But here, now, I was free. My mind felt smaller, but it was sharper. More focused. None of those greater concerns weighed down on me. I was just chasing my Grace, my lover. If only our lives could be like this forever. But I knew they couldn’t.
I leapt over a downed log covered in fungus and narrowly dodged a split stump on the other side. Clarissa’s scent was everywhere now. She was close. I slowed down to look around the area.
A black shape burst through a thick hedge to my left. I saw Clarissa’s eyes go wide with surprise, and her snarling teeth clamped shut right before they bit into my side. With no way to stop mid-air she slammed into me, launching me across the small clearing we’d stopped at. I hit a thick tree trunk and she skidded to stop inches from me.
I leapt up onto all fours, my head down and my tail wagging high over my head. I let out a playful growl, my yearning for this simpler life getting the better of me. As Pack Alpha, I had to be composed at all times. I couldn’t cut loose. I hadn’t played with Pack Mates in years, and a small but insistent part of me missed that. Now, with just the two of us, I could experience that joy again.
Clarissa was having none of it. She slowly padded over to me and licked my face. She was still shaken, still uneasy. I Shifted back into human form and she followed suit.
I lay with my back against the tree, and she came to lay in my arms.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I said.
She sat up long enough to jab a finger into my chest. “You’re an asshole for scaring me like that!” Then she lay her head back against my shoulder.
“I couldn’t let such a clumsy bandit escape without punishment,” I said, goosing her.
“Clumsy? I was like a professional. Neither of you stirred. I could’ve robbed you blind. I might consider a life as a cat burglar. Maybe I’ll steal the Crown Jewels,” she said, her fingertips lightly scratching tiny circles against my bicep.
“Somehow I don’t think that would work out,” I said. “And I don’t think I would be sneaky enough to break you out. And Sven…”
“Oh, Sven definitely couldn’t. His farts would give him away,” Clarissa said.
I ran my hand along the back of her head and found a swelling knot. “Did you hit your head on something?”
“I did. I…” she said.
“What?” I said.
“I saw something, Helmut. At least, I think I saw something. It was very strange,” she said, holding me tighter. “I was running and I found a cave.”
“I didn’t know we had caves this close to the village,” I said. I was almost certain we didn’t, but it had been a while since I went exploring out here.
“It was back there,” she said. “Where I left my clothes.”
“I didn’t see a cave back there,” I said.
“I went back inside it. Inside I saw something. I don’t know what it was. Some kind of creature,” She mumbled the last part. “It’s crazy.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “It might not be as crazy as you think.” I knew these woods were ancient, and ancient woods kept ancient memories. Legends and myths that were once real, some of which still held on despite a world that has moved on.
“It was small, like a child. It had a wicked face, long teeth and I think it was insane,” she said. “It kept babbling about it’s fountain, which it peed into. Then it pulled out an axe and wanted to chop me up. I know it sounds crazy, but it was like it really happened. I can still see it’s yellow eyes, peeking out from below it’s red hat.”
I forced my breath to remain steady. A Redcap! How? Why? It had been hundreds of years since one had been seen, and most people had written them off as a story used to scare children. Something to keep them from wandering around at night. Stay in your beds or the Redcap will come for your feet! I remembered the fear those words instilled in me when I was young. “And then what happened?”
“It heard something. I think it got scared. Maybe it was scared of you? Whatever it was,” she said, “it disappeared and I was back on the trail. The cave was gone too.”
“Did it say anything else?” I said calmly.
After a moment’s hesitation, “No. Not really,” she said.
“Well, I don’t know what you saw, My Grace, but I suspect hitting your head played a part in it. Could this have been a dream from last night that this bump made you confused about?” I said. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to alarm her. The last thing she needed to worry about was some forest spirit with an axe wanting to chop her up.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” she said. “I’m getting cold.”
Under other circumstances I might have suggested a way we could warm up out here. But she was still shaken up and I had to admit feeling a level of unease. “Let’s go get our clothes and head back home,” I said.
I opened the front door of the cabin and the smell of cooking made my stomach rumble. Did one of our Pack Mates come over to make us breakfast? I walked into the kitchen and was struck by the second strangest sight of the day: Sven cooking.
I took in the sight in all its glory. He towered over the stove, his back to me. He had tied on an apron, but was otherwise naked. His tribal tattoos wrapped up and down his arms, and his back was like a roadmap of scars. Reminders of the victories he’d won for the Pack. His glorious ass was round and full, just begging to be groped. On the island behind him, he’d laid out a spread of poorly cooked food.
