Forget Me Knot Read online

  A glimmer caught the corner of her eye and Celena turned her head to follow it. The dancing mote fluttered and the trees behind it grayed, the snow underfoot turned ashy. Oh no, not now! Panic clawed at her throat begging for more than the tortured whimper that broke free. She knew she’d pushed herself too hard, that exhaustion could bring on one of these episodes, but she ignored the warning signs. Just a little bit of vision problem, nothing to panic over, she repeated the words in a litany, trying to convince herself as cool air brushed across her brow.

  Something swam up into her eyesight; blindly she stumbled from the car and staggered towards it, hoping for something to focus on until her vision cleared. Every doctor she had seen since that day with Madden had looked at their shoes, her files, or the floor. None of them wanted to tell me it is all in my head. Celena wasn’t stupid she’d heard “hysterical blindness” for too long not to know what the doctors didn’t say. But every episode had led her to a piece of the puzzle that was Madden, even if he didn’t want her help.

  A dark painted signboard swam into view. Gold painted letters melted and morphed, forming a pictogram of a girl standing between a wolf and a stag. The wind whispered a querulous note and she nodded slightly. The image shifted to a girl standing, holding a solid sphere in one hand and an empty globe in the other with a crescent beneath her feet. Celena stood still, frozen in place watching the wind stir the dress of the girl in the image. But the wind understood her silence and the sign shifted a last time. The healthy feminine figure dissolved into a skeleton with wild flying hair surrounded by bone horses and hounds while the streaming wind sobbed receding to the trees.

  Lost in thought, Celena didn’t notice the man who approached until he spoke, she spun to face him but the words coming out of his mouth didn’t seem to make sense. Her eyes still afflicted saw not a man but a creature and she forced herself to stand still, to focus, and wait but nothing altered. A garland of ivory antlers still majestically crowned his head, eyes remained dark pools of brown rimmed black but the rest was a flipbook fog of man-deer-man. She didn’t need the whispering spirits of the wind to tell her who he must be; he’d haunted her dreams, Madden’s dreams for the last two weeks.

  “You must be Faunus, pleasure, I’m sure.” With that the fog over her sight drained away. “I’m here to see Madden.” Turning, she moved to the bell-pull beside the front door and gave the cord a healthy tug.

  “What did you call me?” As reality settled in, Celena had to admit he was good-looking if you went for tall, sable and wiry which she did not. She did allow that he looked better standing in the sunshine than he had in her odd vision.

  “Faunus, that is your name isn’t it?” It had to be right, she watched the way his nostrils flared in anger, or was it distress? His skin flushed and a slight sheen of sweat damped his brow. She gave a spooked squeak when he lunged forward, grabbing her. She gave a low cry of pain when his grip tightened, holding her upper arms way too tight, forcing her back against the siding.

  “No mortal living knows me by that name.” His voice was low, edgy, and Celena tried to pull free, his fingers were digging in, hurting her.

  What if she’d seen wrong? Predators reacted to fear, she couldn’t show fear. “You’re hurting me.” She tried to keep her tone even but failed as the words came out tremulously. He pressed closer opening his mouth to say something, and she tried to shrink away but had nowhere to go.

  A blur of movement rushed past, slammed into Faunus’ arms breaking his hold and carrying him into the yard. He must have let go because Celena found herself tripping and falling to the wooden porch with a screech. Before she could sort herself out, another man appeared at the doorway. He seemed familiar as he extended a well manicured hand to help her up. Looking up from the inglorious pose of being on her hands and knees she was awed. He was almost too good-looking, with deep brown hair and green eyes. Then the reality of his identity crashed home and Celena felt like she had staggered through a magic mirror and fallen into one of her nightmares.

  “Lupercus,” she breathed almost afraid to say his name. If Faunus had taken such offense, what would this being do to her?

  “Have we met?” He smiled at her quizzically, expression pleasant but genuinely at a loss.

