by Lillian Lark
Mace tries to clean off his hands. “I think I’m going to see how Asa is doing, outside.”
“That sounds like a wonderful idea! We’ll join you,” I say. Mace’s eyes go wide.
I grab a food dish and leave my stunned extended family in the kitchen. Greg follows after me like a puppy dog and I don’t know what is bothering him until he speaks.
“They’re right you know. I won’t be able to contribute financially in a way that would support you or Asa.” His voice goes quiet for the next part. “Sometimes I think that you and Asa would be better off without me as dead weight.”
I spin to face Greg and he catches the platter I’m holding before the food slides right off the plate. “What are you talking about?”
Greg’s face goes red and the shame is apparent. He looks like he’s going to answer me but I feel a familiar presence at my back and Greg looks relieved. We aren’t done with this subject yet. I turn to Asa and realize that we’re encircled by everyone on the patio and they all look expectantly at us. Did I forget that we needed to give a speech?
Confusion makes my ears buzz. The buzzing disappears when Asa smiles at me and goes down on one knee. What the fuck?
“Zephyrine, do me the honor of being my wife?” Asa opens a ring box and the gaudy thing makes my brain stop functioning. What is happening right now? Did they both plan this?
I hear a crash behind me and turn to see that Greg has dropped the food dishes he’d been carrying. The devastation on his face answers my question.
Asa, what have you done?
Greg just looks at the ring Asa is offering. The horror of this moment paired with the conversation we were just having about finances coalesces into a hurtful understanding. Greg looks at my face then. I shake my head before he speaks.
“You should do it. It’s beautiful.” Greg’s voice cracks and he stumbles back over the food he dropped. “I’m just going to go.”
He’s gone before I can even say anything. I swing back to Asa bristling with rage. Asa looks pale.
“I think I might have made a small miscalculation,” Asa says.
Chapter 14
Asa
“You think?” Zephyrine brims with venom and anger. Not the emotion I hoped for.
My heart dropped out of my chest at the look on Greg’s face. I’d truly fucked-up. I hadn’t thought, hadn’t even considered, that he would be hurt from my actions. I’d been so focused on trying to lock down this triad that I hadn’t paid attention to whatever misgivings he had.
“Get up!” Zephyrine whispers before stomping off to the garden. The audience on the patio starts murmuring, shaking free from the shock of witnessing a wreck occur in front of them.
It would seem my mate wants to eviscerate me in private. I favor that. Shame clogs my throat.
I follow her down the garden path until we come to a more open space farther from the house with a stone bench and walls of greenery. All of the shifters at the party will still be able to hear but that’s the least of my concerns right now.
Zephyrine whips sharply to face me. “What is this all about?”
Her question is a demand and I try to answer in a coherent way. “If we’re married then our relationship will be more… solid.”
“More solid? What does that even mean?” Zephyrine is beyond the point of mild frustration. Each word she speaks is accompanied by an angry hand gesture. I desire to ease her anger but don’t know how. Zephyrine focuses on me then and understanding lights in her eyes. “You think you’re going to get left behind… you don’t trust us.”
A statement, not a question.
But I still feel like I should answer. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Zephyrine rocks back on her heels in incredulity. “Greg apologized for that! He went through a whole process of trying to make it up to you! What more can you ask of him?”
I don’t have an answer. Some wounded part of me holds on to all of my dark thoughts and won’t let them dissipate.
Zephyrine looks sad as she says, “You don’t trust me either and I’ve never left you.”
“I t-trust you.” I surely must trust her. She’s right that she has never given me reason not to trust her.
“Asa King, do not lie to me!” Her voice shakes. The injury I’ve dealt her is vivid and ugly, the dark thoughts I’ve held on to lashing out and infecting her. “Greg just told me that he wonders if we’d be better off without him because he can’t contribute financially to this relationship and now, you’re telling me that you don’t trust either of us not to leave you?”
A dull pain spreads through me before sharpening. Gregory thought we’d be better off without him? Never.
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. Zephyrine looks like a tempest and the wind in the garden starts to swirl around us. Is now the moment she’ll flay me?
“You thinking that your place in this relationship isn’t solid is ridiculous to me!” Zephyrine’s eyes fill with tears and I want to hold her but stay where I am. The wind drops and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. The brokenness of Zephyrine’s voice when she speaks again tells me it’s a very bad thing.
“You said this could work. You said we could do this as a team. You asked us to trust you, but how long will this relationship actually last if you don’t trust us?” Zephyrine shakes her head as she speaks.
A coldness takes up space in my chest. It’s happening. I am going to lose both of them.
“Zephyrine, please—” My voice is a whisper before Zephyrine cuts me off with the wave of her hand.
“You need to figure out your issues. I can’t do that for you. I’m going to go talk to Greg.”
She stumbles from the garden and I’m left alone.
Gregory
I can’t breathe, I can’t think. I stumble through the house I thought was my home and so many people. People who I know and those I don’t giving me a look of pity.
Why? Why would Asa do this without me? Did he do it on purpose to put me in my place? Does he think my part in our relationship lesser or temporary? What of worth can I really contribute to my mates or my daughters?
My wolf cowers in the very back of my mind, hurt so greatly by our mate that it can only whine. I finally have my car keys and I flee this place. I need to go somewhere, anywhere, else and try to grapple with the tumult of emotions in myself.
Mace appears in front of me. He grabs my keys and gives a tight smile.
“Let me drive you, friend.” It’s a demand, not an offer. In a blink I’m shepherded into the passenger seat of my car and I let it happen. The tightness of my chest starts to loosen, and my inhale is shaky. Mace drops into the driver’s seat and we leave. Getting farther and farther from my soul mates. I hiccup.
