Lips pressed together, I reached to open a portal to the afterlife. It’d been a while since I’d tried. The day with the corrupted female ghost, I’d assumed her corruption had kept the portal closed. Yet, when I tried to open the portal here, nothing happened.
It was like my arcana hit stiff gelatin. I bounced off it and felt the veil between the worlds ripple from the impact.
“That’s not right.” I bit my lower lip, so hard that I almost made myself bleed.
A shudder rippled down my spine. My head snapped up. It wasn’t the brush of death that I missed. This was the same sensation I’d felt in the police station parking lot the day before.
Looking up and down the street, I saw nothing out of the ordinary. A woman plucked a parking ticket from her windshield and groaned. A couple pushed their cat in a baby stroller. At the end of the street, a man leaned against the light pole.
It was a normal day in Syracuse, as far as I could tell. Okay, the couple on a stroll with their cat wasn’t normal, but it wasn’t cause for concern, either.
What was going on? Why couldn’t we reach into the afterlife?
Maddox
I’d thoughtmy beast would be sated, but the creature continued to thrash inside me. It claimed that Addie wasn’t safe. I knew for a fact that I’d left her in good hands, though. Both Vi and Cerridwen were extremely capable people. Addie was safe.
My beast cared little. It didn’t trust others to do what it considered to be my duty. Addie was my responsibility. I could think of nothing else as I wiped sticky jam and glass from the floor.
The beast slammed into me. I cringed and groaned, my bones shuddering from the impact. Pausing, I dragged in a ragged breath and tried to push the wolf back.
Here. Hunting. He’ll get her.
The words gave me pause. At first, I thought the beast simply wanted to prowl Syracuse. The last sentence changed everything.
I shot up to my feet and ran to the door. There was no one there, though. Of course, there wasn’t. Addie wasn’t here. She was out in the city with her girlfriends. While I wanted to trust them, I knew I needed to get to Addie as soon as possible. If I didn’t, then someone would hurt her.
Here, at the door, I caught a musky wolf scent. It drifted, faint on the air, but it was unmistakable, nonetheless. My beast clawed at me from the inside. If I didn’t let it out soon, then it would tear its way out.
This time, we weren’t on opposite sides. I agreed with the beast. The quickest way to reach Addie would be through a portal. I ran to the SUV and grabbed the collar and leash from the back seat. It would give me plausible deniability once I landed in the city to search for her.
I buckled the collar around my neck and wondered at the odd sense of comfort that it instilled. Now wasn’t time to consider the dom/sub dynamic that it implied. I wasn’t a submissive, damn it.
Inside, I shifted. My beast panted. A pinch in my stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in a long while. After this, I would need sustenance. If all went to plan, I would sit at Addie’s feet like a guard dog while she had lunch with her friends. I could keep watch, and maybe she would order me a steak.
I shook off the dog-like thoughts and reached for a portal. I crashed into something solid. It rippled and threw me back, I skidded along the still sticky floor. Head spinning, I got up and shook off the impact.
Once more, I reached for the power that allowed me to leap through the afterlife. I grasped at nothing, though. My abilities ran into a liquid wall that allowed nothing to pass.
This wasn’t going to work. I had no time to waste. I couldn’t stand here and ponder why this portal refused to open to me. Instead, I ran out the door. Addie would kick me for not locking it, but if anything got stolen while I was gone, I would file the report myself.
I sprinted into the city with my leash dangling behind me. Cars honked at the lost dog. People shouted. Someone called meCujo, which would have drawn a laugh out of me had I not been distracted by my mission.
Deeper into the city, I searched for Addie’s scent. I knew what she and her friends smelled like. Yet, the wolf’s scent was the first I picked up. The city had its own pack. This scent could have belonged to any one of the local wolves, but my beast refused to believe that. Instinct told me that I was tracking a threat.
This would have been much easier if I could jump portals, but something was blocking me from entering them. I wondered if that meant the portals were closed to all, or if it was just me. I didn’t have time to find out. Once I reached Addie and made sure she was safe, then we could deal with the locked portals.
I tracked the wolf’s scent with the hopes that it would lead me to Addie. My gut churned with furious rage. If I found the wolf stalking her, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from launching an attack. Addie would have to stop me.
I trusted her to do what was necessary.
The thought took me by surprise. Only days ago, I loathed how she’d forced my hand when it came to Bastien. Now, I left myself in her capable hands as if that never happened.
It was my beast speaking. These thoughts couldn’t belong to me. I needed to be wary of Addie and her wayward moral code. If I left anything up to her, she would kill because she believed it necessary. I knew there were routes other than murder that would keep her safe.
The wolf’s scent grew stronger as I tracked it. The sickening tang of rot crept up my nose. I shook it off, but it still managed to turn my stomach. There was something else off about this wolf’s scent.
It wasn’t complete.
Here and there, the scent vanished. I would pick it up a few steps later, like the creature had blinked out of existence. Worry made my heart stutter. I’d been led to believe there was no one else like myself. The fragmented scent trail made me wonder if this beast could portal hop when I couldn’t.
That seemed unlikely. Why would the wolf jump portals for only a few feet? It seemed irregular. No stretch of scent was like any before it. The jagged trail that I followed had to be caused by something else, as if the creature struggled to even exist.
I would have questioned how that was even possible, but I had bigger problems on my plate. My beast’s sense of urgency intensified. It made my muscles vibrate with potential as power surged through them. Her name tumbled over and over in my mind.
Where was Addie? Was she safe?
I needed to findher.