The Heartborn Mate

by D. Brumbley

  Zara was lying down near the river, afraid to even look back in the direction of the compound. She hadn’t felt anything that she knew she would feel should Coren actually die, and while she heard the screams and sounds of war start to quiet, she only prayed harder. Her Oceanborn guards had left her a long time ago at some unheard signal, but she hardly noticed their absence, she was so intent on her prayers.

  Coren wasn’t dead, so he must have claimed victory. That was the only thing that could have happened. She dipped the tip of her muzzle into the water and took a drink before she stared down into the depths, praying particularly to the goddess of the Oceanborn, since she would be the one to keep Coren safe.

  Nick saw a Forestborn wolf up in a tree as he went, and shifted quickly so that his thoughts wouldn’t give him away. He was careful to get into the stream as quickly as possible, to get away from anything that might tip off the Forestborn to his presence, and submerged himself almost entirely before shifting again and continuing silently on his way. His shifting made a splash in the water, but the Forestborn didn’t notice, and Nick slipped past, trying to catch any hint of Zara, since he knew she would be in her wolf if there was fighting about. She was weak in both forms, but her wolf at least had teeth and useful claws.

  Zara closed her eyes and thought about Coren, envisioning him so that the Goddess would be sure to know who needed her protection the most. I come to you, most precious goddess of the waves, and I beg you to hear my plea. It was different, praying to a being that wasn’t of her kind, that didn’t know her sacrifices or her power. She had spent almost the entire time praying to her own god and his mate. Some packs thought that another element’s gods wouldn’t respond to the prayers of those who didn’t belong to them. She hoped those people were wrong.

  Coren was chosen by your hand, born of your ocean, to lead our people. You have protected him at every turn, through every war and every hardship. I beg of you, keep him safe. Watch over your most faithful leader. Please, blessed mother of the depths…bring him back to me.

  As she finished her prayer, she felt something drop within her, not a death nearby, but something darker than death. Darker than pain. It was as though the force that sustained her own heartbeat fell straight through her chest and dropped away from her completely into the water before her. When she opened her eyes to look around, she saw Nick standing on a stone in the middle of the river in his wolf, looking down at her, pain in his eyes and panic on his face, though his claws were curling into the stone at his feet.

  She might have been praying to a god of the sea, but it was an iron prince who had been listening.

  She scrambled backwards into the bank, and she looked up at Nick with real fear in her eyes for the first time. He could feel her conflicted emotions, he could hear all the lies she wanted to tell, and all the twisted truths that she had already told him. Her fear, her own panic, uncovered everything before him in a heartbeat through the very real and very true oath that she had given to him.

  The worst part was that he could tell through the chaos of her thoughts that she truly loved him, but had come to love him by loving Coren more, by falling into Coren’s plan. Her love for him had been contrived, and in the end, her heart had never been there for him. She had given it away a long time ago.

  Nick…She pleaded in panic, trying to remind him of what they had, of emotions and love that they had shared, anything that would spare her. If nothing else, she couldn’t die and weaken Coren.

  He didn’t move from where he stood, but she could feel the pain rising up inside him, and with it, the killing anger that she knew he was capable of. She had seen it from him time and time again as she stood behind his throne and watched him rule his people, but she had never been the one staring it in the face before. It pierced her like a knife, and slowly, his upper lip began to twitch, baring his teeth slowly in a snarl of the rage that could only come from betrayal.

  His hazel eyes didn’t blink as the growl began low in his throat. She could feel it resonate through her entire body through the bond they shared that not even his awakening hatred could undo.

  The hate he felt, strong as it was, made it difficult for her to run away, since it still felt as good as the love he had once felt for her. Zara finally pulled herself away, though, and she tried to run as fast as she could. The only chance she had at survival was to run, and beneath her panic, she knew even that was futile.

  She could feel him tearing through the underbrush behind her all the way. The worst part of what she felt from him at the moment was the silence. He might as well have not been any part human for the rage he felt as he chased her, hunting her like the animal that he was.

  He was faster than she was, his anger driving him to forget even the injury he had sustained to his leg earlier that day. He managed to get around to one side of her, forcing her to take a sharp turn through the woods to keep away from him, and soon, she realized he was actually herding her back towards the compound. But every time she tried to take a turn away from him, he was there making sure she ran back toward the fence. It was that or his jaws.

  When she was too close to the compound to get away from the metal, she could hear screeching from what the Ironborn were doing to restore it. It was too late.

  She stopped suddenly, shaking her head violently as she cowered. Please, Nick! Please! What I felt for you was real! I do love you! I know you can feel it! I know…

  Nick, however, didn’t stop, and he kept running at her full tilt, until he rammed into her and flung her a dozen feet into what remained of a tree that had been bent over backward in the battle. When she fell to the ground, he was there standing over her, still snarling.

  I can feel it. He finally said, and she knew he meant it. She could feel his changed awareness of every smile she had given him, every moment they had spent together. Every confidence he had shared, every concern he had voiced only to her. His trust. His own love for her. None of it changed the murderous look on his face. Get on your feet or die in the dirt. Get to the Court. Your mate is waiting for you.

