and teeth bared. “Perhaps you need something to distract you? Some fresh air?”
It was only then that Jasper realized he was on his feet, a threatening growl filling the room as it vibrated in his chest. “Fresh air.” He choked, already feeling his skin prickle as the wolf demanded his freedom.
Charlie’s words drifted after him as he hurried out of the study and to the front door. “One month. She has one month to plan your wedding. If that doesn’t remedy this problem, I will be forced to take action.”
Exertion from holding back the change made his skin burn. His clothing clung to him, peeling off like sticky bandages. Jeans barely dropped to the ground before Jasper did the same, hunching on all fours as his bones swiftly rearranged from man to wolf. A guttural cry filled his throat as the pain overwhelmed him.
Too fast.
Lately his changes were rushed, driven by a frantic need to run that overpowered the part of him that had enough decency not to change two feet from the front steps. Distantly, he could feel Teal’s eyes on him as he journeyed back to the house from the barn. The same worry the alpha expressed was pouring out of him in waves. Jasper didn’t want Teal’s worry. He didn’t need any of their concern.
His problem had an easy solution and he knew where to find it.
Suddenly, he realized he was running the property border, following the stone wall to where it tapered away to a shorter barbed wire fence. The stone served more as a deterrent for prying human eyes than an actual barrier between the pack compound and the outside world. To anything inhuman that wanted to breach the bounds of their territory, the presence of seven werewolves served better than any no trespassing sign.
The wolf leapt gracefully over the four foot fence, his landing nearly silent on the snow covered forest floor. Finding his way through these outer woods was easy by now. He’d been through them many times in the passing weeks. More times than he should.
Truthfully, once was more than he should. They were never supposed to leave the property while changed and for good reason. At best, they might be spotted and rumors of a lone wolf would go around town for months. At worst, they could be shot by fearful neighbors. The people who lived in Humble Springs were familiar enough with wolves to know that Jasper shared few similarities with his animal brethren beyond his basic physique.
Just for a moment, He assured himself. He only needed to see her for a moment. Even as she sent him into this spiral of confusion, Mari calmed him. Being near her cleared his head.
The wooded property that surrounded Wolf Ridge Lodge was thinner and not suitable for hiding. With fresh layers of snow on the ground there was less color to camouflage Jasper’s rich red coat. Luckily, this time of year was slow for tourism. Retirees, wealthy hunters, and adventurous families would come for brief holidays but few utilized the hiking trails that snaked between the private cabins and the creek. His prints were the freshest as he followed the muddy trail, hunting down the distant murmur of a familiar voice.
Mari was wrapped in her thick winter jacket, her boots crunching over layers of salt on the recently shoveled path that led to one of the more luxurious cabins just beyond the lodge. An older couple with rosy cheeks and brightly colored jackets followed behind her, listening intently as she explained the amenities and chattered on enthusiastically about the breakfast service.
Something dark with fierce claws retracted its hold on his insides at the sight of her, settling into quiet stillness until he was forced to watch her leave again. Though Mari could be shy, she was excellent at talking to people with the right motivation. Her hazel eyes were bright and full of genuine excitement as she described the cross country skiing trail. That brightness slowly faded, giving way to a wary, pinched look as her gaze briefly flitted in his direction.
Once the couple accepted the keys from Mari and disappeared inside the cabin, she turned fully toward him. He was too far back in the trees for her to easily spot but he knew without a doubt that she could feel him there. Of course she could. As mates, his presence would never go unnoticed by her. This close to Mari, Jasper could feel the hum of her inside his chest.
Mari’s sigh billowed around her face like smoke. Based on her sharp expression, the steam could easily be smoke from her fuming. She shook her head slightly and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Deak stood no more than fifteen feet away, leaning against the back door of the lobby and looking exceptionally grumpy.
“Go home.” She mouthed before turning her back on him and trudging to the main building.
An unbidden whimper left his throat. Maybe that voice of doubt was right. Maybe he was completely ruining this, suffocating her in all the ways he promised not to until she didn’t want him. That insecure creature that was constantly harassing him was back already, clawing at his ribs and making his stomach sour.
I can’t go home. He wished he could tell her. You’re my home now and you’re a million miles away.
Chapter 9
Mari
There was cold and then there was Minnesota cold. By mid-November, Mari was usually wondering why she hadn’t been born in Hawaii. The wind was mild, but it still felt like thousands of sharp little teeth, biting straight through her jacket and her flesh to hollow out her bones. Wispy sprays of snow tumbled from the overburdened branches of pine trees, melting in her hair and on her face as they landed. Those same branches swayed, allowing in the faintest rays of the late autumn sun. Snowflakes sparkled, thousands of rainbow lights beaming off their watery surfaces.
Who was she kidding? Hawaii would have given her island fever and Father Above, she would miss this. The world was slowly sinking into the stillness of winter, Earth Mother breathing out her last lazy sighs before tucking in for a long, gentle slumber. With that stillness came a peace that Mari knew she couldn’t find anywhere else.