Black River Daughter

Three Blind Mice

Drake

We were slow moving in getting started with the day. I knew I needed to be at training with the rest of the pack, but I was more concerned with what was going on in mine, and my mate’s heads. The instinct to protect her was running wild, and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to contain it. I pulled Frankie to my chest so that I could inhale her scent. It’s said that mates smell unique to their partners, and to me, Frankie smelled like raspberries and mint. “Let’s get going, I’ll give Drake a call and see when he’s coming back up here.”

“But you’re warm and comfortable.” Frankie pouted.

“Come on, I want to find out what those extra yous mean.” I rolled out of bed and headed to the walk-in closet. I almost felt ashamed, because I have many more clothes than Frankie. She brought five medium boxes of her stuff with her, and only three of them were clothes. I think I need to drag her to the mall. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt, pull them on then pull out a pair of converse to match the shirt. 

“How many pairs of shoes do you have dude?” Frankie chidded me as she began eyeing the shelf I kept the shoes on. “I can understand you having more clothes than me, I’m practically a monk, but you have like fifty pairs of shoes!”

I sheepishly smiled at her. “ How many shoes am I supposed to have then?”

“I don’t know, Like five, maybe ten pair.” she shrugs as she pulls on a peach and yellow sundress, then grabs her one pair of strappy brown leather sandals. 

“Well I have shoes that go with my suits, my training shoes, and my leisure shoes, and a few pairs of sandals.” I stood with my arms crossed daring her to argue with my need for so many shoes.

“Okay, so if you only dress in one color of suit, make it your trade mark, then you could get by with only needing one pair of dress shoes.” she ran her hand down the row of blazers that were hanging on one side of the closet. “And it doesn’t really matter what color converse you have, they match just about everything no matter what.”

“You telling me that you could just throw on some converse and it would look good with that dress?” I asked dubiously.

“I have a pair of white slip ons, I just haven’t dug them out yet.” Frankie pushed past me out of the closet. I followed her, watching her hips sway in the flowing skirt of her dress. Need and blood rushed below the belt quickly. Two days ago, I didn’t even think about s*x more than as a passing thought, now that I’ve shared that intimacy with Frankie, I was hopelessly hooked. I needed her as much as I needed to breathe. She shot a naughty look over her shoulder at me. “You know the mate bond lets me know everything.”

I growled closing the distance between us. I grab her face, crushing her lips to mine. Her hands glide up my chest and arms then wrap around the back of my neck. I pull away briefly. “As much as I want to continue this, we need to find out what those things are.” 

“Fine, fine. Let’s go to your office. OHH do I get an office?” She grabbed my hand excited at the thought of having her own space in this huge house.

I laugh at her enthusiasm as we head down the hall. “Yeah sure babe, there are a few empty rooms around the conference room.” As we get settled at my desk I link one of the omegas to bring us a light breakfast. I dial up Demitri on the speakerphone and wait for him to answer. The omega brought in a tray with bagels coffee and sliced fruit as the man picked up.

“Demitri.”

“Hey it’s Drake and Frankie.” I answered.

“Oh yes, I’m assuming you need something already.” He sounded tired. “I hope it’s not about the dream vision thing, I found a few things, but nothing good.”

“Yeah, it’s about that.” Frankie spoke up “And no it’s not good”

“I’ll be right there.” the call ended and Frankie and I were left with a dial tone. 

“I thought he left town last night?” I looked at Frankie as she shrugged then grabbed a bagel to nibble on.

“I have no idea how mages travel. He’s just always there when you need him.” As Frankie finished her sentence my office door swung open with Demitri holding a stack of leather bound tomes. But the hallway he was standing in was not my house, I saw three desks behind him with three identical little old ladies all wearing dark sunglasses. They all turned and I could only guess that they were scrutinizing me and Frankie around Demitri. 

