Howl (Lost Moon: Unravelling Monsters Universe #2)

Chapter 15

15

brONTE

O ne minute I’m in West’s car, listening to him rant about the First and the universal glamour, and the next I’m falling, overwhelmed by the sensation. It stops as suddenly as it starts, and I’m laying on my back in a bedroom I don’t recognise, staring at the ceiling high above me. Another vision. Fuck. I haven’t even told him about the one from last night yet.

I push away the flash of guilt I feel over that — because if there’s a line to be drawn regarding sex when I’m in a vision, I think I skirted pretty close to it — and focus on orienting myself here .

West . I recognise his scent immediately, a delicious, heavy layer that is stronger than any of the other scents present, and when I turn my head, the pillow rustling beneath my ear, I’m not at all surprised to find him here in bed beside me. He’s laying on his side, staring, a thoughtful expression on his face that I can’t quite decipher.

We’re out of glamour; it’s dark in here, wherever here is, and the half moon hangs low in the sky outside the window, but I can see perfectly well. He looks almost exactly the same as the West I was just with, but his hair is cut shorter, and there’s a smattering of greys at his temple, silver flecks among the dark brown. It’s so fascinating to see him like this, having also seen him when his hair is very much more salt than pepper. I don’t know why fate is doing this to me — mapping out a future, leaving tiny breadcrumbs for me to follow — but from the start, every glimpse I’ve ever had of West has felt like a gift, warming my heart and setting my body aflame. I can’t help but skim my eyes over his big biceps and strong shoulders, and the sight of his muscular chest and the peek of washboard abs I can see above the comforter that covers us both turns me on as it always does. I can still hear his voice as he spoke into my ear last night, declaring I was so fucking wet for him. I was, just as I am now.

Mate, my wolf says, recognising that I’m here from the past, reassuring me that this is all okay, reminding me that he’s the same man, the same wolf. My mate and husband at every point in time.

He’s still wearing that same look on his face.

“Hi,” he says, his lips twitching with the barest hint of a smile. I freeze, because just like last night, he said that as if —

“I know , Bronte. I know you’re the past version of you right now. It’s always a nice surprise when you pop in for a visit.”

My mouth falls open in shock, and for a moment the only sound in the room is our heartbeats — his slow and steady, and mine a rapid staccato. “You know? ” I whisper. “How can you know? How…?”

He is smiling now, eyes full of amusement. “I almost always know, sweetheart. You’re my mate. I know you . Come here, let me hold you.”

My breath is shaky, and I stay in place here on my side of the bed — the same side I ended up on the first night and have kept in the days since. He knows?

Visions are supposed to feel different from this. I’m usually a passenger in my own body, with the future version of myself moving my limbs, walking in the direction of her choosing, speaking the words she intends to say. I watch life through her eyes as she lives it. I feel it all, but I’m not an active participant in it.

Except I’m beginning to realise that this has begun to change, the first instance being when I spoke to our son and he responded to what I said, and then at the beach last night with the much older West. I’d been controlling my body in that vision, as much as I tried to tell myself otherwise, and here it is the same. The version of me from this time is still here, but she’s now the witness, the passenger in the backseat.

I don’t know what the rules are around this. What does it mean if these are more than just visions? What are the implications if I do something here, or if I tell West, or —

“Bronte.” I’ve been staring out at the moon through the window, but my gaze snaps back to West at the sound of my name spoken in that commanding tone of his. I feel like I can’t act normal about this at all. He knows already, anyway. “Stop spiralling. Breathe,” he orders, and I listen, sucking in deep lungfuls of air. “ Keep breathing . You’re safe here. Listen to your wolf. She knows.”

She does. She knows we’re okay. Her instincts — my instincts — have never led me wrong.

“Come here,” he says again, still the same bossy man that I love. I sort of laugh-sob, caught between relief and fear over this new magic, and scoot closer to him, until he’s gathering me up in his big arms, holding me tight. I close my eyes, listening to the steady beat of his heart under my ear, breathing in his scent. Absorbing his calm.

“Is that the bond?” I whisper, the sensation strange and yet reassuring and right all at once. I’m suddenly aware of the mating scar on my shoulder again, the magic of our bond buzzing beneath my skin. West himself is in my heart, his feelings settling there as if he belongs, which he does. A fated, bonded pair — that’s what we are here at this point in time, whenever this point happens to be. “Am I filling you up with dread and panic right now?” I ask, realising that if I can feel his calm, he must feel my stress. “I am, aren’t I? Goddess, I’m sorry.”

I love all the sounds of his laughs — the sharp barks when I catch him off guard and say something he finds particularly funny, or ones like this now, a deep chuckle that rumbles through my head. “It’s fine, Bronte. You’re allowed to be shocked by what’s happening to you.”

I pause for a moment, trying to work out how best to articulate how I’m feeling. “It’s one thing to have no control over what I see , but this feels as if my whole being has been thrust into the future. Am I even back there at all? Am I dead?”