  “No sir,” she admitted shaking her head. He gently pulled her to her feet, and with a brush of idle fingers adjusted her hair. An alien expression crossed his handsome face as if the feel of her hair reminded him of something uncomfortable.

  “If you would excuse me, please,” he begged off politely, “I’ve only the one twin and I fear my alpha will actually kill him.” He didn’t seem concerned only annoyed and amused.

  “Your alpha?” The idea of him calling another alpha staggered the mind.

  “Not mine of course,” he laughed “but my people need a leader when I decide to throw away this most aggravating device.” He waggled a cell phone then tossed it into the front hedge. It was so comical a gesture that Celena’s lips twitched and she almost laughed, but the sight of the two men fighting just beyond was enough to kill the urge.

  “Madden?” Dark red hair with sun-lightened streaks of flame—it had to be him. No one else had hair like that. “Oh no, what have I done?” She moved to leave the porch but was picked up and returned to the doorway like an errant kitten.

  “Little one, you have done nothing. Ashley my love, would you please keep this one company?” A tall model-thin beauty walked out and put an arm around Celena’s shoulders. Ungraciously, all Celena could think was how wonderful it was to be home.

  Her eyes arrowed back to the men fighting on the lawn. Madden had changed so much, he’d always enjoyed fighting good-naturedly with his brother and friends but never anything like this. His hair was a little longer, face thinner, more angular than she remembered, he radiated an aura of rage that nearly crackled. She had done this to him; her heart quailed in her chest.

  The slim stranger danced out of range but marks on his face indicated where a few punches had landed. Madden circled him, preternaturally fast, and Celena felt what was coming, had seen it once before.

  “Oh Madden no, don’t,” she whispered, but Lupercus was there first, talking low, insinuating himself between the still circling pair. Madden didn’t look happy but he had stopped and was listening. Celena couldn’t get over how different he looked. He’d always been strong, with a healthy athletic build but now he looked almost over-muscled. His jaw sat crooked as if his teeth didn’t sit well together. Something itched at the corner of her mind but was blown to pieces when an attractive, dishwater-blond man wearing an apron stormed past where she miserably huddled under the unknown Ashley’s arm.

  “Marc!” In shock she called after him, but he simply turned and gave her a glacial look from Viking blue eyes, the same ice blue as his older brother’s.

  “Just a sec, Celery Stick, got someone to thump.” Not a word was spoken but they must have signaled because the Silvestri males resumed circling Lupercus, trying to find an opening beyond to his brother.

  “What did you do, Frank?” Lupercus was not amused. He had plans of taking his new wife to Pittsburgh to begin the laborious process of gently relocating her nested lovebirds without damaging their small growing family. Ashley’s little birds had picked an inauspicious time to lay an egg, but the weather was going to warm and clear for a few days, giving them a window to smoothly move the birds without shocking them or causing harm to the egg.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Faunus huffed indignantly in the old language, “the girl knew who I was and wouldn’t say how she knew me. I couldn’t read her thoughts.”

  “What is he saying?” Red growled low and mean, and Faunus flinched. It wasn’t normal for a mortal, even if he was one of Lupercus’ man-wolf tribe, to have the kind of presence this one possessed. There were moments when looking at the mortal man was akin to peering into the presence of a fellow god.

  “Who is the woman?” Lupercus countered; there was something about the girl
that made him think of a long lost night on a seashore too far away.

  “Celena Black,” Red bit out stiffly, refusing to look over his shoulder where the smallish woman stood in obvious distress.

  Lupercus nodded, it was what he suspected looking at the woman’s uncanny resemblance to the White Goddess. Juno should be proud of the moonchild she created to appease the Star Sister. But he needed to be certain, “Do you know when she was born?”

  Red stopped stalking his Lord’s brother and gave him a strange look, quirking a brow and frowning.

  “We share a birth date, but I’m older by three years.” For the first time in months, the words weren’t growled and his natural voice carried on the air. Lupercus smiled almost viciously at the now confused looking pack alpha. He was going to miss an unprecedented thing for the modern world as the hands of gods long fled directed a pair of star-crossed lovers to reunite. However, Ashley, his Lupa, was well worth missing this show.

