Chapter One
“Since werebeasts faded into extinction, they’ve turned from monsters into myths. And myths, like all stories, are nothing more than a mirror. Through them we understand ourselves.”
- Beasts, Blood & Bonds by Dr. Nina M. Strike
I wake up with my nose planted on a hard linoleum floor that reeks of chemicals. It’s cold against my cheek. No, freezing.
My house is gone.
Groaning, I roll onto my side and take in the room.
Windowless white brick walls surround a twin bed made with military precision. The only personal touch in the space is a shabby paperback on a metal nightstand, the pages stained yellow.
My knees ache as I rise, and I have to rub my hands against my bare arms to keep my fingers from going numb. Jesus, it must be sub-zero in here, but that doesn’t make any sense. It’s May.
A sour, dry taste has taken root in my mouth, and my body still feels sluggish. It’s as if this is all a video I’m trying to stream over a bad Internet connection. Or I’ve been drugged.
Oh, shit. I’ve been kidnapped. Whoever took Lawrence must have come back and taken me too. My heart thrums in double time.
A downward glance reveals I’m still wearing my slightly damp black jeans and leather-trimmed long-sleeve shirt. At least whoever kidnapped me didn’t take them off.
My breath catches in my throat, but before I can devolve into a full-blown panic attack I notice something I missed on my first examination. On the far wall there is a door. An open door. One I’d swear wasn’t there a second ago.
I shake my head. I’m definitely drugged. What kind of kidnapper leaves such an easy way to escape? It’s this thought that keeps me from running to the exit.
Instead I fall onto the bed, needing to sit down. “Okay, okay, okay,” I mumble to myself. “What do you remember?”
Last night Orion North, a werewolf and my destined mate, invaded my dreams and then my reality when he found me in an alleyway after work. He was beautiful, domineering, and it was only by mixture of luck and will that I was able to walk away from him and not succumb to his seduction. However, fate would not be denied, and when I came home I found that my vampire best friend and roommate, Lawrence, had been kidnapped, and his lover, a werepufferfish, was dead in my living room.
I didn’t want to involve the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, so I caved and called Orion instead to ask for help. He agreed. I remember going out to the living room, seeing Cooper, the pufferfish. Dead. Familiar red pooled around his limbs. He didn’t smell. I remember thinking he — his body — should smell.
Another wave of nausea washes over me, and I grip the bed frame so hard its rusty granules dig into my hand. Even after the memory of Cooper’s dead body evaporates, the wrongness stays. It’s this place. It doesn’t feel real, somehow.
I take a deep breath, the cold air stinging my teeth.
I waited in the living room for an hour, and then two. But Orion didn’t come. So I headed to my bedroom, unable to stare at the dead body any longer, and too exhausted to think of anywhere else to go. I couldn’t leave, so I lay down on the bed, thinking I would just rest for a second.
Oh, God. I fell asleep. The reason none of this feels real is because it isn’t. This must be a dream.
When I look around for a second time, the walls have a new, imposing significance.
I would pinch myself, but I know that the vivid dreams I have — the ones caused by the crescent of white fur on the inside of my wrist, called a matemark — aren’t like normal nightmares. Here I can feel pain, and cold, and the only way to wake up is to live through the dream to its inevitable conclusion…or for my weremate to end it.
Except this can’t be a nightmare. I always dream of the same thing every night: my parents’ murder by werebeasts in the forest of
“Since werebeasts faded into extinction, they’ve turned from monsters into myths. And myths, like all stories, are nothing more than a mirror. Through them we understand ourselves.”
- Beasts, Blood & Bonds by Dr. Nina M. Strike
I wake up with my nose planted on a hard linoleum floor that reeks of chemicals. It’s cold against my cheek. No, freezing.
My house is gone.
Groaning, I roll onto my side and take in the room.
Windowless white brick walls surround a twin bed made with military precision. The only personal touch in the space is a shabby paperback on a metal nightstand, the pages stained yellow.
My knees ache as I rise, and I have to rub my hands against my bare arms to keep my fingers from going numb. Jesus, it must be sub-zero in here, but that doesn’t make any sense. It’s May.
A sour, dry taste has taken root in my mouth, and my body still feels sluggish. It’s as if this is all a video I’m trying to stream over a bad Internet connection. Or I’ve been drugged.
Oh, shit. I’ve been kidnapped. Whoever took Lawrence must have come back and taken me too. My heart thrums in double time.
A downward glance reveals I’m still wearing my slightly damp black jeans and leather-trimmed long-sleeve shirt. At least whoever kidnapped me didn’t take them off.
My breath catches in my throat, but before I can devolve into a full-blown panic attack I notice something I missed on my first examination. On the far wall there is a door. An open door. One I’d swear wasn’t there a second ago.
I shake my head. I’m definitely drugged. What kind of kidnapper leaves such an easy way to escape? It’s this thought that keeps me from running to the exit.
Instead I fall onto the bed, needing to sit down. “Okay, okay, okay,” I mumble to myself. “What do you remember?”
Last night Orion North, a werewolf and my destined mate, invaded my dreams and then my reality when he found me in an alleyway after work. He was beautiful, domineering, and it was only by mixture of luck and will that I was able to walk away from him and not succumb to his seduction. However, fate would not be denied, and when I came home I found that my vampire best friend and roommate, Lawrence, had been kidnapped, and his lover, a werepufferfish, was dead in my living room.
I didn’t want to involve the Federal Bureau of Supernatural Investigation, so I caved and called Orion instead to ask for help. He agreed. I remember going out to the living room, seeing Cooper, the pufferfish. Dead. Familiar red pooled around his limbs. He didn’t smell. I remember thinking he — his body — should smell.
Another wave of nausea washes over me, and I grip the bed frame so hard its rusty granules dig into my hand. Even after the memory of Cooper’s dead body evaporates, the wrongness stays. It’s this place. It doesn’t feel real, somehow.
I take a deep breath, the cold air stinging my teeth.
I waited in the living room for an hour, and then two. But Orion didn’t come. So I headed to my bedroom, unable to stare at the dead body any longer, and too exhausted to think of anywhere else to go. I couldn’t leave, so I lay down on the bed, thinking I would just rest for a second.
Oh, God. I fell asleep. The reason none of this feels real is because it isn’t. This must be a dream.
When I look around for a second time, the walls have a new, imposing significance.
I would pinch myself, but I know that the vivid dreams I have — the ones caused by the crescent of white fur on the inside of my wrist, called a matemark — aren’t like normal nightmares. Here I can feel pain, and cold, and the only way to wake up is to live through the dream to its inevitable conclusion…or for my weremate to end it.
Except this can’t be a nightmare. I always dream of the same thing every night: my parents’ murder by werebeasts in the forest of
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