The mage quickly closed the door behind him. “Sorry I hate traveling that way but I was already at the office in Pennsylvania.” He dumped the stack of books on the desk then turned to the door again. “Hang on let me get Franklin, er Pops.” He opened the door in a completely different room, one that looked like a library with miles of books. Then closed it behind him. 

“What just happened?” I sat back baffled as to what was going on. I sat waiting staring at the door expecting Demitri to pop through any second. I was still not prepared when he slammed open the door with Frankie’s great grandfather in tow. I craned my head around them trying to figure out what location they had originated in. I think it was the library again. “Soooo You are a time lord?” I asked

“Yusss, my mate’s a nerd!!” Frankie pumped her arm in the air in victory. I just looked at her and shook my head

“Not the time babe. Don’t worry we will cover just how much of a nerd I am.” I kissed her temple.

Her grandfather shot daggers at me, crap I don’t know if anyone told him that I’m her mate yet. “So, this is what you drag me out of my meeting with the central council?” He taps Demitri with his notebook in agitation.

“No Pops, I think we have a bigger problem than we anticipated. For one, Frankie and Drake are mates, and that has caused a huge uproar with claiming territory, and two, they seem to be sharing visions.” Demitri pulled up a chair to the desk and started flipping through one of the huge books that he brought with him. “Drake, did you ascend?” I nodded, while Demitri looked at me. “What color is your dragon?”

“Uhh actually, he looks like Frankie’s wolf. I’m not white like an ice dragon, but I’m not silver like a chromatic.” I shrugged and sipped my coffee.

“Okay boy, outside, I need to see.” Frankie giggled at Pops’ gruff instructions as he began jotting down notes in his little book. “How big are you? What’s your wingspan? How many horns do you have on your head? Do you have tail spikes? What about your spines?” 

“Whoa Pops, give us a minute! Calm down, if you want him to shift, why don’t you just wait for those answers once you see him?” Frankie stood up and began leading Pops to our apartment so that we could grab our robes from last night and shift for him. 

“I don’t feel like ruining clothes if I don’t have too, so if you excuse us we’ll change real quick.” I told Pops as I headed to our bedroom, followed by Frankie. “You know you don’t need to shift with me.”

“I know, I’m going to shift after you, I want to see if my wolf makes a difference for your dragon or not.” Her curiosity was getting the better of her. I nodded in agreement, what if my color was just because her power fed my ascension. 

We walked out the full length glass wall once it had opened  for us. I turned my back to Pops and Frankie and dropped my robe quickly shifting first into my wolf, then stretching before gaining some space from them to shift into my dragon. I could see Pops jotting notes down about my wolf form and asking Frankie for more information. I began running towards the treeline before launching myself into the air with one powerful push from my wolf then shifting mid air into my dragon. My wings pumped air under me efficiently as I gained lift then turned to come back and land in front of Pops. I saw Demitri running around the house to join the others. 

“You said you were an iridescent, young man. That is clearly green.” Pops started scribbling.

“Well physically he’s the exact same, let me shift and see if that changes things.” I wrapped my wings around Frankie to shield her nakedness from any would be onlookers. “Jealous?” she asked, I rumbled in response.

Once she dropped her robe and shifted into her wolf I could feel and smell electricity crackle in the air. I looked down at her and back at myself and saw that I had changed and was almost the same color as Frankie. The edges of my scales shown with that slight glow and shifting color that the under coat of her fur does. I folded my wings back revealing Frankie. Pops was writing as fast as he could. He then paced out how long I was from nose to tail, then wing span tip to tip. I had no idea how any of this information was going to help us with the nightmares, or at all, seeing as how he was probably just annotating because he was the historian. 

Demitri stood back scratching his chin. “Frankie, can you perform one of your energy pushes?” he just quietly watched as my mate obliged. I could feel the earth began to pulse with the echo of her energy. My claws tingled and began to glitter as though they were lit from behind. I reared up and lifted off as it became too uncomfortable. As my wings beat down I could feel a new energy, one that I was drawing, from the sky and the wind surrounding me. Frankie shrank down with the force of it. I could see Demitri wave her to stop pushing, then gestured to me to land once more. “Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Go shift and change, we have some things to go over.” the mage headed back in closely followed by a flummoxed Historian. 

