Fated for Two

Both men turned to look at her.

“Why? He’s never kept secrets from me, we always told each other everything,” Brenton snarled, a frown on his face.

Farrah blew out a heavy breath as she stood and began to pace the floor. Finally, she stopped, and choosing her words carefully, she said, “It wasn’t because he was hiding it from you Brenton, it was because he didn’t remember it, until now.”

“How is that possible?” Brenton growled, a look of disbelief on his face.

“Not many people know of this, and I only know because I was the daughter of a beta who was the brother of the pack doctor. My aunt was always doing research of some kind, always wanting to find ways to make the life of a shifter easier. She learned about many herbs and plants that helped us in different ways and she also found herbs and plants that were extremely harmful to us.

“I was an avid reader and would read anything I could get my hands on. Sometimes I would go and spend the day with my aunt because Mom had a full-time job and Dad was either working or training along with my brothers. I loved working with Aunt Jessie and by the time I was twelve I was helping her with her research.

“What does this have to do with…” Brenton began only to hush when she glared at him.

“Stop being so impatient, I’m getting to it,” she informed him. “Anyway, we came across this herbal mix recipe that in the distant past had been used on male wolves who had lost their mates. Sometimes the alpha would give these herbs to his warriors to keep them from going feral from the loss of their mate. The herbs would create a new mate bond with another female if it was ingested by them both.

Both men opened their mouths at that point, but Farrah put her hand up and strongly said, “However! If only one took it, the bond would be one-sided. This mix also has bad side effects, one of those side effects is addiction. The one taking it gets to the point they can barely go a day without their next fix. Everard, in the three days, that Fiona was gone, how did you feel? Did you feel as if you could barely breathe, maybe find yourself scratching your arm or hand to the point of drawing blood?”

Everard nodded, replying, “I did. It was always my left-hand arm or shoulder, why? Although, strangely, sometimes it was my throat.”

“That was probably where she touched you the most. She must have had the stuff on her hands and rubbed it so that your skin would absorb it. The throat could be because you ingested it at some point. Did she ever insist on getting your drinks for you? You wouldn’t have noticed anything; the herbs are flavorless.”

Everard frowned slightly before nodding again and saying, “I guess, sometimes. Although I always had a water bottle, I carried with me to work every day so if that is what she was doing it would have been easy enough to slip it in I guess.”

“So, you’re saying Fiona was drugging him?” Brenton yelled as he fisted his hands at his side in anger.

Farrah nodded and replied, “Yes, I believe that is exactly what she was doing. The other side effect of the drug is memory loss. It tends to make your memories spotty and according to what I’ve read about it, it sometimes takes years for full memory return, if it ever returns. So, there may be some things she did that Everard will never remember if she had him drugged heavily enough. Somewhere in his memories, he might even have known she wasn’t his mate, or why she was doing it, to begin with. The chances of him ever remembering are slim though if it’s been four years. For that reason alone, the drug was banned from its use in packs.”

“But I remembered our meeting,” Everard softly said.

“I know you did, Sweetie, and maybe talking about it will cause more to return,” Farrah told him as she sat back down next to him and took his hand. “I just don’t want you to get upset with yourself if you don’t remember anything else because it isn’t you, it’s the drug you were given. I also think you need to understand that you might have done more than just kiss her in a drug-induced haze and just don’t remember,” she softly murmured, hoping to soften the blow.

Everard began to shake his head so hard she feared he’d give himself whiplash. “No, no, no! You don’t understand, when I did try to kiss her, it was as if she always knew my plan and managed to turn in time for me to just get her cheek, always. It was hurtful to me that my mate could barely stand my touch and refused my kisses.”

“That’s because she wasn’t your mate, Everard,” Brenton said as he came and sat down next to them. “More than likely, she really was the rogue alpha’s mate, or at least his lover. It also seems to me as if she had you on the drug, but she wasn’t taking it herself.”

“That’s true,” Farrah agreed. “For her to return those feelings, she would have had to take it also. Since the drug was banned because of its side-effects, I wonder how they got their hands on it?”

“They were rogues, they could have been making it for themselves,” Brenton growled as he watched Everard shake slightly. Unable to stand the feelings of hurt coming off Everard in waves, he pulled him into a hug, holding him tightly. Brenton closed his eyes as he took his own deep calming breaths to soothe the wolf inside who was growling in anger because of what had been done to his brother wolf.

Farrah watched the two of them and knew that this was more of the healing process. She knew they still had much to tell each other, but she was happy to see the process slowly going forward.

“I’m so sorry, Brenton,” Everard whispered as he wrapped his own arms around his friend. “I am so sorry that I got your parents killed because of my stupidity. I know me saying how sorry I am won’t bring them back, but I want you to know I loved them too. You were my brother wolf and they treated me as if I were family by blood from the first day to the last. If my death would bring them back for you I would….”

