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“So, the young pup finally brings her mate to meet Uncle Pierre! I cannot believe it took this long,” a fisherman said, taking me in a bone-crushing hug. He spoke with a thick Québécois accent and smelled like low tide.

I wiggled helplessly in his embrace.

“Yes, sir. That’s me. Mars’ mate. It’s nice to, ugh, meet you, Mr. Pierre.”

He let me down and waved a hand dramatically in the air.

“Bah! None of this ‘mister’ stuff. You’re my niece’s mate. Just call me Pierre. Uncle Pierre if you need to cling to some title or formality. And look at you! A real beauty. The magic of a sorceress. What a charming present the universe gave my silly niece.”

Mars crossed the pier and snatched me back just as Pierre was kissing the back of my hand. I found myself blushing because no one had ever talked to me like this before. A light giggle escaped my throat. It was all too much, the fisherman’s outfit, the breeze around the dock, his thick accent, the energetic mannerisms of an eccentric man, I was tickled by the meeting.

And yet, I also Understood getting a better look at Pierre that he wasn’t human. His movements were good mimicry, but his walks, swoops, and gestures were too fluid. His eyes were a little too pale. And his breathing seemed a tad strained as if the air I needed wasn’t something he thrived on. It was simply something he could make do with until he slid beneath the waves again.

“You’re merfolk,” I said, eyes widening as Mars pulled me into her arms.

Pierre made an exaggerated gesture of shock and looked around the dock as if I wasn’t talking about him.

“Merfolk?! Where?!” he gasped, his head swiveling around from left to right. “I’ve always wanted to meet one. They say merfolk bring good luck to those who cross paths with them.”

Mars rolled her eyes.

I looked over Pierre again. He was rail-thin and wore a ballcap covering neatly trimmed hair. He could have been in his late 50s or early 60s, but I suspected age wrapped around him a bit deeper than that. The magical wiki in my brain kicked into gear, and I suddenly knew that merfolk could easily live to be 300.

“Trying to find my gills?” Pierre said, laughing as he caught me staring.

I blushed all the harder and coughed out a, “No!”

He grinned, revealing teeth that were angled backward, more toward his throat than a human’s would be.

“You won’t find any, young sorceress. We breathe through our skin underwater. Flesh equals lungs beneath the waves,” he said. “And now that I’ve answered your unspoken question, perhaps you’ll satisfy my curiosity.”

I froze, expecting some super invasive question about my body, more out of habit and experience than suspicion about Pierre’s character. Some folks seemed to carry the idea that learning someone was trans entitled them to all kinds of secrets about their bodies, medications, surgeries, and more. And those people can go fuck themselves. You wouldn’t ask a cishet man about his dick while riding the bus. Don’t ask about mine.

Then, to my surprise, Pierre narrowed his eyes.

“Why is your blood so cold? I can feel the water inside you and Mars. Yours is. . . a bit frosty, no?”

Sighing in relief that this was his question, I waved my hand.

“Long story short? I ripped all the magic out of a Vampire Lorde trying to kill me and Mars. Some of that power stuck around and seems to have changed me.”

Pierre nodded.

“And I’m guessing that magic also explains why your hair is like Rogue’s. Kind of funny, isn’t it? You took someone’s power, and now you’ve got black and white hair like hers?” Pierre said.

I just blinked at the fisherman.

“I’m not sure what it says about me that upon seeing my changed hair, my first thought was Cruella. And yours was one of the X-Men.”

Mars laughed and ruffled my hair, which sent shivers of pleasure down through my shoulders. Goddamn, I swooned under her touch. Leaning into Mars and closing my eyes, I heard her say, “Don’t mind Pierre. He’s been reading X-Men comics since they were introduced in the ‘60s.”

When I opened my eyes again, I sassed the merfolk and said, “Figured you’d be more into Aquaman comics.”

Pierre’s face went grim, and my heart nearly stopped.

“Wow,” he said. “You didn’t tell me your mate was such a bigot, young pup. I’m kind of disappointed. That’s a bit insensitive to say to someone like me, don’t you think?”

My heart sank into my guts, and I stammered, “Wait. No. I didn’t mean it like — ”

But Mars interrupted me.

“Don’t be mean to my mate, Uncle Pierre. You’ve known her for 10 minutes, and you’re already harassing her? Fuck off.”

The grizzled seadog burst into laughter, his boisterous chortle filling the entire pier and echoing out over the waves.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lilith. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. We merfolk love to joke, yes? Very much with the jokes.”

My throat loosened a bit as I started to breathe again. Then I walked over and slugged him in the arm.

“Don’t do that! I was fucking mortified that I’d insulted my mate’s uncle.”

Pierre held his hands in mock surrender.

“Sorry. So sorry. I had to. I hit Mars with the very same joke when she first came to live with me. I had to see if her mate would react the same way.”

I slugged his arm again.

“Meanie!” I lobbed the insult at him like a curse. “C’mon, Mars. We’ll find a different boatman to take us to the island.”

The fisherman blinked and then crossed his heart with his hands in another dramatic gesture.

