Page 2 of The Dragon’s Stone Hearted Mate (Mori’s Mementos #1)

Mori

Mori’s Momentos, Nightshade Bear Territory

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I muted the phone, waiting for it to pass before speaking, not wanting my best friend to take the storm as an omen for the fate of my trip home.

Othoni hated storms. It was some deep ingrained phobia of his that always sent him scrambling for cover.

Sure, he could hide under his mate now, but I’d save him the trouble, if I could.

“Are you actually, okay?” Ni asked, his words over the line nearly drowned out by the tail end of the thunder.

“I’m fine, Ni,” I said into the phone while my twin brother, Preston, made funny faces at me. “Really. I haven’t been kidnapped by anyone yet. No fainting. No postcards. No nothing. Seriously. I don’t think it’s going to happen while I’m here.”

Ni hadn’t been thrilled when I decided enough was enough and it was time for me to take a trip home to see my family and reunite with my twin.

I’d waited on the Postcard Men to contact me for almost a year now ever since Dern told me about them.

Part of me felt let down that they hadn’t reached out.

Another part was relieved that maybe Dern and Ormund were just crazy dead men and maybe – just maybe – the Postcard Men didn’t exist, and I could go on and live my life.

I could start my paranormal investigation company and run my little oddity shop in peace.

“Promise me you’ll be careful,” Ni warned. “Don’t make me drag a toddler through the Other World to save you and make Teddy kick their asses because I will!”

“Uh… I don’t think they’re going to kill me. I mean Dern was their hitman. So, I don’t think they do their own killing anyway,” I teased, trying to put his mind at ease.

Preston stuck his tongue out at me again and I turned my back to him to keep from laughing.

He found Ni and Teddy’s mother henning more than a bit annoying.

His bear was ready for life to return to normal.

Only normal was different for me now. Some things like spirits showing up never changed but every atom inside of me knew something was coming.

Something was going to change soon. Only I wasn’t sure what that would be.

“How is my goddaughter?” I asked about Ni and Teddy’s daughter Zinnia, changing the subject and praying the storm held off until I managed to get Ni off the phone.

“Getting bigger every day and she misses you,” Ni said.

“I miss her too. I’ll be back in a few weeks, probably.”

“Why probably?” Ni asked, concern reemerging in his tone.

“Because I don’t make promises anymore. Not with so much hanging over my head,” I sighed.

“Dern said you’d need Teddy and me,” Ni reminded me for the millionth time since I first mentioned my trip home.

“And I will. Preston knows to call you as soon as I faint – if it happens, that is,” I said and stopped myself from reminding him that I invited his family along, but he chose to stay in the Appalachian Wolf Pack Territory.

His daughter was a bit young for a journey.

I got that but I couldn’t make everyone happy.

Besides, they were probably secretly thrilled to have some time on their own.

“I know, I know,” Ni sighed. “Mori, I just don’t want you to get hurt.

We don’t know anything about these men besides they told Dern to kill bad guys.

They sent him and Ormund to do mercenary work.

I want to help you. If people need help, I want to help.

I want to see the world before I have to go home and lead my jaguars. I just don’t want you to ---”

“Look, I could walk outside right now and get struck by lightning. Seriously, it’s about to storm like a bitch right now. No one is ever really safe,” I said, letting news of the storm slip off my tongue as my last defense against his good-natured worries.

“I’m glad I’m here,” Ni said.

“Me too. You’d be under the counter, and I don’t think Teddy could fit under there with you,” I said, almost laughing at the mental image of Teddy nearly squishing his mate while trying to ‘protect’ him from the storm.

“Look, I’m going to go, okay? I’m fine. Really.

I’m going to have lunch and go through some stuff that came in the mail.

We’re waiting out the storm before we go back to the house because it’s coming down in buckets. ”

“I’ve kept him alive this long,” Preston said, projecting his voice so that Ni heard it over the phone.

“He better keep that up,” Ni sighed. “I love you. Be careful.”

“Love you. Kiss the baby for me.”

When the call ended, I turned to face my twin. Preston shot me a ‘told you so’ look.

“He can’t live without you,” he teased me.

“He can and he is, and he will,” I said. “The same applies to you.”

“Are you going to let them help?” Preston asked.

“I am but there isn’t anything to help with right now,” I shrugged. “Besides, there are too many tiny things inside the store for the baby to be here. There’s no babyproofing this place.”

I shuffled through the mail. Most of it was small parcels filled with items folks wanted me to take a look at.

Most of them would be mundane. They always were but every once in a while, we’d find something actually magical or cursed.

Curses and hexes weren’t as common as people claimed.

Most magical practitioners didn’t have enough rage to cast magic that would do any real harm and most of those didn’t bother to curse objects.

Bones carried magic just fine and most of their enemies had bones.

There was a letter from a friend in London.

Crilus. He ran a bar there now even though he hailed from the Raven Hollow Wolf Territory on the other side of the continent.

Then on the very bottom of the pile was a postcard.

I squinted at the card, willing myself to turn over the photo of a horned statue surrounded by trees and to read the back.

Preston peered over my shoulder and flipped it for me.

“YOU’LL COME WHEN HE HAS MADE UP HIS MIND!” was scrawled across the back of the postcard.

“Is this a joke?” Preston asked. “Dern said the first time they just yoinked people out of their bodies.”

“Maybe they’ve changed how they recruit? Dern was practically a bajillion years old,” I said and bit my lip. “Don’t tell the others. Not our parents and certainly not Ni or Teddy.”

“Ni and Teddy aren’t my friends. They’re yours,” he shrugged. “We don’t socialize.”

“Not our parents,” I said again because he hadn’t mentioned them. “The last thing I need is them trying to keep me bedbound. We don’t even know if this is real or who the guy is or what he’s deciding.”

“Fine but then you have to stick close to me,” he said. “Mori, I know you have this whole independent wolf thing going on, but someone has to watch your body when they yoink you out of it.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I don’t know why they can’t just be straight forward.”

“Because they’re probably dead guys and dead guys are rarely straight forward,” Preston shrugged, looking more like our carrier than ever.