8. Gray
Mébh was backin my arms, safely pressed against my body, yet my heart continued to pound in earnest, adrenaline singing through my veins.
I hastily sheathed my sword in its magical hiding place as soon as I finished misting us back to my apartment, away from Nicodemus’s minions. I dropped to my knees, setting Mébh gently on the ground with me. Mébh’s black-fur-covered body contorted in a mid-shift shape as she fell panting to all fours in front of me.
Fuck.
This was why I never should have let her talk me into taking her to that damned concert. I had a fucking demon army after me, and blatantly exposing myself in a crowd of supernatural creatures was clearly not the brightest idea. Nicodemus had been alerted to my whereabouts somehow. Someone had narked. I’d successfully hidden in Portland for months, keeping a low profile, but the cat was out of the bag now.
Mébh had fucking slipped away from me at the first opportunity to talk to a group of werewolves that had then attempted to kidnap her. At first, I merely waited to see what she wanted from them and listened in on their conversation. I couldn’t get anything from her mind, and information was power. I would be asking Mébh who Mhari McKay was and why the woman was so important to make inquiries about. I’d lurched into action when I saw them encircle her.
The crap I heard in all three werewolves’ minds left me feeling sick. It seemed a game to the packless trio to kidnap unsuspecting traveling werewolves and do terrible things to them. Abuse until death, essentially. Things I couldn’t bear happening to Mébh. I only wished I could have ended the vile weres, but threatening them seemed the easier path in the middle of an underground full of combative immortals who wouldn’t hesitate to join in the bloodbath. I couldn’t guarantee Mébh’s safety if things had gone south.
Mébh had been grinning from ear to ear and swaying to the music during the first few songs of the concert that we got to listen to. A spark of something ignited in my chest at seeing her animated smile. I wanted to see more of those genuine expressions on her face because of my actions. Disturbing thoughts. I’d never been a male to care about making a woman smile, unless it was in bed.
Then my fucking enemies had caught up with us and ruined her fun. I could tell she was struggling as we ran, but she didn’t complain. I was going to kill the stag-horned fucker for daring to steal her from my grip. Anger and possession, as I’d never known before, had pulsed through every cell the second she was taken from me, and my reaction scared the hell out of me. I hadn’t thought twice—I’d just pulled my sword out of hiding and gone to battle. I’d knocked the antelope horned demon out and rounded on the male who held Mébh captive. He’d dodged at the last second and I sunk my blade through his arm instead of his heart. It would regenerate. The demon would live, no thanks to immortal healing.
We were just below street level at that point with a thin enough ground covering for me to manage to mist. Nicodemus was getting too close for comfort. Felix had said he was still in the forest in southern Oregon. Apparently not, although Nicodemus himself was not one of the three demons that attacked us. Plus, these demons had black sashes instead of green over their breastplates. Unfortunately, I could not remember the significance of any of the colors.
The deer-horned male was in charge and had looked vaguely familiar. The name Warwick came to mind for some reason, but that name meant little with the majority of my memories being MIA. He had his hands up and was demanding I stop and listen to him just before I misted us out. I didn’t get time to scan his mind, but if he wanted to chat then he shouldn’t have allowed his underlings to touch Mébh. That was a declaration of war. Plus, there was nothing to chat about or see other than taking me prisoner. I was a wanted criminal in Shoal, and I wasn’t being taken alive. End of story.
I looked down into Mébh’s multicolored eyes, and I instantly recognized that something was off. The leather jacket and little black dress ripped from her enlarging shape and her face pressed forward to form a canine snout. Her shift was finished, and a beautiful black wolf now gazed up at me.
I reached out and grasped her jaw gently. I held her captive for a moment and just stared into her fascinating mismatched eyes that she kept in her animal form. Devil take me, she was breathtaking.
“You’re safe now. You can shift back,” I assured her softly.
She just kept staring at me.
Something was definitely off. I didn’t know what, but there was something amiss. It wasn’t exactly her looking at me, it was someone else—her Wolf.
