Page 4 of Stuck With His Mate
“And you too, Jemeric!” I wave to them before I turn back to Angelina. I know my voice and tone turns morbid, but I can’t help it. What I need to tell her is morbid.
“The worst part is when you survive the first change, and wake up, not human, or Lycan, but as a rogue.” Her confused stare prompts an explanation from me.
“Rogues are the creatures that attack you. If you wake up as one of those in a hospital, you will tear up the hospital, and kill innocents. Children will not even be safe from you, and I see you Angelina, you don’t want that in your conscience.”
The protest on her tongue dies, and a tiny gasp is all she let out, but my superior ears pick it up regardless. I know this is fucked up. Trust me I do.
Angelina follows me to the vehicle without my asking, climbing into the passenger seat with some difficulty. I move to help her but she shrugs off my help and does it herself, dejection distorting her expressive features and I can see she is holding back tears.
I want to offer her some comfort, and remind her that there is a slim chance of getting through this unchanged but I make up my mind to not offer her empty platitudes or false hope. I harden myself to this.
People die every day. This isn’t any different.
Chapter 2
Angelina
We drove in uneasy silence and I could feel his gaze on me ever so often. I couldn’t help myself either.
I pick at my nails aimlessly and sneak glances at him, wanting desperately to understand who and what he was, how he had known I was being attacked, and why he had decided to save my life.
The nuns who raised me had not raised a coward, so it doesn’t take long before I give voice to my questions.
“What exactly are you, Williem?”
“I am pretty fast and strong, but I was so clearly outmatched, I felt like a toddler pitched against tigers, but you didn’t seem to have that problem.
You went through those things like a hot knife through butter. Not to mention, I also got a pretty good look at your claws, and while you might look human, you are definitely not.”
“I’m not human, no, I am one of a type of beings, younger than humanity; we have walked this earth for much less time than your people, but we are better in so many ways.” Williem shoots me a dirty look.
He seems offended that I have likened him to being human.
“Well that’s not cryptic at all.” I mutter dryly, before I refocus my stare at him.
“I am blindly trusting you here, I am very grateful for you saving my life, but I think I deserve some of that trust back.” I feel like I have been tossed in the middle of a stormy sea, rudderless and with nothing to hold on to.
Williem pretends to not notice that I had asked a question for a good while before he finally responds.
“I am Lycan. I mentioned it before as the only good thing you could transform after the change. What your shows and cinema refer to as werewolves. But we are nothing like what you think.” He growls, and glances at me before continuing more softly.
“The moon is not a harsh mistress. Far from it. She sings so softly to us, our Sie’f Lun, and we reply to our mother the only way we know how. With our howling songs.” He avows, his voice thick with reverence as he speaks about this Sie’f Lun.
I am deeply moved by this intimacy, so I keep quiet, wanting to hear more from him.
“But those things that attacked you, they were rogues. It is not certain how they came to be, but we know for certain that they cannot hear our mother. They are cut off from her, and so they suffer.
They might have once been human, but they can never be that in life again, only in death do they return to what they once were.” Williem says, his words thick with sympathy for them.
After this he falls silent, and I am left to ruminate on what he said. I could not muster sympathy for those things, but I hadn’t thought they were once human beings like me, some of them at least.
This isn’t something I’ve ever prepared to deal with, and I need some time to process it.
We finally arrived at the pack territory, driving through thick vegetation for no less than an hour to get there. I am awestruck by the existence of such a territory, surrounded as it is by towering trees, undiscoverable to normal folk.
With the way he had reacted to my wounds, I would have expected Williem to hand me over to anyone who would have enough sympathy to take me in, but he actually kept me with him, not letting me leave his side.
“Come. Sit.” He pats the couch, encouraging me to rest, and then he leaves, only to return with a first-aid case. “We need to clean out your wounds. Your leg, please Angelina.”