Taken by my mate

Covyn

“The deals are their own,” she told me blandly, but I had felt the ache in her chest and I knew she felt nothing from me.

“What can we do to fight them? You’re saying they could be after anyone here, but it’s not me. How do I protect my pack?” I demanded.

Sequoia gasped when she looked at Evadiene. “Please, no…”

“It’s the only way no one gets hurt.” Evadiene shrugged but there was no energy in it as she looked at me. “I can’t ask them to fight my brothers, and whoever they’ve come to kill… I know I’ll remember who they are when they’re dying. This is a completely selfish solution. I can’t remember who they are as I’m losing them again. Besides, if they die everything I went through was for nothing, I’ll take care of it.” She smirked, attempting to lighten Sequoia’s spirit but she began making scared cat noises in her throat “I know Coy. Me too.”

“What is it?” I asked, looking between them.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll handle it. Just let me get some strength back,” I felt her heart clench tightly and her voice broke at first when she tried to speak again. “Can I stay here tonight?”

I felt the first real feeling since watching her die that wasn’t anger as my chest clenched in return. She stared at me for a minute but nodded and stood up. She moved toward the door, bringing the blanket with her and tossed the curtain aside. I caught my Betas looking at me, and Ellion holding Daley back against going to her.

“What is your plan?” I called after her and her hand hesitated on its way to the knob.

“Don’t ask me that,” she returned, not turning to me. “Not you, not after everything. Don’t pretend like you care.”

“Tell me it won’t hurt you.”

“I’ll be fine.”

I felt the ache thrum through her chest, pulsing through her body and making her double over in pain. I jumped to my feet and ran over to her, both of us relaxing, reluctantly, to be together.

She sighed and leaned against me. “It is easier if you don’t know.”

I kissed the top of her head, smelling her hair and asked again. “What is your plan?”

“If they want me home, I’ll give up my human life for my phoenix.” The way she spoke made me believe that wasn’t her whole plan.

“That would be like us shifting and never shifting back-,” I exclaimed. “Never speaking,.. little things like the ability to use your hands to read, or cook,…”

She nodded. “Big magic, big price. Don’t worry, I’ll sever our bond before I feel that pain. I may even be able to negotiate regaining my current form after the sun sets at home.”

“Evadiene…”

Her legs wobbled and I picked her up despite her trying to push me away. “I’m just tired.” Her head dropped suddenly and quickly, but she pick it up just as quick.

I walked back into the room and laid her in the bed before looking to Sequoia for her thoughts but she shifted into the leopard and curled up against Evadiene’s legs with a view of the door. The cat purred loudly against her and sleep came for her before anyone could get up, let alone leave.

“She forced herself to stay awake for our questions,” I confirmed.

“She’ll do a lot more for you wolven.” The snide comment caught me off guard and I turned around to see Sequoia sitting on the bed in human form again, sneering at me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I returned, eyeing Evadiene carefully.

“She’s asleep, deeply, we won’t wake her up. And she’ll punish me for saying anything but I’m not held to all of the same rules she is.” She looked to Spencer, choosing her words carefully. “You were there when an important piece was found.” She then turned to me. “And you brought an important clue into the equation. If you figure it out, I’ll help with the disconnect.”

“What?” Ellion gasped, looking around at all of us.

“Why are you telling us this?” I asked instead, looking at her strongly.

“If you hadn’t seen your family in five hundred years, and your choices were between finding the person you blame and killing them, and letting your loved one remain a wolf forever, what would you choose?” She asked delicately.

“I’d slaughter an entire army to free them and bring them home,” Spencer replied immediately behind me. “I would never make that deal.”

Sequoia’s eyes glistened as she nodded. “Evadiene is smart. So, so smart.”

“She knows they won’t make the deal,” I finished for her.

Sequoia moved up the bed and moved Evadiene so she could hold her. “If she acts, knowing she could die as a result, she won’t come back. The ash will stay ash.” Tears were rolling down her face. “If we leave now, her brothers will still know where her curse breaker is. She won’t do that to the wolven. She’s always had a soft spot for your kind.” The tears fell more ferociously from her eyes. “She’s already given so much to you people! When will it be enough!?” She choked on their breath and I heard Daley getting up go hug her. “I can’t lose her.”

