Ghosts of Halloween Past (A Shifter Chronicles Story, Sequel to Blind Devotion), page 1
Ghosts of Halloween Past
A Shifter Chronicles story
Blind Devotion sequel
M.D. Grimm
Ghosts of Halloween Past
A Shifter Chronicles story
Blind Devotion sequel
By M.D. Grimm
Cover Art: Catt Ford
Copyright 2021 M.D. Grimm
Smashwords Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Note to Readers
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
About This Book
About M.D. Grimm
Other Titles by M.D. Grimm
Connect with M.D. Grimm
Dedication
For the fans who wanted to read more about Jack and Travis’s past friendship, this is for you. Enjoy!
Note to Readers
This story takes place after both Hearts and Minds (#5.2) and Red Sun (#14 coming early 2022).
This is an insular story, focused on the relationship dynamic between Jack and Travis, and does not impact the series plot as a whole.
Chapter One
True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.
~Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Nineteen years earlier
“Come on, Homer, you afraid of ghosts?” Dirk said. The sneer was evident in his voice. Dirk was one of five idiot guys in their group. There were two girls as well, because idiocy knew no gender.
Yet Travis stood there, one of them. What did that say about him? He should really listen to his roommate, Delilah, more often.
Travis didn’t even bother to sigh. At least they were educated when it came to their nickname for him: Homer, the blind poet who wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey. They knew about his yen to write and took full advantage of the seeming irony of a blind man writing.
Travis crossed his arms over his chest and wished, not for the first time, that he could glare at them. One full year and a birthday after arriving in Haven, Montana, the town founded by shifters for shifters, and these were the best friends he could scrounge up? Not that he wanted friends, not really. He wanted revenge for his family… and his blindness.
“Leave him alone, assholes,” Jack said. Travis tilted his head slightly toward the wolf shifter. He had a good voice, strong and just a little rough. It was a sexy voice, he’d give the wolf that much. And ever since Travis had set foot in Haven, Jack seemed to have taken an interest, regarding himself as Travis’s protector. Travis resented it.
“Chill out, Jack.” Travis flicked a hand in the air. “I’m not a helpless cub in need of a protector. As I’ve told you before.”
Jack growled.
“Yeah, Jack,” Dirk said. There was the sound of a thump and Travis suspected Dirk had slapped Jack’s shoulder. “Leave Homer alone. He’s a big boy.”
Travis nearly snarled. “Cougar. Don’t call me a boy.”
“Whoa, easy there. No need to get your fur in a bunch.”
“Dirk,” Jack said, cutting off Travis’s heated response. “I will get flogged by my dad if any of us sets foot in there. And I ain’t going down alone. The old mill is off limits. It says so on the sign.”
“Pussy.”
There was a louder thump and a grunt. Travis smirked. Seemed things were going to deteriorate into all-out warfare. Finally allowing himself a sigh, Travis judged where Jack was standing, reached out, gripped his arm, and yanked.
“Lay off him, Jack. He isn’t worth it. He’s all talk, no guts. He taunts me into going into the mill, but do you see him going in? Nah, he’s too much of a coward.”
“Homer’s right,” Simon said. He was a fox shifter with a weak voice who always sounded nervous to Travis’s ears. “If you’re going to dare him, Dirk, you should be willing to go in too.”
“I’ve already been in.”
“Any witness to that?” Jack demanded.
It would figure the sheriff’s son would ask such a question, and in such an official voice.
“Sure there is. Macy, back me up.”
“He went in, I swear.” Macy was Dirk’s girl and a born liar.
“Dude, is this really what we’re going to do on Halloween?” Jared asked. He had a nice voice, firm and controlled, and was the most decent of the bunch. Besides Jack, that was. Although his protectiveness was unwanted, Jack was always kind to Travis. Travis didn’t understand why, since he never gave Jack any encouragement. Jack’s wolf pack, of which his parents were alphas, didn’t much care for Travis either. Oh, they didn’t hate him, and he knew they were loyal to all shifters and took care of the town. He guessed the tension came from Jack’s attention toward him, which the pack didn’t appreciate. No matter the type, canines and felines didn’t get along very well.
“The veil between the living and the dead is thinnest on this day,” Dirk said, trying to sound creepy. He only confirmed his position as an idiot. “Homer can’t be officially welcomed into Haven until he’s spent the night in the mill and not been spooked away by the ghosts.”
“Oh yeah,” Jack said, dripping with scorn, “that’s a great way for him to make an impression in a new town: getting arrested by the sheriff for trespassing on government property.”
“Yank that rule book out of your ass for once, Jack.”
Sensing another imminent bout of violence—really, the tension was as thick as bubble wrap—Travis grabbed Jack’s arm again.
