Page 31

Chapter 31

Howl

KEENAN

I pace the kitchen, waiting, not totally freaking out because Rush called to tell me Magdalene has Vanessa. But sort of freaking out because he used the words ‘for experimentation’ as the reason they needed Vanessa. Theoretically, she should be safe, but I’ve spent time with the witches and they can be dangerous, especially to a vulnerable human.

Calm down, brother. She’ll be back before you know it . Rush’s voice sounds in my head and I shake him away.

How would you feel if someone took your mate without consulting you? Lennox’s voice, but his words are directed at Rush.

He would lose his shit and destroy the countryside until she was found, Lock adds with a chuckle.

So we’re doing telepathic group chats now? Rush mutters.

Get out of my head, I snap at them. I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. Vanessa will be back soon and Magdalene will be banned from ever seeing her again. Life will go back to normal.

Magdalene is helping your mate , Rush growls. Show some gratitude. I haven’t seen her in months because she’s been diligently working on a cure for Vanessa.

His words have the desired affect and I’m about to apologize when Lennox jumps in. You need to give him space, Rush. You know what it’s like to bond with your mate then have them disappear. You were a wreck when you and Magdalene were separated.

She was gone for years! Rush rages. Keenan’s mate has been gone for hours.

Not wanting to listen to them any longer, I pull my shirt over my head and shuck my jeans, dropping them to the kitchen floor. I shift into my wolf, stretching my limbs and shaking my head. It still feels weird to have only one ear. Lopsided.

Now that I’m in wolf form, I’m better able to control the voices in my head, and I immediately shove my brothers out, sighing at the peaceful quiet left behind. As much as I’m pleased to have them in my life again, the constant strife of four alpha males jockeying for dominance is more than one wolf can handle. Especially when it’s happening in one head.

I pace the kitchen, my claws making a muted snick, snick, snick on the marble as I walk the length back and forth, back and forth. Now that my brothers are firmly blocked from my thoughts, I’m able to think. And smell. Damn it. I wish she’d been able to finish the cookies before she was dragged off. Worrying on a full belly is much easier.

I know Vanessa is fine because I can feel her. I can’t establish a telepathic connection with her, which tells me she’s not on Earth, but I already knew that. Rush told me she’s in the Citadel of the Shadow Realm.

It’s my wolf instincts urging me to find and protect my mate. Mating instincts are difficult to ignore, but going through four previous mates taught me how to manage them. Delilah was the first and my instincts were at their rawest with her. Each one taught me a little more about myself, the kind of person I want to be. But Vanessa has taught me the most by showing me the value of living in the moment by taking advantage of each day as a gift and living it to the fullest. The only thing is I can’t live to my fullest while half of me is missing.

I lower onto my belly next to the island and rest my head on my paws, my gaze never wavering from the wall. It’s where I sense a magical disturbance, where Vanessa was taken, and where I hope she’ll return.

I must fall asleep because I wake suddenly to someone touching my head. Leaping to my feet, I let out a ferocious growl, knocking the intruder over.

Vanessa squeaks and crab walks backwards. “It’s me, Keenan!”

I shift to human. “Vanessa, I’m sorry.”

Her wide eyes crinkle and she laughs. “I guess I should probably know better than to touch a slumbering wolf. Sometimes I forget you’re not particularly tame in that form.”

“I would never hurt you.” I kneel in front of her, gripping her arms, my gaze roving over her. She looks wonderful in her jeans and T-shirt, her cupcake patterned apron tied neatly around her waist. Her red hair is piled in a messy bun on top of her head, strands escaping to give her a delightfully unkempt look. She looks tired though. “How long were you in the Shadow Realm?”

“Two days.” She yawns and backs up until she’s leaning against the wall. “The witches forgot I need to sleep so I grabbed catnaps in the library whenever I could. It was kind enough to provide a comfy cot.”

I frown, caressing her cheek, feeling the softness. “Magdalene has a lot to answer for, stealing you away and not seeing to your needs.”