I covered my mate as she shifted and pulled her robe on then quickly joined her. As I regained my human form every ounce of energy left my body and I collapsed to my knees. Frankie quickly covered me with my robe, then helped me to my feet. “Come on babe, let’s get inside, and I can see if I can give you an energy boost the same way I helped your head yesterday.” I nodded. She helped me to the couch, then closed the windows and set them to opaque. 

“What are you doing?” I quirked an eyebrow as she came around the couch and sat in my lap.

“Taking advantage of the situation.” she smirked at me as she began to trail her finger tips over my face and through my hair lightly scratching my scalp.

“As much as I want to take you up on this offer, Demitri and your grandfather are waiting, and probably waiting for us in my office.” I could feel my energy returning as my mate played with my hair leaving little tingles all over my skin. 

“Fine,” she grumbled then stood up exposing my frustration. “Hey can’t blame me, I’m good with making them wait.”

I groaned, rubbing my face. My mate is relentless, and I can’t figure out if she’s the tease or if I am. “We are coming right back here as soon as they leave.” I demand. 

“Of course!” she dashes into the bedroom to throw on the dress that she had on earlier, leaving her sandals on the floor. I follow her example and pull my jeans and t-shirt back on, then pad barefoot down the hall to my office.

Demitri is sitting at my desk with all his books spread out, while Pops is madly typing on his laptop. We come into the office and Demitri looks up momentarily to say “What took you so long, you know what, that doesn’t matter.” he looks down pointing at a few lines on one of the pages in his tome. “Look here, this section on dreams and entities.” 

I read the few lines in the passage that he has highlighted, and don’t like anything that I’m seeing. “Dream walker, incubus, djinn, Shadow person. One or more creatures that feed on souls and strong energies. The stronger the magic user the more creatures will be attracted.” I shake my head not understanding. “Okay so what this says is that these things are attracted to Frankie because she’s a magic user? This is like a twisted freddy movie.” 

“I’m not sure myself. Because these creatures only work on one person at a time. And you two are having the dream together, but the entities are only copying Frankie.” He shook his head leaning back in my chair. “What has me baffled the most in this case is the increase in numbers. It went from one copy to thousands. This either indicates desperation, or an increase in your abilities. I want to try warding your house, but in addition I want you two to take turns sleeping.”

“Okay, we can do that. I have work I need to be catching up on anyways.” I agreed. “When do you want to ward the house?”

“As soon as possible would be best, but the problem is I would need every wolf that lives here to be present, their distinct signatures will hinder the ward if I don’t take them into account.”

I smiled then said. “You are in luck, tonight we are having a party for the graduates.”

“Fantastic. I just need to grab a few things, be right back.” The mage bounced up then rushed out my office door, once again opening not on the hallway outside my office, but the strange office with those three strange old women. The door closed and stayed closed for the next two hours while pops continued to type, and Frankie handed him books that he requested. I began reading more on these dream walkers to figure out what we should be expecting. 

“Hey Pops, Frankie.” I paused as they got to a stopping point to give me undivided attention. “I think we may have it wrong, I don’t think that we are dealing with a dream walker. Look at what this page says.” I handed the book to Frankie as Pops stood up to look over her shoulder.

“Drake this is in the demons and demigod section.” Pops points out.

“Yeah I know, I just kept reading, and found that description. But Frankie, look at the picture, that thing right there is what all the copies melted into after we figured out who was the real you. And look at the abilities of this one here, it states that it can copy the human so closely that even the inner animal can be deceived. That’s why your wolf didn’t fight back until you told her too.” I read the description of this one particular nasty that was in the supernatural book. 