The whimper she released would have broken even a heart of stone. Sadly my heart was made of flesh and muscle, and it had been clenched tightly since I heard the sound of my truck breaking. This was my mate.

My mate who had tried to be so patient with me when all she wanted was for me to ask her the questions on my mind. She had tried to leave, she tried to go before any of this, and told me she was a risk to be around when she thought it was me they were after. To find out it was another of my people made the knot in my chest constrict.

I moved back to sit in a chair by the fire and looked over the books on the table. I shuffled them around, wondering why she appeared to have grabbed every book she had read since arriving here. Then I found the one she had asked for sticky notes for, and it was about Wolven laws.

I flipped to the first note and it flagged cross-species mate pairs. The next was about she-wolf rights, and the next had a page about Alpha Stone and how he had fought for equality in his pack for the women. He was eliminating forcing mates to stay with abusive partners and fighting against the rape of women, that was done primarily to produce offspring and increase pack size and power.

“She knew about Alpha Stone before his beta’s son entered this room,” I muttered. “She knew he would punish him severely, but that his pack deserved a second chance. And I treated her like a stranger to our world.” I gave a pathetic laugh and looked at my Betas. “She’s known this world longer than any of us have been alive.”

I ran my hands over my face and groaned in frustration. Someone in my pack was on a hit list, and it could be anyone. Dragons would attack my pack to end the deal Evadiene made hundreds of years ago, and I couldn’t even blame them. Sequoia was right, if it had been, say, my mother in the same situation I would destroy a whole pack against her wishes to give her back her wolf.

“Sequoia?” I began. “Do you want additional security on the room while she sleeps?”

She looked over Evadiene, biting her lip in worry, and nodded. “Lock the doors and windows from the inside. I’ll have guards posted at all the access points.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I waved my people out of the room and felt the dull click through the door as she locked it.

“Go to bed,” I commanded. “It’s been a long night.”

“How do you expect us to sleep after that?” Ellion scoffed. “Come on, I know you won’t be. Your mate…”

“Is she?” I interrupted, my wolf whimpering in my head. “Her marks are gone, along with all of her other injuries they’re gone. And there’s someone here more important to her than me, she just can’t remember who. Do you know how that feels?”

“Heart breaking,” Spencer muttered. “That fact would be absolutely world shattering, for any mate to hear, and I can only imagine how that must feel for you, but I’d take that pain a thousand times over to feeling my mate dying for me. Even if she was with someone else, at least she was alive.”

He strode away from me, fists clenched, and despite the tick in my jaw that wanted to put him in his place, I let him go. My mind was too busy to deal with Evadiene and her brothers.

Ellion was staring at me. I thought he was waiting for me to give direction until he turned to his mate.

“Daley, go to bed. I’ll be up in a bit.” He said finally, kissing her goodnight and grabbing my arm. “Come on man, you need an outlet.”

He dragged me down to the sparring ring and the two of us went until we couldn’t stand. Then we laid on the mat, breathing heavily and staring at the ceiling. I could lay anyone from our pack out on the mat, any day of the week, but I wanted to feel something different. Everything hurt, but it was all internal, emotional, I wanted my outsides to match my insides and I let Ellion get a lot of hits in.

I could see the hesitation as he landed hit after hit, me barely returning them towards him, but I think he knew what I was doing. A small part of him started to enjoy it, taking out whatever emotions he had built up himself on me, and I was all too willing to let him.

“I don’t envy you right now Covyn,” he began. “Do you still love her?”

My chest tightened and I wanted to start fighting again. “All the reasons I was upset… it’s not her fault. But how do I come back from how I acted, and you didn’t see that thing out there Ellion. That wolven came back from nothing, shifted in front of us, reeking of death.. it took three of us to take it out.

“The Alpha in me says the one for the many, but how can I send Evadiene or any of my people to die? I would have rather’d it was me.” Ellion nodded in understanding. “Giving myself up for her would be easy.”