The wise old owl hopped closer. “Of course you are worthy. And you are already loved. I love you. It’s not the romantic type you were hoping for, but it is real and it is forever.”
Polina let out a deep sob and cupped her familiar’s feathery face. “I love you too, sweet bird.”
Hildegard sighed. “You took a risk. You gave him your heart and it didn’t work out.”
Liquid metal spilled from Polina’s stained cheeks. “Yes.”
“But life goes on.”
“Yes, it does,” she whispered. “Mine goes on forever. And suddenly, forever seems longer than it did before.”
“I am sorry, my lady. And I do hate to push, but the hour grows late. You must start the potion to protect the humans right away. There’s no time.”
Polina wiped her face, absorbing the liquid metal through her skin, and forced herself to stand. Her stomach churned, but she closed her eyes and centered herself. With a slow swipe of her wand, Logan’s image disappeared from the mirrors around her. She cleared her throat.
“Let us begin. We have work to do.”
Chapter Thirty
Desperation
Logan strode into the Carlton City humane society with a singular purpose. He needed a pet, another living creature to focus on and occupy his time. With Jonah helping out at Valentine’s, the restaurant would survive without him for a day or two while he licked his wounds. He was too depressed to cook. Silas had suggested a dog could be family. He needed that right now. He needed something, anything, to help fill the gaping hole in his chest.
“What type of pet are you considering?” The woman behind the counter’s nametag read Carol. She wore a black polo and khaki pants but did not smile. Instead, she seemed size him up for pet ownership, more than willing to censure him and his plans if necessary.
“I’ve always considered myself a dog person.”
“What kind of dog?”
“Labrador, golden retriever. You know, a bigger breed that likes to play.”
“You got a fenced yard?”
“Uh, no. I live in a penthouse condominium.”
She burst into laughter. “You will not be bringing home a large dog.”
Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “What kind of dog do you recommend then?”
“For you? I don’t recommend a dog. How about a guinea pig or a rabbit?” She opened the door to a room of cages containing small animals.
“Not what I had in mind,” Logan said, staring at a pair of hamsters. “I just need something that’s going to engage with me, you know? I don’t want an animal that’s in a cage all day.”
“Rabbits can be litter trained.”
Logan shook his head.
“Well, how about a cat? Certain cats have personalities similar to dogs. Some can even learn to play fetch.”
Considering it, Logan gave her a small smile. “Yeah. I think a cat might be good.”
“Come this way.”
He followed Carol through a door labeled Cat Room. Every imaginable type of cat filled the four walls. A humungous orange tabby with a pushed-in face clawed at him from a carpeted stand.
“Don’t mind Oscar. He’s grumpy.” She lifted a calico kitten from the floor. “This one here is just a couple of weeks old. Easily trainable. Good disposition.”
Logan pulled the kitten into his arms and scratched it behind the ears. It leaned into his fingers and closed its eyes. It was an agreeable animal. Perfect in some ways. He was sure Carol was right; this cat could adapt to almost any environment. But as Logan looked at the tiny feline, he felt no connection with it. For some reason he didn’t fully understand, it just didn’t feel right. He bent over and put the kitten down.
Carol frowned. “Well then, let me see…” She pressed her pointer finger into her chin and looked around the room. Logan did too. As his eyes fell on cat after cat, he discounted each one. Too old. Too hairy. Too mean. Too sleepy. And then his gaze fell on something interesting.
Crouched low and ready to spring, a white shorthair prepared to jump to the next carpeted tower. A patch of brown fur over one eye made him look like a pirate. Logan noticed a thin hairless scar behind his left ear. When the cat leapt, it hit its head on the opposite post and fell to the floor, crying.
“Oh, Bonny girl, when will you learn?” Carol picked the cat off the floor and placed it on the platform it was targeting. It was a her, not a him. Hmm. Logan took a closer look. Where the cat’s tail should have been was nothing but a stump, and to his surprise, she only had three legs. He hadn’t noticed before because the good leg was facing him, hiding what was missing.
