***

Jack held Meryl by his fur with both hands, although the young wolf wasn’t running fast enough to warrant such expressions of anxiety. Danny must have defeated the witch, but why weren’t Theo and Vee showing up in his cards anymore? He needed to look worry-free for Danny’s and Ryder’s sake, especially since Ryder’s dad had been badly injured and all, but it didn’t mean that he felt the same way on the inside.

It was just like they said. In order to be successful, you had to project an image of success. And to become worry-free, well, you had to show that you had no worries. It was really that simple.

Only it wasn’t working.

It seemed like they had been through this forest round and round without any success. They had seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing.

The mystery was deepening. What if Cassandra wasn’t dead-dead? But he himself had made sure to pound her head in with his crystal ball. She had seemed pretty damn gone. Jack shivered only thinking about it. He wasn’t big on violence, but he had definitely beaten a dead horse. A dead witch, actually.

He tipped his head back and stared at the moon. She had been a great ally, intervening at the right moment, but she still had a little way to go until she was full for real. Jack couldn’t say how he knew that the round celestial body throwing its gentle rays over them wasn’t a full moon, but it seemed with great power also a lot of knowledge came from he had no idea where.

“What was that?”

Meryl slowed down. “What was what?”

The other wolves running with them were pretty far ahead now, but only because Jack insisted that Meryl didn’t run as fast as he could.

“You have these cute dog ears,” Jack said, pulling on one to make his point. “You should have better hearing than I do.”

“What are you hearing?”

Jack perked his ears up, although he wasn’t a dog. It was a soft hum, like a song… no, like a lullaby. A creepy one, although Jack didn’t understand what the low voice was saying. Maybe it was one of those made up of nothing but gibberish.

“The song, Meryl,” he insisted.

The wolf dropped under him as if hit by a spell. Jack yelped and jumped off his back. He pushed against the fluffy fur with both his hands.

“Hey, Meryl,” he whispered, stealing nervous glances around, “don’t be dead or something. Was it the creepy lullaby? Did it do you in?”

The wolf’s body seemed warm, but Jack didn’t know enough about wolf biology to assure himself beyond a doubt that Meryl was still alive. Should he check his paw for a pulse?

“We’re in the middle of a dark forest, with witches crawling about,” Jack murmured as he brushed one hand over Meryl’s damp muzzle. He seemed to be breathing. The creepy lullaby must have made him fall asleep like a log.

It had been his decision to join the wolves in their search for Theodore and Vince, so he had no one to blame for this situation but himself. But could he stand aside when such things were happening? Especially since the two guys were destined to be with him, no matter what Vince had to say.

Well, it looked like Meryl wasn’t in any immediate danger. Jack would never forgive himself if anything happened to the puppy.

Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t afraid. Actually, only after a little bit of self-reflection, Jack was finally realizing that he was pretty worried. That thing about projecting being worry-free didn’t work. Self-improvement books lied, every one of them.

“So, what do you think about all this?” he asked, looking at the moon.

She, at least, had to have a few things to say. Jack was about to insist, when he felt the ground rumbling beneath his feet.

“Oh, great,” he barely got out before he was pulled under.

***

The human guardian had seen something in those symbols, but because he was only a mere human, it was impossible for him to understand them. Still, it was progress, and Theodore wasn’t willing to ignore it just because fate had happened to pair him with such unlikely allies.

Whatever it was that had caught them in this web had to be near. Theodore didn’t doubt it, although he didn’t say it to Vince. While he didn’t appear to be as annoying as the field mouse, the guardian would have his own questions, and Theodore had no answers.

Soon enough, an enemy would come for him. The human was here only because of his own stupidity. Although Theodore would feel hard pressed to pretend that he hadn’t felt an unnatural jolt of protectiveness upon seeing Vince being threatened by Cassandra.

Cassandra the clairvoyant. One thing was sure; she was more than just a clairvoyant. She had powers that must have been granted by something deep and evil that throve on the destruction of wolf packs.

Was Asherman’s pack being destroyed while Theodore was trapped in here with no possibility of using his claws and fangs? It made his blood boil, not because he intended to lend a helping hand to that pack and its alpha, but because he had lived with only revenge as the goal of his soul for too long.

“I think there’s something--”

Vince didn’t finish speaking. A rumble and a crash ensued, then a groan of pain.

“What the heck is this place? Can someone turn on the light?”

Of course. The field mouse. Theodore was beginning to wonder whether that was really his curse: to meet the same annoying city clairvoyant over and over. Vince’s talk about the possibility of having that cinnamon-smelling human as a mate was ludicrous.

Yet, he kept popping up everywhere.

“Hello. I’m your new neighbor,” Jack drawled the words. “I have a welcome basket full of goodies.”

“Jack, what are you doing here, too?” Vince asked.

“Ah, Vee, I found you! Boy, am I glad,” Jack chirped. “Although there’s a tiny little problem we have to deal with. Do you have the key to this place by any chance?”

“Even if I did, I don’t have a hand to use it,” Vince replied. “How did you manage to land here?”

“Oh, it’s a whole story. Danny confronted the witch and I helped. Even hit her in the head with the crystal ball and all. Although she might have already been dead by then. Just saying.”

“That’s great news,” Vince exclaimed. “Pembroke, are you listening? Danny defeated Cassandra.”

“Is Theo here, too?” Jack asked in an excited voice. “Damn, those cards must be so right. I mean, obviously. The three of us have to do stuff together. And by that, I mean adventuring, lifting curses, all of that. Nothing of that other stuff, though. No, no siree bob.”

Theodore could feel a headache threatening to split his head in two, which was unfathomable, seeing he had no head to speak of at the moment.

“You say Cassandra was defeated. Speak, clairvoyant,” he boomed.

“And what do you think I was doing until a minute ago? Singing?” Jack countered. “Speaking of thinking, I was riding through the woods, riding a wolf I mean, minding my own business, which was to find you two, and bang, a creepy lullaby like one in a horror movie started playing, and bang, I no longer had a ride, because my wolf fell asleep.”

“What wolf?” Theodore growled. “And your wolf? Are you sleeping with a mutt from the Luna’s Sentinels?” He felt his anger choking him. Just imagining that field mouse cozying up to one of the many wolves around was enough to enrage him. Whatever the clairvoyant was, he was his. He belonged to Theodore Pembroke of Whiteflame.

“No, I don’t sleep with anyone. I sleep alone, for your information,” Jack said. “He was just this cute puppy who offered to help me search for you.”

“I believe Theodore is a bit jealous,” Vince commented without hiding his glee.

“You two,” Theodore boomed, obtaining silence for a change. “Are in the cards. With me.”

“Do you believe it now?” Jack asked. “Do you think Theo hit his head, Vee? Wait, when did I say--”

“You and the guardian both,” Theodore warned him in his growling voice. “You two belong to me.”

“Right. Possessive,” Jack commented. “You could say it nicer, though. Like, let me think. Oh, yes. We’re destined to be together. Okay?”

Theodore said nothing. Although he had to protect his field mouse, he was beginning to wonder how much strangling he could get away with.

TBC