Mongrel [bxb] | Bad Moon Book III

Chapter 15: coyote

The dreams came rapidly, one after another after another. In some of them, Bailey was standing in a clearing, masked in concentrated moonlight. His face morphed into an anthropomorphic creature—the snarling, wrinkled muzzle of a leering wolf. Long, red tongue and flesh-hungry hook for teeth. 

Sometimes Matt didn't dream of Bailey at all—sometimes he dreamed of himself. That he was staring down at a set of broken wrists—the bones numb and snapped, protruding through the ivory flesh, his hands nothing but two detached weights at the end of his arms. 

Sometimes Matt dreamed that they were standing at the door of Bailey's barn, pale in the motion lights. He dreamed Bailey kissed him against the wet wood, snapped apart the buttons of his shirt and floated a pair of tan fingers up the bare flesh of his stomach. He dreamed that purple-black flowers bloomed on his skin like a rot. Everywhere Bailey touched, bruises blossomed.

When Matt couldn't stand to dream anymore, he stopped sleeping.

His father knew about the video. Though they hadn't spoken about it, Matt was certain. Jack Richards—who usually came home in his cruiser, whistling songs from his time—walked instead with thoughts behind his eyes and hands in his pockets. He didn't look Matt's way when he happened to be out in the field with the cows. He didn't call him in for the occasional dinner, or a beer come Sunday night.

A week passed since Bailey had left. Since Jess had moved out. Since his dad had chosen to forget he existed. And still, every time Matt stepped outside, the crows came. They landed on his shoulder and his arms and the hood of his jacket, and when he shook them off, they scattered to the ground at his feet and followed, tiny hopping shadows. He didn't understand their fascination—not until Monday evening when he sat at Quentin's table, still dressed in his work jacket. The alpha slid a photo toward him of a tall, muscled soldier with buzzed hair and a confident smile. The same man he'd seen in the passenger seat of his Wrangler, the day of the crash on i5. A black bird stood on his left shoulder.

"That was him?" Matt asked.

"That was him," Quentin said. "Thomas Neely."

"His name wasn't Raven?"

"Everyone called him Raven. He had an odd fascination with crows, ravens, black cats. All the dark, unlucky things. But the ravens knew him like a brother. Flocked to him everywhere he went. Was never a party he was at without a black bird on his shoulder."

"So he's stuck in me," Matt said, sliding the photo closer. "Like your wolf's stuck in you?"

"According to Devi, he's using you as a vessel to pass over. Likely, there's something he's trying to accomplish. And once he has, he'll be gone and it'll just be the wolf."

"That's good, at least." Matt thumbed the ink on the photo, his chest heavy with a perpetual ache. He was growing used to it, but sometimes it felt like he was being anchored down by the ribs. Tired, always.

Quentin seemed to see it in him. There was a difficult moment where he looked as if he was seizing words and releasing them again into his thoughts when he felt they weren't the right ones. Eventually, he settled on something easy to digest. "I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't see it. I see everything, but I didn't..." The alpha paused again, those words floating off. Silence climbed into his hard-set jaw and eased again when Quentin let out a vocal sigh. "It's different with Bailey to begin with, but if he was ever lying, he did well not to show it."

"What do you mean?" Matt asked. "Is he different?"

"Very different," Quentin said. "Have you ever heard of coywolves?"