Asil’s Fourth Date Dating Terrors
Asil’s Fourth Date
Dating Terrors
Ruby woke up drenched in sweat, the essence of magic in her nose and mouth. She’d done it again, she thought in near despair. She’d been dreaming for the last month or more, and such dreams usually meant a change was coming. Changes, in her experience, were seldom good.
Sometimes her dreams were prophetic—which usually meant that after something horrible happened she could figure out what the vague shadows and still pictures she’d gleaned from her night terrors had been trying to tell her.
For the past few weeks, the only thing she could remember from her dreams was rich dark fur and golden eyes and a vague sense of unease.
But this dream had been different. This time her heart pounded so hard her chest hurt with raw fear and grief.
Outside of those emotions, she didn’t remember what she’d dreamed at all.
That didn’t matter right now. No doubt the horrible thing would happen and she’d remember, then, that she’d had a dream about it.
The dream wasn’t important right now, except that whatever forgotten horror that had left her sweating and trembling had also made her use her magic—the air reeked of old seawater and ozone.
She didn’t even know what she’d done with her magic—maybe nothing at all except in her dreams. But her unconscious action had undone all the protection that living in the middle of Seattle had managed.
The buildings of steel and cold iron could not keep her magic secret if she used it.
If she needed further proof, the tattoo on her wrist, both a sign of ownership and a tracking sigil, burned.
He was coming.
December 16
Dear Asil,
Goodness, our gift to you has certainly yielded unexpected results, hasn’t it? What fun we are all having!
For your information, we have decided your last date was a success for you.
Congratulations! Our discussion grew heated at times, but eventually we came to an agreement.
During the required two hours of your date, no one ran screaming into the night.
All deaths happened after the required time, so we feel they were irrelevant. Good for you!
Three down, two to go.
Your next date is scheduled for Wednesday in Seattle. Please note the attached emails between “you” and your date from the Internet site , which, they advertise, is a site for ghost hunters who want to hunt with like-minded people who are still breathing.
She is worried about meeting a strange man alone, so your date will begin with a ghost hunting session with her whole team.
Afterward, should you both choose to do so, you can take her out to dinner.
Try not to kill everyone—at least not until your two-hour goal is achieved.
They may come back to haunt you, and ironic twists generally should be avoided.
We are very happy you have emerged from your hermit-like existence and feel the credit should be given to us and our gift to you this holiday season.
Merry Christmas,
Your Concerned Friends
PS—We are getting used to dead bodies and have decided it would be better if we discard that part of the rules entirely, as you seem to be struggling with the concept.
Dear Concerned Friends,
“Irrelevant.” That is an interesting word for the results of the last date you arranged for me.
So.
I accept your gift which keeps on giving—though I feel it is relevant to remind you, again, that I am not a Christian. Giving me a Christmas gift seems inappropriate for this enlightened and woke era.
Asil
Dear Asil,
The gift honors the giver. And what, exactly, do you mean by “woke”?
A few wet snowflakes dropped onto Asil’s windshield, making up in mass what they lacked in frequency. Wipers squeaking, Asil drove up the narrow mountain road that led nowhere but the Alpha of the Emerald City Pack’s house in the wilds outside Seattle.
A log mansion sprawled half-hidden in a canopy of trees, blending practicality with beauty.
He pulled in next to the only other occupant of the fair-sized parking lot, a battered Ford Bronco.
The dented rust-red hood sported a layer of snow, indicating that it had been parked for a few hours but not all night.
Asil got out of his car and took a deep breath of the frigid air, testing the smells of the woods of the Cascades against the woods of his home. Against the woods of his current home.
This forest smelled, not unpleasantly, of moist and rotting organic matter, even under its white coating.
In Montana, fifteen below zero did not allow for much moisture in the air no matter how much snow was on the ground.
He judged the current temperature somewhere in the high twenties because the snow was what his young friend Kara liked to call “fighting ready”—easily gathered into balls to pelt others with.