  The front door banged and Marc Silvestri crossed behind his older brother, eyes fixated on Faunus. The two male wolfs shifted back into stalking mode as Lupercus lost his temper, rounding on his twin.

  “Faunus, what did you do?”

  “I told you not to call me by that name.” Doe brown eyes looked almost panicked under the veneer of affected petulance. “I—uh—may have made Flora cry on accident.” He winced as he walked backwards angling for the woods. It was a little too obvious, and the Silvestri brothers surged forward, flanking him.

  “And?” Looking at his brother, Lupercus wondered why he never thought to tell his man-wolf pack about the stag-born god before, it would have made searching for his twin so much easier if the Silvestri clan were an indication of prowess.

  “I’m sorry?” Faunus offered meekly.

  “Somehow brother, I do not think that Red cares that you made the pretty Flora cry,” Lupercus prompted in a dry tone.

  “Celena has bruises and she was scared.” The growl was back in full force.

  “Bruises?” Stunned, Lupercus turned to his brother. He had always been a gentle man, a legendary lover of women, yet in a single morning he had reduced one to tears and abused and frightened a second.

  “He hurt Celery Stick?” Marc stopped moving and gaped in shock. “Whoa buddy, you earned your ass-kicking. But it won’t be by me.” He held his hands up and backed away, shaking his head and whistling. Faunus sputtered vague denials, and then stood silent.

  “Celery Stick?” Lupercus wrinkled his nose in distaste. Should he live another millennia or three, he would simply never understand the vagaries of the human world when giving people pet names.

  “She hates it too,” Red admitted with a wry grin. Stepping closer to Lupercus his eyes frosted over. “He touches her again, I feel her fear of him one more time and I will rip his throat out with my bare teeth.” The words were plainly stated, and Lupercus nodded in understanding.

  “She is your mate, you have that right. I will speak to my brother.”

  The young man looked stupefied, blinked and moved his jaw as if searching for words. But all that came out was a stunned, “Mate?”

  Lupercus took pity. “Your life span is short and you have lost many years my friend, do not waste the rest.”

  Chapter Four

  Face to Face

  After so many years of middle of the night calls, it was staggering to actually see Celena in the flesh. The last time he saw her, a paramedic was pulling her away trying to hustle them both into an ambulance, and then Sandy Black erupted in his vision. Idly, he rubbed the velvet bag in his pocket and thanked the powers that be that he had just resumed human form and had been unable to change into the wolf. Still, instinct pushed him to bite the woman, not good.

  His next clear memory was waking up in a private hospital bed, staring at the small felted jeweler’s bag, a glass of water, and a bored member of the state highway patrol. Ironically, no one listened to Sandy’s screams of rape, despite the blood and his having a minor female out in the wilds overnight. Instead, for biting Sandy, he was charged with aggravated assault--a charge later dropped by an unimpressed judge.

  No matter the outcome, he’d never managed to get the words of the screaming woman out of his head, you’re an animal! A filthy animal! Despite the rapid healing process of his kind, curse or blessing shifters managed to heal faster than others, it had taken the rest of the summer to heal from the wounds of the mountain lion.

  All because Marc let Belle Tressler lead him around by his cock, Red gripped his lucky piece in his hand. Since that day he’d never let the small bag out of his possession. And the “oh, so important” affair with the Tressler female hadn’t lasted either. Red wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Having that deceitful bitch in the family would have sent him over the edge, but coming home from the hospital to find his brother newly married to a pretty, look-alike for the Tressler girl was almost harder to swallow. Losing Celena over nothing.

  No one ever asked for details of what happened, except for the state cop and he only needed to know in order to book Red for assault. His family gave him some odd sideways looks that irritated at first and later drove him into the woods. The only time he felt at peace was in his wolf form. Instead of going to college as his family wanted, he simply disappeared into the state forest that fall.