“No! Jesus fucking Christ , don’t say shit like that. You’re the one who always says words have power.” He squeezes me tighter, pressing his mouth and nose to my hair, inhaling deep. “Whenever you do this, it’s always the same on the other end. You’ll be blank… unconscious.”

“I’ll be giving you a fright.”

“Yes, I bet you are. I’m trying to work out when you’re from.” His hand strokes down my back, rubbing circles through the fabric of the top I’m wearing.

“You could just ask me,” I say. “Why are we wearing clothes in bed?” He’s got underwear on, my knee brushing the edge of what I assume are boxer briefs as I settle my leg over his.

“I have a feeling you’ll find out soon enough. Go on then, tell me what’s happening in your world right now.”

“We’re in the car...” I trail off as it dawns on me how dangerous it could be to have one of these episodes while on the move. I don’t know how to drive a human vehicle, but what if I was behind the wheel?

Recognition dawns on West’s face. “You’re in the car, driving down from the redwoods, and we’ve known each other for five days,” he says.

I tilt my head to look at him. This close, I can see the odd grey in his stubble, too. He is so breathtakingly handsome. “How did you know?”

“Because I’ve lived it. You went blank and slumped over in your seat. It scared the shit out of me and I almost crashed. Then you came back to yourself, and told me about this conversation that we’re having right now. I’m embarrassed it’s taken me so long to figure out when you’re from, but in my defence, it’s a real mindfuck whenever this happens.”

“You’re telling me!? ”

“I’m telling you that it’s okay,” he says, one corner of his mouth pulling up in a smile. “I’m just having one of these cyclical moments. This isn’t the first time I’ve had this type of conversation with you, about knowing that you’re essentially beaming in from the past — time travelling , for lack of a better term — but I think this is the first time you’ve realised that this is what’s happening to you.”

I stare at him, trying to process all of this. “I’m not imagining it, am I? I’m truly interacting with you. This isn’t my mind playing tricks?”

“You’re not imagining it.”

I shake my head again, still trying to wrap my head around it. “I never had this as a child,” I say. “I’ve never had this before. I usually observe visions through my eyes, but I’m not part of them. And sometimes I’m not even there! I just see the vision, but my body isn’t present in the scene I’m observing.”

“I know. This is different. What you’ve described just now are three different phenomena, all powered by the same type of divination magic, but manifesting in unique ways. Or at least, that’s what my wife tells me,” he says, smirking. “There’s a fourth type that you practise now, too — tea reading, with numbers.”

“I do not do tea reading.” He can’t be serious, not when I’ve always hated the practice.

“You do. These days you practise all the divination arts that you can because you need to, Bronte. It’s helping you to learn to control this.”

I stare back out at the moon. “What is the purpose of these visions?” I ask. “What is fate trying to do?”

“We don’t know. Perhaps there’s no purpose, except to spice up our life, not that it needs it.” He grins, sharp canines on display.

“ Weston. What are you implying?” I ask the question, but I know what he’s getting at. He’s talking about sex in this context . “This is a lot to process.”

He brushes my hair back from my face. “How does your wolf feel? She always knows what’s going on. The you from this time is still here inside you, and your wolf seems to bridge that somehow.”

It’s true. I can feel the version of myself that belongs in this time in the back of my mind, and my wolf has always known more about the future than I have, whenever I’ve had these visions. She’s calm and happy to be here with West, our mate, our husband. He’s safe. He’s our home. “She’s content,” I say.

“Good.”

“She’s happy I’m in your arms.”

He laughs quietly. “That’s a good segue into my next question. Do you think past me — the man you just came from — is happy for me , right here, right now, to fuck you?”

I pull back from him, my gut churning. “That’s a loaded question. Can you not ask yourself that? If you’re talking about past you, isn’t that just you? You were that man, and now you have… X many years added on top of that?”

“Six years. And you’re right, I already know the answer. You tell me every vision you have. I’ve got a follow-up question: what’s going to happen when you appear in a vision and the future version of you is trapped on my knot?”

“Has that happened? ”

“No, but it could.”

Goddess.

“You don’t have to answer it now,” he says, “but I’ll tell you this. I don’t care. You’re my mate in any time or place, in any realm, in any year. It’s your heart and soul that’s mine, and to me there’s no difference whether you’re visiting from the past, or you’re the woman that’s been along for the journey. And no, you’ve never appeared and found yourself knotted, but we both know what I was doing to you in that vision before you even met me in real time. You will have sex with me when you’re… time travelling, for lack of a better term. I’m not going to tell you when, that’ll ruin all the surprises. I think you need to go back to your version of West and have this conversation with him, for your own reassurance.”

I think about what he’s saying for a moment. “Don’t you already know whether I do go back and have this conversation?”

He grins. “I did say before that this all feels very cyclical.”

“You don’t care if your mate comes back and says ‘ I’ve just had sex with a different version of you ’?”