“Oh, of course. It is not me you have come to introduce your mate to, but my boat! How silly of me to assume you’d drive to Lubec for any other reason than to commandeer my vessel,” Pierre sobbed while looking at Mars.

To her credit, my mate’s eyes were a little downcast upon hearing that. So, I slugged Pierre a third time for good measure.

“Stop it! You’re being mean again,” I huffed. “Uncles are supposed to be nice to their nieces. And if you don’t start being nice to my mate, I’ll hex you so bad that your skin becomes allergic to saltwater.”

Pierre rubbed his arm, pretending as though I’d severely wounded him.

“You drove four hours to beat up an old man and steal his boat. What a crime. WHAT A CRIME!” he sobbed.

Then, he started laughing again. And as grumpy as he’d made me with his ridiculousness, I broke down and laughed alongside him. Mars joined us in chortling as well, and before long, we were three cackling clams yucking it up on the little pier.

Seagulls flew above us and called out obscenities while I wiped tears from my eyes. I hadn’t laughed this hard in a while.

“Okay, Sea Hawk. Show us your boat. We’re ready for adventure,” I said, wrapping my elbow in Pierre’s.

He bowed his head and gestured toward the end of the boardwalk.

“But of course, mademoiselle. Right this way,” he said.

And suddenly, I was right back to heated cheeks. Maybe hearing French did something to me. I’d have to ask Mars to try speaking it to me when we got back to the farm.

Ten minutes later, we were on our way to the island where Mars’ pack had been cursed. I had the spear tucked under my chair. The island before us was the single greatest sight of tragedy for my mate, and I’d asked her to bring me there. She faced her darkest moment at my request and all on the hopes that I could break Telsyn’s curse.

The waters were calm as Pierre’s boat powered through a mild current to Treat Island. In the distance, I watched the small landmass grow closer to us, a spec of green and brown among the grayish bay.

Nobody spoke until I turned to Mars and finally asked, “Honey, will you tell me why Telsyn cursed your pack? Maybe hearing the story will give me some clue about how to break it.”

My mate leaned back in her seat and sighed, keeping her eyes on the island. I took her hand, and still, she did not look at me.

Mars’ gaze remained forward, on the place where her past and future would meet.

Pierre kept his eyes on the water, not daring to speak a word. He was a character in Mars’ story, but he was not the storyteller. That role was reserved for the alpha of the Dubois Pack.

“Telsyn appeared before my pack on two occasions. On her first visit, she called us witless dogs and demanded that we show her the Wolfbone Graveyard.”

I was suddenly filled with so many questions but kept them in check, waiting patiently for Mars to continue her story. She coughed and cleared her throat.

“The Wolfbone Graveyard is an ancient cemetery my pack has guarded for centuries. The first werewolf who journeyed to Vinland with Leif Erikson a thousand years ago is buried there, along with hundreds of my ancestors. It is a sacred space for members of my pack, overflowing with magic. Telsyn, of course, wanted to devour it all like the wraith she is.”

Suddenly, the number of questions rumbling around inside my skull exploded. The first werewolves to reach North America came from Nordic peoples? Was the Wolfbone Graveyard the same cemetery Lord Wylde went searching for in the woods before disappearing for good? Did Mars expect me and her to be buried in the Wolfbone Graveyard when we died (hopefully far from now)?

Still, I bit down on my tongue and listened to the rest of the story.

“When Telsyn visited my pack a second time, we knew she’d come for blood. My father, Randy Lee Dubois, gathered the whole pack on Treat Island, wanting to make sure no innocents were involved in the bloodshed to come. And when Telsyn appeared amid the quiet dark to demand our ancestral graveyard, our alpha, with all of us at his side, looked her dead in the eye and said, ‘No.’”

A strange pride built in Mars’ voice as she told this part of the story. Her chest puffed out. It almost looked like my mate was getting ready to stand and howl.

Even though she knew how the story ended, this moment was powerful. It blazed in her memory as she recited it to me.

“His exact words to Telsyn were, ‘I deny you the sacred gravesoil of our people. Your teeth of shadows will find no wolf bones to gnaw on this night. Not while we stand united against you.’ Enraged, Telsyn called forth a powerful curse. I watched as every wolf on the island stood defiant as spectral ice encased their flesh. My mother, just before the curse took her, let forth a fierce, guttural snarl. The snarl was a promise, Lilith, that one day the Dubois Pack would be free, and we would bring ruin on that wraith. I am that promise.”

Taking both of Mars’ twitching hands into mine, I folded our fingers tightly into my lap. And those fierce amber eyes turned to me.

“WE are that promise, Mars. You’re not alone anymore. I am your mate. I am your pack. And today, we’re going to free the rest of them.”

It took a few seconds, but Mars grinned.

“Damn right.”

The dock at Treat Island came into view, a tiny, weathered structure that looked extremely old. It looked like something built as a hobby by someone who might have a pond in their backyard that the kids wanted to jump into.

Tearing my eyes away from the island, I kissed Mars on the cheek and asked, “Am I allowed to know why Telsyn’s curse didn’t freeze you? Was there some limit to her magic? Or were you protected somehow?”

