Mated in Forbidden Read online

  I had nothing against foot fetishes, but the creepy smile and the way he was looking at me made me feel like he wanted to eat my feet.

  “Get the fuck away from me.” I shoved his chest, then realized I couldn’t let him get away, so I jumped at him.

  He twisted, and I landed half on his side, half on his back. I probably looked like a monkey, the way I was clinging to him with my arms and legs.

  He gave me a strange look. “I thought you weren’t interested in reproduction?”

  “Ugh.” I let my feet drop to the ground and pulled on his shoulder, locking my hands around his upper arm. “That is not what this is. I’m taking you down.”

  “Down?”

  “Yeah, obviously.” I used my foot to try to hook his ankle.

  He looked down and then back at my face. There was that creepy-ass smile again.

  “I’m taking you down.” He repeated my words, but didn’t move. “It’s okay. I have all that I need, anyway.”

  I leaned away and stared unblinking at his face, a little afraid of what that was supposed to mean.

  He leaned forward the same amount I leaned back. One second he was in my face, the next he slipped from my grasp and started running. I raced after him, but he was fast.

  Shifters were all great runners, but this was like nothing I’d ever seen before. I was running as fast as my legs could move, and he was losing me. Had we not been in the middle of town, with human eyes watching, I’d have shifted to gain an advantage. But even if I were in my wolf form, I doubted I’d be able to catch up to him.

  He slipped between buildings so I barely caught a glimpse of him before he turned the next corner. Following around, I looked both ways. He was nowhere in sight.

  I ran a little farther, unsure which way he went. I listened.

  Nothing.

  I couldn’t smell him anywhere, either.

  I ran around a bit more, checking the different streets and looking inside business windows. My efforts were to no avail. Dammit, I didn’t want to give up. The last thing I wanted to do was let him go when he was not himself. But after a while, there was nothing left to do but turn back. I headed for my car, picking up the donuts I’d dropped on the ground along the way.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and started a text to Declan.

  Caleb is...

  What was I supposed to say exactly?

  But then I saw the three dots that said he was typing to me.

  A group text came in.

  Eyewitnesses have confirmed sightings in multiple places at the same time.

  Sightings of what? More dots.

  Two Calebs. Be on alert.

  Chapter 17

  Caleb

  Two Calebs. Be on alert.

  I stared at my phone screen, not believing my eyes. There were two of me?

  It was hard to reconcile my inner turmoil with the calm community vibe of Forbidden Hardware. Seniors walked around carrying their donuts and coffee. Construction workers placed orders for lumber with one of our associates. A mom and her kids wandered through the garden area, pointing out all the different flowers.

  But somewhere in Forbidden, a second version of me was on the loose.

  Motherfucker.

  It was hard to believe, but it explained everything. The multiple pregnancies, some with women I hadn’t slept with at all, or at least I hadn’t slept with anytime in the past year.

  So who was this asshole? And how was he walking around convincing people he was me?

  Didn’t know, didn’t care. He’d landed me in a world of trouble and caused pain in the one person I loved more than any other.

  He was going down.

  It was just about time for my lunch break. I doubted I could resolve this craziness in the course of thirty minutes, but it was a fairly slow day here, anyway. I found Brendan, one of the sales associates.

  “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” I said. This way, once I took care of Fake Caleb, I could go straight after Moira and explain everything. She’d hear the truth in my voice when I talked to her about the fake version of me, and she’d hear the truth when I told her about my feelings for her.

  I loved Moira O’Malley.

  Brendan shrugged, looking bored. “Sure thing, boss.”

  “I’m not the boss,” I said, probably for the hundredth time.

  He shrugged again.

  Shaking my head, I left the store. The fake version of myself wasn’t a doppelganger; he was a doppelbanger, and I had to find him before he could make my life any harder than it already was.

  I got in my truck and drove downtown. If I were me, and I was, I would go to The Watering Hole to pick up women. So no doubt, that’s where Fake Caleb would be.

