Author's note: Hello and thanks for reading my werewolf romance. A new chapter will be released every Sunday night. BUT, you can read each chapter two days early by subscribing to my Ko-fi. For further updates on my writing, feel free to join my Discord. The next chapter will be released on December 1.

_____________________________________________

After waking up from death, I spent the rest of the afternoon doing refreshingly little. My body was still healing courtesy of a Vampire Lorde’s powers, and apparently those abilities were a little slower in a mortal body. But they were chugging along like a determined Amtrak.

So, I took it easy. I walked a little bit between the deer pens while Mars checked the fences and fed them. She gave me a bucket of corn and let me feed some of the does, which was a giggly experience.

I call it that because I couldn’t stop giggling. Their pink tongues just kept scooping up more kernels as six or seven does crowded around my bucket. A few even started sniffing my pockets, hoping I had a secret stash of corn (I did not).

Chocolate and Chip stayed glued to my hip as if they felt guilty for being away when I died. And I spent a good portion of the afternoon playing games with them and petting the wolves. They absorbed every drop of attention I was willing to give and kept begging for more.

Finally, after Mars fixed a venison stew that helped warm my core a bit, we retired to the den, and I was buried in fluff from three wolves.

Staying warm through the night was not an issue. But remaining alone in my thoughts proved to be a challenge.

Sometime after closing my eyes, I found myself in a different den entirely. This den was deep underground, and the last time I visited, I’d arrived in the jaws of a massive wolf, the same wolf who towered over me now.

The smell of old bones and mostly-eaten carcasses greeted me like an old woman angry to find you on her doorstep. And I responded in kind, fighting the urge to cover my nose with my sleeve. I didn’t want to insult my surprise hostess by telling her this den smelled like skunk anus.

Darkness covered most of the cavern, but pale blue lights filtered down from some stones above, giving me enough leeway to make out shapes and shadows, especially when said shapes were big enough to swallow me in one gulp.

Off to the right, I spotted two wolf pups curled together in a bed of pine needles, leaves, and tree bark. They were each about my size, which only added to the unnerving feeling of being here.

The massive wolf above me angled her snout downward, glowing amber eyes locking with mine.

“H — hello,” I stammered.

The last time I met The Mother, I didn’t Understand. I had yet to eat of the Yggdrasil Tree. But now. . . I could feel the beast, magic radiating from her like heat from an open stove. It was overwhelming in a grand sense, my mind realizing just how big of a difference there was between her abilities and mine.

A massive beast of steel-colored fur with the odd white patch here and there, The Mother did not seem all too impressed with me. So. . . not much had changed since the last time I’d seen her.

“Once more you find yourself in my den. Let us hope you carry a tad more wisdom than when last we spoke,” she said.

I bowed my head because I didn’t want to be eaten.

After a beat, The Mother snapped, “Wisdom and silence are not the same thing.”

Feeling my chest, and my throat seize up, I tried taking several breaths to calm down. But it’s hard when you’re facing something so big. I was speaking to a carnivore the size of a blimp, and beyond that, she carried the magical density of a neutron star.

“May I ask why you summoned me here?”

The Mother cocked her head to the side.

“How do you know that I did?”

Willing my hands to stop shaking, I looked up at the giant, shaggy wolf standing before me, eyes piercing and hungry. Not hungry for flesh. . . but something else. So, I cleared my throat, paused to get my thoughts in order, and started to untangle the mess of my Bouquet from The Maiden, the spells I’d been gifted.

Sitting around and resting for most of yesterday left me with time to think. And the great thing about Understanding is that I had the power to reason through most magic and logic. The privilege of surviving a battle was the ability to analyze and learn from it. And that’s what I did in between play sessions with Chocolate and Chip.

“The Maiden sent a Bouquet to me with three spells of her choosing, delivered by a sorceress named Phenna.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” The Mother asked.

Blinking, I moved on to the next part of the story, trying not to be rattled. But the warmth I’d gained from Mars’ stew and sleeping with a werewolf and two fuzzy companions was slipping away in my fear. I didn’t want to be here, knowing what The Mother was and represented.

Tightening my knees so they didn’t buckle, I sighed.

