Page 8 of The Alpha's Forced Bride

Had I been inside this cabin all night? It was hard to say. My demon made it particularly impossible to tell. Which way was up or down? Which way was left or right? What was north? What was south? My internal compass was off. The wolf inside of me begged to be let out, begged to be released from the bonds of the demon that caused me to manipulate others. I was losing control over the demon, losing control over the ability to fight him. This was why it was so important for me to find a mate.

I had to find her now before things got worse. I pulled the photographs toward me. They were out of order because of the way Clancy was running his vessel today, or rather, because of the way the demon was running Clancy's vessel today. I lifted the photographs to inspect them—some of the women looked pretty decent. I wasn't necessarily concerned about looks more than I was about personality. I needed a mate who could handle my demon and would know intuitively what to do in any given situation, especially when things went wrong.

Though multiple demons could possess the same vessel, we weren't entirely sure if those demons could jump from one vessel to the other. Once the vessel was possessed, it usually held the same demon until the vessel met its ultimate end. That ending could range from suicide to complete acceptance of the evil that lurked inside. It was a messy business being shifters like us.

Then, something caught my attention. One of the photographs had a woman standing in a field with a few others. She was picking flowers. I didn't really pay attention to the other people around her—I was more focused on her. She had olive skin with sepia brown freckles, a slim figure, and long black hair that flowed around her shoulders, almost like an onyx river.

The way she gazed up at the camera was almost bashful, yet her posture was confident. That alone could have made me focus on her. Her blue-green eyes were like a cosmic ocean. Though she only wore a baggy t-shirt and baggy jeans, she carried an obvious grace and gorgeousness about her that lured me to her instantaneously, and it wasn't just because she was attractive. It was because she was the woman from my dream. I stood there staring at the picture for quite a while—so long that I missed something that Clancy said, something that was actually quite important.

Clancy snatched the picture from my fingers. “Did you hear me?”

I stared at him, almost too stunned to realize that he was actually waving the picture in front of my face. I blinked away whatever spell had come over me and focused on him. “What, what is it? Spit it out. Stop waving that thing in front of my face.”

“I can probably—I don't know—wave my hands over the fucking pages and get you your mate.”

I blinked again. “Are you making a joke right now?”

He smiled, and as playful as it was, I could tell he was actually being honest. “No, I mean it. I can actually do a ritual for you to find your mate.”

I actually knew what he meant. I knew that he would have to get in touch with his demon to connect with the magic that lived inside of him—magic that was ancient and dark. Magic that would probably require some kind of sacrifice, which was something that we might not be able to afford. Something that Clancy might not be able to afford.

I was afraid for him then, as I had been many years ago when he started dabbling in this dark sort of demonic, ritualistic magic.

As if he read my thoughts, he waved his hand nonchalantly. “It's just a little pinch of blood for me. It's not going to be anything too significant. We'll drop some blood over a map, and we'll locate your mate. Alright?”

At this point, I had to trust him. We weren't getting anywhere by just shuffling through papers. I was never much of a pencil pusher, anyway. I'd always worked in kitchens or behind bar counters. That was how Clancy and I became friends. All those years ago, that was how I saved him from his old pack and brought him to my pack, the Grimpaws. This was the least he could do for me.

“Come on. It won't take very long. Midnight is nearly upon us, and we'll be able to tell exactly who your mate is. She'll appear before you.”

I rolled my eyes. Maybe this was just his way of getting away from the pencil pushing and focusing on something else. But I was also admittedly tired of shuffling through papers. He grabbed a folded map from my desk and shoved it into his back pocket. Reluctantly, I followed him out back and a little way into the woods—not particularly far from a cabin, maybe about fifty feet or so. He procured a few magical instruments from his pockets, things that he liked to carry around; a small stone and a miniature cauldron about the size of his palm, along with a ritual dagger.

He pulled the map out and laid it on the ground, moonlight leaking through the canopy of the trees and revealing the spots on the page that were worn and scratched from being folded up. He invited me to sit across from him on the ground. No candles, nothing fancy. It was just Clancy and me sitting in the woods in the dark, with nothing but the moonlight to guide us. I held out my hand to him.

I watched his eyes turn black. As he tilted the point of the blade into my palm, I noticed that everything around me grew dark. Shadows crowded my vision and infected me more than my demon would have. I found myself lost to the sensation of the tip of the blade dragging across my skin. For a moment, I recognized that I was bleeding and that I could feel the warmth of it in my palm, the coolness of the night against my skin, and the way that the wound felt exposed to the rest of the world. I could even hear my demon whispering in the background, but I couldn't make out anything distinct.

However, something else caught my attention. Beyond the shadows, I could hear something else—someone else. I could hear a woman chanting, and I could smell incense, something that resembled patchouli. I was drawn to it, drawn to the circle and to the lights around the circle, little lights that almost looked like orbs of fairies dancing in the woods.

Shadows lingered around the circle, more distinct than the ones that had taken over my vision. I could see better now; I could see lush gardens and a great towering house—a mansion, even. The way the gardens opened up with the circle in the center tugged at my soul. I had to go there. I had to find out what was calling to me.

I went directly to the center and then was suddenly face-to-face with someone who looked awfully familiar. The woman of my dreams was standing right there—and she was staring right back at me. The shock of seeing her made me feel inspired in so many ways. The sight of her gave me a comfort that I hadn't felt in a very long time, at least a dozen years or so.

I reached for her, and she reached for me. I kept going after her, trying to reach her, and trying to grab her to make her come with me. She had to come with me. My pack was at stake.

Please, come with me. Please, let me find you.

Her eyes went wide as she stumbled back and fell to the ground, and then something penetrated my form. In a flash, I was transported back to Clancy and our little makeshift circle. My wound had already healed up; the blood in my palm had gone cold and pooled in little droplets on the map below me. They clustered on a location that was not too far from where we were.

I shot up from the ground. “Get Kirk, Demarcus, and Shiloh. Comb the woods. Clancy, get up. Did you see that? Did you see her?”

My mate. I thought about it for a moment. Did I actually see her? Or was that just my demon playing tricks on me? I wondered if Clancy was thinking the same thing as me. A trick. He nodded as if he could hear me, as if he could understand. Because he was the one who understood me best. We were connected through our bond more than we were through blood.

“So, what are we looking for?” he asked, a teasing smile on his lips.

I turned to the dark woods, to the shadows that I could see dancing underneath the strips of moonlight.

“Anything,” I replied. “Look for anything at all. Look for her. It doesn't matter.”

Clancy didn't question my authority, which was something he should never do, regardless. He simply gave me a nod and walked back to my cabin, back the way we came, leaving the map with the little droplets of blood on it for me to look over. I picked up the paper and stared at the blood that had now dried on the page. I focused on the location where the blood had clustered. It was right in the middle of the woods, right in the middle of what should have been abandoned territory. But obviously, it wasn't abandoned if Clancy’s demon magic had located that woman.

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