The Heartborn Mate

by D. Brumbley

  “We need to go about this differently. We need to communicate with the Ironborn somehow. I will not allow for any more of our good people to die because Coren won’t approach this in a way that he knows is the only way to avoid all-out war.”

  Isela nodded slowly, but she wasn’t sure how they were going to accomplish any peace, even though she wanted them to be able to. “But the Ironborn refused to even listen to our messenger. They threatened her life. How would we even get them to listen to us?”

  Ivy was actually the one who spoke next, and she sounded more confident speaking her mind with the two of them. The rest of the Council was what intimidated her. Especially the males, since she was not yet mated, and therefore she really didn’t want to look less appealing to anyone. “More importantly,” she still said in a soft voice. “How do we get it past Coren and the rest of the bloodthirsty? Even if we do get the Ironborn to agree to peace, how in the world would we get the rest of the Council to listen to us and agree to the terms we come to?”

  Teresa sighed and addressed Isela’s concern first, since she was the one who had responded first. “I have contacts with the Ironborn.” She admitted in a whisper that barely skittered across the top of the water where she relaxed into their ears. “They’ll listen to what we have to say at least. I know that. Coming to an agreement might be a whole different matter, but I know they’ll listen to us.”

  Isela was a little surprised, but she was also quite impressed that Teresa had such contacts after so little time in the Council. It had taken her a long time to build up a base that she felt was reliable enough to really utilize. “Well, that’s more than I thought we had. So they’ll listen to us.” She looked over at Ivy and nodded at her before she looked back at Teresa. “But Ivy’s right. How do we get the rest of the Council to agree to whatever we can get the Ironborn to agree to?”

  Ivy was surprised by Isela’s support, but it gave her even more confidence in herself, and she waited to hear what Teresa might have to say about that. Teresa looked down at the water around her legs, and it started to create a whirlpool around her that slowly wrapped up further around her legs as she stood there.

  “We’ll do whatever it takes. If they don’t come to some kind of understanding that will work, the Ironborn will destroy us all. Many, many more of our people will die. The Ironborn might not have had as much of a chance before, but with Candra and the Shadowborn,” she’d met him of course, but she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to reveal to the two of them just yet, “they’ve turned this whole thing around. This is now about survival. And when that happens, it’s time to let the wolves inside us do the controlling. The wolf will keep us alive. It always has, it always will. And as wolves, we know that when something stands in your way of surviving…you destroy it.”

  Ivy shivered a little and then she dropped her voice to a whisper again. “You sound a little like Coren.”

  Teresa glared at Ivy, but she didn’t answer harshly. “No one has ever questioned Coren’s intelligence. Only his wisdom. I might sound like him, but I’m not the fool he is. I don’t overestimate our power and underestimate our enemies. I put my support behind the side that is going to win. And right now, it’s hard to tell who that is. But I’m hoping that maybe it won’t go to a war. That’s the point of talking to the Ironborn, after all.”

  Both Isela and Ivy nodded and they buried themselves in their element a little more to try and relax, since it was definitely stressful going into a situation acting against the Council they were a part of. Eventually, after they all felt a little more relaxed, Teresa spoke again. “Well, then. We’re in agreement. Let the games begin.”

  * * * * *

  It was two nights before the next Fulness when Teresa finally received a message back from Nick by way of the messenger. The boy came back fearful and still shaken by his experience with the Ironborn, but alive and unharmed at least, and he stood in front of Teresa looking around nervously. “My lady, I am…instructed to tell you that Nickel, Alpha of the Ironborn, has declined your request for peaceful settlement at the present time, but he wishes you to know that he continues to wish you and your people no ill will.”

  Teresa nodded and then sighed as she looked away for a moment. “Did he say anything else?”

  “Yes, my lady. He asked me to deliver a further message to you, with his strictest hopes that you will, as a friend, keep in confidence what he declares to you, though he does not think that it will be a secret from the world for long.”

  That was confusing, but she nodded again. “Continue, then, and tell me what he said.”

  “He has begun to seek assistance and alliances with other packs all over Europe. Six other Alphas have already joined him in Spain, including three Earthborn packs, two Skyborn and a Forestborn from east Germany. He is gathering leaders for a council to rival that which you sit on. And he is gathering them quickly.”

  That was surprising, but honestly, she didn’t know what she felt about it. She didn’t know if she was more disappointed in losing her place of power, mainly because she felt like she could really make a difference, or if she was happy that someone was doing something about the Council she sat on. Finally, though, she looked at the boy. “I need you to take one more message for me, young one. Then you are free to go. I will pay you well, of course.” She gathered her payment and then handed it to him before she spoke. Teresa knew he would agree because it was too much to deny. “I need you to tell him that he has friends here. And that we will do what we can from here.”

  “I…but, my lady…” He was looking at the money in his hand and then back up at her, but that kind of message was against everything he had grown up believing. He lived his entire life in service to the Council, been apprenticed to them when he was barely old enough to run. And now he was being asked to bear a message that stated his lady was willing to change sides against her own people?