“Sometime before Phenna received the Bouquet, you added a spell but broke it into two pieces so I wouldn’t be suspicious about how different your gift was from The Maiden’s. The spells she selected for me were relatively simple. Yours. . . I wasn’t ready for.”

The Mother shook her body, hairs longer than me falling from her coat. Under my feet, the ground rattled a bit from her movement.

This must be how Tim felt watching those cups of water ripple in ‘Jurassic Park,’ I thought as my trembling continued to leak into every limb despite my efforts to hide it.

I felt like I was watching a horror movie, just waiting for the jump scare. The stringed instruments played hauntingly in the background while my adrenaline kept me wired and ready to finch at a moment’s notice.

“Are you accusing me of something, young sorceress?” The Mother asked. And if a wolf could raise its eyebrow, she would have. There was an implication in the tone of her question. Tread carefully now. Accusations against powerful people often lead to the accusers shuffling off their mortal coil. If they were lucky, it would be a quick shuffle.

So, my voice dropped to damn near a whisper when I next answered.

“Oh, no. I would never be so foolish as to accuse you of anything. You’re so wise and powerful. Accusing you would be tantamount to suicide.”

That earned me a slight chuckle. And I do mean slight.

“Flattery and wisdom are also not the same thing,” The Mother said. But she didn’t tell me to fuck off.

So, I continued, steeling myself under her withering and impatient gaze.

“Right, where was I? Ah yes, the siphoning spell you gave me. It was in a much different class of power and complexity than those spells from The Maiden’s Bouquet. Using it killed me.”

“You certainly seem alive enough to be chittering at me like a drunk squirrel,” The Mother said, slowly blinking.

This was the wolf telling me. . . get to the point.

Taking a small step to the left and hearing the joints in my feet pop (how tightly were they pulled?), I clasped my hands together in a new effort to keep them from shaking.

“My being alive is a fluke I remain grateful for. So, I guess my question is really. . . why did you give me that spell?”

The Mother yawned, and I got to see all 84 of her teeth in two separate rows. I swallowed nervously.

“So. . . the only real proof you have that I gave you this spell is it was more powerful than the other spells in The Maiden’s Bouquet? Why are you convinced the spell came from me instead of The Crone?”

I scratched my head.

“Because using that spell didn’t feel like I was draining a bug caught in a web or squeezing the life from a rodent and swallowing it whole. Casting the siphoning spell felt like I tore into the Vampire Lorde I was fighting and ripped his magic away. It was wolf-like in nature.”

The Mother remained silent for a minute.

I spoke up once more.

“The last time we spoke, you were ready to kill me because my answer to your question showed a lack of wisdom. I disrespected your magic with a flippant answer and was only spared because I’m a werewolf’s mate. I can only hope that by solving this much of your arcane puzzle, I’ve displayed enough wisdom to gain some measure of respect from you during this visit.”

The Mother shocked me by laughing, and seeing a wolf open its jaw to chortle was as unnerving as anything else a massive beast could do. Her belly rumbled with laughter, and I took a measured step back.

“Respect? No, you do not gain my respect by solving half of a mystery. Imagine how ridiculous it would be for you to watch an ant carry a gain of sand halfway back to its nest and then turn to you for applause.”

I swallowed nervously again.

Then The Mother surprised me by slowly lowering herself to the cavern floor and crossing her front two paws after a long yawn.

So this is how Italians felt watching Godzilla curl up and sleep in The Coliseum, I thought, biting my tongue.

I squinted and noted that The Mother looked tired. And it wasn’t that she’d expended some great measure of magic to be so exhausted. It looked more like the conversation she was preparing to have drained her.

When her amber eyes found mine again, they were a touch less fierce than when I first appeared in the den.

After a lull, The Mother said, “Tell me what you did to him.”

And I didn’t need to who she was talking about, even though every fiber of my being wanted to Understand her connection to Beauregard, why she cared so much to summon me here in the middle of the night.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“He was going to kill me. Beauregard beat the everloving shit out of me, made me feel like I was being ground into the forest floor. Nothing Mars and I threw at him put the vampire down for long. But we lasted long enough in the fight to burn away his patience. That was when he decided to kill Mars. Emptied of my own magic, I threw open the gates, and cast your spell.”

