Chapter Four #3
“I have no magic,” she said with a wry smile, “which is why I have to do this perfectly and let the night magic pull the heavy weight for me. You need to wear this.” She passed out the shirt she’d made, the bond sparking with a ripple of pride as she slid it onto him.
It fit perfectly. God, she hoped everything else would work just as well.
She handed him the pants she’d brought, because doing this with him stark naked was... distracting. And weird.
She left him to dress and went back to the little altar, kneeling close. The silver knife was cool and sure in her palm; pacing steps behind her spoke of his restlessness growing as the impending dawn.
The sky began to shift again, light creeping slow and strange. The sun wouldn’t be up for a moment yet, but the stars had begun winking out, one by one. The air took on that eerie in-between glow, where night clung to the edges but morning pressed in.
“Callie.” His voice was edged now, and the bond shoved a spike of warning into her gut. He was pacing in the circle, the wolf in him agitated, the air between them charged with danger she was about to battle.
She ground her teeth, her own nerves thrumming, and checked the time again.
6:45.
Time’s up.
She closed her eyes, silver blade steady in her hands. The bond hummed, electric under her skin. As the black of the night softened and a band of dusty rose bled along the horizon, she began to speak the words she’d memorized like a prayer.
“When the hunter’s moon meets the night of wandering souls, the living heart may anchor the lost. The flesh remembers. The thread is stitched. The mist shall break where love persists. Owen Galloway, come back to me.”
She stopped breathing.
Her entire body, her whole soul, locked onto him, onto the man still pacing inside the circle and the edgy wolf within.
She almost jumped when he dropped to his knees and the first low whine tore out of him, the sound raw from somewhere deep inside the wolf in a movie she knew too well.
No.
No, no, no.
It had to work.
Horror gripped her chest as she stared, helpless once again as pain took Owen. His edges were already starting to blur, to fade. The bond flickered, thinning in a way that made her soul turn.
Why isn’t it working? her mind screamed.
Cloth. Blood. Name.
She’d done everything. Every step. Every detail. Why wasn’t it holding?
Cloth. Blood. Name.
Name.
And then—a memory. The first time he’d shifted in front of her. The first time she’d seen all of him, the man and the beast.
“You’re not afraid of what I am?” he’d asked when he’d turned back to a man, breath ragged from the nerves of showing her the change.
“Why would I be?” she’d asked him. “I knew what you were. And I know who you are. You’re my wolf.”
He’d kissed her then, soft and sweet, a heartbreaking thank as if she’d just given him the sun and the moon. “Then let that be my name until the day I die.”
Her eyes flew open, tears streaming, just as the sky turned the terrifying pale blue that meant dawn was seconds away.
She screamed, voice breaking but strong through the wind. “When the hunter’s moon meets the night of wandering souls, the living heart may anchor the lost. The flesh remembers. The thread is stitched. The mist shall break where love persists. Owen Galloway, my wolf, come back to me!”
Light exploded around Owen.
Screams and snarls ripped through the frigid dawn, the sound almost too big for the clearing to hold. A whirl of brilliance twisted around him, a glimmering tornado that spun faster and faster, until it looked like the air itself was trying to tear him out of the mist.
And then it stopped.
The light imploded and shattered away, leaving him to hit the frozen ground with a dry thud.
It had worked, her brain was telling her as her heart was too afraid to believe that... that he was here. Bathed in the morning light.
She raised a hand. And slapped herself. Hard.
Fluck, it hurt.
She was awake.
And he was still there.
Not a dream.
He was there. Owen was there. Crippled on the ground and unmoving, but here.
And she ran. Dropped to her knees beside his still form. Her hands shook as she rolled him over and another kind of fear wrapped around her because... had he killed him???? She felt the bond, felt it so strong, but... She bent until her ear pressed hard to his chest.
There. There—drumming.
Her vision blurred as she scrambled to pull him on her lap. Breathe in, breathe out, she commanded herself, holding him to her as if she could keep him real in case he would disappear again. “Owen?” She called through a broken voice, shaking him a little.
He came to with a feral snarl that sent her scrambling back on instinct, the wolf in him bursting through before the man. His eyes were wild, blazing gold, a low, dangerous growl vibrating in the air between them.
He looked at her.
Then up at the sky, now slate-grey. A perfect, cold November morning.
Then down at his hands. His arms. He touched his chest, his head, as if making sure each piece of himself was real.
And then... he fell to his knees. Shoulders collapsing, breath hitching, the fight bleeding out of him all at once.
She was with him in a heartbeat, tears spilling even as laughter tore free. “It worked,” she screamed, voice breaking with joy. “It freaking worked!”
She kissed him—loud, messy, happy—and he caught her, rolling with her in the frozen grass, both of them tangled and breathless, clinging like they’d never let go again.
They would never have to let go again.
364 days later
Owen straightened the tie at his collar, finally giving up on trying to leash the wolf too much.
Because Callie... His woman. His mate. And today, she’ll be his bride. That made every heightened feeling, every restless pulse of his wolf, more than warranted.
Almost a year ago, she’d given him back everything—his family, his pack, his life. He would be nothing without her. Literally. And he’d spent every second of every day since she’d brought him home showing her not only how much he loved her, but how proud he was of her.
Because anyone else would have given up after the first few failed attempts. Ten years was a disgracefully long time to wait for anyone, mate or not. But his beautiful, chaotic, stubborn woman had never stopped fighting for him.
Now, he was waiting for her in the little chapel just outside Mystic Hollow.
His dad has passed years ago, before the curse, and his mother had followed shortly after, in blessed werewolves’ style so that no mate had to endure life without the other half.
So his sister was standing at his side today, her own wolf shining happy in the golden of her eyes.
When the doors opened and she appeared on Rex’s arm, his grin nearly split his face. Tears burned in his eyes, threatening to fall as much as a howl threatened to tear free.
Callie wasn’t just full of courage and heart.
She was, and always would be, sweetly, wonderfully quirky.
In honor of Samhain, she’d ditched the traditional white for a gown that was pure Callie: a sweep of soft tulle that shimmered in the light, the colors of a late October sunset melting together.
Hints of warm pumpkin orange bloomed from the bodice and faded into dusky amethyst toward the hem, like twilight spilling over autumn fields.
The skirt floated around her in layers, catching the light with every step, while tiny, embroidered leaves and silver-threaded vines curled through the fabric like whispers of magic.
Her hair was crowned with a simple circlet of marigolds and lavender sprigs, the colors echoing the dress in a way that made her seem like she’d stepped right out of the turning season itself.
Rex’s gaze was steady, protective, but there was pride there too as he placed her hand into Owen’s. A single nod passed between them, an unspoken acknowledgment of what this meant.
Owen curled his fingers around hers, the bond thrumming in approval, his wolf going utterly still at the feel of her touch.
She was here. And she was his. Forever.
THE END