A pile of burnt toast was stacked nearly a foot high, threatening to teeter over like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Next to it, a cauldron of soupy oatmeal sat, probably needing another twenty minutes on the stove. But the most befuddling was a plate of translucent floppy bacon, so raw that I could still hear it oink.
“Dritt!” Sven said, attending to a pan on the stove. He whipped a spatula to and fro, trying to delicately flip eggs that were cemented to the pan.
“Breakfast? You shouldn’t have,” Helmut said from behind me.
“Good morning!” Sven said. “Did you two have a nice run?”
“I needed a change of pace, and boy did I get it,” I said. “Took a spill and bumped my head, though.”
“Poor thing. Helmut, you should take better care of our Grace. We want to get a lot of mileage out of her,” he said, grinning. His grin disappeared when a stubborn egg refused to give up it’s grasp on the pan. “Lille jaevelen!”
I walked over to Sven, my hand resting on the small of his back. I looked into the pan and had to stifle a sigh. The eggs were smashed and smeared, burnt rubbery whites and yolks turned solid. “It’s a day full of new experiences,” I said, getting on my tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Next time put some butter in the pan before the eggs.” I gave his ass an appreciative spank and walked to the small kitchen table to sit down.
Helmut put a mug of hot coffee in front of me. Cream and Splenda, exactly how I liked it. I let it cool, enjoying the hot ceramic between my hands.
Sven walked over, putting plates of food down in front of Helmut and I. Then he got his own and joined us.
“Looks great,” I said. I sank my fork into a piece of egg and watched it bounce out. I resorted to using it as a scoop, bringing a chewy white slice of egg white to my mouth. I chewed and chewed and finally got it down. I had to follow it up with a slam of coffee, still too hot to drink but a relief after the burnt taste of the egg.
“Smells wonderful, Sven,” Helmut said. He dipped his spoon into his bowl of oatmeal, but what came out was a milky water with sparse oats floating in it. He swallowed the watery slurry and quickly moved onto the bacon.
“I remember you two telling me I didn’t do enough around the house. All the time I get the little yippy barks from you,” he said to me, “and the stern looks from you,” he said to Helmut. “So, fine, I said. I’ll take up the cooking.” He shoveled a huge fork of eggs into his mouth. “Mmmm,” he said, chewing with apparent relish.
“Well, maybe we were too quick to judge,” I said, looking over at Helmut for support. He held a pi
ece of bacon up in front of his face, like he’d just found an artifact from a bygone era. “Right, Helmut?”
“Err,” Helmut said, dropping the bacon. “Yes. I agree,” he said as he wiped his hand on his napkin. “Maybe cooking would be better handled by someone else.”
“Hmm…no, I think I like it,” Sven said, twisting a slice of bacon around his fork like spaghetti. “I don’t say this lightly, but I feel like I might have found my calling.” He popped the wad of undercooked bacon into his mouth.
Helmut and I stared at him slack jawed.
A knock from the front door knocked me out of my trance. “I’ll get it,” I said, rising to answer the front door.
A middle aged couple stood on our doorstep. The woman, Ulpi, had brown curly hair and more than her share of frown lines, which she was engaging now. Next to her was her husband, Griggen, a disheveled man with thinning black hair and clothes that he’d obviously slept in. They were members of our Pack, and I remember them both kneeling before me when I was initiated as Grace. They hadn’t as much as said hello in the months since then.
“Where is Helmut?” Ulpi said.
“We don’t need to involve them,” Griggen said sharply. His eyes were cast downward.
“I’m at my end with you, you good for nothing!” Ulpi said to him.
Griggen’s shoulders slumped forward in silent surrender.
“What’s this about?” Helmut said, walking up to the door. “Griggen. Ulpi. Good morning.”
“Helmut, I need you to do something. I can’t go on like this, with this…good for nothing!” Ulpi said, gesturing to her husband like a pile of filth.
“Domestic matters are matters for our Grace,” Helmut said, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I stood up a little straighter, trying to look regal in my still damp track suit.
Ulpi eyed me up and down. “But…you always judged in the past,” she said. “No, Clarissa will not do. I demand an audience with you.”
“Ulpi, my door is always open to you and Griggen, but this is a matter for the Grace. I used to do this in the past, true, but now we have a Grace. This is one of the Grace’s duties,” he said.
“I refuse!” Ulpi said, crossing her arms. Her brow was a furrow of angry lines.