  I came up to Main Street, waited for one of our few traffic lights to turn green, then started forward.

  An SUV approached the intersection from the right. I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. “Shit!”

  The woman driving barely glanced my way. It was Jill. I waved to show her there was no harm—everyone made the occasional mistake, and thankfully no one was hurt. But she didn’t even seem to recognize me.

  There was another woman in the passenger seat. Brianne? I wondered what they were doing together, but maybe it was a follow-up appointment for the new babies.

  Or maybe something else, something sinister, was happening.

  I had to follow them.

  Instead of turning right to go toward The Watering Hole, I turned left to follow Jill and Brianne. They nearly ran over a couple of pedestrians, and I wondered if I shouldn’t call Matt to report them because something weird was happening. But then we were out of town and barrelling down the two-lane road in the direction of the B&B.

  Shit. If they were going to the bed and breakfast, Declan should be warned. Punching his number into my car’s phone system, I waited for him to pick up.

  “You got my text?” Declan asked.

  “Not just that. Two of the moms are heading in your direction, and they’re acting weird. Like, really weird, possibly dangerous. They could go past the B&B, but…”

  “But given this place seems to be the apex of all that is unholy,” he said, then swore. “I’ve been out looking for the fake version of you, but I’m heading home now.”

  “They’re human,” I reminded him. “And they have babies. Be gentle.”

  “Do you think I’m some kind of monster?” he asked.

  “Just reminding you they aren’t monsters, that’s all.”

  He swore and ended the call.

  I was nearly to the B&B. Jill was still ahead of me, and sure enough, she made a rapid turn down the B&B driveway, tires skidding. I followed them down the drive, wondering what on earth could be in store for us next.

  Instead of parking in the gravel lot in front of the building, they drove across the grass, straight past the side of the house, and came to a sudden stop. I parked in the driveway and eased my truck door closed, sneaking forward to get a better look at what they were doing.

  In unison, they opened the rear doors and took the babies out of their carseats.

  Another car approached. I turned, expecting to see Declan, but instead it was a sedan. Sitting in the front were the other two moms. I dodged out of the way just in time as they hurtled past the B&B and parked next to Jill’s SUV.

  Heart pounding with adrenaline, I kept to the edge of the woods, hoping to remain as much in the shadows as possible.

  Movement in one of the B&B windows caught my eye and I saw Daphne inside, watching everything with wide eyes. I waved at her and flashed her a thumb’s up, raising my eyebrows in question. She shrugged and pointed to the moms, all four of them carrying the babies in front of them like they were about to make some sort of twisted offering.

  Oh shit. Was that what this was about? A wave of sickness came over me.

  Not far from the back of the B&B, just on the other side of some bushes, the women stopped walking. I kept going, trying to get a bett
er view of what was going on.

  A man stood there—a man who looked exactly like me.

  He was even wearing the same clothes I had on.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Did I really look like that? The version of me that I saw in the mirror was similar to this, but not exact. He was a bad copy of me. Why did everyone think we were the same guy? This was just offensive.

  Now that I was to the side of them, I could see the moms’ faces. Their eyes glowed softly with a silvery-green light.

  Someone had scorched a circle into the earth, about six feet in diameter.

  “Please,” the fake version of me said. “Place our offspring in the circle.”

  “I don’t think so,” I shouted, jumping forward.

  He laughed and threw out a hand. Something whooshed over me, and I flew back into a tree. My head slammed against the trunk and the world flashed to gray and black. No. I couldn’t lose consciousness. I fought to keep my eyes open and shake off the pain.

  Now that I was down, Fake Caleb wasn’t even looking at me.

  It pissed me off how wholly unconcerned he was with my presence here.

  “Offspring in the circle now, my darlings,” Fake Caleb said.

  One by one, the women did as he asked. Their movements were jerky and automatic, like they weren’t actually thinking for themselves. The babies all seemed to be sleeping, and they barely stirred as they were laid on the ground in their blankets.

