The change ( his mate)

Chapter 21: New monster

Lara

We were talking over dinner, Leo and Amber had made Scandinavian steak and potatoes with veg as a main course, a side of double-smoked salmon with horseradish cream-which I personally didn’t like, but politely forced myself to swallow- and some other small dishes I wasn’t sure what they were called, but they tasted good.

When the food was finished Amber grabbed a bottle of red wine and poured everyone a glass, again, I was very fussy for a werewolf and didn’t like the taste of wine, so she poured me some Advocaat a yellow drink that when mixed with lemonade tasted like a creamy milkshake to me.

Leo was pouring over the online news on his phone, he usually checked it to make sure nothing suspicious came up, supernatural suspicious. He rose his eyebrows and mumbled, “f.uck.”

Leo usually never swore, so when he did it was cause for alarm. “What’s wrong?” Grayson asked, leaning over Leo’s shoulder to look.

“A new problem it seems and not the mutt variety.”

He went on to explain that a couple of bodies had been found recently, no less than an hour away from us, bodies with missing bits of flesh and limbs, the description sounding to the police like some insane cannibal, but to Leo, this was the work of a wendigo.

“They’re real?” I asked.

“Yes, but very rare and usually live alone, the details here suggest possibly two of them.”

“What do they do, what do they look like and more importantly how do we kill them?” I asked.

He ran a hand through his brown hair and said, “they are more spirit than alive, they look skeletal thin, with pale white skin stretched taut over their bones, hairless creatures with elongated arms and legs, eyes wide and round with black pupils, but they can also use glamour, make a person see someone they know, imitate a loved one even sound like a loved one, that’s usually how they lure their victims, then they eat them.”

“You mean kill them and eat them?”

“No, I mean eat them as in they start to eat while the victim is still alive, the warmer and fresher the flesh and blood the tastier the meal.”

I shivered at the images that produced and quickly shook them away.

“How do we kill them?” Grayson asked.

“I’m not sure, I’ll have to do some digging and see what I can find, in the meantime you and Lara go see if you can find any sign of one, when you do, come back, don’t try to take it on when we don’t know if even such a thing can be killed.”

I nodded, but it was Grayson he was giving a warning look to.

“Alright yeah, no killing, got it.”

“I’ll help with the research,” Amber said.

Leo nodded and they both got up and headed into his office room.

“Wanna go now?” Grayson grinned.

“Of course,” I grinned back and jumped up to grab my shoes.

I admit for a werewolf I was still a little squeamish about violence, although I noticed the longer I was a werewolf the less such things were starting to bother me, the wolf understood violence, not for sport, but from a place of survival. One thing I absolutely did love though was a good mystery and adventure and Grayson knew it, it had become our thing, I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a date night between us, but it was close.

“Less than an hour from here?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Walk?”

Knowing I wanted to prolong the adventure he grinned, “walk.”

Being part wolf made it easy to walk long distances these days, so the most we’d suffer from is tiredness on the walk back.

It was evening, the sky was clear and the full moon was out, helping make things easier to see. I sniffed the air as we walked along and got the gorgeous scent of the crisp cold night air before it was ruined by a mix of car diesel, garbage and the faint smell of humanity as we got closer to civilisation. The ranch was at least half an hour away from any public or any other homes.

I didn’t smell anything unusual and neither did Grayson, not for the first mile, just as we hit the second I picked up a distinct scent, one that had me scrunching up my nose. Rot.

I looked at Grayson and he nodded letting me know he smelt it too. He was the better tracker and had a stronger nose than me, so I followed his lead as he veered left and down a path that led into a small wooded area.

The smell of rotting meat grew stronger and I bumped into Graysons back when he stopped. Holding an arm out to prevent me going any further, he silently motioned to the floor. Looking down I saw tracks, two pairs of feet, bare feet in the mud.

Grayson was the perfect stalker when it came to prey, he could move so silently you wouldn’t hear so much as a leaf crunch underfoot, so I stepped where he stepped as we carried on, he kept us downwind so the wendigo wouldn’t catch our scents.

We walked about a half mile in when we saw it, an ugly monstrous thing just how Leo had described it, hunched over a body, tearing at it, no, not a body, still alive, a young man gurgling silently, his lips had been eaten, tongue missing, the wendigo was now eating the stomach.

My natural instinct was to go forward and help, but Grayson gripped my arm tightly, shaking his head. It was too late for the man, but surely we could end his suffering?

Grayson saw what I was thinking and shook his head meeting my gaze. He pointed up and I followed with my eyes to see up in the tree above them was another wendigo, slowly climbing down to join its, friend? Lover? I didn’t know, but Grayson gently nudged me back, leading the way again so I could follow and not make the fatal mistake of stepping on a twig or something.