“And?” The Mother pressed me, more drawn into my story than I could have ever imagined possible.

Why did she care? Here she was, one-third of the living embodiment of all the magic sorceresses have ever used, are currently using, and will ever use. And The Mother almost seemed desperate to know what I, a lowly newborn caster, had done to this vampire.

I assumed she would reveal their connection when I finished answering her questions. So, I stuffed my burning curiosity aside and continued the story.

“The spell necrotized my entire hand. And I was suddenly ravenous for the massive body of graveyard magic that gave Beauregard the power to easily put down a werewolf and a sorceress. I latched on to that man and took everything he had. He was a fucking husk when I finished. But my body couldn’t handle swallowing all that graveyard magic. I’m told it killed me and a large piece of the surrounding forest when my body rejected the lion’s share of Beauregard’s power.”

The Mother scoffed.

“Did he scream? Sound like he was in pain when you drained him?” she asked, quietly.

I could only nod.

“Good. That’s less than an abysmal creature like he deserved but more than I ever expected him to get.”

My stomach twisted at her tone. For all the magnificent power The Mother carried and shared with lowly mortals like me, here, at this moment, she sounded like any other mom in agony.

My story finished, all that I was going to tell of it, anyway. I didn’t dare give The Mother some sob story about Telsyn torturing Beau or how he had to watch his little sister live a lie her entire life. Those were so far removed that they couldn’t even be called extenuating circumstances. Not to the anguished mom before me.

“January 9, 1912, in a city your kind calls Dallas, my son was raising a family. His name was Aidan, and he repaired boots for a living. Not the boots of cowboys, but of bankers and architects, the shoes wealthy men wore through the streets, where the biggest obstacle was an oversized puddle or a slick of mud,” The Mother said, staring off into space like she was telling this story to the walls of her den instead of me.

I glanced over at her pups, both still asleep despite their mother’s laughing seconds ago. How did The Mother have a human son? Did her wolf pups grow up to become humans? Or did she become human and give birth like any other person in my world? My brain was hungry for answers, curiosity cooking my brain like crumbled beef in a cast iron skillet.

“Aidan was a good kid, worked hard, never took a shred of magic. He was determined to live his life in the way of mortals, to build something with his own two hands, his own strength and cunning. He begs me, pleads to leave the Yggdrasil Forest. No matter how many times I tell him about the pains of mortality, the toll that world exacts from a soul, he remains bright-eyed as ever, determined to make something of himself in a world that believed less in magic with each year gone by.”

My knees ached, a dull pain, but at least they weren’t shaking anymore. I wasn’t vibrating in terror like I had been. All the fear had drained out of me, and I was only left with expectant melancholy as The Mother’s tale continued. We both sensed where this story ended, but only the massive wolf before me could get us there.

The Mother took in a deep breath before she continued.

“Finally, I decided to let Aidan go. Because a mother only ever wants for her children to be happy. That’s all we really desire. We can be sad. We can be furious. We can be mournful. But as long as our kids are happy, everything else in the world eventually falls into place. So, I let him go. He left and worked hard, day in, day out. Somewhere along the way, he met Kayla. Oh, you should have seen how big she made him smile! All the teeth. You could count each one when he smiled at her side.

“He came to me one day, saying, ‘Mother, I’ve met the most joyful soul. And I want to be with her. I want to be part of the reason she’s so happy.’ So, I said, ‘Go, my son. Be with her. Be her joy.’ And he did. Oh, he did. My boy gave Kayla everything she wanted, including a beautiful baby boy they named Dylan, named after her grandfather.”

I covered my mouth and drew short breaths to keep from crying. Because, again, we both knew how this story ended. And try as I might to imagine any other conclusion to Aidan’s tale, a persistent shadow over his fate would not be chased away. Not with all my power. Not with all The Mother’s power.

She continued, “Dylan was born on January 9 at 5:13 p.m. I couldn’t wait to meet him. My heart swelled with cheer picturing Aidan bringing his baby to the Yggdrasil Forest. That baby boy came into the world as loud as thunder, but Kayla and Aidan were beside themselves with glee. After the birth, her sweet tooth struck, and Kayla asked her husband to run out and grab her a few baked apples.”