The grin on Mars’ face faded. I watched her eyes sink back into visions and sounds from that horrible day. My mate looked like the echoes of werewolf screams and sounds of freezing flesh were swimming around her ears.

“I wasn’t protected, Little Cottontail. Nor was I spared. My curse was just different. I, a 12-year-old pup, was forced to watch everyone I knew and loved endure the agony of being frozen alive. Telsyn knew I’d spend my entire life trying and failing to break the curse, tormented simultaneously by the hope I’d see my family freed and the continued denial of that miracle. Eventually, I think she expected me to break and offer her the graveyard’s location in exchange for lifting the curse.”

Folding myself against Mars and shivering from the sea breeze, I whispered, “But you wouldn’t do that.”

“But I wouldn’t do that,” she agreed.

Pierre cut the boat’s engine as we drifted closer to the dock. I watched the shallow water washing up against the island’s edge as if the ocean was constantly reminding the little island, “I could swallow you at any time. You remain because I allow it.”

Above us, gray clouds filtered in, occasionally blocking the sun before letting its rays return. Shadows ran over the dock as Pierre tied the boat off on an old post. A “No Trespassing” sign stood at the edge of the dock.

“The usual, Mars? Wait here until you return?” the fisherman asked, stretching.

“Keep the meter running,” Mars said softly, kissing Pierre on the cheek and hugging him tight. “With any luck, you’ll be returning to Lubec with more people than you brought here.”

Kissing my mate on top of her head, Pierre whispered, “Best of luck, ma fille.”

Mars stepped past me up onto the dock as I watched Pierre pull out a paperback. He licked a thumb and opened to the middle of the book. The book’s spine revealed its title: A Hunt of Her Own by someone named Elena Abbott. I made a mental note to Foogle that author later.

I slowly stood and slung the spear over my shoulder via a tiny strap we’d fashioned with its wrappings.

Offering her hand, my mate waited to pull me from the boat, and even this left me feeling flushed. A dyke chivalry I’d waited for my entire life. Mars smiled seeing the effect being treated like some kind of dainty, fragile thing had on me. And I’d have wagered actual money she made her own mental note to do that more in the future.

But that was the future. We were in the now. And now, I had a wraith’s curse to lift.

Feeling Mars’ strength gently, but firmly pull me up onto the warped boards of the small dock, I noticed my breath hitch in my throat. To add to the effect, Mars pressed me against her chest until I slowly looked up into her carnivorous gaze.

“Not one moment have I regretted snatching you away from that sad little man in the art gallery,” she said against my ear.

“And not one moment have I regretted being dragged away to the home of a mighty werewolf,” I whispered back, lightly licking my mate’s cheek.

“Come along, Little Cottontail. I have some very important people to introduce you to.”

I allowed myself to be led up the dock and onto an island where more wolf tears had fallen than raindrops from the sky.

We entered and walked through a forest of evergreens that seemed to stretch north to south for most of the island. I stepped over a crumpled beer can and a fallen bird’s nest from a season or two ago.

The air grew colder the further we got into the island, and I could feel Mars’ footsteps slowing and growing heavier. She trudged forward holding my hand. In my chest, alongside my heartbeat, I could feel hers. It beat like a race car zooming around the track. And I wondered then if her mind was doing the same thing, replaying every scene of her pack frozen in the eyes of a little girl.

A 12-year-old watched her beastly parents, who, until that moment, had been untouchable. A mighty alpha and his mate who led a pack of creatures that, united, could take on any foe.

But the foe they stood against wasn’t something of this world. It was a creature from a horrific place of simultaneous stagnancy and decay. Somehow, it’d crept into our world, our good and magical world of living souls and innocent people who thought monsters were just the stuff of bedtime stories.

That abomination stared down a pack of fierce predators and petrified them one by one. Mars stood by powerless to stop it.

And in one moment, I knew her intense hatred of Telsyn. Because if a werewolf was a makebelieve monster to humans. Then a wraith was a makebelieve monster to werewolves, something so twisted and depraved that it could only exist in the imaginations of scared storytellers.

These were the scariest monsters one could think of, unless, of course, we were talking about Republicans, in which case, wraiths and werewolves were only the second scariest monsters they could imagine, behind trans folks.

Tall grass tickled my knuckles as we left the forest behind and came to a clearing where the pack came into view. From a distance, they looked like large ice sculptures. Up close, they looked like shivering and pained human beings, most of them frozen in a moment of shock and absolute agony.

Mars’ hand tightened around mine as she led me into a circle of petrified werewolves. They didn’t even have time to shift before the curse washed over them.

My mate led me to a man who stood baring fangs and ready to attack. The man bore a striking resemblance to Mars, and I figured this must be her father. The alpha was frozen in a tank top and stained jeans, amber eyes pointed skyward to his then-attacker.

Roger Lee’s shaggy brown hair was caught in a wave around him as he prepared to rush into battle. He’d pushed Mars’ mother a few inches behind him. Perhaps he’d felt the curse building.

Adeline Dubois stood staring into the sky, trapped in a perpetual snarl as Mars had told me in the boat ride here. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back into a long braid with a silver ring embedded in the bottom.