Frankie frowned “But Drake, this means that we were never dreaming, our souls were transported to their realm.” The office door slammed open making all three of us jump. “s**t Demi, could you at least knock!”

Demitri was quite agitated “Sorry, something happened.” I looked through the door to his office, I did not like what I saw.

The three old women were laying on the floor horribly mangled, their dark sunglasses missing, and their eye sockets empty scorched pits. “What the f**k!” I dropped the book that I was holding for Frankie and Pops to read, as soon as it hit the floor it burst into flames. I grabbed bottled water off my desh and poured it over the flames, but I was too late, nothing was left except a pile of ash.

“Okay, so um, we should probably go.” Demitri shifted back and forth on his feet. He motioned to stay quiet, and to follow him through the door. I quickly linked my Beta Lock that I would be gone tonight but he should still host the party, then we left everything in my office except for Pops computer and notes. 

Once we were through the door Demitri led us through his office and another door. We found ourselves standing in a cathedral-like room with vaulted ceilings and stained glass windows. Only the windows weren’t the classic gothic pictures that a church would have, these were all images of supernatural and inhuman species. There was a dragon in battle against an entire human army, a werewolf protecting his daughter from a knight with an ax. There were serpents and sirens, elves and pixies, vampires and Mages. It was the history of the council. All peoples under the moon. Under each window was a row of bookshelves, we were standing in the library. 

Demitri broke the silence “This is the expanded council headquarters. I’m sure that you are all familiar with the shifter’s council, well each species has their own council, and all the councils come here to work on bigger problems. Frankie’s family has been a part of this organization for a very long time. They are technically an inhuman race, Hunters, have a unique ability to be able to find any other type of supernatural, and their weakness. The vast records kept here are all created and archived by hunters.” Demitri paused in front of the row of bookshelves that stood under an undefinable dark creature. “This is what we are having to deal with at this point. That book came off of this shelf. Luckily we have a copy. But as you saw with the secretaries this may not be a safe place anymore.”

“Okay, so are we going to talk about the three dead little old ladies? Because I’m freaking out” I pulled my mate to me as she asked about the poor women. 

“They aren’t dead.” Demitri answered.

“No, those women were mangled like a freaking tiger was playing cat and mouse with them!” I shouted.

“Yeah, but they aren’t dead.” Demitri shrugged. “They are the fates, technically they aren’t alive either, they don’t really have a corporeal body, they just sort of create one as necessary. We are actually meeting with them after I grab this book.'' The mage retrieved the tome, then wrapped it in a blue velvet cloth covered in runes and sigils. We then followed him further through the library and down a grand spiraling staircase at the very end. I noticed by the drop in temperature that we were descending into the ground. 

“Damn it, I should have put shoes on.” I muttered. Frankie wrapped her arm in mine, trying to steal some warmth as her dress had very thin straps and was a gauzy material. “Oh man baby, you must be freezing.” I hugged her under my arm trying to share as much body heat as I could.

Shortly we arrived in a long dark hall that was sparsely illuminated with strange glowing orbs. I couldn’t get a good look at them as we passed one in the hall, from what I could see, it was simply a glowing ball, might just be an LED, but from what I’ve seen already, I’m inclined to believe they may be using magic for mundane lighting purposes. Demitri eventually stopped in front of a wholly unremarkable door, and opened it. 

We walked into a room that looked like a cubicle office that could have come out of any insurance commercial. It was a large room, just full of cubicles. Every cubicle had a person busily working on a computer, typewriter, or weirdly a mirror. We stopped at one of the cubicles that was a little larger than the others, it had room for three workstations. As Demitri stopped the three women working at those stations simultaneously turned around. 

“Ladies.” Demitri greeted as he handed the wrapped book to the young woman in the center. They seemed familiar, with dark sunglasses, and older style clothing. They each had a different color of hair, but their faces and body shape all looked the same, like they were sisters, if not triplets. 