My hand was pressed so tight to my mouth that I almost forgot to breathe. The Mother’s voice was all I could hear in that den. Not even the snoring pups were loud enough to register in my attention right now. She held it all. And I suddenly knew how she felt, urging me to continue my story about killing Beauregard.

“You remember me saying my boy wanted to be the reason Kayla was happy?”

I slowly nodded.

“Well, to that end, he left the hospital and visited three different markets before finding a single baked apple for sale. Tired as sin, my son held that apple tightly as he raced back to the hospital to give it to his exhausted wife.”

And that’s when the story hit me with heartbreak. I could sense it coming from a mile away. I wanted to look at the cave floor but forced myself to lock eyes with The Mother. Her eyes were glossy, and then water made its way to my vision as well.

“A foul creature found my son a few blocks from the hospital. I don’t believe many words were exchanged between them. But that horrible, bloodsucking fiend dragged my boy into an alley and ripped his throat wide open. Before Aidan’s body hit the ground, I felt his heart stop. Ask me what a mother does when her child’s life slips away, like blood dripping down into a sewer grate.”

I didn’t want to ask her.

“Ask. Me,” she growled.

Prying my fingers from my mouth, I managed to choke out, “What does a mother do when —”

The Mother interrupted me, rising with a wicked roar.

“She howls, Lilith Chambers. She gnashes her teeth. She crashes into trees. A mother does everything and anything she can while writhing with grief.”

Then, softly, the massive wolf before me whimpered, “He took my boy, my sweet boy, who hadn’t done an ounce of harm to the world. Aidan was gentle. He was thoughtful. And above all else, my son was happy. He should have lived to see young Dylan grow up and have his own kids. He should have died an old man, giggling and holding Kayla’s hand as he exited the mortal world with her tender kiss on his cheek. Instead, he left your world screaming and choking on a vampire’s mandibles.”

Whatever I thought of Beauregard at that moment, my heart quivered with its own tears.

This happened in 1912? I thought. That was long before Telsyn got her claws into him. He made the choice to kill Aidan on his own.

Except. . . did he? Does a lion choose which gazelle to kill? Or do they simply get hungry and hunt according to instinct? It’s not like the lion pauses to decide, morally, which prey deserves to live and which deserves to die.

But that didn’t satisfy The Mother. Nothing would. . . until I ripped Beau’s life from him as he had done to Aidan.

“The only thing I’ve wanted, truly wanted, for the last century, was that animal’s untimely demise. But I had to wait. That’s the thing about agelessness, you see, you do a lot of waiting. People always fantasize about what they’ll do with forever, this, that, and the other stuff. But it’s mostly waiting. And at last my waiting. . . came to an end. The Crone told me your string was destined to intersect with the man who killed my son.”

My string? So, The Crone was the one out of these three with some gift for prophecy. How vast or limited it was, I’d probably never know.

Cautiously, with the timidity of a field mouse, I asked, “Why couldn’t you go and kill Beauregard?”

The Mother sighed and lowered her head to her paws, lying down again.

“When my daughter, my mother, and I performed our ritual and became The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone, we amassed a truly dizzying amount of magic. What we would later learn is there are. . . let’s call them cosmic rules to godhood. If any of us ever wanted to return to your world, we’d have to surrender almost all our power. There’s a ceiling to how mighty one can become in the world of mortals before they’re forced to depart from it.”

I nodded, trying and failing to imagine what such a power scale looked like or how it worked in practicality. Telsyn was powerful enough to curse an entire werewolf pack. But apparently not so powerful that she met this proverbial ceiling The Mother described.

“So. . . I did the only thing I could. I armed you with an arcane tool that would either kill you or kill my son’s murderer. So imagine my surprise when I summon you, and you stand before me. A ‘fluke’ you called it? Perhaps. In the end, my only concern was the slaying of that cretin. And now you tell me he’s well and truly gone. My waiting is, at least, finished.”

In a few seconds, my sadness turned to anger, and I clenched my fists. Heat returned to my body as I stifled a growl.