I’d heard Mars describe her mother as a bit of a hippy once, and aside from the snarling pose, she looked it with her sundress and black tights.

“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad. I’m back,” Mars started as I kept staring at her parents. It sounded like she was trying to keep from crying.

I stood close and waited while Mars took a deep breath and prepared to say what she needed to.

“I just wanted to stop by and introduce my mate. This. . . is Lilith Chambers, the woman who holds my heart, the girl I was made to love before I took my first breath.”

Stepping up next to Mars, I looked at Roger Lee and Adeline. And where I expected to feel awkward or embarrassed to be talking to people who couldn’t hear me, I instead felt a natural relaxation sinking into my muscles.

The most macabre, maudlin part of my brain expected this to feel like talking to statues. Instead, an instinctual part of me recognized these two as. . . something akin to family. They were pack.

Mars’ bite marks on my chest pulsed in their presence.

My mind told me I was standing in view of my mother and father. And I guess when Mars and I got married someday (Gods, that was a strange phrase to think about), they would be my parents. Er — my werewolf in-laws.

Bowing my head, I said, “Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois. My name is Lilith. I — I’m in love with your daughter and pleased to meet you both.”

Mars snickered, catching me by surprise.

“If you call them that when the curse breaks, I guarantee Mom and Dad will give you shit for it. Just be ready,” she said.

That seemed to break the tension in the air, and Mars looked back at her parents.

“Lilith is a sorceress. She’s going to try and break your curse. Then you can come home with me, and see the farm I’ve built. I have so much to show you, show the rest of the pack. So please. . . just hang in there a little bit longer.”

My eyes swept over the six frozen werewolves, and I definitely recognized a powerful magic at work, but. . . something wasn’t quite right.

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The effects of the curse were here, of course. And that was supposed to draw the attention and eye. The people affected by the curse were the focal point.

Telsyn’s spell wanted all of Mars’ attention to be focused on her pack, I thought, my Understanding firing into high gear.

As long as she thought the entire spell was built around this core group of six frozen werewolves, Mars would never find out how to break the curse.

“What do you think?” Mars asked.

I rubbed my chin.

“I think. . . we’re only seeing the effects of the curse, not the actual curse itself.”

Mars raised an eyebrow.

“What does that mean?”

I took a deep breath.

“It means, I need a better look at the magic around me. I need you to step back while I cast my siphon spell and trace the origins of this curse.”

Mars did as I asked, stepping out of the werewolf ring.

Taking a deep breath, I reached inside me for the spell that ripped every scrap of magic out of Beau and killed me in the process. Its eyes opened somewhere deep within, curious as to what I’d be feeding it with now.

This arcane craft wasn’t like the other spells I wielded. It almost had a life of its own. I shuddered remembering the hunger that came from seeing Beauregard’s magic and the intense need to devour it all.

I attempted some manner of control, and it felt like trying to leash a polar bear.

“Easy now. Calm the fuck down,” I grimaced while Mars looked on, concern filling her eyes.

“I’m okay,” I said, noticing her anxiety building in the other side of my chest, where I felt her heart beating. “Just taking it slow.”

Grabbing my right arm, I tried to control my breathing and unleash the spell in minor increments. I didn’t need to actually siphon anything. What I sought were the eyes that allowed me to see raw magic so I could know where to aim the siphon.

Under my clothes, I felt the spider tattoo crawling to my shoulder like last time. Letting the spell flow down my arm, I watched obsidian veins creep toward my hand. With a squelching noise, the flesh of my hand rapidly decayed, its skin turning from a creamy white to a jet black. A magical black hole opened in the palm of my hand, eager to devour magic. Lots of magic. Any magic. It wasn’t picky.

Holding it back, I tried to focus on the ocular portion of the spell. I didn’t need to swallow magic. I just needed to see it.

“Is your hand. . . supposed to look like that?” Mars asked from somewhere to my left.

“That’s the siphon spell. It’s fine. My hand doesn’t look like this when I finger you,” I said through gritted teeth, using humor to try and keep my attention in the present. I didn’t want my focus to be swallowed by the bottomless void inside of me eager to devour nearby energy.

Mars scoffed in disbelief.

“My parents are RIGHT THERE,” she hissed.

“Relax. They won’t be the next time we fuck,” I said.

At last, I seemed to get some control over the spell — or at least its effects on my body. My vision swam and then seemed to narrow as a sea of gray washed over everything. Hues and finer details drained from my field of sight, leaving the wolves, the trees, and the ice colored by varying shades that ranged from ash to slate.

Taking a steadying breath, I lowered my hand and looked around.

Mars’ core burned bright orange with the living magic of nature, an energy that made her every bit a human and a wolf. It was wild and feral, playful and fierce, leaping and hunting. If I expected my siphon to start reaching for her magic, I was shocked to find no such urge to drain her.

Why? I thought. I was so quick to latch onto Beauregard.

And through Understanding, the answer dawned on me. This spell is of The Mother, even if it’s channeled through The Maiden’s gift. It’s powerful, but it can’t override my loyalty to my mate. That connection is too primal and deep within me for sorcery to touch.

