Page 1 of Omega Haunting (Starscale Mates #8)

Astral

Earthside, Appalachian Wolf Pack Territory

“And that’s how I can put you in contact with your true-mate,” Dern nodded and leaned back in his beat up lawn chair.

Meeting behind his house around his dirty firepit wasn’t the ideal place to conduct business but it was the only place the old hound would talk about anything serious. Whenever asked he’d mutter something about the crystals buried under it but never give that much of a committed answer. We all let him get on with being one of our oldest pack mates in the neighborhood in peace unless he asked for something.

“And this actually works?” I cocked my eyebrow at the old wolf shifter fortune teller.

I’d done my fair share of magic in my thirty years, but my nose wasn’t broken. Everything coming out of Dren’s mouth smelled like a scam. He was looking for moonshine or money. I didn’t have a lot of the latter on hand, but my family made more of the first than the average household. It wasn’t uncommon for neighbors, pack members, and travelers to show up at our front door and try to barter. Usually, we sent them packing. The moonshine wasn’t exactly for drinking. Its primary purpose was magic. There wasn’t a lot that moonshine couldn’t do with the right add-ins and intentions. It was only a decade ago that my family opened an official business selling the jarred spells, ‘spell in a shot glass’, and of course our Warden’s Secret Warding Spray. The latter was a Warden family secret passed down through the generations for as long as anyone could remember. There were other goods we made upon request but those were our bestsellers. I was as magical as the rest of them, but I’d still put money on the warding spray mostly working because it burnt the nose hairs off any would-be intruder.

“I wouldn’t say it did if it didn’t,” Dren rolled his eyes. “Besides, you came to me not the other way around, Ast.”

“If you had this the whole time, why are you only whipping it out now?” I arched a brow and leaned back in my seat.

“This isn’t the first time. I just don’t mention it often because I believe meeting your true-mate causes more trouble than it’s worth most of the time,” Dern said, narrowing his eyes on me.

Everyone knew Dern had been a true-mate widower for at least the last five decades. I didn’t remember him as anything except a widower. Apparently, his alpha had been a huge guy with wings. The exact beast he shifted into was debated but Dern wasn’t about to spill the beans.

His explanation was only half true. I only came to him because he told Morgi who lived on the street between that he had information on my true-mate. Dern never took to liking the title of seer, preferring fortune teller, but he saw as well as any seer from the more prestigious packs and places. He didn’t talk a lot about how his messages came to him but the old hound was usually on the nose about what he saw. Only, this sounded like a scam. Smelled like one too. Dern didn’t exactly smell like a lie, but he smelled unhappy about what he was doing. Unhappy enough that he put my inner beast on edge. My wolf paced his inner sanctum sniffing the air as if he could out the problem before it grew too large.

“I only do this when it’s gonna benefit me or someone really needs my help. You don’t need my help but in the long run I need this to happen. I apologize now before the horse shit hits the fan. You’ll have a great time I’m sure, but it never starts out great, Astral. Remember that. I’m not even gonna charge you because this one is for Ormund. You haven’t met him. Probably never will seeing his door’s come and gone and you’re blind as the rest of these mangy hounds but it’s for him.

“Your alpha?” I cocked my brow.

“Yes,” Dern sighed. “My mate. The one and only.”

His grey eyes unfocused just over my shoulder as if he stared into the past.

“How will this help him?” I asked, finally sitting down in the lawn chair next to him.

“I can’t tell you yet. Eventually everyone will know. All I need you to do for me is not fuck up meeting your true-mate.”

‘I’ll try my best,” I said, but was already mentally writing an email to the local clinic to drop in and check on Dern. Maybe he was finally losing whatever was left of his mind. He spent more time alone than any one wolf I knew and that couldn’t be good for him at his age.

“So, here we go again. You’re going to go over to Morgi’s and pick up two apples. One for the spell and one for me to eat because age can ask favors of youth. Then you’re going to go home and I’m going to do some magic. Then I’ll show you tomorrow how it works.”

“Are you sure you just don’t want a couple of apples, Dern?” I asked, trying not to sound like a condescending smart ass.