  The sounds of vehicles reached my ears—more than just Declan’s truck. Good. I hoped he’d brought extra reinforcements, because this was all kinds of messed up and I didn’t know how to handle it myself. What was going to happen to those babies? So far, they looked okay. But I was glad the pack was coming in, because we could get the babies out and take down Fake Caleb.

  Very faint sounds came from the woods behind me, and then I heard Declan’s voice. “We’re here. What’s the status?”

  Turning around, I saw Declan, Cordelia, Pearl, and Moira. Moira was here. I wanted to take her in my arms and apologize a hundred thousand times.

  Declan smacked me on the back of the head. “Focus. Report.”

  “Babies in the circle,” I said, rubbing my head. “Moms are in some kind of trance. Fake Caleb is...I don’t know.”

  “A doppleganger,” Pearl said. “He—it—must have been one of the entities that escaped the portal before we closed it.”

  “I thought it was magical multiple personalities,” Moira said.

  “You thought that guy was me?” I guessed, to be fair, I’d thought he was me, too. But only because I’d believed I’d impregnated all four women.

  Daphne tapped on the glass of the front window. She held up a flamethrower and shrugged. “Burn it all down?” she mouthed.

  My chest clenched. I shook my head no emphatically. “What about the babies...they’re innocent, right?”

  Pearl waved a hand getting everyone’s attention. “I’ve read up on this. Once we kill Caleb—”

  “Hey,” I said sharply.

  “I mean,” Pearl said, “once we kill Fake Caleb, the babies will be fine. They’ll be normal human babies.”

  “That sounds good, right?” Moira said.

  “If we don’t kill Fake Caleb,” Pearl continued, “the babies will turn into doppelgangers and age to adults immediately. They’ll wreak havoc here or elsewhere, creating more of themselves, just as this douche-hat has done.”

  She pointed at me, but I knew she didn’t really mean me.

  Shit, this was confusing.

  “Whatever we do, we have to be careful,” I said. “He’s got some power.”

  “Not for long,” Cordelia whispered. She took some sparkly dust from her pocket and blew it toward Fake Caleb.

  “What are you doing?” I asked quietly.

  “Reducing his defenses. Now you should be able to attack him,” Cordelia said, nudging me forward.

  Moira spoke up. “The rest of us will get the babies.”

  Taking a deep breath, I ran toward Fake Caleb. He held out his hand again to whoosh me back, but this time it didn’t work. His smarmy smile turned into a frown just before I took a running leap and collided against his side.

  He fell down and we landed in a heap. I wrapped my arm around his throat, trying to squeeze the air from him, but he got some leverage from his position and scrambled free of my grasp. Before I could move, he turned around and threw his hand forward. It didn’t make contact with me, but I felt a whoosh like I had before. Only this time I was already on the ground.

  The power squeezed my chest and lungs. I couldn’t breathe.

  “Caleb!” Moira’s voice rose out.

  I stared at the fake version of me, at his stupid, self-satisfied grin. He really was a douche-hat.

  A moment later, a beautiful gray and white wolf slammed into Fake Caleb. Moira. She was all grace and power and ferocity.

  Someone dragged me away from Fake Caleb’s fight with Moira, and I looked up to see Declan with a grim look on his face.

  “Sorry about this,” Cordelia said before stabbing my arm with a stick.

  “Ow, what the fuck?” I said.

  She took a little vial and held it up to the puncture, collecting some blood. Then she held the vial to my mouth.

  “I am not fucking drinking my blood—” I began.

  “No, spit in it,” she said.

  She was a witch. I didn’t ask questions. Gathering saliva in my mouth, I spit it into the vial.

  Next to her, Pearl was grinding up something with a pestle and mortar. She dumped the contents into the vial.

  “Now we just have to deliver it to Fake Caleb,” Pearl said.

  Moira flew back, gray and white fur rippling past us. She skidded to stillness in a bush. I jumped up to go after her, but before I could reach her, she was on her feet again, snarling at Fake Caleb.

