The Contrary Mate

Jack

I was helped into the building. I’d broken my shoulder, and probably a couple of ribs, and my wrist wasn’t feeling too great either, but everything was aligned and my wolf was already healing me, so I’d probably be fine in a bit more than a week.

I was far more worried about my mate. She flinched every time her leg was moved and the slight bend told me it was certainly broken. One of my employees and the night guard put her leg in a splint and I stayed by her side, hoping that my proximity would help her heal, although I wasn’t sure it would, since she didn’t have a wolf.

The hunters got into the city a bit more than a half hour after everything had been wrapped up. They took all our statements, especially surrounding the death of the senator, and the captured fae were led away. I didn’t know if they would fall under the jurisdiction of the fae or of the hunters since they had broken a lot of laws, but I really didn’t care.

Rex kept trying to catch Aura’s eye and my wolf got more angry every time he made an attempt. The only thing that soothed my wolf was her silent comment. “I don’t want to talk to him right now. I’ve talked enough, and he hasn’t listened.” I kept my body between them, blocking his vision of her.

Most of the tech came back online with a quick reboot. Meteor Security Inc. would be fine because we had our systems backed up on remote servers, and also some of our main servers were housed in faraday cages so the EMPs hadn’t completely wiped everything out. A lot more could be recovered.

Other businesses and people nearby had not been so lucky. Any electronics within a ten block radius had been fried, including cars. Farther out, it was hit or miss. Now that the field had been locked out, vehicles could be restarted. Phones turned back on, although mine was completely dead, along with any others that had gotten too close to the heart of he magical interference.

The overall cost was difficult to calculate, but the cost of lives was far worse. One wolf had been lost in the fight, and I mourned his loss along with the rest of the pack. He had been my friend and I hated that it had come to that. I didn’t care about the dead fae, since Aura didn’t seem upset and it had been necessary to do what we had done to stop them.

Humans made up the majority of the casualties. Besides the ones lost in accidents, my prediction about hospitals was sadly true, the inability to start up backup generators turned vulnerable patients into victims.

From the surviving fae prisoners, we had discovered that they had intended to continue to grow the interference until it was worldwide, theoretically wiping out all human technology over the course of a week as the radius grew larger. I didn’t know if they could have managed it, but the idea that their fanatical beliefs would have made them willing to make such a huge sacrifice was disturbing.

We were picked up a while later, the cars in my garage having nicely survived the sweep of magic. I carried her out to the vehicle and we were driven to the pack where the pack doctor fixed us up. They were far enough out of town that there’d been almost no damage, other than a few alarms set off and other odd little phenomenon, and the loss of power for a couple hours. I sent word to Aura’s parents that she was safe, and then I took her home.

The house had been hit, like the rest of the city, but considering the distance from the center, most things worked after restarting. We had lights, and anything else we really needed. The few things that didn’t were easily replaced.

A few weeks passed, and things began to get back to normal. The whole incident was played off to the humans by the hunters running interference as a terrorist attack, and most seemed to accept it, although some fascinating conspiracy theories flourished on the internet. My wolf healed my injuries, and Aura’s leg also improved rapidly with the aid of a witch healer. As soon as she had a proper cast to support the bone she’d been busy again, flying when she could and crutching around when she could not.

I got a new phone. I wasn’t happy that I had lost the messages Aura had sent me, but everything else had been backed up. It took work to get things back up and running at the main offices, but through a lot of good work, everything was back to normal.

And after another long day of work I found myself heading home to find my mate. It wasn’t difficult. She was tending to the plants in the conservatory, the place where she spent most of her time when she wasn’t in the fae community or with me. I just stood at the door and watched her trailing her fingers along the plants, presumably discovering something from the action that I could never fathom. She was wearing one of her usual light dresses, and her hair was pulled back in a loose braid. I let my gaze run over her delicate form, greedy as I was for her.

I didn’t think that she had noticed that I was there, until she suddenly turned and met my eyes with a smile. “You’re home.”

“I am.” Home really was wherever she was. She slipped over to me, her footsteps light, then her arms were around me and I pulled her closer until she was lined up against me, fitting me like we were designed for each other. Maybe we were.

“I missed you,” she commented with a little smile.

“Oh? Probably not as much as I missed you.”

“I think I missed you more.”

“Impossible to quantify.”

She shrugged, and I kissed her, and it did feel like she had missed me about as much as I had missed her, if the unconditional acceptance was anything to go by. I grew harder, and she ground herself against me. “Should we go to our room?”

“This door locks, doesn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question and I had no reason to argue. Except... “But I don’t have any—”

Her teasing smile grew wider. “I stashed some here...just in case.”

Well, then what were we waiting for? I went to the door, and she went to her stash, and we met in the middle.