“Hold it. I’ll go. I’ll go and prove this douchebag as the idiot—and liar—he is.”
“Hey!”
“I’ll go with you,” Jack said instantly, grabbing Travis’s arm in return.
Travis yanked his arm away and scowled. “I don’t need a damn babysitter. I’m not helpless!”
“I never said—”
“Oh, look, a lover’s spat.”
Travis took a short step to his right and shot out his fist. He ended up hitting Dirk square in the chest by the feel of it, and it hurt his hand, but it was damn satisfying.
“Fucking hell!” Rachel said. “Are we in kindergarten?”
“Just proving a point.” Travis made a show of straightening his shirt before walking in the direction he knew the mill was located. “See you all in the morning.”
He strode confidently with his cane, counting the steps, but then he heard the pounding of boots and didn’t need to smell the follower to know who it was.
“Dammit, Jack! Get the hell away from me.”
“Whether you like it or not, you’re not staying in that death trap alone.”
“And your father?”
There was a significant pause. “Let’s just make sure he doesn’t find out.”
Travis felt a pang of grief spike through him. He wished he still had a father to be mildly afraid of. For that matter, he wanted his mother and siblings back. He wanted his family here, with him, not dead, not with the image of their dead eyes seared into his retinas. Their lifeless corpses were the last things he’d seen.
Travis shuddered. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat, ruthlessly pushing back the dark emotions. When there was a light brush of a hand on his arm—Jack’s hand—he jerked away with a scowl and took a step to the side. Jack didn’t close the distance Travis had created, but he did match Travis’s stride. When they reached the mill, Jack did most of the fiddling with the wooden boards and planks to find an opening.
“I’m going to get flogged for this,” he murmured under his breath.
Travis felt a laugh bubble in his chest but suppressed it. Laughing would only encourage him.
When they were finally inside, Travis sniffed. Then sneezed. The air was horribly dusty and thick. He felt it press against him, a nearly suffocating cloud. The mill had been boarded up nice and tight for a decade. The floorboards creaked under their feet as they walked, and a shiver went up Travis’s spine.
He could have sworn they were being watched—in fact, that they were being hunted. The feeling intensified as they crept deeper into the mill, but he said nothing. He stayed close to Jack this time only because, even with his cane, he feared tripping or running into anything. Some of the machinery in here, he knew, could be sharp.
Jack halted and Travis bumped into him, stopping as well.
“What is it?” Travis whispered.
“The floors. I’m not too wild about the floors. Don’t you feel the sag—”
There was a snap, a groan, and then the floor under their feet broke, tumbling them into the unknown.
Chapter Two
Present day
Halloween. It was only one day away. Jack suppressed a groan. He’d been dreading that damn excuse for a holiday the entire month and now it was here. Not that the juveniles of his town really cared what specific day it fell on—they were more than happy to cause mayhem and act like jackasses any day of the month. Or year. But October always brought out their greatest stupidity.
Hell, even his inner wolf was exhausted and agitated. Keeping the pups in line was something he wasn’t looking forward to. Sure, he had love and devotion for the citizens of Haven, Montana, and he’d give his life for any one of them. He was sheriff and that was his job. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to strangle them now and again.
It wasn’t even a real holiday. Christmas and Easter he understood, though he wasn’t Christian. Thanksgiving he understood, though he wasn’t overly fond of celebrating the whitewashed history of the pilgrims. He could even stomach Valentine’s Day, despite its commercialization of love. Not even July 4th caused such a ruckus. None of those holidays made people act like lunatics.
Halloween. Jack scowled as he trudged up to his front door after a long day of work.
Haven was a town founded by shifters for shifters in the late 1700s. Jack’s pack was supposedly descended from the pack of Imelda, the master shifter who, legend said, had founded the town originally. He wasn’t sure whether he believed that or not, but it hardly mattered. Things were the way they were because people believed in certain events in the past. Jack’s parents were the alphas of his pack, and some considered them the “ruling” pack of the town. But while they had influential positions in the town, like his brother acting as mayor, Haven still had a town council made up of shifters and nonshifters alike—years before, nonshifters had begun to settle here as well, usually because they were mates of shifters. The town even had humans who had special abilities—some would say magical abilities—given to them by their fae heritage. Haven was hidden from most of the world, which was the way they liked it. The town provided freedom and pride and acceptance. And Jack had sworn to protect all the citizens of Haven, shifter and human alike, even if they were acting like lunatics.
Jack knew for a fact he was one of the few aggravated by all the celebrating. Most of the town loved Halloween, and he couldn’t walk a block without seeing morbid decorations on doors, on porches, and spread across lawns. Businesses indulged the customers, people dressed up, and the schools were putting on Halloween-themed parties and dances.
