A Monster for HALLOWEEN

CH 2 - Connor

CONNOR POV

They always choose the worst possible moment to panic.

Langdon’s mindlink slammed into my head like a crowbar. ‘Connor. It happened .again’

I groaned. The headache arrived before I even got out of bed.

My eyes snapped open anyway. The fog in my brain cleared on instinct, replaced by adrenaline and the creeping suspicion that my life was about to get messier than usual.

“Langdon,” I muttered aloud, my voice gravel rough. My bedroom smelled faintly of lake water—always did, no matter if the windows were shut. The packhouse carried that scent in its bones: iron, algae, damp wood, old leather.

A comfort and a warning rolled into one.

Langdon’s link came in bursts of panic, static wrapped around too many words. Beta, yes. Emotional discipline? About as sturdy as wet paper.

‘What happened again?’ I shoved off the duvet, the bed squeaking like it hated me.

‘A human. Fishing boat. Too close to our boundary. He was shouting—your mother was there—she—’ Langdon’s mental voice broke, halfway to tears. ‘He said she rose like a cliff, the boat nearly tipped—’

“Shit.”

Clothes first, panic later. Not because of the human—we had systems for humans. Because of MOTHER.

Nothing tightens my chest like hearing something might’ve happened to her. The moon rules the pack, but my mother? She’s her own weather system. Mess with her dawn swim in the loch and you’ll find yourself starring in a one-woman apocalypse.

I dragged on sweatpants, knees frayed from winters of use, grabbed the first T-shirt in reach, and shoved my feet into battered shoes. Socks were a luxury I didn’t have time for. Neither briefs for that matter.

By the time I hit the ramp outside, the cold slapped me awake better than coffee ever had. Raw air, thick with fish and blackwater, rolled in hard enough to bite my teeth. Tar and rust layered over it, the stink of boats that had seen too many storms.

The pier rattled under my footsteps. I really should get this thing fixed… then again, sturdier planks would only invite more humans to wander down here.


Humans love a boardwalk. Give them a stretch of wood over black water and suddenly they think they own the place—snapping pictures, dropping rubbish, pretending the loch is some sort of holiday attraction.


Tourists especially. Gods, tourists. They treat the world like it’s theirs to touch, to trample, to ruin. Damn them.

Langdon was already there, gripping the shoulders of some old fisherman who looked far too happy for someone allegedly traumatized. His cheeks flushed pink in the dawn chill, his scarf a frayed tartan relic from three decades ago, and his grin—oh, that grin—was the kind of thing only a lunatic or a man convinced he’d touched legend could wear.

“There you are!” the old man bellowed the second he saw me. “This young fella said his boss was coming! Lad, you won’t believe it. I saw her. Right up close! She rose like—like a mountain breaking water! I swear it on my mother’s grave!”

Langdon’s mouth opened and closed like a fish on deck. “Did you get a picture? With your phone? Tell me you—come on, please tell me you got one.”

The fisherman looked sheepish, scratching at scarred knuckles. “Blasted thing! Didn’t even think of it. I was stunned—frozen—couldn’t move. And then—ah! She was magnificent. Nessie! Huge and majestic and—terrifying!”

“You have no idea,” I said flatly.

My tone came out like steel dragged across stone, which, frankly, was still gentler than what I was thinking.

The man clapped Langdon’s arm, oblivious to the storm brewing around him. “The press will pay for this! They’ll queue up, lad. My name in the papers—maybe even the telly. ‘Mr. MacLeod, what did you see in the loch?’ I’ll be a legend!”

Langdon sent me a mindlink so shrill it was nearly audible. ‘He’s already half-crazy without options.’

‘Guess you’re minimizing’. I itched to grab the man’s phone and introduce it to the bottom of the loch. For the greater good of Scotland, of course.

Instead, cursing the Gods for have chosen to drag humans in my path, I said, “Mr. MacLeod. You’re on private property. My land. You can’t drag the press onto it.”

That word—private—landed like a stone in his gut. He paled. “Didn’t know, son. Didn’t see any signs. Just out fishing, minding my own business…”

“And you saw Nessie?” Langdon barked again, subtle as ever.

The old man’s eyes lit right back up. “Aye! She rose right by me. Thought I’d drown, but what a sight! Money in it, I tell you. Fame. A legend!”

There it was. The danger.

Not the man himself—MacLeod was just a fool with more enthusiasm than sense—but the story he’d carry. Stories breed crowds. Crowds bring cameras. Cameras demand proof. And proof? Proof ends with nets, sonar, men with sharp tools and government letters.

And my mother’s tantrums.

Then it’s me, ankle-deep in blood and bureaucracy, making sure the world doesn’t tear itself apart chasing myths it was never meant to catch.

I’ve been doing that long before anyone called me Alpha. Someone had to.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Langdon and I walked him off the pier, his boots clattering along, his voice still carrying as he spun his tale again and again. Every word made my stomach knot tighter.

Inside the packhouse, we avoided the common room—too many eyes at breakfast. Instead we slipped him into the small room beside my office. My sanctuary, if you’re generous. My man cave, if you’re honest.

Shelves sagged with jars, bottles, dusty tomes. Labels in Albert’s chicken-scratch handwriting.

Albert. Half-werewolf, half-warlock, full-time lunatic. Friend, sometimes. Savior, often. His brews had saved us from more human disasters than I could count.

“You’ll have a drink,” I said, pulling out a bottle. “After a dawn like that, you’ve earned one.”

MacLeod beamed, sitting on the rickety chair like it was a throne. “Aye! A proper toast.”

Langdon handed him a beer with forced charm. “Here. For courage.”

The old man’s hands shook, but he downed it like a sinner on Sunday.

I turned to the shelf, found the vial I’d been saving: amber liquid, thick as honey, label scrawled: Blank: 5ml. For when memory is too dangerous.

Albert’s handwriting looked smug, as always.

Perfect.

Langdon knew the drill, we’ve done it so many Times already... He filled the silence with chatter, drawing the fisherman’s eyes. I poured the potion into the man’s glass, quick flick of the wrist, back turned. The foam swallowed the flash of yellow.

MacLeod chugged.

We waited.

He blinked once. Twice. His brow furrowed, smoothed. His grin faded to confusion.

“Where… where am I?”

Most humans never notice the splice. Some do. Those are the unlucky ones.

“You drifted too close to private property,” I said, voice soft but firm. “Your engine coughed. Air bubble in the line. We helped you back to the pier.” When you lie too many Times for your own good you learn to keep the lie as simple as possible. Realism is always the key with humans. And they fell for it.

every

single

time.

His eyes cleared like fog in sunlight. “Aye. Yes. Right. Engine trouble. Bubble of air. Fixed now.”

Langdon jumped in seamlessly. “Carburetor issue. We bled it out. All sorted.”

The man thanked us until his voice cracked, shook our hands until his arm had to ache. Langdon walked him back to his boat, keeping his smile in place until the man’s figure was swallowed by mist.

I collapsed into my chair, adrenaline bleeding off, muscles stiff and sore.

Crisis averted.

Or so I thought.

Because that’s when she swept in.

My mother.

Or, if you’re human, the creature you’d call Nessie.

Her nymph form could bend rivers and snap mountains. But her human side? That was the one that truly scared me.

And judging by the storm raging in her eyes, the real trouble was only just beginning.