On top of that, The Mother being a giant wolf understands and values the importance of mates, I thought. Even if I annoy her, she won’t move to harm me or Mars because she knows we’re fated to be with one another.

Looking over the frozen werewolves, I spotted a sickly vein of pale blue magic buried at the bottom of each ice chunk. The werewolves themselves all possessed a slumbering orange magical core similar to Mars, but it was diminutive from years of dormancy within the curse.

It’s like their magic is in stasis, I thought.

The werewolves weren’t breathing. They were. . . trapped in a stage of sleep. The curse was designed to keep them encased.

“I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, babe, but are your eyes supposed to be all ashy-looking and gray? You look like a follower of Kaecilius,” Mars said with a bit more concern in her voice than before.

It took a minute for me to respond as I was busy examining her frozen pack.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Looking at. . . the curse. Tracing it.”

Words were hard to form when I concentrated on maintaining a single aspect of the siphon spell. It felt like trying to carry on a conversation while staring at a bacteria sample under a microscope. My eyes were focused on tardigrades, and my ears were trying to listen to someone behind me talk about how much better Ready Player One was as a movie than a book.

Mars didn’t say anything else after that, so I went back to looking at the wolves. The ice encasing all six of them was unnatural. The substance formed quickly and carried the consistency of steel. It wouldn’t melt on the hottest day nor chip if struck by the sharpest ice pick.

But as I suspected, this was merely the effect of the curse, rather than the base of the spell itself.

The curse’s anemic icy roots flowed from the base of each chunk of ice and twisted together into a sickly blue rope a few inches under the soil.

Keeping my eyes on the buried roots of the curse, I started walking out of the clearing.

“Where are you going? Lilith?” Mars asked behind me.

I ignored her, not willingly but unconsciously as I put every ounce of myself into maintaining the siphon spell. It kept wanting to power off since I wasn’t actively feeding it with magic to devour.

The spell inside me growled in annoyance.

I ignored it and continued walking south back into the evergreen forest. The curse’s roots ran under logs, between shrubs, and over creekbeds.

Mars eventually gave up trying to ask questions and followed along quietly behind me, doubtless curious about where I was walking.

It was slow going, and I lost the trail once or twice. Following a buried cable was difficult work when you had to maintain a spell just to see it. Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the chilly sea breeze that raced through the forest around us.

My legs started to buckle when I finally arrived at the hornet’s nest of magic that was the curse’s source of power. It was a sickening silver that pulsed outward from a large rock the size of a car door.

Pointing at the rock half-buried in soil, I said, “Mars, can you please flip that rock over?”

She didn’t question me, puzzling how best to get a grip on the rectangular chunk of granite. When she figured it out, I watched my mate flex her strength and grunt. The rock didn’t want to budge at first, but she didn’t give it much of a choice.

Rending it from the earth and sending dirt and previously buried insects flying in every direction, Mars roared as it came loose.

Flipping the rock over, she tossed it back down to the ground. The immediate area shook with a resounding THUD as the rock crashed back down into the soil.

She gasped as I finally powered down the siphon spell. We didn’t need magical vision to see the curse’s source.

Glowing silver markings covered the now-visible surface of rock. Wraith-like aura washed over us, a nauseating power far greater than standing in the presence of Beauregard. It penetrated us to our very core.

I fell to my knees while Mars leaned over and grabbed a tree’s trunk to steady herself.

“W — what is that?” Mars asked. “And why the fuck didn’t I notice it before?”

Trying not to hurl, I glanced over a silver sigil that took the form of an ouroboros with a glowing open eye in the middle of the circle.

The eye had a single tear and the buried root I followed here attached to that solitary tear via a few thin, yet powerful strands of magic.

“That nasty piece of spellcraft is the source of Telsyn’s curse. It’s what keeps your pack encased in otherworldly ice. The curse is designed to remain hidden nearby so all of your attention remains on the frozen werewolves and ignores it,” I explained.

My head felt like it was filling with quick-drying concrete. The curse was fucking toxic and absolutely roiling my arcane senses.

Mars took a few steps back and pulled me with her.

“Okay. Can you disable it?” my mate asked.

And I sighed, looking over the cursed rock again.

Shaking my head, I covered my eyes with my hand that since returned to its normal color.

“That thing is ridiculously powerful, hon. I thought maybe I could siphon the magic’s energy and lift the curse, but it’s so much stronger than anything I’ve felt aside from The Maiden, The Mother, and The Crone.”

“Is that why my nose is bleeding just standing this close?” Mars asked.

I nodded.

“If siphoning Beauregard was like swallowing a firecracker, siphoning this spell would be like swallowing a grenade. There’s no way I’d survive, even with stolen vampiric healing. My whole body would explode outward in a mess of spilled lasagna,” I said.

Mars pulled me a few more feet away. The longer that curse stayed exposed, the worse its effects upon us grew.

“What do we do now?” Mars asked, stifling a retch.

I scratched my head, my Understanding doing the depressing math.

“You have a difficult choice to make. I don’t have the power or capacity to stop this curse.”

Mars raised an eyebrow and looked down at me with suspicion.