Vanessa’s lips curve. “She knew you’d say that so she elected to stay behind.”

I sit next to her, lifting her into my lap and wrapping my arms around her. “What did you find out?”

“A lot, Keenan.” She tips her head back to look up at me, her gaze sad. “But not enough. Nothing that’ll help.”

I nod, my arms tightening. “It doesn’t matter. You need some sleep and probably some food too.”

She yawns again, snuggling into my chest. “Sleep first, then food.”

She’s already asleep when I stand, hefting her in my arms and carrying her through the mansion to our bedroom. I lay Vanessa on the bed and gently remove her clothes. She stirs but doesn’t wake up as I tuck her naked beneath the duvet and close the blinds.

Before I leave the room, my gaze caresses my mate. I want nothing more than to crawl in with her, but I can’t. Not yet. The panic threatening to overwhelm me is so consuming, I won’t be able to keep it from Vanessa unless I leave.

I secure the house, setting the state-of-the-art alarm system as I walk out the front door. Unable to stand being in my human form a second longer, sinking under the weight of my grief, I turn to the one thing I can always rely on. My wolf.

Shifting, I take off for the end of the driveway, zigzagging through street after street, passing mansions and parks until I reach the edge of civilization.

Giving into instinct, I streak across the landscape, my feet hitting the earth with enough force to send dirt and stones flying.

She’s going to die and there’s nothing I can do.

My brothers surround me in spirit, their wolves sprinting with mine. No one says a word. For once, their presence is comforting. They understand because they’ve seen me go through this four times previously.

The end of my story never changes. I’m doomed to love and lose. Stopping, I fling my head back and howl, crying out my misery to the blazing midday sun. I howl until my throat hurts and then I howl some more. I howl as if my heart is breaking because it is.

Keenan? Vanessa’s voice whispers in my head. Where are you? Why are you sad? What’s happening?

I stop howling and stand immobile sucking in air through my snout, my heart rate decreasing as I breathe.

I don’t want to be alone. Please come home . Her words are ambrosia, impossible to resist, and I turn on the spot, heading back in the direction I’d come.

My mate needs me. It’s time to rein in my emotions and pull my shit together so I can make her last days the best she’s ever known. Whether we have weeks or months, I will make sure it counts. I’m on my way .

Arriving home, I shift into my human and head for the kitchen where I can hear Vanessa banging around. The smell of baking cookies has my mouth watering. When I enter the kitchen, she turns, a grin stretching her lips.

Calmness settles over me. Seeing her like this is enough. We don’t need forever when we have this.

I open my arms and she walks into my embrace, murmuring, “Thanks for putting the cookie dough in the fridge.”

“I wanted those cookies,” I mutter, kissing the top of her head. “Tell me about the Citadel. What did you learn?”

She takes my hand and leads me to the table where I sit while she pours two cups of coffee and sets out a plate of fresh-baked cookies. Settling into the seat next to me, her eyes sparkle. “The Shadow Realm is amazing, Keenan. I really wish shifters could go there because you’d love it.”

I shake my head but smile at her enthusiasm. “Most shifters are freaked out by the amount of magic swirling around that realm. We’re better off staying where the natural order put us.”

She proceeds to describe the Citadel, telling me about the hodgepodge of buildings, the laboratory, the volcano library, the general lack of adherence to physics.

“Physics is a mostly human concept the witches can’t seem to wrap their minds around.”

“I noticed,” she says smiling, but then her face grows serious. “We found something out about my ancestry. Something important that we think explains why I’m reincarnating.”

“What did you find?” I try not to sound desperate, but if we have an explanation perhaps a cure can be found.

Catching my thoughts, she shakes her head. “We thought the same thing, but none of our research led to any answers.” She grips my hand. “Keenan, I have latent shifter blood in me and so did Delilah. Probably all of your previous mates too, but we only have evidence for me and Delilah.”

“But that’s impossible. People are either shifter or human.”

