Healing His Mate

Aaliyah POV

I pace for hours as I wait for Aaron to return. I feel anxious as different scenarios run around my mind.

What if he doesn’t come back? What if he’s hurt or worse? What if the hunters took him?

“Oh, honey. You can’t think about worse case scenarios.”

I turn to the door of the bedroom to see Zea standing in the entryway. She gives me a knowing look as her lips lift up in a smile.

Keep calm, I remind myself as she comes into the room, She healed me earlier. She won't hurt me.

I try to keep my heartbeat steady, but I can still feel its pace increase. But I cannot allow myself to break. Aaron isn't here to put me back together.

He might need me when he returns, the thought crosses my mind and centers my brain on it. I can't allow my mind to be afraid of Zea.

“Aaron will be fine,” she reassures me, “He is the strongest warrior in our pack and he isn’t alone. Trust me.”

I rub the inside of my wrist again as my nerves continue. Strong or not, he could still get hurt.

“Come with me, angel. I’ll help you take your mind off of it.”

She walks over to me and wraps her arm around me. Her embrace reminds me of my mom as she guides me out of the room and down the stairs. When we get to the living room, she tells me to sit and goes over to the bookshelf.

She sits down next to me with a giant book in her hands, “Aaron will probably want to kill me when he finds out I showed you this, but as a mom, it is my job to embarrass him as much as possible.”

I laugh quietly at her statement before opening the cover. Looking at the first page, I immediately recognize the book as a childhood scrapbook.

She jumps into telling me story after story about Aaron growing up. I know she’s just telling me these stories to distract me from thinking about Aaron and the hunters. But as she explains a picture of Aaron in the bottom half of a horse costume, my worry lessons with the distraction.

After about an hour, Zea gets up to make us some hot chocolate. I sit quietly on the couch, curled up under a blanket with a different one of Zea’s photo albums on my lap.

She’d mentioned earlier that she’s hoping that I will open up to Aaron and finally talk. She has no idea that I want to talk to Aaron. I want to tell him everything that I’ve gone through in the last few years. I want to show him that I trust him.

She has no idea that as much as I want to talk, I physically can’t.

I’m so wrapped in the thought, I don’t hear the door open. I feel a spark as someone places their hands onto my shoulders and leans forward.

“I’m back, angel,” he whispers in my ear.

I get up and run around the couch until I can throw myself into his arms. I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He keeps his hands under my legs as I bury my head into his throat. I calm as I breathe in his scent.

He chuckles at my reaction but lets me continue to hold on.

“I’m okay,” he reassures me, “We’re safe.”

He moves us back to sit on the couch. I keep myself wrapped around him even when he sits on the cushion, so he just lifts the blanket I had been using and throws it over both of us.

I lift my face up and look into his eyes as I wait for him to tell me what happened.

“We found our trackers. There were some injuries, but they are going to be fine,” he says, “We were able to capture one of the hunters.”

I’m shocked as he says that. They captured a hunter. A hunter is here.

I feel my heartbeat speed up as fear rises in me.

“Shh, angel. It’s alright,” he kisses my cheek and then my jaw to calm me down, “The hunter is in the pack cells. I promise he will not be leaving there alive.”

I nod my head as I try to let my fear go. Aaron will keep me safe. I trust him.

“What have you been doing while I’ve been gone?”

I shift slightly to grab the album I had dropped on the couch. I hold the book up to him and he chuckles lightly.

“Mom. Of course, she never hesitates to break out the baby photos,” he rolls his eyes as he shakes his head. I giggle as blush runs up his face when he sees a picture of his baby self in the bathtub.

“And I think I’ll just put this away,” he moves to grab the book from me, but I just pull away.

I giggle, shaking my head no. I love looking through photos of Aaron as a kid with his siblings. He stops reaching for the scrapbook and just watches me laugh.

I give him a questioning look, but he just leans his forehead against mine, “I love your laugh.”

Now it’s my turn to blush. I kiss him quickly before moving back to sit beside him on the couch. I lean against his side and he drapes his arm around my shoulders. I lay my head on his chest and release a sigh of content.

I place the book over both our laps and point to one of the photos of him, hoping he’ll tell me the story.

“This from a Halloween party when I was eleven, I think,” he tells me, “We went to my cousin’s pack for the weekend since my parents were at the Northern Alpha summit. My cousin conjured up enough candy to feed an army.”

I smile as I imagine the sugar high children running around the house in their costumes. Then his words sink in.

Conjured?

Conjuring is something a witch does, and a witch could break the spellbind around my voice. Is his cousin a witch?

Looking back at the picture, I point to the little girl standing next to him. She’s dressed in a classic witch costume and I tap her image a few times as I look at him in question.

“That’s my cousin, Josephine,” he says.

I point to myself and then back down to her, hoping he understands that I’m trying to say I need a witch. But based on the confused look he is currently giving me, I’m not doing a very good job of conveying it.

“I’m sorry, angel. I need you to give me more. I’m not understanding,” he looks so apologetic.

Jumping off the couch, I walk over to a bookcase near the tv which is full of movies. Scanning through the titles, I grab a handful.

Moving back to him, I place the movies down onto the coffee table. I picked Harry Potter, The Blair Witch Project, Practical Magic, and The Wizard of Oz.

I flip the scrapbook around and point at the picture of the witch again. He looks over the titles as I see my question click, “You want to find a witch?”

I nod my head.

“Why?”

I point to my throat and then tap the picture of the witch again.

“A witch locked your voice,” he realizes. I tell him yes, smiling as I jump into his arms, “A witch can heal your voice.”

I grab his phone out of his back pocket and push it in his face. He just nods and starts to types into the cell. I point towards the camera and he moves to facetime instead of calling.

He holds the phone in front of us as a pretty girl answers. Josephine has bright red hair and green eyes. She smiles at the camera as she looks at the two of us.

"Hey, Aaron. I heard you found your mate. She is beautiful," she smiles at me.

"Hey, Joesphine. I actually am calling because I need you to come to see us. It's hard to explain, but angel needs a witch to fix her voice," Aaron says.

She draws her eyebrows in confusion, "Needs a witch? Why?"

Knowing I can't say anything, I hold both of my bare wrists up to the screen. Her eyes widen at the sight. I know Aaron has no idea what is happening, but Joesphine is a witch. She will have the sight.

"Holy shit!"

"What? What's wrong?" Aaron's fear shines in his eyes as he pulls my wrist in his hands and examines them. But all he sees is smooth skin.

No marks to those without magic.

“Aaron,” Josephine draws his attention back to the phone, “Tell your parents I’ll be there by the end of the day.”

“What? Josephine, what is going on?” Aaron’s voice shakes, "Can you fix her voice?"

Josephine just ignores him as she turns her eyes to look at me, “I promise you, we will fix this.”

I nod as I feel tears roll down my cheeks.

“Don’t worry, You’re going to be okay,” she says before hanging up.

I feel myself gasp as the realization of what I’m going to get back hits me. For the first time in years, I feel a huge smile overtake my face as more tears flow down my cheeks.

I’m getting my voice back.