Prologue
Mori’s Journal
His name is stuck in my head. Ever since Venal spoke it to me. It’s as if he tattooed it on my hippocampus. Now I dream of bears of every sort. Bears aren’t new to my dreams. My carrier and my twin are bears. A lot of my siblings are bears. My namesake was a bear but now all the bears in my dreams are sexy and cuddly and sometimes walk around on their hindlegs, carrying swaddled babies. I haven’t looked HIM up. I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know what he’s doing today. It shouldn’t bother me. Nothing should bother me about this except maybe for the fact Sharon Claudis is still at large in ghost form and that she’s likely to resurrect herself if I don’t figure out how to stop her. Only, now she’s tied up with all the craziness, and I can’t go where she is. I should visit Dern. I don’t want him to think I’ve forgotten about him but mostly I want to be home. I thought about taking the Other World gateway to the Appalachian Wolf Pack Territory and stopping to see Teddy and Ni before taking the train home, but I just want to be home. Maybe seeing the babies will help. I doubt it. Now that my wolf knows where HE is he thinks about wolf cubs all day long. I think I might go into heat soon. I should get a jab for that to ensure that I don’t enter some desperate hormone driven state and yeet myself into HIS arms. I don’t think I would but then again, I never thought I’d know who my true-mate was and be able to stay away.
I’m not sure what the universe wants of me. I can’t go where the ghosts in question are and yet all my problems revolve around them. I should probably take Snowy for a walk. Maybe wandering around Moonscale London will let me figure it out. The plan for tomorrow is to go home. Maybe I’ll work in the shop for a while. Maybe I’ll become a hermit and live in a cave. Maybe I’ll run away to the--- I’ve got to stop this. I’m exhausted from keeping the book---
Wait! It’s hard to keep my focus. I still have THE book. That’s why I can’t go home. That’s why I’m still here and not visiting Teddy and Ni or holding Preston’s babies. I can’t take the book there. We don’t know everyone who descends from Roster Moonscale ‘secretly’ and I don’t want to rile up his dead ghost mate, Ferrick, any more than he’s already riled up. Okay. Maybe I should nap before I take Snowy for a walk. Yeah. That’s probably for the best. I hope HE’s okay. I hope HE is having a better day than me and getting more restful sleep too. I hope HE knows someone can’t stop thinking about him and that makes the world a bit brighter.
Chapter1
Eran
Guardians of Glitter Bomb Territory
With only hours to go before Bernard and Nashen’s move out party, I headed to The Cuddle Club. I needed to be squashed under someone giant and furry until all my frustration at the pregnant lynx squelched out of me. I’d never extend my claws and whack him one, but my cat was close. Super close. He might be the bigger cat, but my inner beast grew up wrestling with my Ursidae siblings. Still, Nashen was pregnant and seemed to hate everyone except Bernard, his parents, and my little brother, Jacand. I wasn’t sure why he tolerated the latter so well, but that was the situation at the apartment. I’d miss Bernard. He’d been a decent roommate and he was tidy. Still, I wouldn’t be sad to see them go. Jacand thought he was moving in with me but until he was old enough to have a job and pay rent he could stay with the mixed colony of bears, lions, and cats that were our immediate family. I adored the kid, but if I found one more piece of mouse on the floor—
I stopped and gave myself a good mental shake before I walked into The Cuddle Club. I didn’t want word getting back to my parents that I looked any more stressed out than usual. I loved them but they had enough kids to take care of without worrying about my grown ass.
“Nashen is an omega. A pregnant omega,”I told my cat as he lounged on a high branch of a tree inside his inner sanctum.“And he seems to think that we are going to eat him.”
My cat went on a mini monologue about how that was exactly what he was going to do if the lynx didn’t put his balls on ice as I walked inside. The bell above the door chimed. The GGB now boasted four Cuddle Club locations, but the original had always been my favorite. I grew up in and out of the place so much that it might as well have been my second home.
It was Jeran, the owner himself, behind the reception desk that morning. He yawned and waved to me, glancing down at the schedule which I wasn’t on.
“One squash please,” I joked with him in lieu of hello.
“That bad, huh?” he teased. “Let’s see. All the regulars are booked up this morning, but we have a new bear. He weighs in at over eight hundred pounds shifted. Squashed enough for you?”
“I’ll put him through his paces,” I nodded and handed off my tote bag to Jeran. I could’ve taken it back to the room with me, but I’d forgotten more than once after a good squash. Most of the big shifters who worked here knew me and had gotten over their hesitancy to plop down and squish me but new cuddlers were always leery of my request.
“Amorti!” Jeran waved to a man sitting on one of the plush floral sofas reading what looked to be a graphic novel about ghostly serial killers.
“If he only knew Ferrick was on the loose,”my cat chimed into my thoughts.
I shushed the furball as the man stood up. He was tall and broad. Definitely an alpha bear. He even had that thing down where they sniff when they hear their name as if deciding whether to eat you or not. He had dark brown hair, and his eyes were those of his bear. His hair was pulled up into a bun on the top of his head and his feet were bare.
“Got your first client here,” Jeran said. “Eran’s an easy one. Fifteen minutes of squash and then rub his temples until his single feline brain cell exits stage left.”
Amorti glanced at me to see if Jeran was funny or offensive. Jeran was a lion and my eldest brother’s mate.
“He’s a cat too,” I shrugged at the bear.
“I’ve never played squash before. I didn’t know you had a court here…” he said and I waited for him to laugh.
“Oh, no. No team or competitive sports for me. I played junior soccer for a season but scratched the crap out of another kid when he stole the ball from me when I was on a roll. Forgot I was playing soccer. Squash is I shift and you shift and you lay on me. Deep pressure therapy and all of that.”
I waited for him to ask if it was safe like most new cuddlers did, but the bear just shrugged and jerked his head for me to follow him. He led me down the familiar hallway and into one of the smaller cuddle rooms. Most of the larger rooms were booked up weeks in advance by couples or small groups. I kicked off my shoes and pulled my shirt over my head before hanging it on a coat hook. Then I set to work arranging the mat and the blankets just the way I liked them.
“Do you have a safeword or safemeow if you’re too squashed? I’m not on the group link. Just moved here and I’m not sure if I’m staying,” Amorti said while I worked out the issue with the blanket that would not go the way I wanted to no matter how many times I moved it.
“I’ve never needed one. Oh! Speaking of knead. Sometimes I knead while I’m squashed is that okay?” I asked without looking up at him.
“That’s fine, but how will I know if you’re suffocating?” the bear asked.
I stopped fiddling with the blankets and stopped to think. I looked up at him from where I crouched and wondered where he was from. Bears came from all over the world but his accent was a bit more southern than I noticed at first.
“Stop if you feel teeth?” I shrugged.