“You’ll take my help or learn to solve your problem yourself, whatever it is,” I said, puffing my chest out.
Her mouth turned to a sneer. “Fine,” she said through gritted teeth.
Griggen’s shoulders shook briefly with a chuckle.
Ulpi turned to unleash a savage belt of words against the poor man.
“Excellent,” I said with authority. “Wait here on the porch while I change into something more suitable. Keep your voices down: some people are still enjoying their breakfast.”
“If only we were one of them,” Helmut said, so quietly that only I could hear him.
I gave him a soft elbow, not wanting to laugh in front of Ulpi and Griggen. I closed the front door and leaned back against it, sighing.
“You’re going to do fine,” Helmut said, kissing my forehead. “Just remember that if both parties hate you afterwards, you probably made the right decision.”
I looked at him in shock. “What have I gotten myself into?”
“Responsibility. Leadership. Power. That’s what you’ve gotten yourself into,” he said, pulling me into his arms. His strong arms wrapped around me, comforting me. “Sometimes they just need someone to listen to their sorrows. Most of your job will just be to hear them out.”
“Breakfast is getting cold,” Sven called from the kitchen.
“I’m full, dear,” I called into the kitchen. “Helmut will finish my plate.” I freed myself from Helmut’s embrace.
Helmut’s eyes went wide with my betrayal, his hands reaching out to grab me. Probably to tickle me for my insolence. I took the stairs up to the bedroom two at a time, thankful to not have to return to that table.
I shook my head as Clarissa ran up the stairs, leaving me to face both our plates alone. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, as they say. She also left me alone with my thoughts, and I needed to talk to someone about what she saw.
“Sven, I’m headed out for a bit. I’ll be back later on,” I called into the kitchen.
“Want something for the road?” he said.
“No, that early morning run killed my appetite,” I said as I headed out the front door. I nodded briefly at Ulpi and Griggen as they sat on our porch bench. No doubt there’s been drinking involved. Probably something else as well. Whatever it was, Clarissa could handle it.
I knocked on my uncle Ezekel’s front door and waited. I heard something fall and a sharp curse come from behind the house. I walked around it and saw him in the garage, underneath his old Chevrolet truck. He’d won it in a city poker game twenty years ago, and everyone in the village loved to tease him that he got the short end of the stick. It would probably never run again, but that didn’t stop him. He just loved to tinker.
“Uncle,” I said.
“Number six,” he said, thrusting an open hand up to me.
“Ok,” I said, digging around in his red toolbox along the wall until I found the wrench he needed. I handed it to him. “Do you have a moment to talk?”
“I have many of those moments. All day, in fact. But right now, I’m close to figuring out this ignition. Hammer,” he said.
I handed him the ball peen hammer. “It’s rather important,” I said.
“You young people think everything is important,” he said. A loud clank echoed through the garage as he hit the wrench with the hammer. “Whether it’s women, money or pride, it’s never as important as it seems.” Clank! “That’s the gift of age that I can bestow upon you, but I know it will be wasted.” Clank!
“Clarissa was out in the woods,” I said.
“Ha! Relationship problems, those are best nipped in the bud,” he said. Dropping the hammer. “Flowers and wine mend all bridges.”
“She saw a Redcap,” I said.
Ezekel rolled out from under the car and stood, giving his back a stretch. He walked past me to his tool bench, grabbing a rag. He wiped the thick black grease from his hands. “You don’t hear that every day.”
“When was the last time a Redcap was seen?” I said. “I had written them off as fairy tales.”
“Most people have. When they are seen, it’s often by,” he said, hesitating, “touched people. Special people. People favored by the Moon. A woman over on the Russian side claimed she saw one about twenty years ago, but no one believed her.”
“She said it threatened her,” I said, my pulse racing. “She said it was going to hurt her,” I said, balling my hand into a fist. My fingernails dug into my palm painfully.
He nodded slowly. “Make no mistake, they are mischievous at best and deadly at worst. More troubling, though, is the why. Why is it here? Who summoned it?”
I looked up at him. “Summoned it? Someone brought it here?”
“Don’t you remember the fairy tale? Leave a shoe filled with bloody meat outside your door and the Redcap will come,” he said.
“But Clarissa didn’t…” I said.
“Yes, so someone else did. You said it threatened her. Did it say anything else?” he said. “Sometimes they harm the body, and sometimes they harm the soul.”
Hunting For A Mate 4 (BBW Shifter Menage Romance) Page 2
