The Lost Mate

Max

I kept busy alternately stalking through the forest or calling any contact I could think of who might be of assistance. I let Hannah know that her sister was alive, although I didn’t know her situation. No matter how much I desperately hoped, Nash and I made no headway. Will texted to let me know that he was coming, so there wasn’t much else to do but impatiently stay put.

It was morning a few days later when the sounds of a pair of stumbling feet caught my attention, breaking the long wait. It wasn’t a werewolf, because we moved with the grace of our animals in the forest. Nash and I exchanged glances, and just before we hid, I caught Will’s scent. He broke through the trees, dark wolf wagging his tail in greeting.

Professor Humphrey flew just behind him. “Greetings, Max!” she called, her voice jarringly cheerful under the circumstances.

Finally, Professor Seneca, a blond thirty-something human dressed in hiking boots and a jacket, his face extremely frazzled, stumbled in behind them as I shifted to human and pulled on clothing for decency.

“Sorry we took so long,” Humphrey chirped. “Humans are so slow in the forest.”

“She’s not wrong,” Nash agreed with a wolfy shrug.

Seneca wasn’t too tired to shoot her a dirty look. “My expertise is magical subterfuge, not traipsing around the forest. We built civilization so no one would have to deal with this unruly mess if they didn’t want to. You’re welcome.”

Humphrey shrugged. “It’s not my expertise either, but I manage just fine.”

“You have wings!” He looked exasperated.

She shrugged him off. “But arguing about this isn’t why we’re here. We wanted to help Will figure out what’s going on with your wolf. It’s interesting. Like a mini-sabbatical.”

“Thank you for your help,” I said. I wouldn’t turn any down. “You getting anything, Will?”

He shifted into his human form. “There’s definitely magic in the area. I can smell it.”

Humphrey nodded. “I can feel it, too. Wasn’t I saying something was off, boys? This isn’t just an ordinary bit of forest, it’s disturbed.”

“Disturbed?”

She pondered, tapping her chin as she thought. “It’s hard to explain. It’s a feeling, almost like a buzz in the back of my head. In that direction,” she said, pointing to a denser area of forest.

Professor Seneca was still huffing and had placed his hands on his knees while he caught his breath, but at the fae’s words he stood up straight. Facing the direction Humphrey had pointed, he held out his hand as he muttered a spell. Thin, weblike blue veins flashed through the air and concentrated as if hitting an invisible wall. He looked at me and smiled. “For the less naturally magically gifted among us, we’ve got other tricks. And that, my friend, is a location confusion barrier. Simple but effective. Try walking towards it.”

I did as he said and found myself walking more and more diagonally until I was completely turned around and walking back towards the others. With them as a frame of reference, what I hadn’t realized before was obvious. I couldn’t go in that direction.

“Don’t worry, any one of us can get you through that barrier easily enough,” Humphrey said soothingly, finally landing on the ground.

Will was thoughtful. “Whoever set this up probably knows you’re here if they have any sort of surveillance at all. I’d guess they’re counting on you giving up eventually and leaving.”

“Well, I won’t.”

Seneca nodded. “No one thought you would. I propose that I first go in with Will so that we can see what they’re hiding.”

“You want me to wait out here?” I didn’t want to, not if Lillian might be somewhere past this magic barrier.

She nodded. “Well, it’s the most logical course. You might not be able to keep a cool head, and Will can surely identify your mate for me as well as you c—”

“I can control myself. And I’m more attuned to Lillian than he is. And I need to see her again for myself.” Humphrey might be right strategically, but I was desperate.

Will met my eyes, and I was sure he was thinking about the way I had acted the last time I had seen him. Finally, he shrugged. “He’s usually got a more level head than most.”

“I can keep Will concealed out here with me,” Humphrey added. Her eyes flashed with sympathy.

Seneca looked me over. “If you’re sure you can hold yourself back...”

“I can.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Will looked at me. “Find out if she’s in there or not, learn about the place, and come out.”

“I won’t, and I will.” I would have promised anything to be able to move forward.

“Follow only me, Max,” Seneca said, starting in the direction of the barrier. I still felt a strong inclination to head off course, but with the professor as my guide I was able to keep on track and heading towards Lillian. I hoped.

