Page 3 of Her Reborn Mate

“I’m gonna take a walk,” I said.

“If you come back in, I’ll take it as a yes. If you don’t, well, don’t be a stranger anyways,” Izzie said.

I had lost count of the shots I had consumed, but at least they had taken me where I needed to go. All I could feel was numb, warm, and disconcerted. Add to that the fact that my head was spinning and my insides felt like they were being gouged out, and I considered it a decent enough barter to forget the atrocities I had gone through.

Being drunk did not help me find a path that led out of this dense network of alleyways. Above, the buildings, their awnings, fire exits, metal stairs, and wires made such a mishmash that they blocked all sunlight from coming down into the alleys, making it feel like I was still trapped in some dark dystopia.

I snuck around and peeked from behind a wall to see if the cops had left the vet’s clinic. There was still a cop car with its lights blaring red and blue, which meant that my exit from the alley would be impossible until they left.

Thinking as rationally as my current state of inebriation would allow me, I made the choice to go back to Mulligan’s and take up Izzie’s offer. The big thing was that I was finally out of Fiddler’s Green. So what if I had to clean plates and wait tables? I would have been doing that in Fiddler’s Green anyway for lower pay and shittier customers. At least here, I had a whole metropolis rich with opportunities at my disposal.

At least I had no ghosts haunting me in Bangor.

While walking back to the bar, still feeling as lost as ever in this bizarre tapestry of ever-shifting streets, I heard a clattering sound come from behind me. Probably some cat going through the trash.

Izzie’s offer was the best and the only offer I had right now. Other than her, I had nowhere to go. Now, if only I could find my way back to the bar through these godforsaken alleys. For all its faults, at least Fiddler’s Green had some decent city planning.

I shot a look behind me, checking to see where the constant noise was coming from. Once was a coincidence, twice was a cause for concern, but the same sound three times meant that something was not right.

There was no one in the alley, which only made me feel more uneasy.

Once I crossed into the next street, the bar came into view once again, putting me at ease. Seeing Mulligan’s Watering Hole for the second time put things in perspective. Here was a place I could call home. Above the bar, there was the room that Izzie spoke of. It had a small terrace with potted plants lining the circumference and a big window giving the view of the alleys from above. There was a staircase from the side leading up to it.

I could see myself living there.

There it was again, that creeping sound coming from behind. As much as I tried to tap into my wolf self’s powers, I failed. I hadn’t shifted ever since I had gotten out of the woods, and it seemed that my powers had become dormant all of a sudden. I couldn’t see as well, nor could I sense the things happening in my surroundings. My getting lost in this not-so-complicated maze of alleys was proof of that.

A gruff hand fell on my shoulder and yanked me back. I wheeled around before I could fall and came face to face with a pale vampire with its fangs out. He hissed at me as I swerved to save myself from his bite. Even that little activity took a lot out of me, making me strain as I moved back to avoid him.

“You think running from Fiddler’s Green will solve your troubles?” the vampire scoffed. “You killed so many of us. We’ve got your scent, and we’re not going to stop coming.”

I grabbed the only thing in sight—a crowbar tilted next to a trash can—and threw it at the vampire, who deftly dodged it and grabbed it in the middle of its trajectory.

As he came up to me, cornering me, I did the only thing that made sense. I tried to shift. But exactly at that moment, the bar’s door opened, and Izzie came out holding a baseball bat. What good was a baseball bat going to be against a vampire?

Disconcerted by her sudden appearance, I was overcome by the vampire as he grabbed me by my throat and pinned me to the wall, choking the life out of me.

I was fading fast. All of my injuries kicked into pain hyperdrive as the vampire lifted me above the ground and continued to crush my neck.

My only recourse was to shift and level the playing field.

Why did Izzie have to be there?

Chapter 2: Will

An ancient German folk saying went something along the lines of: “We are all blessed with the ignorance that comes with death. For no one, not even the dead, know what happens inside the lifelessness of the grave.”

This suffocating dark could mean one of two things. If this was the afterlife, then it was the bleakest afterlife I could have ever imagined, and whoever was the architect of the transitory location between life and death had done a piss poor job of acclimatizing the recently departed to the next realm. However, if this was not the afterlife, then it meant that I was in a coffin within my grave.

Alive.

It could not possibly be.

I was injected with the Wolf’s Bane. It was pain beyond what I could have ever imagined. All that torture that Edward Beckett had done to me for all those years paled in comparison to the excruciating agony that I felt when that liquid entered my veins. I had felt my life force leave my body. My soul had transcended from beyond the mortal plane and somewhere where there were familiar faces all around me. I could remember it so clearly.

I had met so many people in that purgatorial place.

Ariana.

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