Chapter 1 - Conan
My breath mists the window in front of me, and I watch it as longing tightens my chest.
It’s a feeling of intense yearning, and I can’t quite understand why it feels so strong. It’s been years of progressively losing the ability to wield air magic, but this pang in my chest…
This feels different.
“Have you spoken to Amos yet?” Grandfather Bernard asks from behind me, prompting me to turn around and school my expression into something less solemn.
“We have been speaking every day, Grandfather. The research team is planning on conducting the ritual for a third time.”
Grandfather’s graying brows furrow, the wrinkles around his lips deepening as he clenches his jaw and curses under his breath. His frustration is nearly palpable, but I know it’s been months since he’s been able to wield his magic.
I’ve been struggling, too.
“Perhaps they need to try another method.”
“The ritual has worked for Damian and Heinrich.”
“So the problem is you.”
My nostrils flare as irritation courses through my veins. “Are you trying to be sarcastic, Grandfather?”
“No. I’m being realistic.”
I sigh heavily, then turn my back to him, facing the window again. The misted glass has since cleared, the fog gone as if it was never there.
Back when my powers were still strong, I would have shattered the glass with a single breath. Now, my breath counts for nothing more than an ordinary human’s, and I hate it.
“Nothing about the demon threat is realistic, Grandfather. Neither is our mere existence,” I scoff. “Or the fact that we are losing our strength. Losing wolves. Losing our lives.”
“Then certainly you know that you must find your mate.”
I gulp hard, keeping my gaze fixed on the view beyond the window, where the valley seems to exhale with me. The valley has been hurting, and the only way to save the packs in the three corners of Bitterroot is through the fated mate bond.
A bond I couldn’t care about.
I had long since given up on the idea of love and happily-ever-afters when life dealt me the cards I was forced to accept as my own. Forced to step in as the alpha of the Iron Breath Pack by my nineteenth birthday, I’ve kept myself armored against such trivial matters.
But the council, along with the research team, believes that the alpha finding his true mate through the specialized ritual found in ancient texts is what will help us regain our lost strength—the power and natural healing abilities gifted to us by Lord Selene, and weakened by the demons over the last four years, when they first began attacking.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes—first with Damian and his human mate, Sophie, and then with Heinrich and his human mate, Annika. But it isn’t enough to convince me that a true mate is the answer to all our problems.
Not for me, at least.
Perhaps it’s my reluctance to take a mate that made the ritual prove useless twice. The application of kambo on an open wound in wolf form didn’t work either time I tried.
Where I was supposed to see her face and hear the spirits of the psychedelic venom whisper her name in my hallucinatory state, all I got to see was the back of her head, a faint scent I could hardly recognize, and a burnt burgundy spark in her palms as she wielded a power that wasn’t like anything we’ve seen before.
A mix of fire and air.
What was strangest was that she already possessed those powers. She isn’t just human.
She’s a practicing witch.
Though they’re humans, both Sophie and Annika emerged as very powerful witches, descendants of the Ashclaw Pack from the south of the Bitterroot Valley whose alpha mated with a witch before the pack was wiped out by demons for their fire power—the only magic that can end them.
The child of the Ashclaw Pack and the witch was saved nearly a century ago, and his descendants went on to live as humans, scattered throughout the ordinary human world until the reemergence of the demons and their threat forced the remaining three packs in the valley to actively seek the alphas’ mates, their bonds to alpha wolves igniting magic they didn’t know they possessed.
Not only have the lunas of Red Moon and Silver Stone helped to fight off the demons, but they’ve also brought back strength to their alphas.
I look down at my hands in my lap, gulping hard again because I know they’re right. Grandfather is right. The council is right. The research team is right.
But nothing about actively seeking out a mate feels right to me. It feels strange. Wrong. Like there should be another way to regain my lost powers without the need to tie myself down to another, even if she is my fated true mate.
I’d long since lost faith in the Moon Goddess’s decree over my life. Nothing good comes from being happy, and just when I think I am, the rug is always pulled out from under me.
It happened when my parents died long before I was old enough to write my own name. And it happened again, just when I decided to take a leap of faith and entertain the idea of love and happily-ever-afters.
I can’t even force a smile on my face when Alpha Damian walks into the meeting chamber with his pregnant mate. I’m still numb, even when Alpha Heinrich follows with Annika. In fact, seeing the lovers cozying up to each other churns my insides.
Codependency is a weakness. Even if Damian wields water magic and Heinrich wields earth magic, thanks to their respective mates, they’d wither into nothingness if something happened to either Sophie or Annika. It is a curse set upon the bearers of the true mate bond.
And I do not wish to curse myself.
A part of me is thankful that the ritual wasn’t successful. I don’t need to know who my true mate is. I’m better off without one.
The rest of the council and the research team enter the log building, settling onto their seats around the drawing board table. Amos, the head of the research team—a trusted fellow wolf and expert researcher—shuffles forward in his seat and begins the meeting he called.
“Thank you all for meeting on such short notice,” he begins with an apology.
“No need for that, Amos,” Damian returns, glancing at Sophie and giving her hand a firm squeeze. “With all things considered, we expect meetings like this to happen often.”
Heinrich nods. “The demons have not stopped trying to enter our territories. Even with the runes set out across the valley, they’re pushing.”
“It’s only a matter of time before they push hard enough and make it past those runes,” Grandfather grunts. “Have you found another way to trace Conan’s mate, Amos?”