Jack opened the door to his house and stepped inside, feeling as though he was finally able to shut out the batshit crazy world, if only for the rest of the night. He hoped to hell he didn’t get a call about razor blades in apples, or toilet paper in trees, or smashed jack-o’-lanterns on the streets. He took off his hat and ran his hand over his closely cropped dark brown hair before looking around.
He smiled. His wolf chuffed in contentment.
Travis, his mate, sat cross-legged on the couch, his phone in his hand, wearing a small frown. It was dark in the house, with only one lamp lit, and Jack could easily read the frustration on his face. And since he wasn’t wearing his dark shades, Jack gazed lovingly at his pale, scarred eyes.
“Problem?” Jack asked as he threw his hat on a chair and walked around the back of the couch. Before Travis could answer, Jack saw the issue: the phone wasn’t recording. Travis would record his ideas and bits of the stories and then Delilah, his cowriter, would type up everything. Early on in their career, Travis had purchased a braille keyboard but had never used it. Delilah would always complain about Travis not needing her if he could type himself. While that wasn’t true, and Del was clearly teasing, Travis had simply let it gather dust in the garage.
Lately, however, Travis had been having trouble finding the motivation to write, and Jack knew nothing frustrated him more than writer’s block. Right now, Delilah was doing the heavy-lifting.
“When is that anthology story due again?”
Travis scowled. “Shut up. Some mate you are, laughing at my pain.”
Jack grinned and grabbed two beers from the fridge.
“I’m not laughing.”
Travis sighed loudly and set his phone on the table. He slumped in his seat and accepted the beer Jack brought him. Finally settling home, Jack kicked off his boots and pressed against Travis, leaning back against the couch.
Under a single pen name, Travis and Delilah wrote popular mystery and suspense novels. They were trying to write a horror-themed short story for an anthology for next Halloween. The deadline was Thanksgiving. Jack thought that was a long time, but Travis felt otherwise. Maybe the pressure was messing up his inspiration or something.
“You could say no to those sorts of things.”
Travis took a sip of the beer and rolled his eyes. “Dude, anthologies expose us to a whole new group of readers. Future fans might pick up the anthology, read our story, and buy all our other books. We have to do it.”
Jack shrugged, understanding the logic but knowing he would never fully understand what went on inside Travis’s head concerning stories. He couldn’t imagine half of the things Travis and Delilah said about characters and voices in their head and the like. It always sounded like an untreated mental condition. But Travis and Delilah were the sanest people he’d ever met, and that was saying something considering what Travis had been through in his younger days.
Travis pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing his eyes. Then he curled up against Jack, resting his head on his shoulder. Smiling, Jack kissed the top of Travis’s head.
They’d been together for nearly two years now and Jack knew he’d never grow tired of it. They’d known each other for more than a decade, but it was only more recently that they finally dove into a romantic relationship. Jack couldn’t have been happier. He knew Travis felt the same.
Tall and broad, there was a lot of Travis to love. His light blond hair brushed Jack’s face and those pretty blue eyes, which were blind, still managed to convey love and trust. At least in his cougar form he was able to recognize shapes and colors, and during the magical hour of twilight, Travis was given perfect sight. They often traveled to Sanctuary for those precious moments, and they frequently made love, gazing into each other’s eyes, cocooned in their own little world. Not that Travis needed sight for Jack to love him. Blind or not, Jack had been attracted to Travis from the start, even with the hostility. Travis had once kept Jack at arm’s length, but that was all in the past.
“What?” Travis said.
Jack blinked. “What?”
Travis smirked. “I feel you staring at me.”
Jack wrapped an arm around Travis’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Just remembering.”
“Remembering what?”
“What it was like before we were mates.”
“Hmmm.” Travis wrapped an arm around Jack’s waist. “I don’t much like to think about that time. I was lonely and denied it.”
“Same here.” Jack tilted Travis’s head up and they kissed. Slowly and without demands, their lips met, tasted, lingered. Jack’s short beard scratched Travis’s chin, and he knew Travis liked the roughness of it, especially when Jack lingered over his body, kissing his belly and blowing him.
“You always kept your distance,” Jack said softly.
Travis smiled. “A fat lot of good that did me. You never let that distance grow too wide.”
Jack grinned. It was his pack and their sentiments concerning wolves mating with non-wolves that had kept Jack from seriously pursuing Travis when they were younger. But becoming a man, learning what he felt for Travis was nothing less than absolute love, had convinced him to take a chance and fight against the policies of his pack.
Travis was a cougar shifter. Jack was a wolf shifter. It was uncommon and such a pairing was discouraged, especially by Jack’s pack, or had once been. But most of his pack now adored Travis and had accepted him with open arms. His mate had proven just how valuable he was when the evil bastard members of the Knights had shown up and tried to kill them all. Together they’d protected Haven and each other.
