The Kodiak's Mate (Shifters-Match.com Book 2) (6 page)

“Nap, food, repeat. Gotcha.” She sounded as if she were almost asleep but with her mass of hair covering her face and most of his chest, he couldn’t really tell. “I think I’m going to love you and your bear both, Harley Ogden. Always,” she whispered before drifting off to sleep.

He could live with that quite happily. “I’m already in love with you.” When he caught his breath, he tugged up the blankets, tucked her in, and settled down for a nap with her in his arms.

Chapter Eight

Three weeks later…

Alaska stood before her coven and looked at each of them while they talked to her. “And have you found anything about the man who tried to take me? Please tell me that no one else has been attacked?” she asked. “Everyone is traveling in pairs or trios? None of the younger ones have started to drift off on their own, have they?” Alaska had taken the morning off so that she could come to meet with her coven. Harley was now at the garage and would pick her up in a few hours and take her for lunch.

“We have all been taking the necessary precautions, Alaska. This is not the first time we have been hunted and it won’t be the last. It would be beneficial if we had more to go on in regards to who attacked you. I don’t like feeling backed into a corner. We need to come up with a plan to draw this idiot out and deal with him our way. As it should be.” Several others were nodding in agreement.

“I don’t like that feeling either.” Alaska sighed and rubbed her temples. “Has anyone tried to work a spell that will give us, at least, a vestige of who or what we are looking for? I hate that whoever this person is they not only knew that I was a witch but they knew how to neutralize me as well. They know our weaknesses and I hate it. I hate unknowns.” She looked to one of the elders. “Should we combine our power and do a scrying spell?”

“The moment we heard from you about the attack at your shop we gathered everyone we could and went there. The spell we cast did nothing. It was as if the individual did not exist, Alaska.”

“Not entirely true, Virginia. There was that odd echo we had.”

The other elder nodded slowly. “You’re right, I forgot all about that, apologies.”

“Odd echo?” This piqued Alaska’s interest. “Do you think that perhaps he’s a dark mage and he’s hiding with his skills? Do you think that maybe, just maybe, we have another dark mage that’s trying to harvest power again like happened a couple of generations ago?” She recalled reading about something like that in a great-grandmother’s journal.

“No, the magic flavor wasn’t right for a mage. It was more, I don’t know if I have the word for it, but it tasted unnatural and dank. Old, definitely, but much like the air in a home that has been shut up for decades. It was only for a moment but that’s the sense I got. Virginia, what about you?”

The other woman was frowning. “Musty, definitely musty. And Gertrude is correct it had a dank flavor to it. There for a moment and then absolutely nothing. A mage’s echo would hold more power to it. It would be anywhere from icy to spicy in nature. This was almost unnatural, as she said. Something that went against the normal order as it were.”

“To me it felt empty and dead,” another elder said quietly. “Whoever it was likely messing with things they didn’t understand and it was taking the price from this individual’s soul.”

“Well, we know that it’s not dead. Vampires died out a long, long time ago. After Elizabeth Batharoy had her hissy fit, everyone joined together and ended all vampires for all time,” Alaska said with a frown, then started to pace. “You’re right, though. If someone is messing with things they don’t understand, then it very well could be draining their life force. If that’s the case, we really have to find them soon, so that they don’t accidentally kill themselves or someone else.”

“We need to draw this individual out, Alaska. We can’t scry for him, and there was absolutely no trace left at your shop to provide us with a path to follow. Only we don’t think our first plan is going to work as well anymore.” Gertrude looked mildly amused.

“With that hulking bear she now calls hers, hardly,” Virginia said. “He would make the Salem witch trials look like a campfire cookout for the Boy Scouts.”

“This is very true. Harley would never allow me to get into a position where I could be harmed. He loves me too much,” she said with a smile. “Just like I love him.” She tapped her front teeth while she was pacing. “But maybe he would be willing to put me out there if he was close. Maybe I can convince him and some of his friends to play lookout and protection detail all in one?”

