The mate finding spell business - book 1

DIMA’S POV

After leaving Elspeth’s house with Oksana still unconscious, time seemed to have stopped for him, forever frozen at the moment she fainted.

Dima carried her to the car, but he couldn’t drive because that meant he had to stop watching Oksana, so he switched places, and someone drove them to his mate’s house.

When they arrived, Angus shocked Dima with a bolt of energy, leaving lightning trees on his skin. The bear shifter ignored him, choosing to save his energy to take care of Oksana, and got off the car with his mate in his arms, leaving everyone bewildered by his level of detachment.

Oksana was warm when they arrived upstairs, and small drops of sweat started rolling down her forehead. Dima put her comfortably in her bed and went downstairs to get a rag and a bowl with cold water to wipe her forehead, that was his task for two hours before she started getting cold and weirdly pale with her lips turning blue. Right then and there, his bear had a nervous and fear-induced breakdown, and Dima had a forced shift.

Mato took some covers from Oksana’s bed and put them on the floor to form a nest before he grabbed Oksana and laid her down on those blankets, and he laid with her, cuddling.

That was how Oksana woke up at two p.m. of the following day.

“I’ve never had such a comfortable and toasty warm sleep.” She happily and blissfully unaware whispered in Mato’s fur.

When Dima heard those words, he shifted back to human form and sat up quickly, pulling a surprised Oksana into his naked lap and connecting their mouths into a fervent kiss.

Their mouths clashed, and Dima dominated the kiss quickly, forcing her mouth open and ravishing Oksana with his tongue. The temperature went up between the two, reaching a boiling point that left them wild and addicted to each other, taste, feel, and smell, making it almost torturous each time they had to separate to come up for air.

There was raw emotion in the way Dima tightened his hold around Oksana’s waist and curled his fingers in her hair. It was clear to her that he was trying to demonstrate his fear and love for her. But she didn’t understand why.

“Fucking hell, love, you scared the living soul out of me!” He mumbled, panting hard and gazing into her eyes with a string of saliva still connecting their mouths.

“But why?” She asked, confused, panting hard and blushing madly.

“Why!? Ana, you passed out at your grandmother’s house yesterday!” Dima stressed the word yesterday, and Oksana made an ‘o’ shape with her mouth, surprised to learn of the happening.

“Oh, is right, my mate,” Dima mumbled and attacked Oksana’s mouth with a softer kiss, slowly devouring her mouth.

“Umm... It seems as if I’m not the only one who woke up.” Oksana commented with a shy grin, and torturously slow, she dragged herself from on top of Dima’s lap.

“Fuck, Oksana, don’t do that to me, babe.” Dima groaned, pained, and closed his eyes tightly, trying to rein in Mato, who was more than happy to give voice to the ‘person’ Oksana acknowledged.

Luckily for them, Oksana’s stomach grumbled so loudly that it scared Mato, who thought his mate was dying from hunger for her stomach to challenge him like that. And the bear started bellowing at Dima to get their mate food.

‘When we home, I’ll hunt for mate.’ Mato declared loudly to Dima, who still got surprised every time the bear talked to him in his weirdly articulated sentences.

“Just let me grab a pair of shorts, and I’ll alert your parents right away,” Dima told Oksana and quickly got up and grabbed a pair of shorts from a chair in her room. He bent down and kissed Oksana’s forehead before offering her his hands to help her up.

“ANGUS, ZAINAB! OKSANA IS AWAKE!” He bellowed and proceeded to do a loudspeaker spell, one that he saw his mom use a lot when he was younger and his cousins stayed with them over the summer. She also used it while they were on the run from the humans, but those memories were better off forgotten. “And she is hungry!” He added, and soon the sound of half a dozen pairs of feet was heard running up the stairs.

“I’ll be there with the food in a minute!” Zainab yelled back.

Soon Dima was forcefully rammed by Angus and separated from Oksana, who was transferred from his embrace and into her father’s arms.

“She’s mine, now, bear!” Angus declared arrogantly and zapped Dima again with a shock of electricity.

Dima grunted upon the impact, but he let the man be.

“Dad!” Oksana scolded her father, but Dima gave her a sign to stop. He deserved the zap after growling and attempting to attack her father every time he tried to get inside her room since they reached her house the night before.

Mato holds a big grudge against this wizard.

“Payback is a bitch.” Angus commented with a poisonous smirk in Dima’s direction and hugged Oksana tighter to his chest, quickly getting surrounded by his other children after speaking.

“That it is.” Dima agreed. “I’m going to call my mother, Ana. I’ll be right back.”