“If I didn’t need your help, I’d whack you right on the nose. You’re not young enough to act like a pup anymore, Ast. You’re gonna have to man up and quick. Being a true-mate isn’t an easy job. Even if yours is half – no – dare I say a tenth as good as Ormund, it’s not going to be easy. Those sorts of relationships take a lot of work and you young puppers don’t want to put that in but you play your cards right and I think you’ll be sittin’ as nice as peach pie by the end of this. You won’t have to worry about me anymore either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never you mind what’s that supposed to mean,” he growled. “You leave that to me and Ormund. You just bring me the apples and then come back here tomorrow night after the moon comes up.”

“We’ll see where this goes,” I nodded.

“Oh, I know where it might go. Your alpha probably won’t be sending me a thank you card any time soon either. Bigger headache for him than you. At least you’ll know there’s magic under your paws. He won’t have that luxury.”

He turned his head away from me and grumbled something about scaley bellies that I ignored. I waited a few minutes before leaving but Dern continued his muttered conversation with the empty air. On my way down to Morgi’s, I swung by the Peach Creek Clinic and let the lady behind the desk know they may want to send a doctor out to check on Dern soon. He probably wouldn’t thank me later but sometimes you had to follow your gut.

***

That night I lay awake for a long time. Of course I hadn’t only taken Dern apples. I stopped in at Munchie’s Diner and picked him up a few burgers and some fries too. The Appalachian Wolf Pack hadn’t been fully incorporated into itself long enough to cover all our bases if you asked me. If we had, Dern would already have a nurse or some sort of aid that came in a few times a week to check in on him.

“I don’t think he’s full of shit,” my wolf sounded off inside my thoughts.

“He’s not,” I sighed back at my inner beast. “Old man believes what he’s saying but that doesn’t mean it’s true. How does he expect to turn an apple into something that will contact my true-mate?”

“How do you turn moonshine into a ward that will blast the balls off a fucker if applied correctly?” the furry guy shot back at me.

“Elbow grease and magic,” I sighed.

“Elbow grease and magic,” he agreed.

Eventually I fell asleep and dreamt that Dern and Morgi were both pelting me with apples carved into earpieces that so many folks use for their phones these days. They had barrel upon barrel of them and kept tossing them at my head shouting about how my true-mate would be here to save me any minute now. I hoped wherever he was my alpha wasn’t privy to the insanity my pack drove me towards sometimes. I loved them – they were more than family, they were pack – but sometimes I wondered how much of their crazy rubbed off on me.

***

When I sent a message to my family’s group chat that I wouldn’t be at work that night I was greeted with the exact response I expected. The moon was hanging out her full, pregnant belly for everyone to see and I was off to play nurse-maid to an old hound. The full moon was our busiest night of the year. We shut down shop to the public and got a lot of our warding magic out of the way for the next lunar cycle. I loved working on the full moon but sometimes a wolf has to be selfish. Sometimes he has to chase the wild goose to find out if it’s really going to lay the golden egg. Tonight was that night for me.

I was the youngest of six siblings. All of my older brothers had already met their true-mates and my parents were talking about having another set of kids. I grew up surrounded by a lot of broken homes. So the fact they were still together and liked each other enough to want to do life ‘all over again’ felt like magic on its own. Of course, they were true-mates. Everyone, except Dern, said that made life easier. Despite what the widower said, I decided to believe that meeting my other half would make my life easier. My parents were happy. My siblings and their mates seemed happy. The few of my friends who had already found their other halves were happy. It was only Dern claiming that whoever I’d chosen in the Other World would cause me a headache. I wondered for a moment if it was easier for him to remember Ormund as a headache now that he’d been gone so long. I couldn’t imagine finding my other half only to lose them later. That was life though. Everything and everyone came in cycles. Here today and gone tomorrow.

I stopped outside Dern’s front gate and shook away my musings. I only half-believed that he’d be able to put me in touch with my alpha. The other half of me firmly believed either he’d finally gone senile on us or that this was a desperate cry for company. If it was the latter, I’d figure out a way to include him in more things. No one should sit alone and rot unless that’s what they wanted.

