by Lisa Ladew
In Crew’s mind, Amos took a long, shuddering breath, pulled his gaze away from the ravine, then headed across the street, toward home. A figure materialized in front of him. Amos dropped into a fighting stance and his look of drunkenness fell away. “You,” he snarled. The figure didn’t speak. Before Crew could blink, the figure grew to three times Amos’ size and hoisted Amos over his shoulder as easily as Crew would a small animal. In two monstrous steps, the giant was at the ravine, throwing Amos to the bottom with no more effort than if he were throwing a baseball. Crew winced at the crunching sound that signified the beginning of his father’s end.
In his office, Crew slammed himself into the wall. “Sonofabitch!” he screamed, losing himself for just a moment. His dartboard fell off the wall, clattering to the ground, the darts snapping out. Even before the furious word fully escaped his mouth, he worked on getting himself back under control. His consciousness in the Pravus had scattered, and it took several moments for him to pull it together enough to speak to Khain.
When Crew was mostly together again, he faced Khain, whose hulking, skeletal frame shook as if he were laughing.
You can’t mark shiften, demon, so how did you know my father was there? And why was there no report of you crossing into the Ula? Tell me, or I will pluck these answers from your mind, and we both know how much you hate that.
Khain tapped a claw against a fang again, causing Crew to shake in impotent rage. He didn’t know if he could carry out his threats or not. It had been so long since he’d done anything that required that much power, and he was no longer that foolhardy boy who believed in his own invincibility. Having Khain threaten the life of his father, carry that death out, and threaten the life of his mate, had stripped any sense of power he’d once had.
Khain dropped his arm and stared at him. You’re right. You should know how I did that. In fact, I had always intended to show you… if ever our paths crossed again.
Khain crouched suddenly, and an energy shot out of him, punching through Crew’s consciousness, then following its back trail in a quarter of the time it had taken Crew to get there. Crew sagged against the wall of his office, calling his consciousness back, putting up every defense he had, but it was too late.
Khain’s energy punched through his emotional shield like it didn’t exist and careened at Crew’s face. Crew squeezed his eyes shut tight and struggled mentally. If his consciousness could just make it back in time…
Khain heaved one last time and a tiny bit of him made it into Crew’s brain through his eye, even as Crew’s consciousness returned, slamming into him, returning the power it had taken. Crew clawed at his own face and dug about in his own mind wildly with his mental talons, trying to find Khain and cast him out.
Khain’s abrading mental voice came to him, as if from far off. “Tell Burbank to be at the red wolf statue, alone, in an hour. He can have his mate, and her sister, too.” The words stopped. Crew’s awareness of the demon faded.
Crew stood tall in his office, alone, more terrified than he’d ever been in his life. He couldn’t feel Khain inside him, but he knew some tiny part of him was there.
Had he just traded the life of his mate for the life of Trevor’s mate?
Chapter 1
Present Day
Crew woke on the couch in his office in the real world all at once, instantly aware that someone else was there. He couldn’t contain his violent, defensive shift, even though he knew the male was friend, not foe. The transition between worlds always put him on edge, especially since his body never seemed to actually rest. Go to sleep in one world, wake up in another. Years of the world’s most realistic dream was wearing on him.
He twisted off the couch onto all fours, snarling as his mouth elongated and his fangs grew, his hips popping and angling downward, his clothes ripping and falling off of him. He faced the intruder as a wolf, lips pulled back in a snarl.
The other male was shifting also, but Crew didn’t have to witness all of it to know who it was. The white wolf with black fur on each foot that looked like boots, or socks, told him right away, even though he’d never seen Beckett shift, but he’d heard other wolven, wolf shifters, talk about Beckett’s strange markings and Mac had taken to calling him Boots since he’d been shot and had to shift in front of everyone to heal himself.
Crew got himself under control and promised his animal a run as soon as possible, then shifted back into human form. He let himself fall backwards, naked ass hitting the floor, and stared at Beckett, who had done the same.
“Dude,” Crew said, rubbing his face with a shaky hand.