I used my other hand to stroke her canine snout and watched as her eyes grew heavy lidded. “Shift back, Mébh. I need you, princess,” I murmured.
Her eyes immediately opened, and she snarled at me. I allowed her to slip from my grip. The animal tore around the living room, sniffing frantically. Then she jumped on one of the couches and began digging into the cushion aggressively. There was a ripping sound, and foam pieces started flying every which way, only adding to the piles of feathers from the throw pillows she had destroyed earlier.
“Hey!” I growled.
The Wolf paused, looked in my direction with a serious level of bombastic side eye, and then went right back to digging the fluff out of the couch.
“Stop that!” I stood up.
The Wolf stopped again and growled from her position with her head down, defending her behavior.
”Do you wanna fight? Then let’s fight!” I snapped, advancing.
The Wolf rounded on me, showing all her sharp teeth. Well, I had a set of my own. I snarled, flashing my fangs and pointed teeth. We snarled at one another, a silent dare, each awaiting the other’s first move. She broke first and came at me with her jaw snapping. I dodged and whirled around to get behind her. She ran, and the chase started. I followed her through the apartment, careful not to let her tear anything else up. She ended up back in the living room with me hot on her tail. I grabbed her around the haunches and pancaked on top of her, pinning her down on the carpet. She snarled and fought, scratching at me, but I took her to the ground effectively.
She wriggled, but my next words were somehow laced with a power beyond my own and I instinctively knew she had to follow my orders like last time. “You’re safe, Mébh. Take control back. Inhale and then exhale.”
The Wolf’s multicolored eyes glared at me, but then her nostrils flared as she inhaled. A calmness rushed over her. A blink later and I was staring back into Mébh’s eyes, not the Wolf.
Her eyes squeezed shut tightly and she let out a little whine as her transformation started. Watching her shift back to human form from start to finish was painfully beautiful. Her body reshaped, muzzle shrunk, bones ground together, and fur disappeared to reveal pale skin. Her claws and fangs were amongst the last things to return to human size. When she finished, she lay panting on the floor beneath me, completely naked, and my cock took notice, immediately hardening.
“Are you alright? What happened?” I asked while gently brushing her hair out of her face. As if her shifting back to her human form was a sign, my own body now began returning to my regular form.
“I’m alright,” she replied with a little nod. “My Wolf just took me over—once again.” She had a stoic expression on her face, but her cheeks were pink with embarrassment. This bothered her a lot, but she was desperately trying to hide it.
“Your Wolf took control, again? Is that what happens?” What I didn’t say was, When you lose control? I didn’t know a ton about werewolves, just the basics; however, most werewolves I had encountered told their Wolf when to come out, not the other way around—unless it was a full moon. Mébh seemed to struggle with controlling her Wolf—and her rage—on a daily basis.
She glanced away, looking sheepish, her cheeks now blazing red. “Most werewolves have a good relationship with their inner animal. Let’s just say I’ve struggled with mine.”
I cocked my head to the side, studying her as I sat back on my haunches, and considered what she said. My movement allowed her to sit up. “What do you mean?”
Mébh sighed. “She came roaring out of me the day after I turned nine—really early. Usually a werewolf’s first shifts are between eleven and thirteen with puberty.”
“So she came out early. But roaring? What do you mean by that, exactly?” I asked, seeking clarification.
“It means I’ve fought her for control since day one,” Mébh replied bitterly. “It’s not been easy. I get angry, my rage starts to spiral out of control and then she just takes over, and my fight-or-flight mode gets activated.”
This made more sense. Her rage, the yelling—they were pieces of her struggles within herself. Struggles to control her emotions and her animal.
Once again, I was reminded of myself and the lack of control I had over my shift in the beginning. “I understand. I struggled with my shift when I first fell.”
“You did?” She looked up at me, surprise shining in her orbs.
“Yeah, anything and everything set me off, and once the shift started, there was no reversing it.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I love my Wolf.” She sighed, continuing, “She’s just difficult sometimes.” She rubbed her legs absentmindedly and stared at her kneecaps.
