One True Mate 7_Shifter's Paradox Page 9

  Nowl only stared at Harlan, the stoic wolf-soldier, then returned his gaze to the streaks of light outside the sealed window. No night scents reached them, only train scents of oil and metal and rust and work and momentum. Harlan used to wish he could force Nowl to share his wolf secrets. But that wasn’t how Nowl worked. No one forced him to do anything. And he didn’t spill wolf secrets. Harlan’s only chance of uncovering them was to live them, although sometimes he thought if he was the very best wolf he could be, if he ran swift and silent and lived for the pack and fought the evil his every waking moment, he would learn what his wolf knew. Would be worthy of the knowledge.

  So when Nowl snarled lightly, knowingly, then disappeared, loping back inside Harlan so seamlessly that Harlan never felt a thing, Harlan only nodded once, wished Nowl an easy rest, and ran with the moon and the wind in his mind until he slept.

  In his dreams, he found his mate and she was perfect for him.

  13 - Past - They Sent the Beast

  Harlan opened his eyes slowly, afraid he had missed it all. The train was slowing, almost stopped and he was just waking up. He hadn’t seen any of Chicago and that was one of the things he’d been most excited about. He’d thought the morning sun and the awkward position would wake him early, but it had not.

  Outside, a train yard slid by fluidly. Trains. Tracks. Weeds growing in cracked, backed ground. Heat shimmers danced in the air. Fall would come soon, earlier than it had in Kentucky, his father had warned him. Harlan was twenty-three, just barely, and still had more balls than brains, his mom had been saying about him for years, still was more interested in female figures than anything important. If Dad was around, he would cluck his tongue and mutter, “as it should be,” or “what’s more important than females?” or, one memorable time, he’d ripped the kitchen towel out of Mom’s hands, backed her against a counter and pressed her against the wall, whispering something in her ear no one else could hear. She’d pinched his arm and whispered fiercely back to him, and he’d kissed her once, hard, then they’d disappeared into their room. Back then, Harlan hadn’t been able to imagine what his father might have whispered to his mother. Now he didn’t want to think about it.

  Harlan stood. Stretched. Shook the creases in his Harlan Police Department dress uniform out. The creases were starched and held strong. Good. He slid into the hallway, grabbed his one bag that held everything he owned in the world and headed to the door as the train swayed around him, humming and clicking and clacking. An older gentleman already standing there with his own bag grinned at Harlan and Harlan grinned back. Why not? It was a fine fucking day and anything could happen. He wasn’t a grinner by nature but he could pull off a wolf grin and a prank with the best of them. Today the prank was on life because it was a fine fucking day to be alive.

  The first station buildings slid into view. Adrenaline spiked in Harlan’s bloodstream when he spotted his first skyscraper. Chicago. Hell yeah. A young wolf could get in trouble in a city like this.

  Harlan grinned wider, feeling it stretch across his face. The old male by the door looked away quickly. Harlan was ready to get into trouble. Brawls and drunken, one-night-stands kind of trouble. Shit-I-didn’t-know-she-had-a-man, kind of trouble. Your-fucking-ugly-ass-face-that’s-what-I’m-looking-at, kind of trouble. Surely Illinois wasn’t different than Kentucky when it came to what kind of trouble a mostly-law-abiding male under twenty-five with a bit of money and a car and some friends could get into. Harlan never fought humans, unless they were badasses, like soldiers or MMA fighters. And still he held back. Fought them mostly out of curiosity. Could a human best him? He hadn’t found one yet.

  The train slowed. Slowed more. Slowed and slowed then finally stopped, near a door in the station. Harlan drank in the details his ears and eyes and nose were bringing him, eager to learn everything there was to learn, eager to know Chicago. To learn what secrets the city held, secrets that country boys like him could never imagine.

  Not a country boy anymore. Not him.

  The doors opened. The old man shrank back into the hallway and Harlan stepped off the train, onto Illinois, his duty boots heavy on the concrete. It felt good. Right. Like home, now. He had important work here.

