“It’s not. Come on, get me out. It’s cold down here.”
Celia yanked me by my moppy hair and shifted me free from my earth-packed prison. She waited with clenched fists ready to pound. Before I got knocked out for the second time that day, I fumbled for the note in my back pocket. She frowned when I grabbed her hand and placed the wrinkled and torn pieces in her palm.
I grinned. “Think of it as a puzzle you have to put together.”
She clasped her hand over the ripped bits of paper when the wind picked up, and walked up the wooden steps leading to her deck. I followed, watching as she used a few pebbles gathered in an old mason jar to weigh down the rumpled pieces while she arranged them on her patio table. It didn’t take her long to put the note back together. Debbie, or whatever the hell her name was, hadn’t taken the time to shred the evidence. After all, she had an unsuspecting fiancée to deal with and the rage of a jilted werebitch to unleash.
Celia crossed her arms again and read Aric’s words in silence, paying close attention to where her wolf openly proclaimed their matehood. Damn shame he never told her himself.
“Do you mind if I keep it?” she asked after a while.
I shrugged with one shoulder. “Go ahead. I think I’ve worn out its uses.” I paused, wrestling with whether I should open my yap again. Aric had majorly f’d up when it came to my girl, and shattered what little confidence their relationship had brought her. It was his fault. All of it. But she needed validation that what they had had been real—and not some game he’d played to get in her pants.
She angled her chin in my direction. “What is it?”
I plucked another pebble from the mason jar and tossed it in my hand a few times, struggling with whether to shut my trap or squeal like a little bee-atch. In the end, my loud mouth won. Hell, it usually did. “I hate to admit it, but that wolf does love you. I know I’ve told you before, but you need to believe it, kid.”
I wandered to the edge of the deck, unable to bear her reaction. As it was that bittersweet scent of her sadness belted my schnoz like a sucker punch. I pitched the pebble past where her property ended, swearing beneath my breath. The small round pebble soared over the cluster of bulky pines, up the steep incline, and into the forest. I heard it land a few seconds later, its dive to the ground muffled by the thick bed of pine needles carpeting the forest floor.
Celia leaned against the weathered rail next to me, her voice strained. “Maybe he does, but he’ll be married soon—and it won’t be to me.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She leaned against me, despite how muddy the shift had left me. Celia was always cool about forgiving me. Maybe she realized I wasn’t such an ass-wipe after all . . . and that I’d do anything for her and her sisters. “Come out with me tonight. You could use a good laugh.”
She lifted her head. “Are you going to a comedy club or something?”
“Not exactly.” I chuckled again. “Dan’s convinced he can get laid without me. I’m betting he can’t.”
She rubbed her brow. “Oh, no. Poor Danny. For the love of all things holy, what did you bet him?”
“I—” An unearthly cold hit my spine like a frozen spike and my head whipped in the direction of the forest. The sour stench of rot and torture burned through my nose and rolled my stomach. I snarled and shoved Celia behind me. There, at the edge of her lawn, inched a spirit dressed in a sheer flowing gown of red.
Her long black hair drifted around her like bands of seaweed in water. Her coal black eyes sparkled despite the lack of moonlight where she watched us. She smiled with jagged teeth. “Have you seen my children?” she asked in an eerie cry that seemed to echo from all directions.
“Holy shit.”
It was my only response before I attacked.
Chapter Three
“Bren, don’t!”
I ignored Celia and leapt off the deck, landing in my six-hundred-pound timber wolf form. The spirit’s high-pitched cackle raised the brown fur on my back in perfect “come and get me” mode. She disappeared through the evergreens just as my jaws opened to bite.
Normally my fangs wouldn’t have done jack shit against a spirit, but this one had taken a physical form. Good for me, bad—seriously bad—for her. Her long sheer gown swirled like flickering flames behind her as she sprinted around the firs in a dizzying blur. Damn it, she was fast. I hauled serious tail to keep up, using the blood red color of her gown to lure me to her like a goddamn bull.
“Where are my children . . . help me find my children.”
Her shrilled voice mocked and taunted me, disorienting my senses as it echoed from all directions. So I ignored everything but my sight and used my speed to propel me closer to her evil, decaying ass.