Mars was nearly killed. I fucking was killed. And this bitch strapped a grenade to my back and hurtled me at Beauregard without a second thought? She didn’t even have the courtesy to look relieved that I survived!

My blood boiled, but I recalled how The Mother’s teeth felt against my flesh when I first landed in her open mouth. I decided then and there it would be best if I didn’t give The Mother a reason to return me to her jaws.

Still, a nagging sense of injustice pecked at my brain. I died in that fight, and Mars suffered for it. At the very least, I deserved something for our shared pains and troubles. I’d just have to be extremely careful getting it.

Choosing to push my luck, I inhaled deeply, and said, “I killed Aidan’s murderer.”

The Mother’s gaze intensified, and I felt the fire in my own chest withering under it. Still, I pushed forward.

“What of it?” she hissed.

My fists clenched all the tighter, fingernails digging little crescent moons into my skin.

Still, I held onto my calm. I pulled from the memory of a chilled core, one that struggled to keep warm even after returning from death.

And, I said, “I would call killing Aidan’s murderer a service.”

The Mother’s gaze hardened further, and I felt her hackles rising.

“Is that so?” The Mother asked, each word as crisp as a frosty autumn morning.

I nodded.

“And since you spoke of grand cosmic rules for people who obtain godhood, I believe there’s one about returning the favor to anyone who performs a service for you.”

Quiet fell through the den again.

All I could hear was the sound of my own beating heart. It grew louder and louder while The Mother thought about my words.

“Bold move, Lilith Chambers, she named for the First Wife. So what would ask of The Mother?”

I felt my breath caught in my throat. Holy shit. Was this going to work?

“Let’s just say my mate has her own Beauregard we’ll soon have to deal with. As I slayed your son’s killer, I want you to annihilate the wraith who took my mate’s pack away. And I mean, rain down fire, nuke from orbit just to be sure.”

The Mother rose to her feet upon hearing my request, and my heart plunged down into my guts. Did I ask for the wrong thing? Was she going to come over here and tear me to pieces?

My fear ended up being unfounded, though, as the giant wolf slowly walked to a watering hole across the den. She lowered her head into the underground lake, dug around for something, and then padded over to me, giant drops of water dripping down on the cave floor.

The Mother lowered her jaws to me, and I saw a long silver spear gripped in the edge of her teeth. Well — it looked long to me. To her, it appeared she was holding a toy weapon from an action figure.

Gingerly, I took the weapon, and as its full weight fell into my grasp, my arms buckled. The damn thing was weighed down with more than just physical material. The very magic of this spear added to the weight.

I felt like I was holding the bar of a bench press. And I didn’t work out much.

The spear’s sleek silver pole ended in a fierce point. From bottom to top, the spear must have been seven feet long. It was awkward to hold.

“If you want to call forth that much of my power to slaughter your mate’s enemy, you’ll have to guide it from my world to yours. Whatever you stab with this spear will call my magic down like a bolt of lightning, obliterating your target and reducing it to cinders. You can only do this once, so do yourself a favor, and be accurate. Make your shot count, Lilith Chambers, she named for the First Wife.”

I nodded.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t thank me, sorceress. I’m not doing you a favor. I’m merely repaying a debt as the cosmic rules state I must. Now go. I’ve given you all I’m going to.”

***

The next morning, Mars was mystified to find a spear in the den with us that wasn’t my gock. But I explained everything as best I could, and she took me at my word. Mate privileges.

We wrapped the spear in thick paper, tied it with string, and loaded it into the truck bed. Then, we piled into the old farm vehicle.

As the engine growled to life, Mars turned to me and said, “Are you ready to see my pack?”

“Gotta meet my future in-laws someday. Might as well be now,” I said.

Are they still in-laws in the case of fated mates?

Mars ruffled my hair and started down the driveway. Before long, we were on the road to Lubec. I had a curse to lift, and if she showed her face, a wraith to exterminate.

Watching the evergreens roll by outside my window, I leaned my elbow against the passenger door and thought, All things considered, I think I’d rather have the flu.

[Editor's note: Only two chapters remain after this.]