“What happened to that one?”
“Hit by a car. Barely survived, the poor girl. We named her Bonny after the pirate Anne Bonny because of her patch. Maybe we can get her a peg leg, huh?” Carol laughed.
“I’ll take that one,” Logan said.
Carol shook her head. “You don’t want this cat. She’s special needs. She loses her balance all the time. Cries incessantly because she can’t do the things she wants to do. And she gets depressed. Sometimes she hardly eats. To be honest, I’m not sure how long she’ll make it.”
Logan stepped over to Bonny and scooped her up into his arms. She laid her head on his bicep as if she didn’t have the energy for anything more and blinked up at Logan. He rubbed circles over the scar behind her ear. The purr she rewarded him with seemed too loud to come from such a small body. All he could think was that this cat was like him, a survivor. He could relate to this cat. “She’s perfect. I’ll take her.”
Carol shrugged, eyeing Bonny in his arms. “Okay. Why the hell not? Come on up to the counter and I’ll ring your adoption fee. She’s on a few medications. I’ll get you a list and instructions. Oh, and she needs a special litter box because she has trouble getting into the ones with the higher edge.”
He grinned and kissed Bonny’s head. “It’s fine. Whatever she needs.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Preparations
“Hildegard, bring me the wolfsbane.”
Polina huddled over the cauldron, stirring with two hands. She had to. The potion within was thick with molten silver and twenty-five other rare ingredients from her stores. The heavy mixture had taken her hours to create. Long hours she spent weeping over her work.
Logan was gone. The only good thing about her broken heart was it drove her to try harder, and it had paid off. This was the most potent wolf repellent she’d ever made. She’d surround the human campsite with it, then warn the campers of a wolf attack in the area. She’d tell them they shouldn’t venture out at night. With any luck, the humans would stay on their side of the line, and the wolves would avoid the campsite altogether.
Hand to the back of her nose, Polina breathed through her mouth as the repellent neared completion. It smelled of a cross between raw sewage and a chemical treatment plant. Hildegard coasted over the pot and dropped a talonful of wolfsbane into the mix. Bubbles formed like a rich head on a freshly poured draught beer. Polina stopped stirring.
Copper-orange fumes rose from the potion. “It’s ready.” Polina pulled a glass decanter from a rack in her kitchen and ladled in the syrupy brew. She filled another and another.
“Not a moment too soon. The sun is setting,” Hildegard said. “I am worried about you, crying all day over the human. Will you be strong enough to do this?”
“I’ll have to be. What good is being immortal if you can’t push the boundaries of existence every now and then?”
“Hmm.” Hildegard flapped her wings disapprovingly.
“Let’s get on with it. Help carry these out front.” Polina grabbed her wand and charged out into the front yard. She cast her eyes up to the three gargoyles who guarded her home, perched on the Tudor’s gables. The sun hadn’t fully set yet. It would require magic to wake her three guardians early.
“Excitae,” she commanded, raising her wand. The green-stained copper above her twitched and then the metal-on-metal sound of colli
ding swords rang out with the stretch of gargoyle wings. “Nicodemus, come.”
With his great curled horns and demon-like face, Nicodemus was a frightening sight to behold but a loyal and faithful guardian. He soared down from the eastern gable and bowed to her. “What is your command, mistress?”
“Take your brethren and distribute this potion evenly around the human camp. There are twelve of these.” She handed him the decanter. “Be discreet. It won’t do to frighten the humans.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Skogal coasted from the center gable and landed on her left.
“Good evening, Skogal.” The gargoyle’s tongue lolled from the corner of his mouth. “Follow Nicodemus and do as he does.”
The gargoyle bowed low enough for his snout to touch the dirt. He grasped the decanter Hildegard brought from the house and focused on Nicodemus with the intensity of a trained dog.
Rohilda yawned as she landed and waited while Polina brought her another decanter.
“Do you understand what you must do?” Polina asked her.