  He merged with the stream of people, heading in the doors to the station, his eyes open wide. Chief Risson had said a driver would be there to pick him up. Ok. Where. People were everywhere. More people than he’d ever seen before. He was taller than most. Could see over their heads. From up there, the train station looked like a super boring club for old people in a hurry. Ok. Lots of people. Nothing exciting yet. Nothing that made him realize he was in, “a big city.” His gaze went everywhere. He didn’t know where to go. Didn’t even have a clue what to look for. Exit sign. Here we go. Follow the crowd. Follow the crowd. Oooh. She’s cute. Her, too. Look at all that hair. Shit. Ok. Yeah, this is nice. I like Chicago so far. Whoa. Her hair is rainbow colored and spiked up! Holy cr—. Ok. Don’t stare. Shit. The smells. Wow. Food. People. People. Garbage. People everywhere. Various states of cleanliness. Ok. Definitely stinky in here Exit. Where’s that exit?

  And then Harlan saw him. Holy shit! It couldn’t be. But he knew it was. Nowl kicked up inside him, snarling once, a warning to an unfathomable animal who did not snarl back. Only quietly and darkly watched from the shadows inside the male. Harlan had a sense of something big and hulking and dark, with teeth like a Nile Crocodile, jagged strong daggers that stuck every which way even with the mouth closed, and would have punched through the animal’s own lips if his skin weren’t so tough.

  On the outside, the male was only a teenager, not quite a man, yet, wearing a Serenity PD JPTC uniform and holding a ridiculous hand-lettered sign. The uniform was from the junior leadership program, designed for teenagers who intended to graduate from school and head straight into the police department. So the kid was somewhere between age 14 and 18. Tall. Thin like he’d been stretched. Head shaved bald and it already looked good on him. Made him look tough as shit even with how thin he was. Like you could tell as soon as he stopped growing, the muscles were going to fill out and then you better watch the fuck out. The blended line down the center of his face might have helped to make him look tough. His complexion on the right side was light, his left side dark, Like half of him was a different ethnicity than the other half. But Harlan knew that wasn’t it. It wasn’t ethnicity warring inside this male. It was a cat and a wolf. The beast. Shit. They’d sent the beast to pick up Harlan. Harlan was about to speak to the beast. He was real. But he was just a kid, this beast. 16, Harlan decided, and he was peering at Harlan with guarded eyes. Waiting to see what kind of a male Harlan was going to be. Trial by fire. Shit. The kid probably could use a kind word. He couldn’t have an easy life with a face like that. Could use an older male to take him under his wing. Harlan had a thing or two to teach the beast, he bet.

  Harlan pulled out that grin again and didn’t have to fake it. The kid’s sign. He had balls. Harlan knocked the cardboard sign out of the kid’s hands when he got close enough, pulling the kid farther to the side of the oversized hallway they were in and leaning in close. “Shit, kid, are you out of your mind?” People gaped at both of them as they walked by, partly because of their uniforms, partly because of the beast’s strange face.

  The kid searched Harlan’s eyes for just a moment. His nostrils wavered. Harlan let him scent all he wanted. The kid’s name tag said, “Lockport”. Harlan dug in his memory for the beast’s first name. Jaggar. Jaggar Lockport. A straight-up hoodlum with a prophecy. A guaranteed seat in the KSRT even though he wasn’t full wolven. But he wasn’t a half-breed either. He looked good. His uniform was sharp, his look straight up. Harlan liked him already. The beast decided Harlan was ok, too. Harlan smelled him doing it.

  Lockport grinned back and gestured to the sign on the scuffed ground, off to the side, where the occasional booted toe kicked it closer to the wall. WOLF, on it, in neat block letters. “Isn’t that your last name?” he said, his voice and h
is smile open and normal.

  “Yeah. And my first,” Harlan said dryly. “Wolf Wolf, that’s me. You my ride?”

  Lockport stuck his hand out. They shook. “Jaggar Lockport, and you’re Harlan.”

  Hm. Kid didn’t know how to use rank or titles. That was cool though. He was a badass. One of a kind. No one had ever seen him shift. The rules were different for badasses. Everyone knew that. “Harlan Mundelein. Good to meet you.”

  When Jaggar pulled his hand away, nodded his head, good deal, good deal, showed Harlan some keys in his hand, presumably to a police vehicle, then bent to get the wolf sign and throw it in the garbage, they became friends. Jaggar took off on a diagonal slant across the station, throwing a, “Truck’s this way,” over his shoulder. Harlan ran to catch up as their friendship clicked into place. Easy. One friend already. Sure, he was a kid. But he wouldn’t be a kid forever, and, hey, a legend with a super-scary animal had to be a good friend to have.