“A future version of me. The way I see it, it’s delayed gratification. You can go back to your own time and ride my cock while you tell me all about it, and then I can look forward to living that experience myself some time in the future. This isn’t normal , Bronte, but you’re not normal. You’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever met. I’m not comparing us to other couples… I don’t give a shit about what others would do. This is about how you and I define things. Besides, that vision you had before you ever met me, where I finger fucked you? I thought about that for years after you told me about it. Jerked off to it in the shower every once in a while. I think I focused on it because I knew that for you, it was the first time I’d ever touched you. That vision finally happened last year — I could tell when past you appeared — and fuck , I’ve never come so hard as I did that night.”

My cheeks are flaming hot, and I pull the comforter up over my head, hiding my face. He laughs loudly, and for the briefest moment I feel a flash of annoyance from the other me — the version of myself who exists in this body. It makes no sense, but then I hear West say, “Ah, shit, ” and I pull the blankets back down.

“What?”

“I was too loud. Have you met Lacey before?” I shake my head as he continues. “Of course you haven’t; you’ve barely had any visions yet. That one that you had of you pregnant? This is her, our second child.” He gestures to the door, and I can hear the sound of little footsteps approaching quickly. “Here she comes in three, two, one…”

The door, not properly closed in the first place, creaks open. A tiny little girl stands in the hallway, her big eyes reflecting the light from the moon outside the window, a stuffed teddy bear clutched in her hand.

“Mama, can I come sleep in your bed?”

Oh my goddess.

My heart is melting, bursting, growing too large for my chest. I stare at her perfect little face — round cheeks and button nose, wispy dark hair and beautiful amber eyes — and I’m frozen, tears blurring my vision.

“Come on up, baby girl,” West says, and I realise too late that she was waiting for a response from me. She’s already clambering up the side of the bed, slightly unsteady on her feet once she reaches the top, and for a moment I worry she’s going to topple backwards and onto the floor. Instead she half-runs over my legs, diving at us, a surprisingly solid little thing. I get accidentally whacked in the face by the teddy as she wedges herself between West and I like she’s done this a hundred times before, which, judging from West’s resigned look, she has.

She’s already yawning, burrowing under the blankets, saying “Wanna cuddle you , Dada,” a tiny little ball of a person tucked against West’s chest. Just like her brother, who must be down the hall, her scent is a perfect mix of werewolf and shifter. She’s a perfect mix, my little wolf. My baby.

I wipe at my eyes but fresh tears keep falling. It’s one thing to see West, but to meet our children, and to see West like this , being a father…

He reaches over with his free hand, brushing the tears from my cheeks with his thumb. Our little girl is already asleep, her breaths even, her tiny hand relaxed where it lays on West’s chest.

“ Lacey? That’s her name?” I whisper. “Is she a daddy’s girl, then? She went straight to you.”

He nods. “She is,” he replies, just as quiet. “I don’t know why; I don’t deserve the honour.”

“You do ,” I insist.

“I forgot I was supposed to try and keep her name a secret. When you go back and wake up, it’s one of the things we discussed — what you will discuss. I promised to try to not tell you, to test the bounds of this magic, and yet I just did. It gives credence to the idea that we can’t change things, even if we try.”

“This is why I’ve never enjoyed getting these visions. For starters, I don’t know what I’ll see.”

“You don’t enjoy this? Coming to see us?”

“You know I love seeing you. And look at her; she’s perfect.” I blink back more tears. “You really think things can’t be changed? Not that I want to change this, this is wonderful.”

“I would have preferred if she’d stayed in her own bed,” he quips, before shaking his head. “As far as I’m aware, it’s set in stone. Everything you ever see comes to pass eventually. It’s fate.”

“But why? Why am I having so many visions now?” I whisper. It is fate — fate and magic, tied together. I don’t know why fate is sending me here — is there a reason why I’m lying here in a bed of mine in the future? “I should be asking you about the stone! It only just occurred to me.”

His lips curl in a wry smile as he huffs, amused. “This is exactly how you described this vision to me. It’s all so fucking cyclical.”

“ West. ”

“They’re all connected — the alpha, the witch, the stone, the pixies, Elliot, Anita. Don’t trust her; she’s not your ally here. Anita’s new project, the loft apartments in SoHo. That’s where you need to go, two days from now. 6.15pm EST — that’s New York time, sweetheart. Book a room at the Ritz, portal there, use it as your base. Take Sam with you. Give them hell.”

“Weston.”

“I love you. I’ve loved you from the start. Please remember that, even when I’m an asshole, even when people try to tell you that I don’t. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m so fucking proud of you.”

“West!”

I can feel myself going, and for the first time I try to stay longer. West does something , pushing feelings at me through the bond we have in this time, my soul filling with the most overwhelming feeling of love . “I love you too!” I whisper desperately.

“I know you do.” He strokes my cheek, concern crossing his features. “You need to come clean about the Maheras Stone, Bronte. I need to know.”

“ Wait! ”

I gasp, eyes open to the bright of day, West’s worried face hovering over me as I lay sprawled over his lap in the front of the car.

“Thank fuck you’re back,” he growls. “Don’t ever do this to me again.”