The members of her coven shared a look before all eyes turned her way again. “It makes the most sense to have you as the bait, Alaska. This individual came after you when there were much easier targets.” Gertrude spoke true. While Ali had been alone in her shop, it was located in the middle of town, where anyone could have seen and interrupted the kidnapper. Several coven members lived out in the woods, isolated without neighbors anywhere close enough to hear a scream and yet she’d been targeted. It almost seemed personal.

“Agreed. Now I just have to figure out how to convince my overprotective mate to let me do this. Anyone have any idea?” she teased.

“What exactly is it you want to do, Alaska?”

Everyone spun around to find Harley standing with his arms crossed, eyeing her with an unhappy expression on his face. “Uh, we’ll let you handle this one on your own, Alaska,” Virginia told her. “I’m sure I have a dozen things to attend to and really should get on it immediately. Text us with whatever the outcome may be.” And like dust in a windstorm, the coven scattered, leaving her facing her pissy-looking mate.

Alaska looked at Harley and smiled. She moved so that she could touch him. She always felt better after she touched him. “I love touching you. You ground me. You give me peace.” She leaned against him. “I need to do something to draw out the man who attacked me. The coven can’t find anything and none of the shifters that we’ve talked to could smell whoever it was. I need you to watch over me while I’m out there in the open and easily gotten to. Can you do that?”

His low growl raised the fine hairs all over her body. She wasn’t afraid, but she was very aware her bear wasn’t pleased. Harley wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tight. “You’re asking a lot of me, Alaska. If anything were to happen to you…”

“I know that, love, which is why I know that it’s a hard sell. But if we don’t do this, then one day when we aren’t looking there will be someone there who will do the harm that we could have stopped. You have to understand the logic in this, right?” She needed him to understand that this might just be the only way to get whoever this person was.

“Dirty pool, little witch. Playing on my concern for you like that is not fair. I don’t care that you’re right either. I need time to consider the pros and cons, Alaska.” She felt him rest his chin on her hair. “Give me a day to think this all through. Can you do that?”

“You know that you can take the time you need. The coven will remain on high alert and keep in pairs until we’ve figured out what is going on. We don’t know why they wanted me instead of some of the others. That’s the worst part of this. My shop is in the center of town and yet there are three others who live in the middle of nowhere and live off of the land.”

“You were targeted for a specific reason. It makes no sense for anyone to come into town to grab you. Why not try at your home, or on your route in? And why didn’t they have a backup? If he’d had someone on the lookout, which would have been wise to ensure no one wandered in to help you off the street, that person could have also grabbed you when you ran. This entire thing makes little to no sense to me, Alaska. It all feels wrong.”

“I know. The coven is saying that the scries they’ve put out for this person feel all wrong as well. They know it’s a male, but I knew that, too, because his beard got stuck on the hood he put on me. That’s why we have to find him. If he’s messing with something old and dark, then it could be tearing apart his soul. It’s not good, Harley, at all.”

“No, it’s not,” he agreed easily. Falling silent again, he began to stroke his hand up and down her back. She knew he was thinking, considering all the information they had and all the unknowns they couldn’t answer. After about five minutes his hand stopped moving. “If I agree to this, we do it my way. And that is a big damn
if
. We do this, I’ll want to have several pack mates providing backup. My big question is, how the fuck do you plan to get this guy to come to you on our schedule? He might not be the brightest bulb around but why would he come at you when you’re out in the middle of nowhere apparently without protection?”

“Because everyone knows that I always take the day of my birth and go into the mountains. I go up to the hot springs that hide in the tallest of the mountains that look over our town and since my birthday is coming up in about a week it would give us time to get everything together, wouldn’t it? It would give us the ability to ensure that people were in place without anyone being none the wiser, right?”

Drawing back, he stared down at her. “I didn’t know your birthday was coming up. This is not exactly how I expected you to mention it, either, for the record. But I do have to ask about why you go up, by yourself, to sit on the mountain on your birthday. Cause that really makes no sense to me at all.”