“I think this hardly has anything to do with me not having a mate,” I cut in. “Even if the ritual worked and I found her, mated her, and regained my strength and the pack’s…what then?”
“I saw how strong your true mate is, Conan,” Annika responds. “I saw her at the portal. The one close to—”
“The old sawmill,” I interject bitterly. “Yeah, you’ve told us about your vision many times over the past few weeks, Annika.”
Heinrich growls beside her, glaring at me. “Watch your tone, Conan.”
I shrug. “I didn’t say anything wrong.”
“It was Iron Breath wolves who were with her,” Annika continues. “And they were all at that portal. Whoever she is, she is the key to closing it.”
Amos agrees with a nod. “Even if it’s not directly, it appears she holds the key to locking the portal. Annika is right.”
Grunting under my breath, I lean back against my chair and fold my arms across my chest. “If finding my mate is so important…if she is the key to stopping the demons…then why is it so hard to find her? A name? A face? We still have nothing, except the old sawmill.”
Amos nods slowly, thoughtfully, as he rearranges himself on his chair and begins hitting buttons on a keypad that opens up a holographic screen that floats in the center of the table. It’s a map.
“Marcus Hale has not spoken yet.” Amos refers to the human we captured a few weeks ago, when we took down a human operation of mercenaries who were being possessed by demons.
Armed and dangerous, those humans attempted to infiltrate the valley in a sneak attack, under the command of the demons and Marcus Hale, a previously convicted illegal arms dealer.
The warehouse was destroyed, and the supply line of arms is gone. But Marcus Hale worked for the demons, and we’ve been trying to get him to talk, to tell us where the demon portal is.
But he hasn’t said a word.
If it were up to me, I’d just have him executed. He is in Iron Breath’s dungeon, after all.
The council, however, wants to keep him alive.
“And the methods we have to force him to talk haven’t worked,” Amos continues. “This is why our research led us to another coven of witches in Helena Valley. Augusta, to be exact,” He points to the map. “A coven that can help us extract the information we need from Hale.”
“You’re inviting more witches to the valley?” Elder Mortimer, Heinrich’s father, asks curiously. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Amos shakes his head. “This coven, the August Moon Circle…is not exactly willing to travel to Bitterroot. Coincidentally, they have been experiencing attacks of their own.”
“What kind of attacks?” Damian asks.
“Demons,” Amos responds, and the meeting chamber grows eerily quiet for a second as he pauses. “Two days ago, I spoke to the High Priestess of the coven, Amalia, and her description of the attacks and the creatures matches the demons we’ve been encountering.”
“Why are the demons attacking a coven in Helena Valley?” Heinrich frowns. “Are there witches in that coven linked to Ashclaw? Are there more descendants there?”
Amos shrugs. “We can’t know for sure, since wielding fire magic alone isn’t enough to link a witch to Ashclaw ancestry.
But the coven isn’t the only clan in Helena that’s been fighting demons.
There are other werewolf packs residing in the area, and they, too, have encountered demons.
That’s why Sister Amalia has invited us to a conference this weekend. ”
“A conference?” I ask, and Amos nods.
“A conference with the packs in Helena Valley to enter an alliance that may help in this fight against the demons.” Amos pauses with a deep breath.
“She wants to extend the invitation of an alliance with the packs from Bitterroot Valley. What was most interesting was that one of the packs around Helena resides in Milford. An old sawmill community.”
Another bout of silence stretches over the room, and I rest my elbows on the table, leaning forward. “What are you saying, Amos?”
“I believe that the sawmill Annika had a vision of may be the one in Milford, where the Blood Mill Pack resides.”
“You want us to check this? And form an alliance with the others?” Damian nods thoughtfully.
“Yes,” Amos tells Damian. “It will be a good idea to join forces. I don’t think any of this is a coincidence. The sawmill…the witch coven…”
“Is it necessary for everyone to travel there?” I ask, seeing a way to get out of the valley for a while, where I’m not hounded by talks of visions and mates.
“Sophie is pregnant, so Damian shouldn’t travel.
He needs to keep her safe. And Heinrich and Annika should be here to protect everyone else. ”
Amos nods. “You are absolutely right. The witches in Bitterroot shouldn’t leave the valley. It’s too dangerous. That’s why I was hoping you would go, Alpha Conan, and represent all of us. If the council agrees.”
I glance around the table as each of the council members gives a nod, followed by Damian and Heinrich.
“That settles it, then,” I say with a smirk, relieved to get some time away from the valley. “Is the plan to take Marcus Hale to Helena Valley so the witches can deal with him?”
Amos nods briskly at me. “Yes. Take Hale to the coven. Agree to the alliance. And meet the witch in the August Moon Circle who has the same powers you saw in the ritual. Burnt burgundy flames, with the ability to wield both fire and air.”
My heart stops dead in its tracks, and my jaw drops. “Wh-what?”
“Of course, I took the liberty of speaking to Sister Amalia, asking her if there were any witches with this specific power, since we’ve been on the hunt for your true mate.
” Amos grins. “She assured me that one such witch is amongst them. So it’s up to you to determine if she is the woman from Annika’s vision, your true mate. ”
Blood rushes in my ears, and I can feel myself paling.
So much for leaving the valley for some time away from my duties!
I am meant to be on a quest for my true mate. A quest I don’t want.
A mission I didn’t sign up for. One that I don’t care for.