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I am the only male to have two mates and yet have never touched a woman.
She thinks I hate her. I deserve that. I have pushed her away with every opportunity. The truth is that I do not hate her. I could not. She is sunlight and warm smiles. She is laughter and happiness, and those things are lost to me. I have not been happy since Zalah died cursing my name.
I’ve wanted a baby of my own so badly, because I want to do right by my child. I want it to grow up in a world of love where parents never disappear, people only touch you with kindness, and there’s nothing but joy and welcome and love at home.
I thought my cootie would pick a mate that would be kind, and gentle, and caring. Instead, I get the sa-khui Oscar the Grouch, minus the garbage can.
I continue on until I am in the caves. There are no family members to greet me. There are many friends, but my mother and my father and my brothers died in the khui-sickness of many years ago. I am alone.
“You may say what you want, but you are wrong. You think there is nothing worse than resonating to me? I know what is worse. The silence in your chest when your mate is gone.” His words are rough with anger. “And you would do that to me a second time?”
we don’t always get a choice in our future, and we need to make the best of things.
Just once, I wish she would look back. I wish she would see me, waiting on the horizon for her. Waiting to take care of her. To comfort her. To be her man and her mate and whatever else she needs.
It’s strange, but no one’s ever really been there for me in my life. When the shit hit the fan, everyone else ran away. Not Haeden. He might glare and put up a fuss, but he’s always been there. Funny how I didn’t realize it until I left.
If it were up to her, she would remain out here in the wild alone, forever. My wants and needs are nothing. The only reason she must return is for the safety of new human females. Her mate is simply an annoyance.
“This is just hard for me,” I tell him, resting my hands palm-up on my knees so I won’t hit them against anything. “I guess…sometimes I just want a say in something, you know? It feels like every time I turn around, the universe is deciding my fate for me and it gets old.” When he continues to remain silent, I add, “If you could go back and change things, wouldn’t you rather not resonate to me? If you had a choice?”
“It is easy to say words, Jo-see. It is another to mean them.”
“You’re afraid? Of me?” “Of losing you,” he rasps. “Like Zalah. And you are so much smaller and more fragile than her.”
“I had a mate,” I snarl at it, stabbing my knife into its side again. “And I loved her! You took her from me!”
“You are mine. That is all you need to know. If you are taken, I will come after you. If you are sick, I will never leave your side. If you leave, I will follow. You will never be without me, because I will come after you. Know this.” I brush my fingers over her breast, where her khui thrums. “Feel this and know it to be true.”
“And when you are well,” I tell her in the same firm voice, cutting off her protest before it starts. “I will lie down with you in the furs and take you as mine. We will mate until you carry my kit. Then, resonance will be sated. But do not seek to tell me that you are not mine yet. Because you have always been mine.” Her wounded eyes blink, and then she nods slowly. “Yours,” she whispers. “Always,” I growl back.
For some reason, this pleases me. I’m more important to him than Zalah was. I shouldn’t care about something so petty…but fuck that, I totally care. And it makes me happy. If we both weren’t so tired, I’d totally nail him right now.
He’s right - I was looking for words when all along, he’s been a man of actions. Words are easy to say, but actions are everything.
“But make no mistake - if you leave this world, I will not be long behind, because I cannot live without you.”
“You can be surly all you want to everyone else as long as you’re good to me.” “I will always be good to you,” he says solemnly, all traces of playfulness gone from his hard face. “You are my life, my heart, my everything.”
