A waft of delicious scent of freshly baked bread tickles his nose when he pushes the front door open. Under the robust smell of rye and oats, he scents malt, walnuts, and maple syrup, which means Camilla is making his favorite sourdough bread.
God, he loves that woman!
After a long day in the office dealing with humans he’d rather snarl to silence than try to appease, coming home is like a lungful of fresh air. He drops his satchel on the floor and kicks off his shoes—they have a no-shoes-indoors policy—and follows his nose into the kitchen. He has to stop by the door and take in the domestic scene in front of him. No matter how many years they’ve been together, the sight of his mate still makes his breath catch. And now, their daughter sitting by the table with her coloring books, it feels like Peter finally has everything he ever dreamt of.
If Talia knew Peter has turned into such a softie, she would never let him live it down.
”You know, it’s rude to stare,” Camilla says without looking at him, but her tone is gentle.
”Papa!” Mila yells at full volume, jumps down from her chair, and runs to Peter who picks her up and spins her around. She giggles wildly, the sound of her laughter like a trickle of cool water down his spine. He flashes his eyes at her and she answers with a flash of her own, accompanied by a baby growl that would make Peter laugh if he wasn’t so damn proud of her.
”Language,” Camilla chides. She doesn’t fool Peter at all; he knows she’s just as smitten with their little wolf cub as he is.
They share a companionable silence while listening to Mila’s babbling and smile at each other over the dinner table. It’s peaceful, it’s lovely, it’s…
Something flickers in the periphery of his vision. Peter frowns slightly and glances to his left but sees nothing. He shrugs, deciding it’s just the stress from work, but when the flicker returns a moment later, he can’t just ignore it.
”Honey, did you see that?” He asks.
”See what?”
”There’s something…odd about the corner,” he says, suddenly uncomfortable.
Camilla cocks her head, looks where he’s pointing at. ”I don’t see anything,” she says as Peter witnesses another flicker. ”Maybe you’re just tired.”
”Yeah, maybe…” Peter answers, wondering if she’s lying or if she really didn’t see the odd distortion.
The feeling of something being off gets stronger and then he smells smoke. It terrifies him to no end but he can’t quite say why.
”Camilla, we need to leave the house. Now,” he says calmly, even though his heart is racing and panic rises in him like a wave.
”Nonsense,” Camilla says. ”Who wants ice cream?” she asks and Mila yells ”Me, me, me!” even before she finishes the sentence.
Peter doesn’t understand what’s going on. Sure, his mate is human but even she should be able to smell the acrid scent of fire and see the tendrils of smoke seeping through the wall. He tries to make his wife and daughter leave, but they don’t seem to hear him. He tries shaking Camilla but she feels like a rag doll in his hold, never losing the familiar curve of her smile or the twinkle in her eyes.
”This isn’t happening,” Peter chants under his breath. ”This isn’t real. This can’t be real!”
But it feels real. And at the same time, he feels like he’s seen this before, he’s lived through this already. How can it be?
When greedy flames start to lick the curtains and creep closer to his family, Peter sits still, paralyzed by both terror and something invisible that doesn’t let him move. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a small voice screams him to wake up, wake up now, but it doesn’t make any sense.
Isn’t it naive to wish himself to wake up when his family is burning right before his eyes?
The fire is all around him now, separating him from Camilla and Mila and he closes his eyes, telling himself it’s because the heat gets unbearable and not because the sight of Mila’s hair catching fire was too much.
He wishes he could just die and burn with his family so that he isn’t left alone without them.
Through the roar of flames, he hears a snicker and then someone says, ”Oh, you’re just too good to be true.”
”What?” He croaks and forces his eyes open.
Instead of the burning kitchen, he’s in a derelict warehouse, chained to a wall with wolfsbane-laced shackles.
”I said that you, Peter Hale, are just too good to be true,” the melodic voice repeats before the person it belongs to steps into the dim circle of light a bit to Peter’s right.
It’s a Djinn.
It smiles at whatever it sees in Peter’s eyes. ”Oh, yes,” it purrs. ”A pureborn werewolf who witnessed his mate and child burn alive, went mad with grief, killed his niece to gain power, not to mention your nifty trick to come back from the dead? Getting my claws on you is a rare treat indeed.”
”What do you want?” Peter forces out through gritted fangs. He’s half-turned but it does him little good.
The Djinn grins, revealing a row of sharp teeth. ”I’m going to make you live through the day your family burned alive again and again and again and I’m going to feast on your torment.”
Peter tries to flinch back as the Djinn steps closer and places its claws on his temples.
”Sweet dreams, wolf,” the Djinn whispers.
”No, stop!” he pleads. ”Don’t do this, God, not again!”
His pleading doesn’t help, neither does his struggling.
As his vision starts to grey around the edges and he smells the familiar scent of sourdough, he forgets what he was begging to stop and why.
It doesn’t matter, though. He’s home.