“I’ve been there. It’s why I have instructed you to take deep breaths. It’s the only thing that used to help calm me. Why did your Wolf come out so early? Any idea?”
She pursed her lips and looked away again, as if judging how much to reveal. “My family is broken. My sister raised me under an abusive Alpha. Our father died in battle when I was still a baby.”
I knew her sister was important, but not that she had raised Mébh. So, if her sister did, then where was her mother?
“And your mother?” I asked.
She scowled harder.
“Is that who Mhari McKay is?” I ventured.
She whipped her head back to look me in the eye again. “You overheard me asking those werewolves?”
“Yes, I was curious what you wanted to ask them so badly that you would throw caution to the wind and approach unknown dangerous supernaturals. Who is she?”
Mébh let out a defeated sigh and went back to staring at her kneecaps. “You’re right. She’s my mother.”
If she left out details in her initial story about her mother, something bad had to have happened. “What happened to her?”
“She was forced by our abusive Alpha to marry my father and have pups as soon as possible. Luke was obsessed with arranging marriages to give him the strongest offspring for his constant territory wars,” she explained with thinly veiled anger. “She ran away from the pack within a few weeks of my birth. That’s all I know.” She ended with a noncommittal shrug, like this didn’t really matter—but it did. This was very important to her.
“So you’re trying to find out what happened to her?”
“Yes. I mean... no. I don’t know,” she spluttered. “I don’t understand why she left. Was I worth nothing to her?”
Now we were wading into deep emotional waters. I reached out and gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I am sure she had her reasons for leaving you behind.”
“Maybe. Molly has told me over and over again that she most likely died shortly after running since she never returned to the pack. Lone wolves don’t survive long. Unless, by some miracle, she was able to find another pack to join, she’s probably dead.” Her face fell and my heart twisted in my chest.
I never knew my own angelic parents, but I had understood why that was necessary for proper angelic training. Mébh hadn’t accepted her lot in life yet. She was young; it was understandable. But some family situations sucked. It wasn’t fair, but it was the truth. I only hoped I would be able to help her find out what happened.
“Searching out a supernatural that may or may not be dead isn’t going to be the easiest.” I scrubbed a hand down my face and tried to think of a way to track the she-wolf down. “Are you even sure she would have kept her name the same?”
Mébh’s shoulders slumped. “No. I didn’t really think about it. This is the first time I’ve ever been out of pack land and the first opportunity I’ve ever had to search for any information. Molly said she would tell me more details when I was older. I had meant to call her on it when I visited her at Polaris, but didn’t get the chance. I guess I just smelled those weres and assumed they might know something. I went after them without thinking.” She hung her head.
“From now on, let’s search out any potential leads together.” I wanted her to promise to include me, to let me help her, so she wouldn’t go running headlong into trouble a second time.
She looked up at me with tears filling her eyes. “You want to help me try to find out what happened?” she asked, shocked.
“I’ll do what I can. Felix might be able to do some digging for me.” The Luciferian demon might have access to Lucifer’s archives of all living and dead souls. I couldn’t promise we would find Mhari, but I was willing to try. It gave me something else to fucking focus on other than my own lost memories—which, apparently, I already had everything I needed to return them. So now it was a waiting game, unless a new lead surfaced. It was also an excuse to keep her close to me.
The tears started overflowing, and she gave me a watery smile. “Thank you, Gray.” Her wide, expressive eyes drew me in like a moth to a flame. I couldn’t look away from her.
She leaned in closer.
Dangerously close.
She was close enough that we shared breath, hers lightly fanning over me. Hunger bloomed within. “You’re the first person who has listened to me and offered to help instead of placating me or telling me to wait till I was older to understand.” She exhaled and then bit her lip. The scent of her arousal met my nose and my cock responded. I was transfixed, completely under her spell. “And nobody besides my sister has ever been able to help me take back control from my Wolf and calm my rage.” She looked up into my eyes seductively from under her lashes. “Until you,” she finished with a purr.