“Dude,” Beckett agreed, snatching up his camo cap and putting it on his head with a practiced flick. “Who the fuck did you think I was, the ever-loving boogeyman?”
Crew grunted. “I’ve told you before, the transition puts me on edge.”
Beckett’s eyes widened. “I saw it! You weren’t there, and then you were! You just… appeared.”
Crew scowled. “I fucking told you. What, you didn’t believe me?”
Beckett picked up his dark pullover and eyed it for rips, not meeting Crew’s eyes. “I did. Mostly.”
Crew launched himself to his feet and grabbed up his own clothes. His shirt was ruined, but his pants were good, saved by the special velcro pull-aways all their uniforms had in choice locations. He pulled them on.
Beckett made a face. “Dude, change your clothes.”
Crew looked him over. “This is the same uniform you were wearing.”
“Mine’s clean. Don’t you ever do laundry?”
Crew unbuttoned the pants and yanked them off, balling them up and throwing them into his overflowing garbage. He crossed the room to a pile of crisp, new pants and shirts, all exactly like what he’d been wearing, taking two off the top, then offering one set to Beckett. “Santa hasn’t brought me a washer and dryer yet.”
Beckett stared at him for a long moment, before accepting the clothes. “You aren’t living here in your office, are you?”
Crew scrubbed his hand over his face again and looked down. What the hell, he could trust Beckett. “Don’t tell Wade.”
Beckett’s eyes narrowed but he gave a tight nod, then blew out a breath. “Why do you have two renquas?”
Crew turned away and dressed quickly, then returned to the couch for his boots. “I was born that way.” All proper shiften, had one renqua on the back of their left shoulder, a sign of their creation by the goddess Rhen, and a reminder of their sworn duty to protect humans. He was the only one he knew of who had the same renqua, a burst pattern that almost looked like a star, on his right shoulder also. In his human form, he paired them with twisting, inexplicable tattoos over his shoulders and chest, but he had never bothered to try to hide them in his wolf form. Like Beckett, he took great pains not to shift in front of others if possible.
Beckett nodded. “That means something, right? Like it reflects your powers, or maybe it’s because you have two lives.”
Except one of them only started when he’d first crossed Khain’s path. Crew kicked a book out of his way and crossed the messy room to his desk. His pill bottles sitting there looked different than they’d been before he went to sleep. Had Beckett been reading the labels?
He turned quickly. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“Wade sent me. He’s worried about you.”
Crew snorted. Of course Wade felt it too, knew that Crew would be next to meet his one true mate. Then, when he was in love with her, Khain would kill her in front of him. Game. Set. Match. No fucking do-overs. Crew shuddered. He wanted out. He would do anything not to have to face that fate. He knew what it felt like to lose those closest to him, and the look on Trevor and Graeme’s faces said no one had ever been closer than their new mates, or ever could be.
Crew knocked all of his pill bottles into a drawer and turned to face Beckett, who had hauled himself into the one chair in the room that wasn’t covered with books and papers. “Doesn’t he have better things to
do? I’m not the only one with issues. Is he worried about you?”
Beckett dropped his eyes satisfyingly, but Crew felt bad just the same. He and Wade were the only ones who knew about Beckett’s loaded-gun of a past, but rubbing it in his friend’s face to take the attention off himself felt crappy. “Sorry, Beck, that was messed up.”
Beckett flashed him a too-quick smile. “Fucker. You always fall for that.”
Crew felt his lips twitch into a sour grin, even though Beckett was a full-on dicksmack sometimes. He dropped back onto the couch and waited for whatever Beckett had been sent in here to say.
Beckett savored his win for a few moments before he took a deep breath and stared at Crew with an intensity that made Crew want to squirm.
“It’s about your one true mate.”
Crew quirked his head. “Yeah, I gathered that,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I didn’t think Wade sent you down here to find out if I’m a Mac or a PC.”
Beckett screwed up his face. “A what or a what?”
Crew waved a hand at him. “Nothing. Computer talk. Never mind.”
