A Monster for HALLOWEEN

CH 4 - Connor

CONNOR POV

I’d just slumped into my chair, the aftertaste of adrenaline still raw in my mouth, when the door slammed open.

Storm blew in. Literally.

My mother didn’t just enter rooms; she occupied them. Her red hair—same shade as mine but longer, wilder—flared around her head like some mythic halo. Her blue eyes glowed bright enough to shame the loch on a clear winter morning. And she wasn’t just glowing with power; she was glowing with rage.

“That fisherman called me Nessie!” she shrieked, voice pitching so high the windowpanes rattled. “Again! Why do humans think that I’m some kind of ancient water monster?!”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Thought about how badly I wanted to say the obvious: *Because, Mother, you kind of are.* In your nymph form you’re a serpentine goddess who can sink a trawler with a flick of your tail. The tabloids don’t exactly have to stretch.

But I also had a strong, survival-driven suspicion that saying that would escalate this scene into something that might involve broken furniture. And possibly me.

So instead, I kept my tone level. “You know how humans are, Mom. They just don’t know how to distinguish a…” I hesitated, hunting for the right word, “…a water deity from a bedtime story.”

That seemed to calm her down, at least a fraction. Her glow dimmed to something less blinding. She huffed, stomped to the chair opposite my desk, and plopped herself down with all the offended dignity of a toddler denied a toy—except she was more than two hundred years old.

It had taken her decades to find my father. Decades more to decide he was worth keeping. And then me: the first and only half-werewolf, half-water-nymph in existence. Lucky me.

“I had to let loose today,” she said finally, tilting her head back to stare at the ceiling like some tragic heroine. “I had to swim, and yes, maybe I scared him on purpose.”

I rubbed my face. “Of course you did.”

“You know what I heard from one of the omegas?” she went on, ignoring my tone.

Experience told me that whatever came next would probably blow up in my face and kick my ass—but she was my mother, and I loved her, so I asked anyway. “What, Mom?”

“There’s a new keychain of me,” she said, spitting the word like it was a curse. “Fluorescent. With wings. Can you believe it? They had the audacity to sell that rubbish?! Me! The queen of water nymphs! The most powerful being in lakes and seas—*with wings!*”

I blinked.

What the f**k.

This was going to be the next series of tantrums. I could already feel the migraine forming. I made a mental note to find the omega who’d told her and have a polite, maybe slightly terrifying word.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said, not even sure what exactly I was apologizing for. “I know they’re terrible creatures,” I added for good measure, hoping—really hoping—that would be it.

She folded her arms. Her lips pursed.

Oh no.

“I want you to do something for me, Conny,” she said suddenly, using the name she’d called me when I was two. Only I was twenty-eight now.

Shit was coming. I could smell it. A ton of s**t for Connor.

“Just tell me, Mother,” I said exasperatedly. “I’ve got work to do.”

She scoffed. “Oh please. Our pack runs by itself. You’ve nothing to do.”

“Nothing?” I said, arching a brow. “Except covering up your little morning swims and memory-wiping fishermen who think they’ve seen the second coming of Loch Ness.”

She waved a hand like swatting a fly. “Details. What you have to do is go to the souvenir shop in Foyers and buy them all. Every last one of those keychains. And destroy them. I don’t want our pack members buying them. Or anyone else.”

I stared at her. “Mom, you know if they want, they can buy them online, right? You know there are souvenir shops all around the lake that might already have them, right?”

“I know!” she said, rising a little in her seat, blue eyes sparking. “This is why you’re going to send them whatever money they need and ask for them all. And then we’ll sue the company that created them.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Stupid. I was so f*****g stupid. Couldn’t I just have said ‘sure, Mother’ and gone to buy the damned keychains? No, I had to make her dig in deeper. And now I was in a bigger mess.

Fuck. f**k. f**k.

She started tapping her foot, obviously waiting for my answer. Even though we both knew it was going to be a yes.

I would do anything for my mom.

I was a momma’s boy, all right?

“Okay, Mom. I’ll arrange it. I’ll do it,” I said finally.

She beamed, practically knocked my desk over as she lunged across to embrace me and plant a big, fat kiss on my forehead.

“Sycha,” she said softly—the nymph word for *good son.*

Yeah. Such a good son indeed.

When she left, she left like a storm breaking. The door rattled in her wake. I sat there for a moment, elbows on my desk, staring at my hands. Trying to remember how to breathe.

Then, hours later, there I was.

Standing in front of the only library-s***h-souvenir-shop in Foyers.

Its sign swung slightly in the cold breeze: **“Loch & Lore”** in painted gold letters that had seen better days. The windows were lined with tartan blankets, Celtic-knot bookmarks, and rows of books with titles like ‘Druid Myths of the Highlands’ and ‘The True Nessie: Fact or Fantasy?’

And, inevitably, a display of keychains near the door.

Neon. Lime. Googly-eyed. Some with rainbows. Some with hearts. One—God help me all over again—with angel wings.

I took a deep breath. This was ridiculous. I was Alpha of a small but powerful pack. I’d negotiated with rival packs, bargained with warlocks, stood toe-to-toe with creatures older than Scotland itself. And now I was here to buy tacky souvenirs like some guilt-ridden tourist.

Mom’s orders.

I pushed open the door. The little bell above it jingled.

And then I saw her.

The most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

She was behind the counter, a stack of books beside her, scowling at me like I was a problem she didn’t have time for.

Curly blond hair, piled into a messy bun, strands falling loose around her face in the kind of chaos that shouldn’t have been beautiful—but somehow was. Warm amber-brown eyes, framed by glasses she wore like a shield, caught the dim light and turned it molten. And her mouth… damn. A soft pout, her upper lip just slightly fuller than the lower, made me think of things no sane man should imagine in the middle of a bookstore. Sweetness. That’s what I saw—pure, unguarded sweetness. The kind you’d want to taste, to protect, to worship.

God. She was perfect.

Cain, my wolf—the part of me that was still all instinct—lurched forward so hard I had to grip the doorframe for balance.

Mate.

The word wasn’t even conscious. It was a certainty, a scent under my skin, a pull in my bones.

I’d imagined finding my mate a hundred ways. In battle. At a council. At a full-moon run. I’d never imagined it would be in a dusty little shop filled with fluorescent keychains.

She blinked at me, not soft, not shy. And then she opened her mouth.

“Can I help you?” she asked eyeing me from head to toe.

Her words sliced colder than a Highland wind, her tone laced with disapproval like I was some stain tracked across her clean floor. The look she gave me wasn’t softness—it was disdain, sharpened to a blade. My mate. The most beautiful, sweetest creature I’d ever laid eyes on. And she couldn’t have looked at me with more contempt if I’d just crawled out of the Loch dripping algae on her shoes.

And I was standing there like an i***t, a giant werewolf Alpha, half-nymph, sent by my mother to buy a pile of plastic Nessies.

She tilted her head, her gaze flicking to the tacky display by the door.

“Or are you just here for the googly-eyed Nessies? Because if you are, save us both the time and walk back out.”