Costumes, Ghosts, and Halloween Treats

Chapter One

Shane

The sun is rising on day one thousand and ninety and the metaphorical bomb is ticking almost to its limit… I’m running out of time.

Can a clock be too fast and agonizingly slow at the same time?

Almost three years ago, on my twenty-seventh birthday, I unknowingly changed my future and my life has been out of my control ever since. I would give almost anything to go back and alter that one moment in time, but here we are, another day closer to what feels like the end of my life.

In an attempt to steal my birthright position of becoming the next-in-line Alpha of our Pack, my conniving step-mother paid a rogue witch to cast a spell on me, and I stepped right into their trap.

Never expecting a thing, I stood on that stage and listened to all my family, friends, and pack mates sing Happy Birthday, made a wish, then blew out the candles to seal my fate.

You see, in the Anders Pack, when the eldest son of the eldest son turns thirty, he becomes the next Alpha. That was supposed to be me. But there was one big thing that was looming ahead in the not so far off future that was going to be a problem if I didn’t fulfill my duty—finding my fated mate.

To become Alpha, it is our Pack’s rule and destiny that he have found his mate, claimed her, and passed their first full moon together.

I have yet to even take that first step.

I’ve been trying, searching far and wide for my mate since the day I turned eighteen, but she is so far yet to cross my path.

The morning most wolf shifters wake up on the day they become an ‘adult’, it’s like a switch flips inside of us.

It doesn’t happen immediately for everyone, some wait a few months, or even a couple years, but the very second we come face to face with the partner that the Goddess has put us on the path to spend the rest of our days with, you know it instantly.

But it’s almost as if the Goddess is making me play a game of hide and seek with my future mate.

Unfortunately for me, she is very, very good at hiding and I am horrible at finding her.

This is where Marla, my rotten, diabolical, vile step-mother comes into play.

With the witch’s curse locking me into my wolf form, making it harder for me to find my mate, if I failed before the deadline of my thirtieth birthday, my step-brother could have gone before the Council and petition for the Alpha seat.

I have until the full moon, on November first, my birthday, to claim and knot my mate, or I’m stuck this way until the day I die.

My father was an only child, and my younger brother died in the same car not-so-accident as my mother, so our future bloodline begins and ends with me.

The Anders Pack has been led by Anders men for almost seven hundred years and if I can’t break this damn curse, the safety and security of every man, woman, they, child, and wolf will be in jeopardy. I cannot be the last in my line. I won’t! I need to find her.

Shane. My father’s voice booms through our mindlink. Come to my office please. Now.

Straightening my front legs, I push my paws deep into the mattress, lift my butt up in the air, back legs straight also, and stretch my back to try and wake up all my muscles.

I have been in a bit of a funk this last month, realizing that my curse timeline is about to snap, so I have picked up a habit of snoozing my alarm a few too many times and sleeping through breakfast a few too many days in a row for his liking. Apparently I have reached his limit.

Gotta go for a walk. Be back in five.

I shifted into my wolf form when I was six years old.

I remember the pain and shock of that first time, but it very quickly became more of a slight discomfort than true pain.

I was the happiest and most content I had ever been when I had my pitch black fur, pointy ears, and tail.

Running around on four legs, jumping, almost flying through the air, climbing and swimming, I was finally able to find the true me.

From six to twenty-six, I would go from human to wolf and back at least once a day…

but until I was stuck this way, I never thought of the true inconveniences of what all full bred animals go through.

The worst of them all—going to the bathroom.

My bedroom’s adjoining en suite bathroom is only used for showering these days.

I have tried to use the toilet, but for a canine who weighs almost three hundred pounds of pure muscle, after two broken porcelain thrones, I gave up and just resorted to having to go outside to take care of business.

My dad knows this, so he lets out a grumpy grunt in acknowledgement, then shuts our link.

After I head downstairs, I take a trip out to the woods behind the pack house to answer nature’s call.

Circling back inside through the kitchen, I swipe a still steaming chicken breast off the counter and chomp it down in a few bites as I head down the hall toward my father’s office.

Yum! Based on the other ingredients I can smell, chef is making chicken pot pie for dinner… one of my favorites.

I nudge the office door open with my snout, and make myself comfortable in one of the two chairs in front of the massive dark walnut desk that spans almost half the width of the Alpha’s office.

What’s up, pops? I ask as I chuckle. How’s it hangin’?

It doesn’t take much for my dad to smile, he’s generally a very happy go-lucky kind of guy, but today his usual upbeat attitude is nowhere to be found.

“Shane. When are you going out to search for your mate again? You’re seriously running out of time.”

He has been asking me this very same question for almost three years now, and while I was bound and determined to do exactly what he was asking for for the first two and a half years, as time went on and on, my enthusiasm seemed to be getting farther and farther away as each month and season passed.