  Fake Caleb didn’t seem to care about her or the rest of us—it was as if he was focused only on the babies unless we interrupted him. The babies’ mothers remained completely still, watching this bizarre ritual with blank expressions on their faces.

  “Will that stuff hurt any of us?” I asked, pointing at the vial in Cordelia’s hand.

  She shook her head. “No, it’ll be harmless to anyone except the doppelganger and its match—in this case, Caleb.”

  “So, if Moira bites him with that stuff on her teeth,” I said, “that would stop him.”

  Cordelia and Pearl both nodded.

  “What do you think, Moira?” I asked, facing her.

  She blinked her green, wolfish eyes at me and came to stand next to us. While Pearl painted Moira’s fangs with the potion, I watched Fake Caleb take a step toward the babies in the circle.

  I didn’t care if those were my kids or not—I was not going to let him hurt them.

  “Hey, douche-hat!” I yelled.

  Fake Caleb turned around. I threw a rock and hit him in the forehead. He grimaced, then returned to smiling and said, “It’s okay, I forgive you.”

  I hated this guy.

  Moira stood next to me, blood dripping from her fangs—my blood. I wrapped my fingers in her fur and whispered, “Let me distract him, then go get him. And remember this: I love you, Moira O’Malley. Your name is a song, your heart makes mine beat. Let’s take down this asshole and make beautiful babies of our own someday.”

  She sent a look of pure love at me, then waited while I shouted at Fake Caleb and threw another rock at him. Before he could recover, I ran forward again and tackled him to the ground.

  “I forgive you,” he said while he threw a punch at my nose.

  I hit him back. “I don’t forgive you.”

  We wrestled around, each of us struggling to get the upper hand. Where was Moira, though? She should’ve come in to bite him. Instead, she was hesitating a few feet away, looking between me and Fake Caleb with uncertainty in her eyes.

  “Why isn’t she coming for him?” I yelled to Declan.

  “Nobody can
tell who is who,” Declan said.

  Pearl spoke up. “Whichever Caleb she bites will be the one who dies forever.”

  Shit, that sounded ominous.

  I hit Fake Caleb in the jaw. “I’m the real Caleb, obviously.”

  “No, I am,” Fake Caleb said. “Don’t kill me, kill him!”

  I hit him again.

  Fake Caleb sputtered, his face in the grass. “Moira, I love you!”

  The fuck? He wasn’t allowed to say that.

  “Moira, you’re the most beautiful creature and I love you so much,” he said. “I know your favorite drink is a Long Island Iced Tea with a splash of raspberry, and I know you lost your tooth in second grade and bled on Miss Spangles’s shirt and then you cried.”

  “How the fuck do you know that stuff about her?” Furious, I yanked him up by his shirt and shook him.

  He ignored me and looked at Moira. “I know that birthmark on your hip.”

  “No,” I growled, punching him in the face. How the fuck could he know that about her? Had he been watching her? I’d kill him. I’d kill him more than once. I’d kill him once, and then have the witches bring him back to life so I could do it all over again.

  He went on, “Let me provide for you, take care of you. Let me be the one to love you,” he went on.

  “Okay, that’s nothing like me,” I said, pulling back a fist. “Not that I’m not a nice guy.”

  Shit. What if she bit me because I wasn’t nice enough?

  She looked between us, her wolfish eyes evaluating. Then she darted forward and bit Fake Caleb in the ass.

  Fake Caleb’s smile disappeared, replaced with a grimace of pain and surprise. It happened as if in slow motion. His eyes remained open in shock. He toppled to his knees.

  The nearest baby was too close. Fake Caleb was going to fall forward onto the infant. I shouted and ran to it, scooping the baby out of the way just in time.

  Fake Caleb fell with a splat. Whatever potion Moira had bitten him with was fast-acting, and he was turning to mush before my very eyes. His skin bubbled like hydrogen peroxide in a wound.

  If Moira had guessed wrong, it could’ve been me turning into a bubbling blob of flesh. I shuddered.