CHAPTER TWO
Wess
On a train headed to the Nightshade Bear Territory
The lady in the seat behind me would meet her true-mate at a New Year’s Eve party.
She didn’t know it yet. She was on her way to Raven Hallow Wolf Pack Territory after her polycule fell apart when her hinge met his true-mate.
I wasn’t sure how a polycule fell apart when that happened, but who was I to judge?
I’d never been on a date. Hell, I tried not to come off the mountain if I could help it.
Sure, I hooked up with a few of the furry wolf people here and there but who didn’t?
It wasn’t like there was anyone else around except for those that some people called yetis and bigfeet.
Though, I wasn’t convinced they were properly either.
It’s not what most of them called themselves.
Mostly they didn’t call themselves anything except for their names.
The man in front of me had met his true-mate a hundred years ago and was on the way to meet up with her again.
She’d gone off to their daughter’s home because she had triplets around the harvest. He was practically buzzing with how much he missed her.
Next year that daughter would meet her true-mate at an appointment at the pediatrician’s office.
“That’s not going to be fun…. Is it?” my bear chimed into my thoughts.
“I don’t know, buddy. I really don’t know. Maybe it’ll work out with the babies’ sire too. I don’t know how these people shifters decide how to have relationships.”
I came from a long line of seers. Though, seer wasn’t the word I liked.
I wasn’t sure there was a word I liked for what I saw.
Most of my visions or knowings were about true-mates.
It wasn’t always their meetups. Sometimes it was how they felt about each other and how they might resolve problems. Sometimes I knew how a pair would meet.
Sometimes I told them. Not often though.
Doing that caused so many problems for my ancestors and I learned from the stories.
When you give one person a gift, everyone they know feels entitled to that gift even if it doesn’t come in their size.
Plus, at best my abilities were touch and go.
They came and went as if I peeped through little holes in the fabric of fate.
Only I hadn’t seen the first mate of Hemlock Mountain coming.
Hadn’t seen him getting past the wolf pack below me or the avalanches that like to make themselves known from time to time.
His arriving at my cave reminded me to never underestimate elves.
They were always where you didn’t want them to be.
Sort of like flies or something. But pretty flies.
If Rune hadn’t been so pretty, I might’ve added him to my ice garden.
He was mated off but he was still nice to look at, and he had climbed through hell to speak with me after hearing a rumor.
Though, he didn’t find the demon he was looking for.
That demon was my ancestor who used to turn cannibals into ice statues back when Frost and Juda were the leaders of Hemlock Mountain.
He couldn’t stand how they’d eat their own kind and thought they were prettier as ice statues.
Since they were still in the statue garden, I had to agree with him.
Not that I had ever met him. Demons don’t like to stay around others for long.
We like to be the sole owner of our element and when we’re around others that just isn’t possible. So, we separated out.
My carrier was like me, and my sire was a bear shifter who I never met.
A polar bear to be exact. I always thought it was fitting that a snow demon mated with a polar bear.
Plus, it gave me the option of eating people who annoyed me if they weren’t pretty enough to add to the ice statue garden.
That was a big perk. Not that I ate people most of the time.
I agreed with my ancestor that it was mostly bad taste.
My bear shifted around inside his inner sanctum and my eyes shifted to his.
Big snowflakes fell outside of the train windows, reminding both of us how warm the train was.
We wouldn’t melt or anything, but it felt unnatural to be warm enough to sweat while sitting still.
I’d packed my own ice from the top of the mountain.
It was enchanted ice made by one ancestor or another and it would never melt.
It was packed away in a trunk under the train, and I prayed it was enough to make it through this whole Mated for the Holidays adventure that Rune convinced me to go on.
It wasn’t like he held an arrow to my head or anything. I knew from the time I understood what true-mates were that I’d make my way to the Nightshade Bear Territory one day. My true-mate would be there. That was probably the clearest part of my gift.
“We came only because Rune owed us after making an ass out of himself,” my bear pointed out.
“He hosted that silly little party trying to get the attention of someone who doesn’t even live on this planet anymore and everyone was going to bug us.
At least that one fluffy wolf person found his mate.
That’s the only reason I didn’t eat the elf.
I think they’d taste like deer. You know, pointy ears and all that. ”
My participation in the holiday matchmaking service, Mated for the Holidays, was a gift from Rune and his draconic mate, Sky.
I almost declined it since it meant leaving my mountain to go stay with an omega who I’d never met.
I didn’t have much faith in the algorithm or whatever magic was behind their system.
Every year approximately point five percent of participants met their true-mates.
That bucket didn’t hold water. I almost didn’t go because leaving the mountain empty made me feel strange.
Someone had to guard it. It was ours but you never knew when the Hemlock Wolves would go back on their promise and try to snatch it up.
Under normal circumstances for Mated for the Holidays, I’d host my match since I’m an alpha.
Only, I couldn’t imagine any omega who grew up outside the mountain wanting to live up where I did.
Plus, with only each other for company, it’d be a very long winter.
I wasn’t sure how this Aiden guy who ran the program found someone last minute who was willing to turn the norm on its head, but he did.
My host was to be a bear shifter who was the adopted grandson of the shaman of the group and his mate.
Though, Rune warned me not to toss the word adopted around.
His sire, Colton, had been adopted, but he was their kid nonetheless and that made Lero their grandson.
He’d grown up in a community of mostly non-shifters before coming to live with his grandparents as a teenager.
I didn’t blame him. Furry shifters wanted to live in their cuddle piles.
“At least he’s a bear,” my bear chimed off in my thoughts. “So we have that in common. I bet he likes to eat too. Plus, bears do okay in the cold, right? Or does he sleep all winter like the wild bears? That would be funny. We go there and everyone is asleep and Rune just played a joke on us.”
That would most definitely not be funny.
The train pulled into the station, and I waited until the other passengers had jostled each other out before I stood and picked up my backpack.
The loading guys had offered to put it under the train too but there was never a zero chance of the train derailing, and I wanted my survival gear with me at the very least. How else was I to save everyone who decided to ride on this speeding bullet?
The station was smaller than the one on Hemlock Mountain.
A few of the passengers from the train on the opposite side of the station stared at me as if they’d never seen a man step off a train carrying a backpack.
It was probably the long icy blue-white hair that hung down around my ass and swayed in the breeze even when there wasn’t one.
Maybe it was the stubby ice-hued horns perched on the very top of my forehead – the ones that one man who now lives in my ice sculpture garden once called ‘under formed satyr horns.’ I hoped he was still laughing at that joke because you should never insult a demon who is kind enough to give you hospitality.
It never ends well. Say please and thank you and leave our appearances out of it.
Flattery never really worked on us either.
I glanced at the phone that I hadn’t set down since Rune put it into my hand.
The little buzzy thing was something I knew I’d lose as soon as it wasn’t attached to my person.
I had to fiddle with the screen to make the little map thing come up.
It was more than ten miles to the village proper.
The Nightshade Bears had insisted on putting the tracks far enough away so that they’d never hear the trains coming and going.
Rumor had it (well, Rune had it) that they almost refused to be put on the route all together.
I didn’t blame them for that. Who wants to be somewhere everyone can come and bother you?
Usually only the people who have the gumption to think they’re welcome everywhere.
After gathering my trunk from under the train and hefting it up on my shoulder, I started off in the general direction of the village.
Rune had warned me that it was surrounded by trees, and I might get shot with an arrow if I cut through the wrong way.
So I should make sure I find the entrance with the guards.
The bears had offered to send someone to meet me, but I wouldn’t hear of it.
Me and the snow got on just fine. Me and other people?
Well, sometimes that was another thing all together.