  Jaggar led them through the station, deep into the heart of it, always one step ahead of Harlan, who couldn’t keep his eyes in his head. Hookers. Wow! Homeless people. Beggars. Working class. Pampered class. The divisions were obvious and Harlan was fascinated by all of it.

  The hallway spilled them out into a grand room where the ceiling soared high above their head, and stone, arched architecture pulled the eye from every corner. Harlan’s gaze shot up and he turned around as he stared all around them, walking backwards, turning around, all with his nose pointed in the air. Gorgeous. Grand. Huge. So much work went into this building, so much art and attention to detail, and this was just the train station.

  And whoa, outside. He could see the street through the tall windows. Cars everywhere. People moving in herds. Buildings soaring overhead. Harlan stared and kept walking, input flooding him. Shit, a wall appeared in front of him because he hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going. He stopped and looked around. Jaggar was gone. People were everywhere, and he’d lost his guide. Harlan snapped his attention back to the windows, wondering what to do now.

  Jaggar ran up from behind and steered him by the shoulder back the other way. “Stay with me, Mundelein,” Jaggar snapped at him, then they were out the doors and into the morning sun, the heat already rising.

  Serenity, here I come.

  14 - Past - Flat. Flat. More Flat.

  Jaggar sped down the residential street, then whipped a right turn at a 4-way stop, jumping his turn. Harlan stared at his boots on the foot well and held on tight to the door handle. The kid drove like he had a death wish.

  “My grandma lives down that road,” Jaggar said, gesturing with the wheel, bucking the far-forward left corner of the powerful diesel truck that way for just a second. Harlan wondered if the grandma was a wolfen? Or a felen?

  Jaggar had talked non-stop since they’d gotten in the truck and pointed west. It had taken a good hour and a half for them to get out of Chicago and when Harlan realized Jaggar had taken city streets in a circle around downtown, then angled through several districts before getting on the highway toward Serenity, he’d been absurdly grateful, for just a moment. The kid was ok. Beast or not.

  Jaggar switched subjects. “You're going to be in the KSRT.”

  Harlan chanced a look up at the road. They were about to be stuck in traffic. Perfect. Not. “Yeah.”

  Me, too, Jaggar should have said but he didn’t. It was there though, hanging between them. Was the kid touchy about it? Harlan hated people to feel uncomfortable about shit they were born into. Jaggar couldn’t help that his dad was a wolfen, a proper Serenity patrol cop, and his mother was a kinky, slinky felen. Who knew that a mountain lion and a wolf could even have a baby? No one.

  Harlan knew how to deal with shit people were touchy about. Hit it head on. “You've got a prophecy,” Harlan said. “You're the Beast.”

  Jaggar nodded, matter of factly, relief shining on his face, and the Beast was out between them. Harlan was on Jaggar’s right, the side where the skin was about the color of Harlan’s own. Harlan stared at Jaggar openly, nodding agreeably, examining the line. It was blended, like there wasn’t actually a line there, but more of a shift in coloring, bisecting his face right down the middle. But when he got excited, the color shifted a bit. Harlan hadn’t been able to figure out how yet. “That’s cool as shit,” he said, bobbing his head when Jaggar glanced at him, trying to figure out if he meant it or not. He did.

  Jaggar made a face. “Not cool at all.” His manner shifted and his voice lightened. “Our prophecies collide, so I expect we’ll be working together,” Jaggar said.

  Harlan was about to ask what in the hell that meant, when he knew. It fell into his head like a coin in a slot. Collide.

  “Time,” he breathed, seeing his prophecy on a new light. Had he really not considered what it all actually meant? What time was, who was time’s keeper, and how, he, the knotted wolf could anchor the keeper? He didn’t know shit about boats.

  “Right.” Jaggar bobbed his head and spun the wheel in a turn. “The Divided Beast anchors Time. The Beast, that's me. The Knotted Wolf anchors Time’s keeper. The Knotted Wolf. That’s you.”

  “Time's keeper,” Harlan mused. Why not just fucking say, that’s what he wanted to know. Why did all prophecies have to be fancy. Plain could be prophetic. Harlan tensed as the truck rumbled over train tracks too fast, and then Jaggar sped through a gas station parking lot, punching the truck over the curb and back onto the road, to avoid waiting in traffic at a red light.