As we walked, Seneca explained the magic he was using. “We’re not invisible, but we’re difficult to see. We’re also not silent but just difficult to hear. Nearly impossible. No one should be able to detect us unless they’re actively countering my magic, and it seems unlikely that anyone would realize that would be needed. We’ve passed a magic ward already, but there could be more to alert of intruders so we need to move cautiously.”

It was a bit strange to be told to move carefully by the ungainly human, but I simply nodded. “Do you think she’s here?”

“I think something is here. I don’t know what. Maybe it’s your mate, maybe it’s something else. But no one sets up wards in the middle of nowhere for nothing.”

I didn’t question further, just focused on the forest around me, trees and plants that looked exactly like the forest outside the barrier. My wolf was alert and active, and he fuelled my determination that if she was here, I was going to get her out. I didn’t know why she had left, but I’d fix whatever that was, too.

Seneca would pause from time to time, and use that blue weblike magic. He’d mutter about how much he hated nature every time he got slapped by or snagged on another branch, but otherwise we stayed fairly silent on our journey through the trees. Finally we arrived at a second barrier, another invisible blockade in front of us. “You getting anything?” he asked me, pausing to inspect the magic barring our way.

“I can’t smell anything interesting, but my wolf isn’t focused.” Or maybe he was too focused, searching only for one sweet scent to the exclusion of all others.

He nodded. “This barrier is much more sensitive than the last. I imagine that first one is just to keep the mundane and uninvited away, and this one is the real defense against intruders. It’s quite possible that they don’t monitor the outer barrier since it’s probably just a precaution, which would be excellent, because if so your presence here might still be a surprise.”

I didn’t care about strategy in that moment. “Can we get through?”

“I can manage it. Lucky that Will brought me along, because this sort of thing just happens to be my speciality. Stay close to me.”

He muttered some words and moved his hand, and we started forward again, towards seemingly more plain forest. But as we stepped forward, that vision melted away, leaving a huge intricate castle complete with towers and spires in the centre of the forest.

“Well, I did not expect that,” Seneca commented as he stopped and gaped. I didn’t, either. It looked like it had been magicked there from another place and time. It might have been impressive, if only I didn’t feel a chill of unease at the sight of the enormous structure. It felt wrong, and my wolf instincts agreed.

But I wanted to go forward, and my wolf was also in agreement over that. “Can we get in?”

“I think so.”

He sounded much less sure than he had before. Maybe it was dangerous, but my wolf was unconcerned. I was willing to face danger, but maybe the human didn’t want to, and I could understand this. “If you could just get me in...”

“You’d do, what? Get caught immediately? No, I can’t cloak you unless you’re near me, the magic’s too hard to maintain at a distance. Let me think.” I waited while he apparently ran through a list of possibilities, and then he nodded. “Just stay close to me. I can’t keep this up for long, but I may be able to get us through that smaller entrance.” My eyes followed to where he indicated, and found it, which was, almost miraculously, open.

It seemed too coincidental. Was this a trap?

Probably not. And even if it was, I didn’t care so I wasn’t going to argue. We walked forward, every step across the bare lawn filled with tension. Seneca’s breathing was deep and laboured, and the scent of his sweat almost overpowered the barest hint of what I was searching for, until it didn’t and I found that scent I would follow anywhere. “She’s here,” I whispered.

His glance and nod confirmed that he had heard, although he didn’t falter in his concentration.

We cautiously entered inside, into a murky hallway, and the human beside me exhaled heavily as we scrambled inside. His voice was low. “If you point the way, I’ll keep us hidden.”

I nodded, focusing on that faint trace of my mate. She had been here, but probably not today. We continued in, my nose searching through the myriad scents of humans, a handful of other werewolves, and a few others I couldn’t identify, searching for that one that I had been longing for and dreaming of for so long. Finally, I found her scent again, still faint, but clearer than before.

It was unmistakeable, she was here.

Footsteps sounded in our direction, so I pulled Seneca into the first unoccupied room we reached. It seemed to be mainly used for storage, and I pulled the door shut quietly behind me. I listened for the steps to pass, and then they stopped.

The door swung open.

—————

Author’s Note:

Whoops, sorry. Apparently I hit save instead of publish this morning so this chapter is going out late. 😅

Guess it’ll be a shorter wait between now and tomorrows?

Thanks for reading!