“Ok, Didi. Don’t worry about me. It seems that I’ll be staying here for a long time.” Dima nodded at his mate and smiled at her before leaving her room.

He passed by Zainab on his way out, and the woman offered him a huge sandwich, which he gratefully accepted and left to go to the house’s backyard to speak with his family.

First to call mom, then I’ll call the rest, Dima thought and started dialing Vanis’s number.

“Took you long enough to call! And unless you have been busy working to give me a grandchild soon, you have no excuses.”

“Hey, mom. How have you been? I’ve been stressed, thank you for asking. My mate passed out yesterday and only woke up a few minutes ago. Also, you’re invited to my wedding in two weeks.” Dima sarcastically answered his mom in a half-high-pitched voice to mimic her and made hand gestures to accompany his performance.

“Holy cow! You take no time at all to get things on the move. How’s Oksana? Is she ok?” Before Dima could answer his mother, the woman started firing sentences at him again. “And I seriously hope you don’t expect to get married in that shape, Dima Odin. Your big gut is a misery. But no worries, I have sent your cousin to get you back in shape. You should call him. Oh, and I expect to see a big rock on her finger after you’ve accumulated such a fortune and refused to spend a dime while waiting for your mate.”

“Mom! If you could kindly shut up, I could answer you! And thank you for calling Kojo for me, I was going to call him after speaking with you, but now I have my work cut short.” A slight wave of dizziness hit Dima, and he sat on a low window sill of the house and laid his head against the glass, taking a deep breath.

I shouldn’t have done that spell. - He thought and bit the sandwich Zainab gave him.

“You don’t need to thank me, son. And Oksana, dear? How is she? What happened to her?” Dima quickly swallowed the piece of bread and answered his mother, trusting her with some of his worries.

“I’m not really sure what happened, mom. Yesterday many weird things occurred, but after she passed out at lunch, I shut down and only focused on taking care of her. She’s fine now.” Without even seeing his mother’s face, Dima knew she was frowning her eyebrows at him.

“Umm... Ok. At least she is alright. Well, I’ll hang up on you now. You should call your cousin right away.” She said in a hurry, and Dima rushed to say goodbye before she hung up.

“Bye, mom.”

“Call your cousin!” She yelled at him and ended the call.

“Welp, one done, three to go.” Dima signed and dialed his cousin’s number.

“Eh, I thought you’ll never call me, Didi! I’m already at the airport, thanks to aunt Vania.” Dima’s typically overly serious, curt, and slightly chilly older cousin cheerfully answered his call.

How abnormal. Kojo usually only gets like that after the three of them get together and Kato manages to get him drunk. Nevertheless, Dima didn’t comment on his cousin’s bizarre change of attitude and decided to ‘go with the flow’.

“Hey, Kojo. Sorry about that. I was going to call you now, but it seems my mom got ahead of me.” He answered while trying to use one of his mother’s techniques of absorbing energy from nature on a potted plant from Zainab.

‘I don’t know why I’m turning so much to my scarce magic nowadays, but if I keep this up, it won’t end well for me.’ Fortunately, although Dima barely managed to get anything from the plant, Mato decided to be nice and gave him some of his energy.

“No sense, kid! If I were you, I would use all my time to woe my mate. Even though your gut resembles a pregnant woman’s belly, that shouldn’t stop you. Has she accepted you yet? Or do you need my help because of that? Better yet, are you already expecting cubs, and you want to get back in shape to be able to keep up with them?” Dima couldn’t help but laugh at his cousin’s assumptions. Usually, this was the kind of thing Kojo only uttered if he wanted to insult someone, and he wouldn’t use a cheerful tone while doing it. Other than that he uses to keep this sort of thing to himself.

But Dima didn’t censure him. His cousin was already one hundred and forty-seven years old, and he too hadn’t been able to find his mate, not even with the help of witches, but now, with this new spell, he could try to find her, and that gave hope to everyone.

“Hold on, pal.” He laughed. “The wedding is in two weeks, and I want to get in shape before that. My Oksana deserves better than a bear with a gut the size of an actual bear’s belly.”

“Wedding!? Already? I better be one of your best men.” Kojo exclaimed, but unknown to Dima, who could not see what was happening to his cousin, a weird shadowed person with an acidic scent caught Kojo’s attention. Kojo watched the person look at him, and once the person noticed him looking, they quickly disappeared behind a flower pot with a cloud of black purplish mist.

“Of course, bro. But can you help me or not?” Dima asked, catching Kojo’s attention again.