“What’s the difficult choice? Because if you think I’m going to let you bargain with Phenna or someone else to lift the curse, you can forget it. Some werewolves may stupidly stumble into bargains with greater powers, but I ain’t one of them, bub.”

I closed my eyes and pulled the spear off my shoulder, unwrapping it slowly.

My mate stood there with her arms crossed.

“I can’t stop the curse, but The Mother can. Her power can blunt force that curse from existence. It’d be like dropping a nuke on a cobra, but it’ll break it all the same. If I pierce the ouroboros with this, it’ll free your pack. But you’ll lose the one weapon we have that can kill Telsyn. So, my love, you have to choose. Do you want your parents back today or Telsyn’s guaranteed death at some unforeseen point in the future when our paths cross?”

A flash of anger rushed across Mars’ face as she considered the possibility that the gun she was prepared to fire at her mortal enemy could lose its bullets.

Her body shuddered with several stages of grief before me all at once. She drudged her boots into the earth at the same time she ground her teeth.

Every part of me wanted to comfort my mate. I desired nothing more than step forward and throw my arms around her.

She ran her fingers through her hair and bit her teeth while two ideas warred inside her. Revenge or reunification.

We might find Telsyn tomorrow. We might find her 10 years from now. There was no way to know for sure. Mars and I had no guarantees.

The werewolf clutched her fists and let out a roar that rattled the trees around us. I was sure Pierre heard her back at the boat.

Mars fell to her knees and sank her fist into the ground, striking it repeatedly.

I stayed where I was. This was an internal battle that I couldn’t interfere with. Mars couldn’t think I was trying to sway her to one choice or the other. When she was finished I could comfort her, but not before.

At last, my mate reached a conclusion. “Set them free,” she whispered. “I want my pack. Please, Lili. I just want my family back.”

Gripping the spear, I steeled my resolve.

“I will do everything I can to grant your wish,” I said. “Because you’re my mate and I love you.”

Turning toward the stone, I walked over and raised the pointed end of the spear above the rock. Then, without warning, I drove the spear down toward the ouroboros sigil, determined to end this curse once and for all.

To my surprise, the spear tip stopped inches short of the rock, an invisible force catching the weapon’s point and freezing all motion. Then, an equal force to the one I attempted to unleash threw me backward.

I wasn’t prepared for the possibility the curse would protect itself, and I paid for it, falling ass over face and coming to rest several feet from the stone, my world spinning in a haze of dizziness.

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed.

“Lilith!” Mars shouted, rushing over.

I held up a hand which stopped her.

“I’m fine. This is just going to require a bit more force,” I said, getting up and taking a deep breath. My ribs were throbbing from where I’d struck the ground.

“Are you sure?” Mars asked.

Ignoring her, I rushed forth, determined to keep the promise I just made. I got a good running start and drove the spear down with all my momentum. Like before, some invisible force stopped the spear tip just before it struck the sigil. And that force was turned back upon me, flinging me backward.

“Hrrnnnggg!” I grunted, flying back into an evergreen tree and slamming into its trunk, pine needles washing over me and clawing my skin.

It took me a little longer to recover this time, and Mars helped me up.

“Maybe we should reconsider. . .,” she started, but I cut her off.

“More force,” I hissed. “Go stand over by the rock and be prepared to toss me.”

“Excuse me?” Mars gasped.

I stared at her, fury building inside me.

“I’m not going to lose to this curse, Mars. Now, please, go stand over by the rock. I’m going to run at you, and I want you to toss me as high as you can. Then I’ll let gravity end this fucker.”

She looked from the rock back to me.

With a frustrated sigh, my mate reluctantly did as I asked. I gripped the spear with both hands and backed up about 15 feet. Running through the trees as fast as I could, I watched as Mars cupped her hands near the ground. Throwing my left foot into her grip, I felt her werewolf strength work and hurl me up into the air until I was above the evergreens.

Gripping the spear tight, I pointed it downward and rode the gravity straight down into the rock.

Predictably, I was stopped. It felt like my entire body struck an airbag in a car crash. Then, before I could react, the curse hurled me back up into the air, right back where I came from.

“Motherfuckerrrrr,” I screamed, eyes closed as I shot over the trees and came rocketing down into the sea several feet off the island’s shore.

The frigid water soaked me to the bone, and I nearly lost the spear. But my rage only grew.

“Lilith! Enough. We need to rethink this,” Mars shouted, running out of the treeline and stopping on the shore as I inched back to dry ground grinding my teeth. “Seriously, you’re covered in scrapes and bruises. Please stop. This isn’t working.”

“It. Will. Work.” I said, stressing each syllable.

In my mind, I just kept picturing Mars crying in front of her frozen parents, gripped by the loneliness of survivor’s guilt. Inside that muscled goddess who loved me for reasons I couldn’t begin to explain, there was a scared 12-year-old girl worried she’d never see her pack again.

I’d given Mars a glimmer of hope on this trip, and I’d be damned if this curse would strip even that from my mate.

“I just need more speed,” I hissed, stepping into the shadow of the nearest tree and folding myself into the darkness with a vampiric ability that was suddenly more instinct than technical understanding.