  She yelped in pain but she got up and went in the direction that he forced her to go. She tried to reason with him, but he didn’t answer. All she could hope for was mercy, but she knew Nick too well to allow herself even that much. A hope for mercy was like the hope of outrunning him. It was not in his nature.

  On their way to Court, they were surrounded by other wolves that had survived the fight, all of whom knew Nick when they saw him. They were less accustomed to the sight of Zara as a wolf, but her downcast eyes and the pendant hanging in her fur like a dog collar gave her away immediately. Everyone could hear the rage spilling out of Nick as he prowled after her, and all those who could hear it fell back out of the way at the intensity, whispering among themselves. Nick didn’t speak to anyone or even give them a second thought, his eyes focused on Zara ahead of him, walking with her tail between her legs.

  When they arrived at the court, he saw Lea was still human, and shifted, waving her over to him. “Put her in a cage.” He said quietly, with a voice that was gravelly and broken as if he’d spent the whole day screaming.

  Lea was confused, but she did as she was commanded. It was hard for her to go from seeing all of her friends die to shoving the one that had healed beside her after a near-death experience into a cage, but she was too exhausted to question her Alpha’s orders.

  Another Ironborn came up without being asked and handed Nick some clothes, ragged and blood-stained as they were, but Nick put them on and managed a nod of gratitude as he stepped up onto the platform.

  As he looked around, he was comforted to see Reston and Marina, though both were bloody and Reston had one of Nick’s Ironborn tending to a shattered leg, putting a steel cast in place. Marina had an arm in a sling. Balthazar was there beside Veronica, but he had bandages all over his body and was looking almost ill. Veronica was beside him with Candra close by under a stone enclosure in the shade, Veronica’s watchful eye over all those near h
er.

  There were half a dozen Stoneborn behind Veronica’s throne, and Nick could only guess at why, but he didn’t spare them a second look. Mitch was lying on a stretcher with Beatrice next to him, looking more or less unscathed as she tended to her mate. His chest was moving, but he was unconscious, and obviously in bad shape from all the bandages over his body and the several casts he was already in.

  As he looked around for the rest of the leaders, Lea went to stand next to William, and she wrapped her arm around him to keep him standing as he so obviously wanted to do. She rested her head on his shoulder, which was unharmed, unlike most of the rest of him. Osvald and Sedovin were obviously missing, and William reported to Nick in a trembling voice that Osvald was dead, and as far as he knew, Sedovin was presumed so but not yet found, along with both of their mates.

  Just when he looked around for Kit, the last of the Princes and Princesses of the New Council, a younger-looking woman, one with light brown hair, freckles and eyes the same shade of light blue as Kit’s, stepped forward. She had some gashes across her face and neck and her hand was bandaged, but she didn’t look nearly as bad as some.

  “My sister was lost in the fight, Prince Nickel.” The woman’s sad voice carried easily enough through the air, and it was much gentler than Kit’s had ever been. “My name is Karie. I was her second, and for now at least, I shall represent our people the best I can in her place.”

  Nick nodded, still unable to speak friendly words, and crossed the Court platform to his own throne, sitting on it heavily and closing his eyes for a moment as he rubbed at his face. He had a few cuts and scrapes, and he was still limping in his human form from the initial attack, but he hadn’t done enough. He hadn’t been there enough for his people. He hadn’t seen…everyone had shown him, but he still hadn’t seen…

  “Bring forward the Speaker of the Council. Let him answer for what happened here today.”

  Coren was bound in chains as they dragged him across the ground from where they kept him, with the spike still lodged in his body. His blood still pooled around it with each breath, and it was clear that he wasn’t going to last much longer, but he was an old wolf, and it took more to kill them than most.

  Nick didn’t get up when Coren was dragged before him and put on his knees, but he looked at Coren with eyes colder than the stony thrones the Speaker was accustomed to sitting on in Geneva. “Feels a little different on the receiving end, doesn’t it?” Nick said without any real trace of gloating in his voice. He was drained in every possible way by the day’s events, and he didn’t even have the energy to enjoy the moment of Coren’s destruction. Too many had died that day for him to take the pleasure he wanted in another death.

  Coren knew he was finished, and struggled to breathe, though every breath was painful to him. “My death will only infuriate the rest of the Council, Princeling. You know that.”

  “Yes. I do.” Nick stood up from his throne to cross over to him, hiding his limp. “Let them rage. It makes no difference to me.” He stared down at Coren for a moment, then kept walking to stand behind him. “Bring up his mate.”

  Coren’s face lost all trace of dignity with the word, and he twisted around to look up at Nick, but the knife in his chest cut even deeper with the flinch, and he was reduced to a human howl of pain as he gritted his teeth against it, looking around wildly for Zara.

  A few of their new Fireborn friends came out with the cage that Zara was trapped in, even though she had shifted back into her human form. She gripped at the bars, sobbing instantly at the sight of her mate, bloody and bound in chains. “Coren!”

  Nick fused her cage to the steel of the Court as soon as they set it down, and put a hand on the chains binding Coren at the same moment, little by little solidifying them until he was webbed in solid steel and similarly bound to the Court beneath their feet. There was no trace of humanity in Nick’s eyes as he stared at Zara, naked and helpless in a cage, just out of arm’s reach of her bound mate.

