Page 38 of Meeting Her Mate
“Don’t you get it? Even after you’ve escaped from your prison, you’re still not free! It’s not just about the mutations and the alterations. These people are out there to hurt you! They want to kill you, Will.”
“Yes, but you have helped me today in a way no one has before. You’ve given me a chance to know who my enemy is. Now that I know who to look out for, I can prepare better, make sure the pack’s strong enough, and be ready to confront my enemy. You’ve tipped the battlefield in my favor. Thank you for that,” Will said, still holding me.
“Why aren’t you freaking out? Shouldn’t the news that there’s a potion out there that can kill you upset you? Aren’t you devastated?” I asked angrily. Though, I did stop squirming. There was something about the comforting hold he had on me that calmed me down more than his words did.
“I’m not devastated,” Will said. “Knowing is half the battle, and now that I know, I’ve won half the battle, all thanks to you.”
“Will, you don’t understand. They’re out to get you,” I said, breaking free from his hug and staring deeply into his eyes to let him know the gravity of the situation.
“During the Second World War, I was shot at more times than I can count. When I sailed with my pack across the ocean to America, our ship was caught in eight different storms, but we somehow made it safely to land. When I was imprisoned by Edward, the pain of the torture could have killed me, but I did not die. When I escaped, that horde of vampires could have decimated me. But you saved me. Do you know what that means?”
“That you’re impervious to death?” I couldn’t help but be sarcastic. In truth, I was feeling vulnerable for him. I did not know that I had the capacity to care for him as much as I was doing now. Why? There was no bond between us anymore. Why did I still care? Why did this news suddenly jolt my entire body?
Will laughed. It was the first time I was seeing him laugh from this up close. He had a very handsome smile that reached his eyes. “None of us are impervious to death. But I’ve lived somehow through all this because I’m destined for something. Fated to do something. At times it feels like fate has played a cruel trick on me, but I’ve recently started reminding myself that fate made sure I was alive all this time.”
His face was so close to mine. His eyes were gazing at me with a soft intenseness. As he spoke, his tone held such a lilt that it was hard to imagine that the very same man could be rude. Not this Will. This was the true Will.
I reached up and kissed him. I closed my eyes and let my lips feel the brush of his warm, soft lips. I expected him to recoil and retort, but that did not happen. He kissed me back, his lips nudging mine. I could feel succulence serenade my mouth as I, not knowing what I was doing, deepened the kiss and embraced his body.
The same powerful electricity that had lit up my body when we had bonded now bolted through my body, emerging from my lips and reaching to my extremities. I pressed harder, my mouth firmly against his, my tongue gently caressing his tongue.
This moment ended as fast as it had started, leaving us standing in front of each other, arms in arms, looking at each other with flushed faces, wet lips, and beaming eyes.
“Wow,” I whispered.
“That was…something,” Will said in a soft voice.
“I’m sorry; I don’t know why I did—” Will didn’t let me finish my sentence, putting his finger on my lips.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he said.
It had been a spontaneous impulse that had prompted me to kiss him. What was pleasantly surprising to me was that he had kissed me back.
“Err…I think I should go back to the commune,” Will stuttered. “Erm…thanks for the help. I’ll…I’ll see you later?”
“Yes, la-later,” I said.
He left me standing there in the purple evening light coming from my window, with the ghost of his kiss still lingering on my lips.
Chapter 14: Will
Sometimes, it’s not the brute force of a hammer that breaks a stubborn rock but the gentle pitter-patter of water droplets over time that cleaves it into two. Failing that, a bolt of lightning shows that even the biggest boulders are torn apart.
That kiss with Alexis hit me with the force of a hammer, felt as gentle as a drop of water, and jolted me as ferociously as a bolt of lightning. Were my heart a rock, it would have surely given in to the affectionate, spontaneous, and eclectic kiss.
But my heart was filled with darkness akin to the one that lies in the middle of a black hole. You cannot break darkness with a hammer. You cannot fill it to the brim with water. And you can only momentarily light it up with a lightning bolt, but the darkness is long and unending, and that sliver of lightning is a mere blip that only accentuates the infinite nature of that darkness.
And yet, there was more to that moment than just the kiss. When she learned that forces were conspiring against me, she became genuinely worried for my safety. As a mate would. In the past, whenever trouble came my way, I looked to my pack members for solace. More importantly, I would look to Ariana to give me a word of encouragement or to bolster my spirit. She never did. At best, she was generic in her diction, and at worst, she was completely indifferent.
Alexis had shown more emotion in that single night than Ariana had done in the entire time I had spent with her.
“We’re here, mister,” the cabbie said.
I cast a look at the fare meter. Inflation was one of the things that I was having some difficulty coming to terms with. In the ‘40s, I could buy groceries for two weeks for ten dollars. Now, a few miles from the commune to this apartment complex cost ten dollars.
Regardless, I fished out a ten-dollar bill from my pocket, handed it to the cabbie, and got out of the taxi.
I watched the cab drive off, leaving me standing in the parking lot of Alexis’s apartment building. This time I hadn’t come for help. This time I came out of my own volition. After last night’s kiss, I had trouble sleeping. To release my emotions, I even went to the shooting gallery and emptied a whole magnum clip on one of the crash test dummies that were standing at the far end of the gallery. But this was not anger that I was feeling. This wasn’t even some sort of confusion.