“I go up there and as far away from people because every year I get a boost in my power. I can’t explain it but there it is. Each year my abilities expand. In all of the covens, my bloodline is the only one that increases like that. It doesn’t make sense and the elders have never been able to explain it either.”

“Okay, I guess that makes some sort of sense. But for the guy who knows only what his own personal witch has told him about witches, dumb it down a hair more. Why go all the way out there? Why not stay at home? I mean that would appear to be the safer of the two options, at least in my mind.”

“Because the one year that I didn’t go far from people there were nine people who were put into the hospital who all passed out and hit their heads, wrecked their cars, and so on. Now I get as far away from people as I can. And if we have a child and it’s a witch instead of a bear, he or she will have to do the same thing when they come of age. It’s simply protection for everyone.”

“Huh, interesting,” he muttered. Stepping back, he laced the fingers of one hand through hers and tugged her toward the street and where his truck would be. “You’d think there’d be some sort of history about your lineage, especially with something as unique as this power surge. I wonder why it happens only on your birthday. I could see during growth spurts and emotional or hormonal changes, but birthdays?”

Alaska shrugged. “Such is life. My mother was the same way, her mother and so on. It’s only through her line that they have done that. But what’s even odder was when Mom and Dad bonded he had a small bit of the same thing. Every year on the date of their bonding he would gain a smidge more power, not a lot and nothing that made him have to leave the area but he would gain in power.”

“He was from a line of witches, too?” he asked. At his truck, he pulled open the passenger door and helped boost her inside. Going to shut it, he paused and leaned against the edge. “Before I forget, do we need to swing by your shop today for anything or are we heading straight home?”

“Yes, I need to get a couple of things. I want to get some cooking supplies and pans so that I can bake for us. I want to make you some muffins or cupcakes.” She put her hand on his and grinned. “And yes, Dad was a witch, too.”

“You’re planning on baking? Holy hell, this is a dream come true. Buckle up.” With a grin, he pressed a kiss to her hand, then shut her door. Jogging around the truck, he hopped in and had them taking off almost immediately.

“Harley, promise me that I will never lose you?” she asked after a moment.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Pulling to the side of the road, he quickly threw the truck into park and turned to her. After releasing her seatbelt, he tugged her in close to hug her tight. “I’m not going anywhere, Alaska. You are stuck with me for the next fifty-plus years of our life together. But you have to promise me the same. I can’t lose you. You are everything to me, beyond words, and all the hope for a rich future.”

“Well, I don’t plan on going anywhere and even though I’m asking for you to let me be alone and vulnerable, we both know that I won’t be. You will be near. You would never let anyone harm me and that’s just one of the hundreds of things I love about you. You are my world, Harley Ogden.”

“I’ll fucking eviscerate anyone that ever thinks to harm a single hair on your head. No one touches my woman and lives to tell the tale.” Harley tipped her chin up and kissed her hard. “You are mine to protect, to cherish, and to ravish. But I want those promised muffins first. Since you said that, I can’t get the thought out of my brain. I need muffins.”

“Muffins means we have to go to my shop.” She kissed him again on his cheek, then scooted back to her seat and buckled up. “Come on, bear, get a move on, will ya?”

“Out of curiosity, what kind of muffins are you planning on making?” Back on the road, he shot her a grin. “Your loving mate has to know before he expires from thinking about all the possibilities.”

“Well, I was going to make some blueberry ones, some with honey and whatever else you might want. I’m pretty versatile in what I make, so you tell me what you’d like in them and I will make it for you. Especially since you are so darn cute.”

“Aww, you think I’m cute? Well, that’s good because I think you are damn fucking sexy.” Slowing the truck, he swung around a corner and pulled to a stop in her back parking area. “Get your adorable and fine ass inside. Whatever we are getting I will carry out. No need to exhaust you until later.”

“Oh, I love it when you make promises like that,” she said with a grin and ran her fingers over his cheek. “So tell me, what do you want in your muffins? Or even cupcakes. I can make both. I’m pretty easy to get along with, you know.”