One moment he was casually thinking of a snowball fight Kara had initiated that had eventually enveloped most of the pack, the next he was ambushed by the memory of the scent of another wood, the unique smell of his home, his heart home.
A scent that now existed nowhere in the world but was as real, here and now, as it had ever been.
His breath caught and he closed his eyes, imagining himself…home. His real home.
For a moment he almost had it. The warmth of the sun, the rich scent of flowers and fruits—his mate’s cooking filling the air.
Ah, Sarai. He could feel the stone path under his feet, see the warm glow that leaked out of windows, knew that all he had to do was walk into the house and he would see her.
Part of him understood that the house that had been his home, the fields and groves surrounding it, had been gone for centuries. Understood that his mate, his Sarai, was dead.
It seemed like he would be caught forever in that long-ago moment, stuck betwixt and between, unable to walk forward into the home he had shared with his mate or return fully to the present.
It was a subjective eon, but only a few seconds in real time before the reliving passed as they all had—so far—and he stood, once again, on a mountainside next to his car.
Sudden grief consumed him, as fresh as the day he’d found his mate’s body.
His lungs refused to move and his heart forgot how to beat.
If he could turn back centuries and exist only in a time where his Sarai lived, he would do that.
He rested a hand on the open door of his car, grounding himself with the cool metal as he put his head down and fought to breathe through the pain.
He had not been able to figure out if such moments signaled an attack by the wolf who shared his battered, worn-out soul, or if it was some trick of the half of his brain that was human.
But he had not had such a strong remembrance since his foster daughter, Mariposa, had died, at last, a few short years ago.
Dead or not, in each of the last two dates, Mariposa had taken a starring role. It was only to be expected that memory would hit him hard. But he would have preferred memories of Mariposa—she didn’t tear out his heart. Anymore.
The brisk mountain air cleared his head, but his wolf was enraged or grief-stricken—or possibly both.
Asil could not tell. He considered the wisdom of taking a stranger on a date today, especially given the results of the first three dates.
He needed to go back to the Marrok’s pack, where there was someone strong enough to stop him if he lost control of his wolf.
Someone merciful enough to end him if he did not emerge from one of his relivings. He needed to cancel this foolishness.
In response to that thought—and he was certain that it was absolutely in response to that thought—a sudden stillness traveled through him from head to toe as, for that single moment, he felt something, someone, turn their attention to him.
And then that moment was gone.
Cold chills slid down his spine. He’d felt as though there was something afoot beyond bored werewolves who’d decided to involve the Moor in a game they could not win.
There had been too many coincidences. Three dates—and all of them involved Asil putting spokes in the wheels of paranormal predators who were abusing innocents.
Two of them had him cleaning up messes his foster daughter had left behind her.
Asil didn’t believe in coincidences. He did not.
Now he had confirmation that there were larger forces at work. Of course Allah had chosen the Moor to work his will. There was no better warrior at his disposal. Asil, who felt nearly as old and tired as he was, wished that there were someone more capable. But, of a certainty, there was not.
Asil smiled grimly. It appeared that he was going on a date, no matter how his grieving heart felt. He started toward the house.
It was unfortunate that the door to the big house opened at just that minute. The man crossing the porch and jogging down the stairs had not bothered with a coat—wolves didn’t feel the cold the way humans did, and this wolf in human form had no need to blend in.
He was bigger than Asil—not an unusual thing because Asil was not a tall man.
The stranger’s face was scarred—most likely the marks of a knife.
He carried authority on his shoulders with the unconscious grace of someone who was used to being in charge and getting things done, a mantle worn by people who knew what it was to kill in order to protect their own.
What he was not was the Alpha of the Emerald City Pack.
The world brightened and the shadows lost their power as Asil’s beast, frantic from the last few minutes—the reliving and the touch of Allah—focused on the approaching stranger with intent.
Asil himself was mildly affronted at the insult—the Moor was not a lesser foe, someone to be handed off to lackeys.
But it was his wolf who was, momentarily, in control.
Asil couldn’t push the wolf down—yet—but he did manage to stay where he was.