  Teresa went up to him and she placed her hand in the middle of his chest. “Those we rule deserve a Council that will cherish its people over its power. One that thinks you are as important as anyone else.” She then placed her hand on his cheek for a moment so that she could force him with his similar dark blue eyes to look up at her. “You have many years of life to live. I want you to have that chance. Do this for me. Trust in me.”

  He gulped heavily, but at that kind of insistence, all he could do was bow. “I do, my lady. I will deliver the message, and be back as quickly as I can be.” He took her hand and kissed the back of it once, then backed away and left quickly, though his heart was still heavy with the collapse of the world around him.

  V

  With the situation tense, both Candra and Orlando, (since they rarely left each other’s side anymore) decided to stay in a makeshift hut just outside the perimeter of the Ironborn settlement. They weren’t fully a part of the expansions that were made for the people coming in, after all. They were also being monitored so that they could be protected, but together, they didn’t really need protection. Orlando certainly didn’t, and Candra had Orlando, so they were pretty well off without any guards. Weeks passed as they learned more about each other and what they could do together.

  It was a new experience for Candra every day, but she liked having him near. The Fulness was coming up, and they hadn’t really talked about it, but Candra didn’t know what to expect. Her whole life she’d been told to stay away from males, anyone really, but the more time she spent with Orlando, the less she could even bear to imagine being without him. She had thoughts about him that she was sure were improper, but she never voiced them, and never felt pressured into anything by Orlando, which was contrary to everything she’d ever read about what to expect from men in general. She did know, however, that the Fulness was especially dangerous, but she wasn’t sure how to get around to asking about it.

  The physical side of their relationship hadn’t gone any farther than their constant need for some kind of contact, which usually amounted to holding hands or Candra hanging
onto Orlando’s arm as they walked. They slept together, and their first few nights had been exceptionally awkward for the both of them, but even then, all they did was wake up in each other’s arms exactly the way they’d gone to sleep. After a few nights of such rest (in a bedroom that had been specifically made without any windows for Candra’s sake), they had finally reached the point where Candra actually needed to turn on a nightlight, but it was still only a very dim one.

  Since the house didn’t have any windows, she could get up at any time she wanted, and that particular day she noticed that the clock said three AM. Candra got out of bed and went into the small kitchen and pulled out a recipe book that Orlando procured for her. She knew it wouldn’t be more than an hour before Orlando woke up because of her absence, but she hoped she would have something edible made by then. She’d been practicing with scrambled eggs, bacon and French toast, but she’d yet to accomplish making them all in a way that was tolerable to eat. It was a process, but she was trying, at least.

  It was closer to an hour and a half before she heard him stirring in the other room, and she could tell by the flicker of the time display on the kitchen appliances that he was awake. Orlando didn’t exactly trouble himself with light switches. Not anymore, anyway. He just zapped whatever he wanted to turn on, but it did always announce his presence to the rest of the house. He came out into the kitchen wearing his pajama pants and leaned on the door frame. “I smelled burnt bacon but not smoke, so I figured that was a good sign?”

  Candra looked back at him with a sigh. “I hope you’re learning to like it crispy and your eggs runny. I can never get them right, even though I’ve totally got the French toast down.”

  “That’s fine by me. The toast is my favorite anyway.” He walked up behind her and took a piece of fairly crispy bacon from the pile, crunching it almost into powder as he took a bite. “And the bacon doesn’t bother me either. Have you ever tried to eat a pig that died from electrocution?”

  “No…” She said as she looked back over her shoulder at him crunching away. “Are you saying my bacon tastes like zapped pig?”

  “No, I’m saying I’ve eaten many a zapped pig in my life, and after a while, you kinda get used to it. Crunchy bacon is excellent by comparison. As for runny eggs, I’ll just mop them up with the toast. Problem solved.”

  She turned enough to kiss him on his cheek. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to get this cooking thing down. I never had to do it.”

  “You still don’t. I told you I can take care of it if you want me to.”

  “I want to learn. I want to know how to do things.” Candra argued adamantly, since her independence was new. She wanted to try and gain as much as she could.

  “Alright, alright.” He kissed her on the shoulder and took another piece of bacon. “Look at it this way, you’ll never have to worry about doing steak right. As long as it’s warm and bloody, I’m good with it.”

  She smiled and put his share of the food onto a plate and plated her own before she set them both down on their small kitchen table. She sat down next to him instead of across from him and she smiled over at him. “At least we’re doing some things right. We’re eating at a table together. Like a real couple. Or at least the ones I read about.”

  “Which ones were those?” He questioned with a smile, since he enjoyed hearing about the fictional people she’d come to know in her years of captivity. Most of them he’d only seen in movies.

  “The books described a family as a mother, father and children. But before the children there was a mother and a father who fell in love. The father works, the mother cares for the house and meals and eventually the children. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Well, that’s…yes, that’s one way of all that working out. There’s a few thousand different ways for a family to be a family, but that’s one method people have chosen. There’s not really just one default image a family looks like. They get…complicated. Sometimes in good ways, sometimes not.” He said with a darker expression, finally settling into his French toast.

