All Hallow's Howl Read Online Free PDF

paces of the thorny bushes, and he doesn't hesitate to retrieve the bundle left in the tree. His hands shake as he lays all of his supplies out on the hard ground; his senses are sharper than a human's while he is two legged, but not so much as in his wolf form, and he feels especially vulnerable.
    He's naked, and it's cold, and if this ceremony doesn't work he might be losing the advantage he has over his pursuers.
    "It's okay," he breathes out, "I got this."
    Schk .
    He lets his claws out and uses the tip of one finger to draw a shallow circle in the ground around him. At four points he adds the squiggly lines he's memorized to complete the sigil, and then he takes the plastic baggy full of salt and traces over the lines with it, dusting a thin circle into the ground.
    He smooths out the cloth quickly, lining up his ingredients - an apple, a pomegranate, a small penknife, a long matchstick and a lighter, two thin white emergency candles. The mortar and the pestle. There's a sheet of paper, too, where he's written out the ritual words in thick, bold letters to make it easy to read just in case his memory fails him. The paper is damp, but the words haven’t run very much; it’s legible enough.
    In the distance he can hear the snarl of an alpha.
    He grabs for the knife and the apple, peeling the skin away in one long strip and placing it in the mortar. “I seek to honor my ancestors with this food of life.” He bites into the apple, taking only a small sliver and swallowing it almost before he’s finished chewing.
    The pomegranate. He splits it into thirds; as he slices, the juices splash up to spatter him. He places two of the slices on either side of the bowl, then he takes a bite from the pomegranate before placing it in the mortar, too. “I seek to honor my ancestors with this food of death.”
    The alpha moves closer.
    His hands are shaking so much that he can barely light the match; he has to light both candles at the same time with the single match and hold them aloft as he pounds three times with the pestle. A footnote had said that the original ceremony relied on the seeker to grind the fruit to a paste, but he doesn’t have time for that now.
    “I offer myself humbly, on this dark night, as one searching for balance. As light is to dark, as day is to night, as life is to death, as water is to sky and as earth is to fire, I come as an omega seeking my balance in my soul’s true mate.”
    He's dizzy, reeling with his own emotions and the energy from the ritual itself. His head feels like it's about to burst open as a great pain hits him just between the eyes, and for a moment he blinks to see himself covered in a great white light.
    Do you know what it is you seek? he hears, but not with his ears - it is as if the voice is coming from inside his own head.
    "A mate," he says aloud, and then, because he can see the alpha bursting through the tree line across the way, he can't stop himself from gasping, "Protection!"
    So it shall be , the voice says, and in the next instant, just before the alpha hurtles into him, a huge, snarling wolf appears out of thin air.
    The wolf is insubstantial, but present enough that the alpha yelps as he scrabbles at the ground, sliding forward as he tries to stop running. The other wolf’s misty white outline of his form begins to take shape and to fill in, his body whole and solid and just as protective of Dylan as when he appeared.
    The other alpha doesn't seem to care. As soon as he gets his bearings, he's attacking again, directing his anger at the wolf between him and his prize. Dylan feels he ought to shift, but he's pinned in place against the bare earth, watching as the new wolf waits calmly until the alpha makes the first attack, using the weight of the alpha's body against him when he moves quickly, striking out with tooth and claw.
    It takes forever, and not long at all. The pain between Dylan's eyes recedes quickly, but for a moment he feels bleary and unfocused, like