Feeling myself fold into the shadow in an instant, I raced down the line of trees at breakneck speed I’d seen Beau use at the farm.

Gripping the spear tight, I carried all the vampiric shadow momentum with me, preparing for a clash that would be nothing short of epic.

“I’ll break this fucking curse or my neck trying,” I yelled, driving that spear downward with more power than I’d used thus far.

This time, the air shimmered as the curse struggled to match my output. And I hoped for a divine moment that this would be the breaking point. But to my crushing dismay, I was driven backward again, with equal force to what I’d used.

“No!” I yelled, again flying backward. “Not this time.”

Using the curse’s momentum, I dove into the nearest shadow, spun around an evergreen, and slingshotted myself back at the rock with even greater speed.

It seemed like a foolproof idea until the curse blocked me again, and I felt the back of my skull crashing into tree bark.

If I’d upped my game on approach, how much more so did the curse? It was like no matter what I tried, it held the upper hand.

Never before had I moved as quickly as I had during that last approach. And even that was rebuffed.

I felt blood dripping down the back of my neck as Mars rushed over and snatched the spear from my hands.

“Okay! That’s enough,” she said with a choked voice.

But I wasn’t done. Not by a long shot.

I felt vampiric healing piecing together the back of my skull, at least enough to keep me conscious. The sickening sound of an eggshell being put together filled my ears.

Beau, you ridiculously Southern son of a bitch, your powers only get more useful to me, I thought, once I had coherent brain patterns again.

Snatching the spear back from Mars, I turned to look at her and winked.

“Have faith in your mate. This is what I came here to do. I just need to push a little harder. I felt the curse give way with that last drive. It’s not all-powerful. I can do this,” I swore anew.

Mars took my face in her hands.

“I don’t want you to splatter yourself to bring my family back.”

“No splatter. I promise,” I said.

Facing down the rock again, I called to my magic, and it answered, responding to my need. It wasn’t a spell, per se. But I could use my magic to push my physical limits a little further if I blanketed myself with raw energy.

No idea how long I can keep it up, I thought. But I felt the curse bend. It has limits. I just have to shatter my own to breach it.

Picturing my magic wrapping around me like a suit of armor, I felt the energy stretch and crawl over every inch of me, spreading gooseflesh wherever it reached. When at last my magic smothered me with a sheen of violet light, I gripped the spear tight and walked back to the shadows of the treeline near the water. I gave myself as much of a runway as I could.

In my head, I told myself the shadows leading up to the cursed rock were the tarmac of an airport, and I was a fucking jet about to launch myself forward at full speed.

“My name is Lilith Fucking Chambers, sorceress, werewolf mate, and breaker of wraith curses,” I yelled at the stone as if I could psychologically intimidate the spell. “With this spear, I end your existence and free my pack!”

Folding into shadow once more, I kept my magic burning as much as I could. I threw myself at the stone with reckless abandon. No speedometer could track me. I was raw velocity, and the spear was my sharpest point.

I met the head-on curse as the ground around me rumbled with power. My spear tip came within centimeters of that rock’s surface before the spell mustered enough power to drive me back.

This played out over and over again, me burning my candle as bright as I could at both ends. I attacked the stone from every conceivable angle, direction, and speed. Each time, I was thrust backward into trees, into the sky, into the ocean. I skipped across the ground like a stone over pond water. I bashed limbs into trunks.

My body became a human punching bag of raw force. Still, I waved off Mars’ growing concerns and rose each time.

Hours went by, and I felt myself slowing, my magic depleting.

That fucking curse just wouldn’t break, no matter how hard I charged ahead.

Somehow, night fell, and I was healing from a shattered knee, breathing like an asthmatic in a paper towel factory, when Mars barked, “For god’s sake. ENOUGH. Your alpha orders you to fucking stop.”

My knee slowly pieced itself back together, and I thanked the gods for adrenaline, which I was apparently on my last few milliliters of.

“I can. . . do this. I swear. Just one more run,” I huffed, one eye closed. Scratch that. One eye swollen shut.

“You can barely stand! No, you can’t do this. You’ve tried. I’ve watched all day, growing increasingly worried. Well no more.”

With spite, I grimaced, feeling aches and pains running down my legs as my knee finished healing, and stood.

“See? I can stand. No barely about it.”

Mars rolled her eyes and grabbed my shoulders.

“Stop. Please. For me.”

My heart quivered as those same imagined scenes of a young Mars crying before her frozen pack replayed in my exhausted brain again.

“Please, Mars. I promised. I can do this,” I said, reaching for the spear that she’d apparently taken from me again.

She shook her head.

“No, Little Cottontail. You can’t.”

My face sank, but where I tried to lower my gaze to the ground, my mate grabbed my chin and pushed my attention back up until our eyes met.

“You can’t do this,” she said, again. “But we can.”

The werewolf pointed to the sky just as the clouds parted, and silver rays from a full moon washed over us. I just stared at it until my brain clicked with Understanding.

“You can change anytime you want,” I whispered.

“But I’m strongest on nights when Silver Eye is wide open above me.”