  Nearly a year passed before Lupercus found him. He hadn’t wanted to go back, there was nothing for him in the world of two-legs, and she was gone. Celena had left and never looked back.

  Yet, there she stood, perfect as a fresh pearl glowing in the cloudy afternoon sun. Celena. Even hearing her name back then had been enough to make him want to be far away from people and it had been a long hard process, keeping him at home. For months Lupercus would drag him back to the new farm house his parents had bought, hoping if he sought the wolf he would at least stay closer. After the Wolf Lord had to trek overland to Tennessee to find him, Red was shamed into staying home. He balled his fists in his pockets at the memory of being dragged around like a pup, nipped, and herded home.

  Traveling home, they had a talk one night on the top of a mountain ridge above New River, all about stars and mates, and the pain of being alone. Red had been shamed at his behavior in light of Lupercus’ loss, and finished the trip home without a word. He’d taken the community college classes his family wanted and followed the path to alpha the way Lupercus wanted. Only he’d taken it a step farther. Every year the different far-flung families would send their clan alpha to New York where Lupercus’ business was centered; there the alphas’ could discuss threats and problems of the clans or challenge the over-all alpha for control of the entire man-wolf pack.

  In the time Red had been his clan’s alpha he’d watched lonely bachelors babysitting nieces for the few men who chose to have female only offspring. All of them would quietly nod in abeyance at Quint Campanella, and something inside Red broke; he challenged Quint for the title of alpha of the entire wolf-man clan. It hadn’t been an epic battle, it was over fast, Quint was a strong wolf but Red managed to beat him quickly, fighting a wolf wasn’t nearly as hard as killing a mountain lion. But at the end he’d held back, hadn’t killed the other man as his wolf-form longed to do. Quint had a pregnant wife waiting for him to come home. Too few of the man-wolfs chose to risk the curse carrying to another generation of boy children, Quint was needed if only for that.

  Months later, grateful thanks morphed into curses as Quint harried Red, challenging him to fight to the death. Red had no problem indulging the mourning wolf with a good fight or three, but he refused to leave an infant who’d already lost a mother an orphan. That and Red might have taken a few community college business courses, but he knew he wasn’t up to the task of running a global corporation and thankfully dumped the duty at Quint’s doorstep.

  It was during all the fights, the long series of stupid battles to ascend from the lowest ranked family to alpha of the entire man-wolf clan that the late night calls started. He never thought to ask Celena h
ow she had gotten his phone number; he always believed Marc had given it to her. At first he’d hung up on her, the ache in his heart that her voice evoked was too much. But she called back, again and again. In the end, the note of panicked worry kept him from hanging up or unplugging the phone. She would talk for hours, her soft little-girl voice that never changed as she fully reached womanhood, staying sweet and shy. Celena always knew when something was bothering him, when he’d gotten into fights.

  One night her voice slurred with exhaustion, she let slip her secret, she picked up on his dreams when she slept. He never asked how or why but made a concentrated effort to change form before sleeping after disturbing events and the phone calls trickled to an end.

  That was until Lupercus showed up with a mate, a twin, and an elusive enemy. The night after all hell broke loose, dumping a wounded shifter, a dead woman, a very live enemy, and a pile of questions and wolves on their doorstep Red had been too tired and unable to manage a shift. When the phone rang in Marc’s room at four in the morning, a lot of shit hit the fan.

  “Brother mine,” Marc knocked on his door in a sing-song voice, “I rejoice that you have women calling, but make sure they have your extension if they’re going to call at this time of night.”

  Red stumbled to the door and took the handheld receiver with a snarl, “Hello?” He’d been astounded to hear the familiar soft voice on the other end.

  “Celena? How’d you get this number?” She hadn’t made much sense, just rambled on about remotes and views, whatever the hell it meant. The look on Marc’s face, however, spoke volumes. Guilt and not a little bit of fear flashed across his handsome face before he turned to leave. Asking Celena to hold a second, he’d caught Marc by his hair and promised a visit as soon as he was done on the phone.