  Maybe Jaggar had answers. “How can you anchor Time and I anchor time’s keeper? Does anybody know what it means?” he said. Jaggar lived there in Illinois, in the thick of Rhen and Khain’s influence.

  Jaggar shook his head. “Crew was the one who recited mine, but he was just a baby and he’s been under more than he hasn’t ever since, so I never asked him what he thinks it means. Risson recited yours.”

  Harlan punched Jaggar on the shoulder, earning himself a hooded look that could mean anything. Get used to it, Beast. If we’re gonna be friends, that’s how I roll. Harlan didn’t know who Crew was, but he knew who Risson was. “Get the fuck out of here! Chief Risson? Chief Risson spoke my prophecy?”

  Jaggar bobbed his head again as he drove, a bit of hero-worship for Chief Risson shining clearly on his face. Harlan knew how he felt. “Yeah. I saw him do it. Was cool.” Jaggar’s voice went funny, deep and wavery, like a ghost. “The Knotted Wolf anchors time’s keeper.”

  “Sounds it.” Harlan stared out the window at flat field after flat field, a water tower in the distance, not quite daring to ask if prophecies really came out that way. Chief Risson. Wow. Chief Burton Risson was a legend in the wolven community. A true decorated hero. Had fought Khain himself, which made him rare. Khain didn’t surface much in modern times. Had been hiding for years.

  Jaggar spoke. “I saw him choose your renqua, too.”

  “What?” Choose?

  Jaggar pointed at his left shoulder. “There’s tons of knotted wolves.”

  “Oh.” Shit. Harlan had never felt more ignorant in his life. Had he really not considered how they’d decided it was him who had the prophecy?

  “He put out a memo on WolfNet for all the chiefs in the country to send in images of any renqua of their officers that resembled knots. He looked at them as they came in. Barely a glance. No. No. No. We were just about to go international, when your chief sent in your picture.”

  Harlan’s hand snuck to his renqua. He hadn’t even known his dad had done it. Had never heard a word of it until his dad had gotten a phone call from Chief Risson saying Harlan was to be transferred to Serenity for good.

  Jaggar took both hands off the wheel and framed a picture in front of him. “It came by facsimile.” He looked at Harlan, his hands still off the wheel. The road in front of them became more country by the second. More flat, too. “You seen those things? Facsimiles? Cool, right?”

  Harlan nodded, swallowing. He wanted to hear the rest of the story abou
t his renqua being chosen.

  Jaggar dropped his hands to the wheel and when he spoke his voice cracked. He cleared his throat. “So yours comes in. Burton runs his fingers over it…. ‘Knotted,’ he whispered, and then he held it up. ‘Name!’ He demanded. ‘Harlan Mundelein,’ his daughter said. ‘That’s him,’ he barked, and then we all scrambled to get your ass up here. It took forever.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Harlan mumbled. They’d had to train someone to fill his deputy spot before he could leave. His cousin Cash. A true fucking cowboy who still insisted on riding his horse on patrol, to the point where Harlan wondered if the kid could drive a car.

  It was all becoming real. He was really in Illinois, speeding west from Chicago to Serenity. These legends, wolven he’d heard of his entire life, were getting faces and voices in his mind. This kid next to him, the Beast, had just called the most famous Citlali the wolven had ever had, by his first name, Burton. And his daughter! She was adopted by Burton. Found dead in the forest as a pup. Burton had done CPR on her for an hour until she’d warmed up. Then he’d done CPR on her for another hour, long after the bearen had given up trying to get him to give up. And she’d lived. Taken a breath. Hadn’t trusted him or anyone, though, not right away. No one knew who her parents were or how she ended up in the forest, but they all talked about her. Eventine Risson. The wolf with the phoenix renqua. Rumor said she’d be the first non-Citlali to take over Chief of Serenity P.D. ever, when Burton retired. Every wolfen in the country knew her name, but she was only 16.

  Harlan was going to meet all of them. Was going to work with them. Harlan whispered a few words under his breath, trying out Jaggar’s flat accent with his own mouth. Jaggar said his As short and clipped. Where Harlan would say, “draaaaawll,” Jaggar would say, ‘dral’. Dral. Scrambled. Ass. Compress your As. Adapt and thrive. Harlan would have it down by the end of the week. Until then, he wouldn’t talk much.