  “What?” She said with an obviously concerned expression. “What’s wrong? What did I say?” His expressions weren’t impossible to read, but she was still learning to read him.

  “Nothing, nothing.” He smiled faintly. “I’m just remembering my mom and dad. They tried to keep that kind of life up. It just…didn’t work out real well.”

  Candra leaned in and kissed the side of his neck. “Are we going to be like that? Do you think it’s even possible?” It was strange to talk about their relationship in such a serious way, but only a few weeks felt like years. It felt like she would never find anyone like him and so it made no sense to do anything slow.

  “I don’t know. I can’t tell the future.” He didn’t say it sadly, but he was still very reserved when talking about their relationship. Not that he was still fighting it, since he knew he really couldn’t, but just because every day he had to walk out their front door and see Aura’s small house set apart from everyone else’s. “But I think the kind of family you’re talking about was the kind where the dad goes to work all day, comes home with a briefcase, the wife is wearing an apron, puts dinner on the table. Dad talks to the kids about how their day was at school, gripes about his job, then goes and watches the news for three hours before going to bed. Sound about right?”

  “I guess that’s right, yes.”

  He shook his head. “That’ll never be me.” He said it with the same look in his eyes that told her he was thinking about his parents, but then looked at her and pulled her in to kiss her on the cheek. “But I wouldn’t want that to be you either.”

  She pressed her forehead to his afterwards for just a moment before she went back to eating. Slowly. “Is it wrong? For us to be happy together?”

  “No.” He said without hesitation, though he didn’t return to his food as he looked over at her so that she could see he meant what he said. “It isn’t. And it won’t be. Please don’t think that that’s how I feel about it. It’s just…” Orlando took another bite of French toast and chewed slowly as he thought of a way to finish that phrase. “Not what I expected. But that’s not a bad thing.”

  Candra nodded slowly and she ate in silence for a little while longer before she spoke again. “What are we going to do about the Fulness?”

  He knew the question was the elephant in the room for a long time, but he hadn’t realized she would actually be the one to bring it up first. Here he was, older than he generally cared to admit, and this twenty-something was being more mature about the situation than he was. “How are they normally for you? Did they let you run free at all during them, or did you have to stay down in your… home the whole time?”

  “I don’t…I didn’t run during the Fulness.” There was a lot of changing the way she talked about her life, mentioning things in the past and in the present differently than she was used to yet. “Very, very inappropriate things happen during that time.”

  That actually made him laugh. “Well, that depends on whose definition of appropriate you’re talking about, I suppose.”

  “Well I…I mean you and I…we…I don’t know if I can. . .” All of a sudden she was self-conscious and nervous. He’d seen her disrobed several times, but they always kept it hands-off.

  “Hey…” He put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek again. “Don’t worry about that. I don’t lose myself on the Fulness like some wolves do. I would never force you to do anything like that if you didn’t…”

  Candra cut him off with a passionate kiss that lasted long enough to send sparks down his steel chair, and when it broke, she looked into his eyes. “I do, thought. I do want to.” All she knew about it was what she had read about, but if emotions counted for anything, she wanted everything with him. Everything.

  He couldn’t help but be a little overwhelmed by the power in a touch like that, and he held her just out of pure reflex and instinct. She was a smaller woman, and unassuming in the extreme
, and the one thing more than anything else that he had learned about Candra was that she had almost no real concept of just how strong she really was. She was without question the most powerful wolf he had ever met, and she had no idea. “Something like that isn’t something you want to just rush into, Candra. We might be half animal, but when it comes to sex, it’s the human side of us that’s really made to enjoy it for all it’s worth.” He should know. He had been a virgin himself until just the month before.

  She nodded slowly and then kissed him gently. “I just wanted you to know that I want to. I can be patient.” She sighed and held his hand. “I feel things for you that I’ve never felt about anyone else. There won’t be anyone else, not for me.”

  Every time he kissed her, he felt like he betrayed Aura a little bit more, but still he pulled Candra in closer and returned the kiss. “I’m sorry. That I found you when I was…busy making other plans. It’s not fair to you. I just need time.”

  Candra kissed him several more times and just hugged him. “I’m not going anywhere. And anyway, what’s the saying? ‘The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’? I need to get that down first.” She said with a teasing smirk.

  Her smirk did lighten his mood a little, and he kissed her as he started back in on his French toast, this time one-handed since he had his other arm still around her shoulders. “This…is a very, very good start, if that’s what you’re aiming for.”

  “Good. The day I get a feast down, then maybe you won’t be able to resist me.” She giggled and kissed the side of his neck before she started digging into her own plate.

  Not like I can really resist you now. He thought to himself, grateful for the moment that he was in his human and not his wolf, so that she couldn’t hear the thought. Like everything else in life, he imagined that once Candra knew what kind of power she really had, over the world and over him, there would be no stopping her.