When we were far enough away and out of the woods, I panted, “we can’t just leave him there!”

“It’s too late for him Lara, he’s already dead.”

“He wasn’t, we could have ended his suffering at least!”

He spun on me. “And what? Take his place.”

We glared at one another for a full minute and then I huffed and stormed past him.

When we got back Leo was waiting for us. “When I said try to locate where they are I didn’t mean the very second the words left my mouth.”

“Sorry,” I blushed.

Grayson ever the gentleman kicked the door shut. “We found them.”

Leo rose his eyebrows.

Grayson brushed past him and dropped heavily onto a stool in the kitchen. “Two of them, eating a very alive someone.”

“Grayson made us leave the poor guy there still alive.”

Leo looked at me and softly said, “he was right to do so, they are dangerous creatures that we don’t yet know how or if we can even kill them.”

“Did you find anything out?” I asked.

He blew out a breath and rubbed his forehead. “Maybe, there’s a lot of ways mentioned on how to kill them, some say to remove the heart, there was also mention of staking like a vampire, silver bullets, a sword made of silver, others mentioned you can’t kill them only send them back into the spirit world, lock them in a prison of sorts on the other side. I’ll have to find my old contact details of an even older friend.”

When I looked at him confused he explained, “a demonologist, got obsessed with that stuff and the paranormal, he’s a vampire and being caught between the two worlds means they can have trouble with spirits bothering them and pestering them. Wanted to find a way to block them out, found one I think. Point is if anyone knows how to deal with a wendigo it’s him.”

It was past midnight and getting late so everyone started heading to bed. Leo would call his vampire friend in the morning.

I climbed under my covers after brushing my teeth and felt warmth against my side. Throwing them back I saw Grayson laying there eyes half closed. “Hey darling.” A lazy grin spread across his face.

“Out!” I tried shooing him, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Let me stay with you tonight. Please.”

“No, get out.” I lobbed a pillow at him, he caught it and in a gentle almost pleading voice said, “please, I feel better knowing you’re safe beside me.”

When I narrowed my eyes he held his hands up in defence. “I won’t try anything, I just want to sleep beside you.”

I lifted the covers to see he was wearing his boxers, usually he slept naked. Sighing, I grumbled and laid back down, although secretly, I was kind of glad for the company.

Waking up in the morning I remembered half the reason I didn’t let Grayson sleep in my bed. He was now laying at the other end, his leg flung over my chest with his foot against my neck and on top of that he’d taken nearly all the covers leaving me to shiver from the morning cold air.

I yanked the covers back and pressing my foot against his side I pushed him hard making him roll and tumble off the bed crashing to the floor in a heap.

“F.uck!” He yelped.

He glared up at me and I glared right back. Snarling under his breath he got to his feet and to me said, “why’d you kick me out the bed?”

“I told you I don’t like waking up to your damn feet in my face.”

“They don’t smell.”

“I don’t care! I don’t like it.”

His jaw tightened, and he rolled his shoulders trying to stay calm. “Do you want to go down and get breakfast?”

“Not yet.”

Voice sounding more stiff he asked, “not yet, or not with me?”

I smiled sweetly at him and said, “you pick.”

He growled and knocked my books off the table sending them sailing across the room.

“Pick them up!” I growled.

His body tensed as if he wanted to ignore the request and maybe punch the wall, but he didn’t, he picked the books up and put them back and stalked out from the room.

If it had been anyone else he would have broken something else or punched that wall and told them to ‘go f.uck themselves’ but with me he knew better, he didn’t dare break any of my things.

I went down ten minutes later, pulling my hair into a low braid. Amber was sitting beside Leo, looking at his phone with him, so close she may as well have sat on his lap, if he cared he didn’t show it.

She wasn’t dressed yet and still wore her thin silk green babydoll nightie. I saw Grayson staring at her, his gaze fixed on her chest frowning. Grayson wasn’t one to ogle woman, so I was kind of shocked until he opened his mouth. “Do you realise your t.it is hanging out?”

Both Amber and Leo looked up at him and then she looked down at her chest and gasped , mortified as she quickly slipped it back into place and pulled the strap up on to her shoulder.

Leo gave Grayson a dirty look and he shrugged as he took a bite of toast and mumbled through the mouthful, “what? You guys care about that being naked stuff, right?”

Amber rushed from the room, I shook my head and Leo sighed, putting his hand to his forehead, the only one who looked completely confused by our reactions was, of course, Grayson.