With those words, the werewolf stood tall over me. She kicked off her boots and threw her shirt to the side. I watched ripples of fur sprout from beneath her flesh, splitting the skin open as my mate gave way to the bipedal beast within.

Her fangs extended, her spine elongated as a bushy tail formed, and razor claws claimed the edge of each finger.

And where my mate usually wore a thick coat of mahogany-colored fur, her fur was now tinged in an effervescent gold, the same shade as her eyes. Mars’ muscles expanded, and she stood at least nine feet tall now.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, feeling her raw magic running and spreading through the trees around me. It ran and leaped in every direction like a pack of wolves chasing down a herd of caribou.

“Blood of Fenrir. . . rise,” my mate growled so deep the sand around me rippled.

Holding out the spear, I understood that Mars meant for us to throw all we had into one final thrust. What I had left. . . was fumes. And yet, my faith in us didn’t waver for a moment.

“I love you,” I said, meaning it with every fiber of my being.

Mars leaned down and ran her tongue up the whole side of my face, and fuck if that didn’t do things to me.

“We can do this,” said, placing a hand on the ground. “Sorry, island. I need to borrow some of your energy.”

Siphoning the very life from the forest we stood in, I felt the trees and bushes wither around me.

“Cursed be the land a wraith sets foot on,” I hissed, my magic rebuilding itself.

Mars and I approached the cursed stone with the surety of our purpose. And with every ounce of combined power we had, the desperate sorceress and overcharged werewolf thrust their spear downward toward the stone.

The curse, bless its heart, rose to meet us again, ready to drive me back. But this time, I had the backing of my mate, the unleashed Blood of Fenrir coursing through her veins hungry for victory over a dread that’d held her pack prisoner for far too long.

That fucking curse pushed back with all the power it’d been granted by Telsyn. But when that force reversed to meet us, Mars and I refused to budge. So, the curse thrust upward all the harder.

We stayed anchored, driven by our twinned desire for unyielding victory. No compromise. No defeat. No survival for this curse.

As we let loose a unified scream of frustration, the ground around us began to quake and splinter, dead trees falling to the ground, and birds all around the island scattering, fleeing our wrath.

“Come on, you fucker!” I yelled all the louder, unleashing every single drop of magic I’d siphoned.

Waves around the island stirred as the curse started to hit its upper limit, unraveling at a furious pace. But even that wasn’t enough to satisfy our growing arcane bloodlust.

Mars and I pushed harder still, the spear tip inching ever closer to that stone.

At last, with the massive shattering of cursed energy, the magical field around the stone that’d fought us off all day gave way. Our combined stubbornness and endurance claimed victory, thrusting the spear down into the rock and splitting it right down the middle.

With little fanfare, the spear superheated to the point that we couldn’t hold on. Above us, the night sky ripped open, and a massive hole of unbound space became the tunnel, through which, The Mother’s magic flowed. It raced down toward us in an arc of brilliant magenta light.

The combination of approaching magic beyond my comprehension, the shattering of the curse, and the tight grip of exhaustion pulling me down resulted in a smearing of consciousness which didn’t quite capture every moment that followed.

But I’m pretty sure three things happened next:

1. I grabbed Mars with the last bit of my strength and folded us back into shadow to get the hell away from the cursed stone.

2. Some minutes later, amid all the smoke and rubble, Mars said something about hearing the ice cracking.

3. Before Mars could carry me to her newly freed parents, an inexplicable chasm opened beneath us.

And that fucking void consumed us both, body and soul.

Epilogue

I don’t know how long I was out. But I do know that I stirred first. Maybe it was another win for the vampiric healing that just couldn’t seem to quit on me. Either way, I remember looking up into a night sky full of doors where the stars should have been.

Mars and I appeared to be lying on a hardwood floor of some kind. I was vaguely aware of walls or the shape of something similar around us.

Some part of me was bleeding, but I wasn’t sure what.

And then came her voice, creeping into my ears like a stream of ants. I twitched and groaned with every sentence she spoke.

“Oh, you foolish little creatures. You went and did something to anger me, didn’t you?”

“Hello?” I choked out, my voice like sandpaper.

“Yes, yes. I am here, your unexpected hostess. I’m sure I don’t need to introduce myself. Surely you know my name, yes?”

I racked my brain for Understanding and found little available, so I took a wild guess.

“Telsyn?” I hissed.

“Wow. You are an intelligent sorceress. No wonder you found and broke my curse.”

“What do you want?” I asked, feeling my annoyance starting to stir.

The voice from. . . somewhere sighed.

“I want the Wolfbone Graveyard, sorceress. And I’m prepared to keep you both here until I you’re driven mad and surrender it to me as a desperate plea for death.”

The doors above us were spinning and swirling across the night sky now. Where the fuck were we?

“I bid you welcome to the Evermannor, Lilith Chambers. You and Mars Dubois are my first guests here. Be honored.”

And for the life of me, I just didn’t feel all that honored.

[Editor's note: This concludes That Night I Got Dragged Home By A Werewolf. Its sequel, That Night I Got Married To A Werewolf will begin in 2025. And my transbian dragon romance will start on December 29. Thanks for reading!]