Beckett snorted and flashed him that smile again, the one that showed every one of his teeth. “You think you’re fast, but I get you every time. Hi, I’m a Mac, you’re a PC. I’m awesome and you suck Bill Gates’ crusty right nut.”
Crew shook his head but some of the edginess leaked out of him. Beckett was a pain in the ass, but a fun pain in the ass. For Crew, fun was rare in this world.
Beckett looked around the room. “Where’d your dartboard go?”
Crew stood, eyeing the spot on the wall where it had been. Oh, right. He pointed it out and Beckett went to it, picking it up and messing with it, obviously hoping a game would make whatever he had to say easier to get out. He muttered something, but the only word Crew could pick out was, “housekeeper.” Crew took the interlude to probe around in his mind for Khain’s hook, like he always did when he returned to his real world. It was there. He pried at it mentally, circling it, looking for weaknesses or changes. Every time he got too close, the mental pain was unbearable. But he would find a way to get it out or die trying. Maybe the dragon would know. But could the dragon be trusted not to tell anyone?
Beckett found the nail and pushed it back into the wall, then replaced the dartboard and spoke without turning around. “So, Wade wants me to feel you out. He thinks you’re planning something. I reckon he’s worried you’re gonna off yourself, but I tried to tell him you would never do that.”
Beckett stopped talking, but Crew didn’t respond. He’d been wondering how to bring this exact thing up to Beckett, and here it was. A sign that it was the right course of action?
The dartboard back on the wall, Beckett picked through the darts, but all of them were busted. He threw them in the trash, then rooted through Crew’s desk drawers for more. Crew could hear the sleeping pills rattle in their bottles as the drawer opened and closed, but Beckett didn’t look at them or ask about them, telling Crew he already knew what they were.
Beckett pulled out a wrapped gift box and held it up. “Dude, you never even opened it?” His voice was tight, and Crew knew the hurt there probably was real.
“Sorry, I, ah, I knew what they were. Didn’t have anyone to play with. Thanks, though.”
Beckett shook his head and tore the birthday wrapping paper off the box and pulled out the tungsten darts. “Top of the line darts, and he just throws them in his desk,” he said, holding one on his palm, then rolling it to his fingers in a practiced move.
“Who you talking to?”
“Not you,” Beckett snapped, standing behind the line on the floor and letting one fly. “501. Beauty before age.”
Crew snorted and pushed himself to his feet. “Any day, Socks, I’m gonna beat you like you stole my car.”
Beckett shot him a look that said, ‘Don’t call me Socks again,’ but Crew ignored it. He felt almost not awful for the first time in months. He didn’t know it was still possible.
Beckett scowled. “No funny business, either.”
Crew feigned innocence, then relented, “No Jedi mind tricks, I swear it.” He frowned. Sometimes his power got away from him, but if he concentrated he should be OK. The game went quickly, both of them neck and neck, until Beckett finally got out what he’d been chewing on since he’d arrived, causing Crew to falter.
“Wade thinks you need a guard.”
Crew kept his composure, but barely, throwing viciously. The dart bounced off a wire and stuck in the floor.
“Hear me out,” Beckett said, taking his turn like nothing had happened. “Since Khain can’t mark shiften, and he doesn’t seem to be able to mark the one true mates either, there’s some other way he’s going to find her, right?”
Crew took some deep breaths and tried to keep himself from snapping.
“Wade and I have been going over and over the incident you were shown, trying to tease clues out of it.” Beckett held up a hand, the thumb popped out. “It’s dark. There’s snow on the ground. You don’t know where you are, somewhere in town. He’s got her by the throat. You can’t see her face because her hair is covering it, so we still don’t know what she looks like.” He popped out his index finger. “You know she’s your one true mate and it’s really something that’s going to happen and not just some bullshit he’s trying to scare you with because, in this vision of her death, you can feel your love for her and your dread of what he’s about to do, but you also can feel that you haven’t claimed her yet, so your relationship is still very new.” He popped out a third finger. “You shift and run for him, but before you can get there, she drops to the ground and he disappears. You reach her and she calls you by name, knowing you in your wolf form, and then she dies. Is that right?”