  Coren struggled against his bonds, but he’d been weakened by the fight and the amount of blood he’d lost. Nick’s iron was too strong. “Zara, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…I failed you…” As he spoke, a strap of metal bound itself around Coren’s mouth, cutting painfully against his teeth to silence him, but it left his eyes uncovered, wide open and panicking at the sight of her in a cage.

  She knew that Nick was going to kill them, since there was no way that he would be merciful enough to let them live. Not after all that had happened. Tears blurred her vision and burned down her face. I love you, Coren. I love you so much. I will find you after this, I’ll never leave you. Never.

  Nick listened to the words that he knew he wasn’t supposed to hear, and stepped forward to grab Coren by his black and white hair, never breaking eye contact with Zara. Slowly, he reached down and drew the knife out of the man’s chest, leaving the blade exactly as it was in the process. He would not step on Ziem’s last act in the world by altering the instrument of it. He laid the edge of the knife against Coren’s throat and left it there for the space of a long moment in which no one in the audience around the Court could breathe, as a single tear slid down his face.

  As it fell onto Coren’s forehead beneath Nick’s chin, Coren could feel a single drop of the Ironborn Prince’s power through the drop, and he looked up for a moment at his killer before he turned his eyes back to Zara. His last thoughts were of her name, as Nick slid the knife across his throat and his life ran out with the water of his blood.

  Zara screamed as she watched, and as Coren’s pulse slowed, she could feel every last beat of his heart. She tried to break through the iron that she knew she couldn’t bend, only to touch him once more before he was completely gone, but she was just barely out of reach.

  When at last he was gone, she screamed again in a kind of pain that most wolves never heard or even knew that Heartborn could feel. Most of the time, Heartborn were the happy ones, the ones who were forever flitting around from lover to lover and making friends wherever they went. The human howl was a distillation of the day’s pain in a single sound, the agony that every surviving mate felt when their other half died, but amplified because the pain tore out of a piece of Zara’s own Heartborn soul.

  She collapsed to the bottom of her cage in a sobbing, whimpering mess, talking to herself and saying Coren’s name over and over as if doing so would revive him, her entire frame shaking uncontrollably.

  Nick let Coren’s lifeless head loll to the side and stepped past the body to within arm’s reach of Zara’s cage, looking down at her. “You. Stoneborn.” He said without looking away from Zara, but he was speaking to those behind Veronica’s throne.

  A few of the Stoneborn stepped out behind it. They were both afraid, but their faces were as still and as calm as ever. As they had trained to be. They didn’t say anything as they waited for his command.

  “They came at Sedovin’s command, Prince Nickel.” Reston said gently from where he was standing behind Nick. “But when the battle began, they fought against their companions. I saw them turn myself. They turned on the traitors as the traitors turned on us.”

  “We knew nothing of our Alpha’s plans against you, my lord.” One of them said, though he was obviously still afraid, both of Nick personally, and of the collected Council as a whole.

  “If Prince Reston vouches for your loyalty, I will accept his word.” Nick said evenly, still without looking away from Zara’s quivering form. “You will build a prison of stone with a single door and no windows. Make the walls of the cell inside thick enough to admit no sound.” He crouched down to look at Zara closely, but it wasn’t cruelty on his face or remorse, or even pity. It was apathy. “Make it a place where she can be left alone, given ample food and water to survive, for as long as it takes her to die.”

  Zara twitched at the sound of his voice, then whimpered and curled up even further as she continued to mutter nonsense along with Coren’s name. There was no telling how long she would survive, no
w that her mate was dead, but no one could seem to find a trace of sympathy for the wolf that had entered their home, lied her way into their hearts, and betrayed them all.

  The Stoneborn bowed to Nick and rushed off to begin their work, leaving him standing there looking down at Zara for a moment longer. She could feel what had once been his love for her, his trust, his defensiveness of her, and now his hatred of her, tugging at her heart, giving her what she knew was a false hope for life. She had mated herself to an Oceanborn, and now that she was drowning in his death, Nick’s presence was like a lifeline, promising to keep her above water, to keep her from sinking into the abyss…

  But then he turned and walked past her, back to his throne, snapping the cord forever. “Get it out of my sight.”

  Zara screamed out in pain again as that hope was ripped away from her, especially when they picked up the cage as it was loosened from the Court floor. She reached out for Coren’s body, for the pool of blood still spreading before him. They took her away as her continued screams filled the air. “Coren! Coren!” But no matter how loud she screamed, he would never hear her again. When she disappeared and the guards carried away Coren’s corpse, all that remained of the two wolves was a wide pool of Coren’s blood, with a single small island of gold and purple where Zara’s necklace had fallen, the chain of it as broken as her mind and soul.

  * * * * *

  William finally succumbed to his wounds and decided to get some rest as the wolves began to scatter, especially because he’d lost so much blood that he was getting dizzy, allowing Lea to return to her Alpha’s side. She followed him quietly for a few moments before she finally spoke up. “I know you want to blame yourself for this, but she fooled us all.”