As one they answered him, their voices combining eerily. “Demitri Black, what have we found?”

“May we sit? Alpha Drake Masters was holding the copy of this book when it combusted, I feel that he may have found our problem.”

The three women turned to face me, then rose as one unit. “Come with me.” They led us to a corner office with a conference table in the center, just across from their cubicle. “Show us what you have seen young Alpha.” the women held hands and the two women on the end  extended their open hands to me. 

“Like in the book or…” I looked at the women dubiously. 

The one closest to me grabbed my hand, as soon as she did, all my memories over the past two days began looping in my mind. Everything. Every intimate moment I had with my mate, every embarrassing moment over the past two days, was laid bare in my mind, and I knew that those women were watching. I knew that they were scrutinizing everything that happened to me, searching for an anomaly that was out of place. But to me everything was out of place, I just found my mate, and my life has been turned upside down in every way possible. As soon as they were done traipsing through my head I was on my knees on the floor breathing hard with my mate protectively covering me growling at the women. 

“I’m okay, babe, calm down.” I pulled her into a hug while I gathered myself still kneeling on the floor. The women then turned to Frankie, I still couldn’t tell if they were focusing on anything with their dark glasses , but they would just direct their faces in our directions. 

“Daughter of wolves show us what you have seen.” Frankie looked cautiously at their hands and at me, when I grimaced but nodded, she grabbed their hands. And I watched the process from the outside. Her head flung back with her crystal white hair falling even lower on her back, with her spine rigid. Her body raised onto her toes, and her chest looked like she had inhaled a breath but never let it out. She was held in this position for about three heartbeats then she fell forward. I was able to catch her on her way down, and cradled my mate to me.

The fates sat down at the conference table and opened the book to the section that I had been looking at. When the page fell open on the creature that I identified as being in our dreams, I heard Demitri hiss. “Are you sure?” He questioned us.

“Yeah that picture looks exactly like the thing in our nightmare.” I confirmed

“This is bad, no wonder I had to get cleaning service in my office.” He sneered.

“Your union has upset the balance. The Goddess is preparing for a war, and the enemy is trying to prevent her from building your strength. You will be her generals. The veil between our world and the dark has been thinning for a long time, and now we must protect it.” 

I sat down shaking my head. “So what are these things exactly? Demons? Other gods? Us, but in bizzaro land?” 

“They could not survive in our world before, but they have found a way. They are a parasite on our world, they feed on our energies, and they infest our bodies. We become weak, in body, mind, and spirit. Even most demons fear them, and helped us to seal them away. But as the demon's numbers have begun to decrease the other world is coming closer to opening, now that they have the power to live in our world possessing our bodies and feeding on our essence. You were born to protect our world, and your mate was chosen to make you stronger.”

Frankie looked overwhelmed, and sat in the seat next to me. I reached out to stroke her cheek and comfort her. “So what do we do now?” 

Demitri sat down with a grim expression. “Training. We are going to pull the entire full council together for this one. Clearly we need to identify where the veil is thinnest, and we need to stage an army there to destroy these things.” He took an exacerbated breath. “If we can even figure out what harms these things!”

“Well no point in defeating ourselves before we’ve even gotten to that point.” Pops pipped up. “Ladies, how long do we have before the veil breaks?” 

“It will not happen fast, nor all at once, the veil has already begun to weaken, you have already defeated many of them, Daughter of wolves. You can freely travel between worlds, the Goddess has been protecting you from their touch.” 

“So in our dreams? I’ve been traveling to their dimension, and it’s been pissing them off so they try to copy me?” Frankie was frustrated. “So like I’m not going to be able to sleep ever again.”

“No it looks like we will have to figure out what you do while you are asleep that causes you to trigger that trip.” Demitri answered. “For now you can sleep in our guest chambers, they are already warded, and prevent unfocused energy use.”

I sighed, “Looks like I packed too light for this trip.”