He gave a low woof that she swore sounded argumentative, and she sighed. “And you call me stubborn.”
Butting against her, he curled into a ball and snuggled his head in the crook of her shoulder. His ear tickled her nose, but she didn’t mind. Just having him close offered a comfort sorely lacking in this place. Tunneling her fingers through his thick, silky fur, she looked up and noticed the soft glow of those odd lights she’d noticed earlier. “You can’t stay. There’s no place for you here,” she repeated.
Logan gave another forlorn whine, and the lights overhead dimmed. Her eyelids heavy, she drifted off to sleep.
He awoke with a jerk, the memory of Clarissa’s softness pressed against his wolf form slowly melting into the reality of her lifeless body resting next to him. His heart pounding erratically, he stroked his thumb across her lips. They were colder than before. But she was alive. Both here and in that other world that was filled with darkness and death.
He would bring her back. Now that his wolf had tracked its mate, there would be no stopping him. He kissed her before climbing from the bed. He’d fallen asleep in his jeans. Rather than changing into the sweatpants that Fiona had produced for him last night, he walked downstairs as is. Everyone was gathered in the kitchen, including Tanner and Sarah.
“I’ve found her. That fucking monster is keeping her chained up like a prisoner.”
Clarissa’s coven sisters gaped at him. Constance was the first to speak. “Wait a minute. You saw her? How is that even possible?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he admitted. “One minute I was asleep, the next I was inside my wolf, racing through freaky land to catch up with Clarissa’s scent.”
Fiona chewed on her thumbnail, her expression thoughtful. “Your wolf is convinced Clarissa is your mate?”
He nodded, and Fiona and Constance exchanged a look before Fiona finally glanced back at him. “That’s got to be the key. Enough of a bond has been established to link you astrally, granting you admittance in this creature’s realm.” Fiona took a deep breath, her lip quivering. “H-how is she?”
“Scared, obviously. But our Clarissa is one tough nut to crack. She has the strength to fight this thing. And we’re gonna help her.”
Everyone started talking at once. Amongst all the commotion, Tanner lurched to his feet and strode toward Logan. Anxiety rode every inch of the kid’s features. “It took her, didn’t it?”
Logan blinked, taken aback. Tanner started pacing, his hands shoving through his cropped-short hair. “She didn’t tell me it was taking her so soon. I—I thought…shit.”
A gasp shot from Sarah. “Tanner Joe Montgomery. You know better than to cuss in front of a roomful of ladies.”
At the moment, Logan didn’t give two shits if Tanner swore a blue streak. It was the rest of the startling revelation coming from the kid’s mouth that had him interested. “What do you mean she told you?” Why the hell would Clarissa confide in a total stranger when she hadn’t peeped a word to her coven sisters? To him?
Tanner slid a cautious glance in his mother’s direction. It became clear to Logan that the boy was unlikely to say much more in front of her, for some reason. Clamping onto the kid’s shoulder, he prodded him toward the hallway. Once they were safely out of earshot of the women, he backed Tanner against the wall, leveling him with a steely look. “Spill.”
“Th-the thing also tried to contract my soul. I would have done it, too, if she hadn’t stopped me.”
Shit. He dropped his hand from Tanner’s shoulder. He eyed the kid’s ashen pallor, suddenly realizing that a possible source of insider information had just fallen into his lap. “What do you know about this thing that has Clarissa?”
“Just that its name is Seven, and it has about a bajillion fucking personalities.” Tanner slashed a quick look toward the kitchen, his cheeks taking on a guilty flush. “Uh, please don’t tell my ma I said the F word. She’d be running for the Palmolive.”
“What do you mean by personalities?”
Tanner shrugged. “Exactly how it sounds. The thing can appear one way one second and something else the other.”
His mind tracked back to the trucker and the doppelganger. He’d seen the creep walk off with them, along with four others he hadn’t been able to really make out in the fog crawling in off the fiery lake. And now that he thought about it, a couple of those personalities had been at that weird-ass mansion. If he understood Tanner right, all those creatures were the same thing?
He rubbed his jaw, his brain spinning. Hell, he’d never heard anything like it. Still, it didn’t necessarily surprise him. There was plenty of odd shit in the world, the majority of it existing outside the boundaries of most folks’ comprehension.
So basically, it boiled down to them having to battle not one son of a bitch, but several. Jesus. Mimicking Tanner’s earlier move, he rifled his fingers through his hair and burned a path in the hallway runner as he let the ramifications sink in. He returned his scrutiny to Tanner. “Is there anything at all you can remember about this Seven creature that might shed some light on what might kill it? Or at least what could be a weakness we could use against it?”
“Not really. It spent most of the time telling me all the things it could do for me. You know, to convince me to sign the contract. It was pretty damn persuasive too. I almost fell for it.” Shame tinted Tanner’s voice and clouded his eyes.
Remembering the similar expression Clarissa had worn while she’d admitted to her hidden envies, Logan squeezed the boy’s arm. “You can’t beat yourself up over it. None of us are infallible. It’s called being human.”
Tanner frowned. “Actually, that reminds me. I don’t think Seven holds any warm fuzzies where humans are concerned. In fact, I sorta get the feeling it pretty much thinks we’re scum.”
Logan scowled. “What a coincidence. ’Cause I feel the same way about it.”
He spent the rest of the day strategizing a plan. The way he saw it, there was only one option when it came to discovering the way to destroy Seven.
He’d have to go directly to the source.
A little covert spying in that other twilight world just might dig up the dirt that’d put a permanent end to that motherfucker. He’d have to be careful not to alert the creature to his presence, but that shouldn’t be too difficult. The hard part would be staying long enough within the dream state that allowed his wolf free rein over there. He’d only been with Clarissa’s soul roughly an hour. That wasn’t enough time to learn dick. He didn’t trust anything chemical, such as a sleeping pill. Pharmaceuticals tended to have an adverse affect on his shifting. Who knew if they’d produce a similar outcome in the REM state? Best not to risk it.
There was another option—one he’d never personally tried before. Hypnosis.
Kegan had once mentioned that Constance knew how to perform past-life regression, which utilized hypnosis. If she used the same technique on him, she might be able talk his wolf back into that other world and hold him there long enough to find out everything he could to annihilate the monster and bring Clarissa back, safe and sound.
Like anything else, there were risks involved. He’d be under the influence of another, giving him less control of his wolf. But he was racing against time here. Every hour lost took Clarissa deeper and deeper under the command of that fucking thing.
Leaving his mate’s bedside, he went downstairs in search of Constance. God willing, his plan would work.