Page 14 of Jacked-up Mate (Alphas of Whisper Grove #1)

Jack

The first time I kept my human form all night long, it was like a dream, one I didn’t fully believe.

I tried to convince myself it was just a fluke, that it would be back the next day.

Not because I wanted it to be so but because I was scared.

Scared I’d finally gotten everything I thought I’d ever wanted, only to have it yanked from me.

And then the second night came and went. I cherished it and started to believe, for the first time, that it was real. My curse was lifted.

As fabulous as it was not wearing my huge jack-o’-lantern head every night, not feeling the need to hide away from the world so I didn’t terrify everyone, staying in human form wasn’t the best part. The best part was that I had Foster in my life. My mate. My forever.

I’d heard of true mates before. I lived in Whisper Grove, for goddess’ sake, of course I had.

But I never fully got it, not really. I thought it was like that first feeling I had when dating someone new that I really liked.

Giddy and sweet, and I thought, hey, this might be forever.

But finding my true mate was nothing like that.

When I was with Foster, I was home. Sure, my heart raced and butterflies fluttered in my stomach when he smiled at me, and when he touched me, that simple caress reached deeper than anyone’s ever had before.

It was so much more than that. Together, we were complete.

And that sounded cheesy, maybe even silly, but that’s how it was.

A few weeks into our mating, I decided I wanted him as a forever resident in my house.

Asking him to marry me was silly because wolves didn’t do that.

Mating was so much more than a ring and a few words could ever be.

Living together? That was showing commitment not only in our hearts but also in our fiscal lives.

He already was with me every night. Usually we were at my place but sometimes at the cabin he rented from his boss.

Tonight, I was going to ask him to give up the rental and this be his permanent house.

We were with each other every night, so it wouldn’t be a huge change.

More symbolic than anything else, my way of showing him I was all in. Or that was the intent, anyway.

While he was at work doing the lunch shift, I went to the bakery and the grocery store and got the fixings for a special meal. It wouldn’t be overly fancy, but it was going to be Jack fancy.

I went back home to get everything ready. I opted for a pasta dish; that way, if he was running a little behind, it wouldn’t make much difference. Once everything was set and ready for the pasta to be cooked and plated, I went in for a shower.

That’s when everything was yanked out from under me.

As the water rinsed my hair, suddenly there was no longer any hair, and in its place? My jack-o’-lantern head.

It was back.

I froze. I didn’t know why, but my first fear was that something had happened to Foster. If finding my mate broke the curse, him being hurt or worse might bring it back.

Water off, I scurried out of the bathroom, not even toweling off, and hunted down my phone. Relief flooded me when he answered.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s fine. Just go to work. I just…I was worried.” An understatement. I had gone into full-blown panic mode, fearing the worst.

“I’m coming home now.”

“Seriously, I’ll be here when you get here. I love you.” And then I disconnected the call. The more I said, the more he would hear just how wrong I was.

I dried off enough to sit in front of my laptop and started searching curses.

I didn’t know why I thought they’d just be on Google.

They weren’t, not real ones. There were plenty of sites about movies.

Nothing that held any of the answers I needed.

Why was this happening? Was I…stuck like this? Was it going to be like before?

Search after search…nothing came up. I was going to need to go into town and find a mage who might be able to help me. But not now. Not like this. No one wants to talk to a pumpkin head.

I still had my towel wrapped around me, staring blankly at the computer screen, when my mate came rushing in.

“What’s wrong, my love… Oh.” He stopped in his tracks. “That’s unexpected.”

Here I was, sobbing about my head, and his reaction was that it was unexpected. He wasn’t freaked out by it. Just surprised.

“It’s back,” I choked out.

“I see that.” He squatted in front of me, his hands gently on my shoulders. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Why does that matter?”

“It matters because it’s the full moon. I might not be a werewolf who’s ruled by it, but my beast feels it. It’s the one day he wants to get out even more. Do you think that could be something similar for you? Could it be the full moon?”

“You think the full moon made me…cursed?”

“Maybe.” He smiled softly. “You look exhausted. How about we get you in bed.” He picked me up in his arms, acting more like an alpha than I currently was.

He carried me to bed, covered me with the quilt, shifted into his wolf form, and snuggled beside me. We stayed that way all night.

When I woke up, I was back to normal. The next day too. And the next. Soon, it was pretty clear that my mate had been right. I was a jack-o’-lantern on the full moon. Maybe other times too.

The only way to find out was to track down the mage who’d done this to me. He was long gone from my phone contacts, but I went back to one of my old emails. I’d met him through an app, and, just like I’d hoped, there was an email with his name in it.

I searched his full name online. There were eighteen people in the results. I tried to contact them all. Some I couldn’t reach at all; the others were definitely not him.

I asked Cole to help me. He was king of the social media gig. He could find anyone. Anyone except the one person I was looking for.

Days went on like this. I was exhausted, missing sleep by getting up early and staying up late all in an attempt to find him. I was no closer than I was when I first started. And really? Would he help me? Maybe if he believed in true mates and had one of his own.

Foster came in and sat on the bed beside me. He closed my laptop gently and set it aside.

“We’re not doing this,” he said, taking both my hands. “We’re not. It doesn’t matter if one day a month you have your pumpkin head. We’ll just plan that as a stay-home date night. It’s no big deal.”

“You deserve—”

He held up his hand. He wasn’t having it.

“What I deserve is not at all what I have because there’s no way I did anything in this life or any lives before that could make me worthy of having you as a mate. But here you are, wearing my mark. And I love you exactly as you are.”

I threw my arms around him. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.”

“Remember the day when you came home, and I was gonna make a fancy dinner, but I had a big old pumpkin head?”

He nodded.

“I was going to ask you something that night. But then I thought maybe it was a bad idea…that it was unfair to you.”

“You can ask me anything, Jack. Anything.”

“Will you move in with me?” I spoke so quickly, they blended together.

“I’m already here.”

“I mean, give up your rental. Have this be your forever home.”

He smiled, placing his hand on my chest.

“This cabin isn’t my forever home,” he said softly. “You are.”