A breath later, our lips met, moving in an explosion of sensation. I don’t know what happened, or who acted first. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t think. I could only feel. My mouth moved over hers and she moaned softly up into the kiss. It made my body tighten with need, lust pounding in my veins, and my cock jerked within the confines of my jeans. My horns began to grow, my shift initiating. I was unable to control it around her.
She moaned again with more abandon, and I slipped my tongue into her mouth, needing to taste all of her. If I was going to be sent to Hell all over again for messing with a woman I didn’t deserve, one who I had held down and come on to mark my territory, one who I had watched masturbate in the shower, one who I craved more than any other woman before, whom I was breaking my rules to be with, I was going to make this kiss worth it.
I delved my tongue deep as hers danced with mine. I was lost in a sea of raspberry and evergreen, and I was afraid to admit just how addicted to her scent I was already. My tail slid out and wrapped itself around her waist, as if seeking to touch her more, and she gasped in surprise against my mouth.
I dominated her, and she was only too happy to let me, responding to my every silent command. She so easily submitted to me, and the darkness deep within responded, aching to take her, devour her, claim her.
I growled low, a deep rumble escaping my chest, then flashes of memory filled my mind...
The feeling of every bone in my wings being snapped before I was cast out of heaven.
A sumptuous apartment with a magnificent view of Big Ben.
Wielding my flaming sword in Shoal, commanding a demon army.
I shuddered hard, pulled away, and grabbed my head as a few more flashes of memory played out behind my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Mébh demanded, bringing her hands up to clasp my wrists while I still gripped my head.
“Memories,” I managed to reply. “Some . . . returning.”
“Now? Why now? How did you unlock them?”
“No idea,” I grumbled as the flashing eased off and I could see and think more clearly again.
I truly had no idea why those memories returned now. It had been over three months since Lethe’s death, and Jenny got her lost memories back months ago. But Jenny had her mind played with for mere weeks. I’d been enslaved much longer—though I had no idea exactly how long. It was possible my mind was finally healing itself. The tarot card reading had said I had everything I needed to succeed in my goal. So Mébh had the right question: why now? Was it healing or was there a catalyst I’d had all along?
My eyes settled on Mébh, who looked worried as she knelt in front of me, and all I found myself wanting to do was return to that kiss. Before I could lean in and recapture her lips, the air was suddenly thick with the stench of Hellfire as the deer-horned demon from the subway—Warwick—misted directly into my damned living room not five feet from us.
“Fuck!” I bellowed as I leaped to my feet, shoving Mébh behind me.
Warwick had to have mist-tracking abilities. In Shoal, misting could be traced easily by most powerful demons. It left a signature behind for an hour or two, but outside of the Hell dimension, a gift was needed—and it was very rare. It was a new move on Nicodemus’s part; he didn’t have a mist tracker before. It made me question why he was employing this tactic now. Was he getting more desperate? This was the whole reason I had tried to lie low in Portland and not attract attention to myself. My cover was officially blown. This apartment wasn’t safe anymore. Remaining in one location too long wasn’t safe anymore if we wanted to stay one step ahead of Nicodemus. Worst of all, I cared very little about any of that in this moment—I only cared about getting Mébh to safety as soon as possible.
I reached into my right boot and pulled out the angel-blood-infused blade I kept for emergencies such as this. Getting cut with it prevented a demon or any other supernatural from using their powers until the wound healed. It would buy us enough time for the misting signature to fade so Warwick wouldn’t be able to follow us again.
I threw the dagger, and it landed hilt deep in the demon’s thigh, penetrating his armor easily. Angel blood was potent stuff. He let out a furious bellow and faltered, landing on his knee, but looked up desperately at us, his expression almost pleading, not angry. It nearly gave me pause. But Mébh was reaching for me. We grasped hands and I should have used the opportunity to mist her back to her pack, or to Polaris headquarters to reunite with her sister—anywhere besides keeping her with me in my dangerous demonic world . . . but I was too weak to care. She was mine, and she was staying with me.