Dad. Yes, wolves can roll their eyes. I can, at least. She’s not out there. If she was, don’t you think I would have found her by now? I have been to every state in this damn country, and even other countries, and haven’t gotten a damn tingling of being close. You know this.

“Shane Elias Anders,” Ooo, he pulled out the full name this time. “You will not give up until that very last day. And even then you won’t stop until you find her. I know she’s out there waiting for you. You owe it to your mother and the Goddess to find her. Do you need me to come with you?”

That’s another thing he has asked several times, but each time I have thanked him but turned down the offer.

My dad, Elias Samuel Anders, is the kindest, most selfless, most understanding, but firm and stern man when need be, that I have ever met.

He is the perfect Alpha and if I become even half of the Alpha he is, I would be proud and happier than a pig in shit on a hot summer’s day.

How such a kind man ended up marrying my evil ex-step-mother is something I will never understand, but I am happy to say she is dead now.

I think it was a mixture of desperation and grief, mixed with thinking that I needed a maternal figure in my life, after Eliana and Shaun, my mother and younger brother passed that led him to remarrying a short year later.

It was almost Marla was stalking in the wings, waiting for the perfect opportunity to swoop in and climb the proverbial hierarchy ladder.

Her first husband was a pack warrior and had died several years earlier, but as soon as my dad became a widow, she was always at his side with the offer of a helping hand or as a shoulder to lean on.

He fell for her clever ploys, hook, line, and sinker.

I was fifteen when they married, then three weeks after I turned twenty-seven, she was stalked with a silver spike and beheaded in front of our entire pack.

Her deceiving and traitorous actions earned her a place in hell for what she did to me.

If only this curse she had planned would have disappeared with her.

I just thank the heavens that Milton, her son, chose to return to his father’s former pack.

He wasn’t a bad guy deep down, he was just heavily influenced by an evil woman and quickly found himself free of her clutches for the first time, then jumped at the chance for a fresh start.

I have less than a week left until my thirtieth birthday. My mate is not—

YES SHE IS! His roar is so loud and powerful, I feel it ripple through the mindlink of our entire pack.

A jolting wave rolls over both of us as everyone’s expression of shock echoes back.

He is obviously powerful enough to call out to us all at once, but it’s not something he does often.

So when it does happen, it is never that strong or loud unless there is an emergency.

But I guess we are in the thick of one of those times, or I am anyway.

Knowing that this is my last chance to break my curse, hopefully to take that first step toward taking my place in the very chair he is sitting in right now, I bow my head toward my father and nod.

I will head out soon.

“Can I give you a little bit of future Alpha advice?” Dad rises to his feet and circles the desk to sit in the empty chair to my right.

Of course. I want any wisdom you can give me.

“As he will be your Beta very soon, ask James to help you prepare for your journey. Ask him to pack you a bag with a few sets of clothes and any toiletries that you would need for when you find your mate. If you can shift back, you can’t just be waltzing around her with no clothes on.”

I don’t need another man to pack my underwear!

Him rolling his eyes back at me makes me chuckle.

He looks like such a dork. “Shane, you two have been preparing to fill the Alpha and Beta roles since the day you two were born. While you don’t actually physically need him to do this, because even without thumbs you are mighty handy with doing most things yourself, I think asking for his help would be a great way for you both to start the journey toward taking your roles officially.

Once James Senior and I step down and pass our titles to the next generation, and James Junior becomes your number two, he will be your right hand man for everything.

You may have been as thick as thieves for almost thirty years, but nothing will bring you closer than your Alpha and Beta bond.

Give him this one task as the ceremonial first job as your Beta of sorts. ”

Thinking about what he’s saying, I see his point.

James has been my best friend forever. I guess it was a form of fate in a way seeing as we were born on the same day.

We slept in the same bassinet that first night, we’ve had thousands of sleepovers, gone on hundreds of camping trips, learned to drive in the same truck…

we have been as close to inseparable since day one.

Even when James met his mate four years ago, our friendship never wavered. Melanie, his mate and wife, has been kind and understanding of the position that James is destined to take and has accepted me as well. She has become a pseudo-sister of sorts and I love her like one too.

Why do I need clothes? Shouldn’t my mate like seeing me naked?

“Oh, son.” The serious face he’s be holding for this long breaks for the first time and my dad laughs.

“The right woman will probably enjoy you in all of your forms, but don’t greet her with your manhood waving for the whole world to see.

That should be something meant for her to be seen in private. ”

I may not be a monk, I did lose my virginity at seventeen, but he does have a point. I’m trying to find my mate, the woman who will become my wife and mother of our future children, so I don’t need to be swinging my dick for just anyone to see.