The female gargoyle nodded her metal head, her keen eyes shifting toward the human camp.
“Very well. I will leave the rest here on the stoop for you. I will check your progress at sundown.”
Polina watched as the three took to the air and glided south toward the campground. She ran into the house and grabbed the other containers, placing them outside her door.
Hildegard landed on her shoulder. “You’d better have the gargoyles keep watch on the border tonight.”
“Oh, I plan to. But you and I are going to do better than that. We are going to spy on the wolves and go where they go.”
The owl ruffled her feathers. “I don’t like this. Wolves eat owls, you know. Couldn’t we just use the mirror?”
“We’ll be careful. I don’t trust them, Hildie. My mirror will show us any acts of harm the wolves might attempt tonight, but I want to know more. I want to see the shift. It might hold a clue to the pack’s intentions. If the alpha, Alex, is after the dragon fae amulet as Silas fears, following him will be our best chance to intercept it.”
“As you wish,” Hildegard said, her tone reluctant and longsuffering. “Don’t listen to the wise old owl. Force us both to death’s door.”
Polina grimaced. “It’s our responsibility. It’s why we’re here.” Squaring her shoulders, she led the way into the woods.
Renegade Caverns came into view just as long purple clouds chased the sun from the sky like the fingers of a closing fist. Following Polina’s command, Hildegard took to the trees as Polina morphed into the reflective metallic form that made her virtually invisible. She silently navigated her woods, stopping behind the broad trunk of a pine tree near the clearing to spy on the gathering wolves. Not that she was surprised, but Alex hadn’t kept his promise about taking the pack farther up the mountain, and there was not a chicken carcass in sight.
Alex stood on a massive stump at the center of the pack, naked, as were all the other wolves. Polina supposed if your body would shift, it didn’t make sense to rip your clothes. The stump serving as alpha’s stage hadn’t been there yesterday. Around the bottom, faces of wolves, claw marks, and harvest moons were carved into the wood. A totem pole of sorts… and a pulpit.
“Our time is coming,” he said to them. “For some of you, this will be your first shift. It will be painful. Don’t fight it. If you fight the change, chances are you’ll lose your mind as well as your body. The pack needs your mind.” Alex removed a square of fabric from his pocket and handed it to a man on his left. The man sniffed it and passed it to the woman next to him. “When the shift comes, I want you nine to head up the mountain.” He pointed to a group of men and women beginning to stretch and groan in front of him. “You eight go east. You eight, west. And the rest of you, come with me.”
Polina eyed Alex and the remaining four. There was only one direction left to go, toward the humans. What were his intentions? If Silas was right, they were looking for the amulet. She’d have to keep her eyes open and intervene if they found it. If she was capable of intervening. She was already exhausted, and her first priority was the humans at the border.
Above her, the darkness finally took hold, the full moon shining like a beacon from the night sky. Human screams mixed with beastly howls, a horrible din that made Polina want to cover her ears. The snap of breaking bones echoed around her. Her jaw clenched as Alex’s ears extended up the sides of his head. He pitched forward, hands landing on the stump in front of his feet like a game of Twister gone wrong. Fluid oozed from the alpha’s temples, glinting in the light of the moon, while his jaw popped and extended, teeth protruding past the lips, face lengthening. Claws ejected from his knuckles and hair sprouted along his spine.
By the time a dark red tail sprung from Alex’s backside, she thought she might be sick. The shift wasn’t quick and certainly wasn’t painless. And then the unthinkable. Alex turned to face her. He sniffed the air, looked directly at her, and growled.
Could he see her? No. But he could smell her. The two leathery bellows of his wolf nose collapsed and expanded with his sniff. Fuck. Polina retreated into the woods as quietly as she could. It wasn’t quiet enough. Alex, now in the form of the huge red wolf, stalked toward her, his golden eyes narrowing.
She broke into a run. So did he. And he was faster.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Just to Clarify
“This is what they told me to get, but it doesn’t look very appetizing.” Logan placed a dish of dry kibble on his dining room table in front of Bonny the pirate cat.