She shakes her head. “No, that’s not right. People are lots of things. Shifter, human, witch, warlock. Magdalene said she even met a nightwalker, so I guess vampires exist too. It makes sense that our evolutionary paths would have merged at some point.”

“Shifters and humans have been studying anatomy and genetics for years and none of them have been able to uncover any genetic divergence.”

She shrugs. “Maybe it’s rare. Maybe only a few humans are descended from shifters. Shifters and humans evolved close together, and we don’t know who came first.”

I stare at her blankly, then dive into her head, searching, sniffing, trying to find any hint of her shifter. “I got nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “Are you sure the witches are right about this?”

She nods emphatically. “Oracle told me so, and if you met them, you’d believe them too. Mostly because it feels wrong not trusting an Oracle, which you’d understand if you met one.”

“It’s great that you might have shifter blood, but what does that have to do with the reincarnation curse?”

She leans closer. “I found a book in the library called Mating Curses and Their Human Consequences. Well, technically the library found the book for me, and unfortunately it was about the thirtieth book I had to read and I don’t really like reading unless it’s a juicy script – ”

“Vanessa,” I say fondly. “Focus, love. What did the book say?”

“Right!” She takes a big bite out of a cookie, chews and swallows before saying, “I found Delilah’s name in the book under the section called ‘The Unintended Consequences of Lyra Guardian Witch’s Mating Curse’. There was an entire chapter dedicated to your family. The person who wrote it posited that Delilah’s bloodline may have once contained shifter genetics which is why she reincarnated when she died. As shifters are immortal, there was a tiny amount of immortal DNA inside her. Not enough to keep her from dying, but enough to save her essence and move it to another person immediately after her death. I think you were only ever supposed to have one mate, but the curse merged with Delilah’s latent shifter blood and started our reincarnation cycle.”

I’m stunned by her revelation. “Why didn’t we have this information if it was right there in a book for anyone to find? Magdalene has been in the Shadow Realm for months. How did she miss something this big?”

Vanessa explains, “The library doesn’t work that way. It chooses who sees what.” Her eyes light up. “The library was waiting for me so it could reveal the information. Mags couldn’t find it because she’s not Delilah’s reincarnation. I am.”

I frown. “How do you know it was waiting for you?”

“Because the library told me.” She finishes her cookie. The excitement over her discovery gradually falls away and she says in a quiet voice, “The library told me something else.”

My heart is already sinking, her tone telling me I don’t want to hear it. “Tell me.”

Her hand comes down on top of mine. “There’s no known cure to the curse, Keenan. We know why this is happening, but not how to stop it. And Mags discovered something else.”

Her tone tells me I’m not going to like this either.

“What?” I ask grimly.

“You were right in thinking that when you bond with your mates it accelerates their death. The original curse was meant to keep Fallon from his mate, but when it rebounded on all of you brothers, it impacted each of you. The curse hasn’t been broken, so the curse will separate us, fulfilling its purpose by keeping you from your mate.”

Frowning, I shake my head. “Then how do Lock and Rush have their mates? How did they break the curse, but I didn’t?”

She looks at me sadly. “They didn’t so much break the curse as they escaped it. According to Mags, when Lock fought Fallon for Sarina, he won her fairly, which bent the parameters of the curse. And when Mags turned into a Rage Witch, her transformation kept the curse from recognizing her as his original mate.”

I hear her words, understand what she’s saying, but anger and despair are blinding me from accepting the truth. Why does Lock get to live happily ever after in his castle with his shifter mate? Why does Rush get to settle down with his witch wife in a tower in the woods? And why must I watch Vanessa die? The injustice makes me want to howl again, but I can’t because I have to keep my shit together for my mate.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say desperately, gripping her hand. “We live each day to its fullest.”

Her eyes soften as she wraps her sunny essence around mine. “Each day is a gift from the natural order.”

“You’re speaking my language.” I press my lips to hers, filling my mind with thoughts of love so she will always know how I feel about her.