A hinge on the screen door squeaked, startling me back to the present. The time for musing was over and whatever was going down was happening soon.

“You gonna stand out there all dang night or are you gonna get your tail in here so I can tell you how this works?” Dern called out.

An owl hooted as if we’d interrupted his nighttime meditations and took off from a nearby tree.

“Hoot-hoot to you too,” Dern growled and motioned for me to come in.

He beckoned with the impatience of a wolf waving in a pup as a storm swept into our mountains. I took one more deep breath before stepping inside his yard. I made sure to close the gate back up because my whole life my sire said good gates made good neighbors. Good fences and respect for them kept territory disputes to a minimum. Times were better now but both of my parents and their ancestors grew up when fighting over who owned a dandelion to toss into a pot was a big deal.

As I walked up Dern’s porch steps, I said a silent prayer for those who’d come before me and hoped that the first stop in the afterlife was a feast. Dern sighed and furrowed his brow. He’d picked up something over the pack link but didn’t mention it straight away. First, he led me inside the home he once shared with Ormund. I followed him over the hardwood floors of the living room into the kitchen where he already had coffee and the fixins on the table.

“Help yourself and just so you know, I have proof that no one good goes hungry in the afterlife. I’ve never bothered to ask the assholes.”

“Good to know,” I said, waiting for him to sit down before choosing a chair across the table from him.

We made up our coffee in silence and Dern picked up his mug with both hands. For a moment, I tried to unwind time and see him as a young fortune teller. I wasn’t sure if he was born here or moved here later on. Even during the days when our pack didn’t have much we shared what we could. Well, most of us did anyway.

“I wasn’t,” he shook his head. “Ormund either. Though, you’re going to find out home is a lot more than where your placenta hits the dirt. It’s a lot more than ---” Dern sighed. “It’s a lot more than a lot of things.”

“Can I ask you something?” I sat my mug down.

“I’m not senile, if that’s what you want to know,” he chuckled.

“Good to know but no, I wanted to ask if you know who my mate is? If you do why go through so much trouble and so many apples?”

“I do,” he sat his mug down too and leaned back in his chair. “But telling you’d cause more harm than good, I think. Not because I think you’d be trouble or he’d be trouble but because there are some things. There are always things of course. First, you’d think I was crazy – maybe.” Dern shrugged. “I think this way works better for everyone. The only thing is, he’s going to have to figure out a lot on his own. Well, not exactly on his own. The apple only works in one direction. He’ll hear you but he won’t be able to speak back.”

“Will he even understand me?” I asked.

“Probably,” Dern shrugged. “I’ve seen enough to believe he will. It’ll take a while for him to figure it out, though.”

“Because alphas are hardheaded?” I laughed.

“No, because hearing voices that no one else can usually means you’re fucking nutty, pup,” Dern sighed and pointed to the apple sitting next to the coffee pot. “It’s ready for you. In fact, he’s probably hearing us now. Maybe. It’s hit or miss what he’ll hear.”

“Do you know his name?” I asked, leaning forward hoping for at least one little bread crumb.

“I do,” he nodded. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t. Anyone could show up and claim to be your mate. Then bad shit would happen. We don’t like liars, and we don’t like alphas who….” Dern shook his head and glanced over my shoulder. Then the old wolf sighed again and shook his head. “I’ll tell you next full moon if he hasn’t figured it out.”

“Is he from around here?”

Dern laughed and shook his head.

“Why’s that so funny?”

“One day, you’ll know it all, pup. Have fun with the apple and keep it after you meet him. You’ll never know when life will keep you apart.”

I opened my mouth and shut it again, wanting to ask what had kept Dern apart from his mate, but the question was too personal to ask.

“Does it need to charge or anything?” I asked.

“As long as you’re both alive, it’ll work. Won’t rot or anything,” Dern explained. “Now, finish your coffee and get back home to work. I know none of the Wardens are happy that I pupnapped you on their busiest night of the month.”