She sniffed the food and blinked up at him disapprovingly.
“I didn’t think so.” He removed the offending dish and rummaged through his cupboard. “I save this for when I’m in the mood for some East Coast fixings. I think you’ll approve.” He opened a can of lump crabmeat and tipped it over the dry kibble.
Bonny meowed and paced, sniffing the air as he approached. He was impressed at how well she got around with just the three legs and a missing tail. This was definitely his cat. Scarred. Damaged. Just like him.
As soon as he set the dish down on the placemat he’d put out for her, she dug in. Yes, he was going to let her eat on the table. Why not? It’s not like anyone else would be eating across from him. Ever. He was finished with women. Heart officially crushed.
“Why couldn’t it have been real, Bonny? You know, when I found out Tabetha was messing with my emotions, I let it go pretty easily. She was an evil witch who did a wicked thing. You expect evil to be evil. But this, this is the worst. Thing is, I believe Polina was hoodwinked too. But she knew. She knew about the effects and she didn’t warn me. She didn’t ask me if it was okay if she toyed with my heart.”
Bonny licked her chops and walked across the table to arch her back and stick her butt in his face. Obligingly, he gave her back a scratch from shoulders to stubby tail. The cat purred like a lawnmower.
“She felt it. I know she felt it too. But she also kept the truth from me, manipulated me. And it was perfect. Too perfect. Even now, I want to forgive her. I want to just go with it, real or not, and allow myself to be happy for a while. Maybe I should. Maybe I should pretend Grateful never told me about the soul magic. Does it matter, really, why I feel the way I do?”
He wished he could call her. Talk to her. Take a tiny sip of the intoxicating poison.
Brrrng. Brrrng. His phone vibrated in his back pocket. Weird. Who was calling tonight?
“Mr. Valentine?” It was the doorman.
“Yes, Fred.”
“There’s a Grateful Knight here to see you, sir.”
“Send her up.” Grateful? What did she want? To rub salt in his wounds? He knew that wasn’t exactly fair. Her heart was in the right place. But it was hard not to resent the person who ruined you, even if she had good intentions.
Logan scooped Bonny into his arms, afraid she might try to jump down from the table and hurt herself. He plastered a smile on his
face and opened the door just as Grateful was getting off the elevator.
“Grateful—”
“I need to talk to you.” She was not smiling. In fact, she seemed downright disturbed.
“Where’s Lucas?” Logan asked, sticking his head in the elevator.
Grateful smirked. “I didn’t leave my infant son in there if that’s what you’re wondering.”
He rolled his eyes. “I thought Rick might be with you.”
“No. He’s watching Lucas to give me a chance to talk to you.” She sighed deeply.
“Well, come on in. Tea? Chocolate?”
“I’m not going to turn down your famous hot chocolate.”
Logan placed Bonny on the floor and headed for the kitchen.
“Who’s this?” Grateful asked, squatting down to scratch Bonny behind the ears. “And what happened to her?”
“Bonny. She was hit by a car. I adopted her today.”
“She’s sweet.”
“Well, I needed something to distract me after our conversation last night.” He stirred the milk in the pot, adding the other ingredients one by one. After a stretch of silence he mumbled, “I needed somewhere to put it all.”
“Oh god, Logan. I made a mistake.”
Logan stopped stirring and looked at her over his shoulder. “What kind of mistake?”
“I ran into Polina today.” Logan dropped the spoon with a clang against the pot and spun on his heel.
“Where? When?”
“Outside Carlton City PD. Silas asked me to come by to talk about the werewolf murder that happened behind Valentine’s. She was on her way out at the same time I was on my way in.”
Logan started stirring again. “What were you mistaken about, Grateful?” The chocolate wasn’t hot enough but he poured it into two mugs anyway, sliding one across the counter into her hands.
She licked her lips. “I told you your attraction to Polina was due to soul magic, and initially it was.” She paused.
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