“Didn’t I already tell you I’m on my way? I’ll be staying in a small inn in the village.” Kojo’s inpatient chilly voice reached Dima’s ears.

“Alright, Kojo, thank you. When you reach the airport, warn me so that I’ll get a way to pick you up.” Dima suggested to his elder cousin, unsuccessfully since the other man already had a plan he intended to follow.

“There’s no need for that, just give me your mate’s address for the taxi to leave there when I reach. We’ll start working today, Dima.”

“As you say, Kojo,” Dima responded, and the other shifter hung up the phone.

“Well, now there’s only one call left to make,” Dima mumbled and finished eating his sandwich before he dialed his boss and best friend’s phone number.

“DIMA! You’re alive, bud! I thought your mother had killed or accidentally transformed you into something after the weird smoke appeared over her house and the sky ripped open.” Dima was caught off guard by his friend’s enthusiastic greeting and took a while to answer, much to his friend’s worry. “Dima? Are you ok? Tap once if you need help and trice if you’re ok.”

“What? Why wouldn’t I be ok? I found my mate, Gaivano. I was calling you regarding my house.” Dima responded, still feeling completely confused about his friend’s behavior.

“Really? Damn, dude! I didn’t believe your mother when she came to me to put you on leave due to finding your mate, but now I see I mistrusted her for nothing. So how is she? What is her name? Tell me everything, my friend!”

“She’s amazing, Gaivano, but I really need you to finish remodeling my house according to the plants I sent you. I’ll pay for the job, extra fees, and everything, but I need the house ready by the time I get married, which is in two weeks. Also, I wanted to invite you to be one of my best men.” Dima said all of this slowly and calmly to make sure his friend understood everything. However, Gaivano’s sudden bird-like cry surprised Dima, who almost let his phone fall.

“Sorry, I just got so excited! I can’t believe you found your mate and are already getting married. You definitely need to tell me how this happened, bro. You’re so lucky!” Dima laughed at the eagle shifter’s enthusiasm and briefly told him everything.

Sometime later, Gaivano got called to a meeting, and they had to end their call.

“Dima, mom told me to give you this.” He heard Jamila say from inside the house before the back door was thrown open, and a vial was trusted into his hands. “Drink it till the last drop, or you are going to be put on bed rest. She knows you used magic again.” She explained, and he complied. After all, he had to be completely operational by the time his cousin arrived, and this potion was his best bet.

“Thank you.” Jamila nodded and prepared to go back inside when Dima remembered that he hadn’t sent their address to Kojo yet.

“Hey,” He called her. “Can you type in your address, please? My cousin is coming to help me with something, and I don’t even know where I am other than that the village’s name is Nebrura and that this is my mate’s house.” Jamila laughed at his weird, awkward/shy behavior and quickly typed in her house’s address.

“Just know that dad is going to flip if he stays here,” Jamily said in a sing-song tone, and Dima followed her inside.

“Yeah, well, he doesn’t have anything to worry about. Kojo will be staying at the inn in the village. The only times he’ll come here will be to pick me up.” Dima explained, and Jamila pouted.

“Um! Things are starting to get calm around here again now that you and dad aren’t bickering. I need to get a boyfriend to get things lively again.” She said and left the leaving room with a mischievous smile on her lips.

“Oh, HELL NO! You don’t need that crap. No boyfriends till you’re at least thirty! That will give me enough time to recover from Oksana.” Angus screamed from upstairs, and Jamila left the house pouting with her arms crossed over her chest and stomping her feet.

~ Four hours later ~

Dima and Oksana were cuddling on a sofa, surrounded by her whole family with the living room light turned off, watching Arlo the good dinosaur, when someone suddenly pounded on the door four times, interrupting their movie time.

“I’ll get it!” Jamila offered and got up from her spot to open the door. The others resumed back to their movie, but Dima consciously keep an ear to the door, knowing that there was a big possibility that whoever was at the door could be his cousin.

“Oh, damn... What a hunk.” Jamila suddenly said, and Angus flipped.

“What!?” He yelled and lit up on fire, sending a zap of something towards the open door where a tall, muscular black man stood.

“DUCK, KOJO!” That was the only thing Dima had the time to scream before the situation escalated.

Hey guys! Can you believe we’re almost at the end of this book? There are only three more chapters left (for now). Also, I posted some pictures on my Instagram related to this book, such as Oksana, Dima, Oksana’s demon, and Elspeth’s family crest. In case you’re interested, they’re in my Instagram profile.

See ya in the next chapter.