Crew swallowed hard and nodded, not trusting himself to speak, grinding the dart in his hand.
“Shoot, and then I’ll go on.”
Crew took a few deep breaths, then lobbed a pathetic attempt at the board. It barely stuck. 2 points. Genius.
Beckett took his place, speaking in a stilted rush, so different from his normal, amused drawl. “If Khain can’t mark her, and you haven’t known her long, he’s got to find her because of your relationship somehow. Something about you is going to lead him to her. Wade’s afraid Khain has an emotional connection with you because of the time you spent inside his head when you were thirteen. He thinks that when y’all first touch, and you feel whatever it is the one true mates make the shiften feel at that touch, Khain’s going to catch it from the Pravus and be able to find you.” He turned hard eyes to Crew. “Wade also knows you’re thinking the same thing but aren’t asking any of us for help, even me, and that’s why he’s worried you’re going to go over the waterfall without a bucket.”
Crew scowled and turned away, his not-quite-good feelings evaporating, bitterness taking their place. He should have known his questions to Trevor and Graeme wouldn’t go unnoticed. Did you love her right away? How long did it take for the love to develop? Their answers, that they’d both felt the calling to claim and protect their one true mates immediately, but the love had taken several days to start developing, had calmed him immensely. To him, it meant he still had time. If he didn’t love her the moment he saw her, that meant the events in the vision couldn’t happen until he’d spent some time with her, something he never intended to let happen.
He glanced at the scoreboard. Fifty even to win and be done with this conversation. He aimed for the outer bull’s-eye, resisting the urge to help the dart find its mark with the power of his mind.
Miss. Damn it.
Beckett laughed. “I reckon it’d help if I put some hair around it for you.”
Crew moved out of the way and indicated Beckett should take his spot at the line. “How about you? You miss that fucking thing so often, I’m gonna rename it the G-spot.”
Beckett chuckled then quirked an eyebrow at him. “You really gonna go there?”
Crew fell back and wait
ed for Beckett’s shot. No, he wasn’t. Beckett had him beat in the female department, for sure. Or he had, until now. Crew’s one true mate was next to be found. He felt it deep in his being, and in the increasingly irritating tug of the tiny scrap of Khain’s essence in his brain. Watching. Waiting.
Beckett let a dart fly, then two more. “So, Wade thinks if you always have three or four wolven with you, when Khain shows up, he won’t be able to get at her, and once that first touch happens, you’ll be free and clear.”
Crew didn’t look at Beckett, trying his turn and failing again to double out. “Won’t work,” he mumbled, too quickly, thinking of the demon hook in his brain. “If he misses his first try, he’ll get another shot. When I claim her or something. Nobody’s gonna be in the room then. Or he’ll lure me away from the guard or the other way around.”
Beckett stared at him, expression hard. “I’m sure you’ve considered all of this, Crew, but fucking work with us. We’re gonna help you, even if that means putting a guard on you whether you like it or not.”
“Go,” Crew told him, returning the hard expression. Beckett pressed his lips together, but turned to the board and did so. Crew spoke deliberately between Beckett’s throws. “There’s one place you can’t follow me.”
Beckett turned his head to toss him a vicious look, then turned back to the board, throwing his arm in a hard, angry arc, a shot that should have struck an inch left of the board. But somehow, he hit double twenty, winning the game.
Beckett stared disbelievingly at the dart, then at Crew, then crossed the room to rip the dart out of the board and snap it in half. “Fuck that with a bull’s dick. And fuck you, too, Crew. I knew that was your plan. Is that what the sleeping pills are for? You trying to make your way out of this world permanently?”
Crew stared back, wondering how much he should admit.
Chapter 2
Dahlia Woodridge squinted out the windshield of her car, cranking her wipers up as fast as they would go. The deluge of fat snowflakes hitting her windshield as she cruised at 47 mph, even though the speed limit was 70, blocked her vision slightly, so she slowed more, then reached down to fiddle with her heater, her eyes still on the road. Great, it was up as high as it would go and she was still freezing. Her piece-of-crap car might not make it through the winter, which was supposed to be a bad one.