“Stop,” Brenton snarled as he pulled back and gripped Everard’s face in his hands. “Don’t ever talk of dying that way. We are still here for a reason. Somedays I’m unsure why I’m still here because missing them hurts so much that it makes it hard to go on. However, I have never thought that dying would change anything for the better.”

“I have,” Everard whispered, a deep pain showing in his eyes as he stared into Brenton’s.

Brenton blinked, staring at Everard for a moment before whispering, “What?”

“I have thought about dying,” Everard answered. “I thought that if I were gone everyone would be better off. I taint everything I touch and not in a good way. So, after… after you told me you never wanted to speak to me or see me again, I decided…”

“No, Everard, please tell me you didn’t,” Brenton begged, his eyes filling with tears. What did I do? Did my anger hurt him so deep that my wolf brother wished to die? Please, let it not be so, he cried out internally. His wolf howled in pain, begging in his own way for it to not be true.

Farrah sobbed behind Everard, her hand over her mouth as she listened to just how broken he had become.

“I planned too,” Everard admitted, his own tears now flowing fast. “I left you a note leaving what was left of the pack and the land in your care. I left everything to you, the pack land is still in your name because I never changed it back. I went to our favorite place by the lake with a handful of pills I planned to use and end it all. I sat there, watching the sunset, but I couldn’t do it. I ended up throwing the pills into the lake and crying instead for how much we’d lost. I must have cried myself to sleep, but it was a strange sleep. It was if I was there, hovering over my body and watching myself sleep. I felt a warmth come over me, like a gentle body hug. I never saw her, but she was there, I felt her in that warmth.

“Who?” Brenton asked.

“The moon goddess, she came to me that night and told me she saw how sad was, how depressed I was,” Everard told Brenton. “Then she told me it wasn’t my time to leave this world because things were going to get better if I were to just hold on. It has been so hard to hold on to that promise, but I’ve tried. No matter how hard things have gotten I’ve held onto that promise and somehow the pack is still surviving, I’m still surviving.”

“Now you will do more than survive, Everard, you will live,” Brenton told him.

Farrah scooted forward on the couch cushion and wrapped her arms around Everard’s waist. Then, after burying her nose in between his shoulder blades, she told him, “You have us now, we will be here for you, always.”

“That’s right, we’re here for you, always,” Brenton murmured as he pulled Everard closer, pushing his head into the crook of his neck. He breathed in the mixed scent of Everard and Farrah, his wolf sighing in content to have his wolf brother and his mate so close to him. “Now, I was on my way to my pack, but I realized I had forgotten something.”

Everard moved his face slightly to ask, “Oh, what did you forget?”

“I forgot that we were supposed to explain what was going on to our packs together today, and I forgot to kiss our mate goodbye,” Brenton answered.

Everard chuckled and teased, “I kissed her for you, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind another.”

“Mm… was that perhaps what started the conversation I walked into?” Brenton asked.

“It was,” Farrah answered. Raising her head, she caught Brenton gazing at her with a slight smile. “I think the two of you still have a lot of things to work out, but this is a start. So, I think now would be a good time for the two of you, together, to go see if the roof of the pack-house is complete, see about getting some lumber to fix the porch, and leave me to do a bit of cleaning.”

“Oh, you think so, do you?” Brenton questioned, raising his eyebrows at her.

She laughed as she leaned in and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips. She then gave Everard a kiss on the top of his head since it was all she could get to with his face buried in Brenton’s neck as she stood. Stepping back, she started for the kitchen only to pause and turn to ask, “I’m curious about something, just how old are the two of you?”

“We’re twenty-six, and Brenton is only two weeks older than me,” Everard answered as he went to move away from Brenton, at least he tried to move. Everard looked startled as Brenton growled and pulled him back close.

“Sorry,” Brenton muttered, “my wolf wants to be close to yours. He says your wolf needs him because he’s weak and sad.”

Everard sighed and whispered, “He is and has been for a long time now. He rarely has any energy and I can’t shift into his form anymore.”

“Is it because you don’t eat?” Farrah asked, concerned.

Everard shrugged the best he could in Brenton’s tight embrace. “Probably.”

“No, it isn’t,” Brenton murmured as his wolf dug deep to feel Everard’s wolf. “Yes, he lacks nutrition, but he could get that from a good hunt. No, my wolf says he is beaten down by his feelings of melancholy. He is saddened with the loss of his blood family, the grief of—” he stopped and swallowed hard, a feeling of guilt almost choking him.

“Him losing you, his brother wolf, all he had left of his family,” Everard answered for him as he watched a pained look cross Brenton’s face.

“Our bond was always so strong, even stronger than my bond with my parents,” Brenton explained in a whisper. “We are here now my wolf brother; we won’t leave you again. I am so sorry I never let you explain things, that I just cut you out of my life.”

With a smile, Farrah headed back into the kitchen. She’d leave the two men to work things out on their own, she had groceries to put up.