“To the bakery?” Mace asks and I nod. He doesn’t look at me as he keeps talking. “You can let it out if you want. I won’t judge you for it.”
“Let what out? You want me to yell?” My voice is high and cracks.
Mace rolls his eyes at me. “Yes, of course, yelling. Because that’s totally what you want to do.” His tone is so dry and sarcastic it actually helps.
I lean over in my seat and cradle my face in my hands. I’m sure Mace can hear my sobs but blessedly ignores them. The tightness in my chest starts to ease with my crying but I still face all the same problems. Am I going to lose my mates?
The car stops and I blearily look up and see that we made it to the bakery. I sniffle as I undo my seatbelt and force my mouth to make words.
“Thanks, Mace. You probably want to go back to the party.” I turn toward him, and Mace gives me a disbelieving look.
“Oh, I definitely do not want to go back to the clusterfuck. Asa dug himself into a hole and I’ll help him not get buried alive but that can wait. You and I are going to bake,” Mace says as he gets out of the car.
We are in my kitchen before I can voice my question.
“Do you even bake?”
Why I ask that question,
out of everything, I don’t know. But Mace lets out a laugh that answers me.
“You bake. I’ll eat. And just maybe we can talk about Asa’s stupidity and your apparent issues.”
That doesn’t sound like a comfortable arrangement to me, but I learned a long time ago not to say no to Mace. He just takes it as a challenge.
I start throwing mixing bowls and ingredients onto the countertop. Mace is right. I need to bake. It’s the only thing I can think to do other than crying that will ease this feeling of uselessness. Food always makes sense.
“I thought you’d be enjoying this. You know, seeing me in pain after I hurt Asa. I still remember how you were after the breakup. You must be ecstatic to see me get a taste of my own medicine.”
Mace had shown up at the bakery the morning after and with all the sharp edges and sneering that he shared in common with Asa, told me how I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I had agreed with him then, and it turns out that his pronouncement is still true. Why else would Asa try to monopolize Zeph from me? I deserve this.
“There is nothing enjoyable about seeing the people you care about in pain.”
His solemn tone surprises me. Mace gives me a grim look.
“I care about you, Greg. It’s probably why I reacted the way I did when you broke it off with Asa. You broke my heart too a little bit.”
A sharp pain stabs me when he says that. Mace sees my flinch and keeps talking.
“I forgive you completely. I know your reasons and understand. I regard you as my friend and will do my best as your friend even when my other friend fucks stuff up without meaning to.” Mace leans on the counter and folds his arms. “I know it’s hard for you to comprehend this with the way your relationship is with him, but Asa is dealing with some insecurities about getting left all over again.”
I measure out flour on my digital scale while Mace talks, and it takes effort to keep my motions accurate. I gently set aside the flour on the counter and look at the white dusted surface. “That’s crazy, I’m not going to leave him again. It nearly destroyed me the first time.”
Mace nods while he continues, “He thinks he’s going to get left behind. That you and Zephyrine are going to couple off and have a happy life together.”
“That wouldn’t happen!” I’m angry now. That goddamn demon, I’d throttle him if I didn’t love him so much.
“Any more than Asa and Zephyrine leaving you would happen?” Mace digs at my insecurities now.
“That’s different,” I mumble. I’m not willing to see my weak points in my argument, the fallacy in my thinking that Mace points out.
“And just how is that so different?” Mace asks.
“Asa is essential. Our dynamic wouldn’t work without him.” The honesty of that doesn’t hurt. It’s a comfort to me that Zeph, Asa, and I will always need to be together.
“Couldn’t the same be said about you?”
“I can’t contribute the way Asa does.” Humiliation chokes me through the confession.
“What exactly does that mean?” Mace narrows his eyes at me as he asks that. I want to flip a table with how obtuse he’s being.
“I can’t support my mates financially. I can’t give them a better life or options. My funds are a blip in the radar compared to theirs!” My arms make wide gestures at that.
Mace gives a crafty look at that, leaning over the counter in a faux relaxed sprawl. “Oh, this is really eating at you. Is this an instinct thing? You can’t give your mates a bloody kill and get a pat on the head so your contribution to the whole is lesser?”
Put that way, it does sound like something the wolf feels is influencing my thinking. Am I more hurt by the size of engagement ring Asa flashed at Zeph or is my wolf? I’m still trying to comb through my reactions when Mace breaks in again.
“Who asked you to support them with funds? I can assure you that your funds aren’t needed in this equation because both of your mates are more than well off.”
“What can I contribute if not money?” My words sound like a broken record now.
Mace tilts his head at me as if marveling at my stupidity. “What do you contribute? You don’t think you have value in your relationship? You don’t think that what you do for your mates on a day-to-day basis is valuable?” Mace shakes his head then. “Asa has never been as happy, in all the decades I’ve known him, as he has been with you. I didn’t think he could even be happier until you found Zeph.”
I’m starting to feel choked up, but Mace just keeps going. “The relationship you three have cannot be counted up in money. I know you want to provide for your mates, but you need to adjust your mind to also reflect the nonmonetary happiness you provide for them.”
When Mace is done, I’m looking at the mess I’ve made of the counter and the silence in the kitchen expands. Finally, my mind is quiet.
“Have I been stupid, Mace?” I don’t need to ask but it feels necessary. As if we need to bring this conversation full circle.
“Undoubtedly, but it hasn’t been just you so I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.”
Zephyrine
Anguish fills my chest and it makes it hard to focus as I march through the small crowd of people in my house. My family knows better than to intercept me and Greg’s family probably doesn’t know what is going on. Heartbreak is a foreign sensation; it batters at me, a trapped bird leaving smears of heart blood.
All I can see in my mind is the agony on Asa’s face when I left and Greg’s face before he’d fled. They both echo, like a lightning strike with a thunder of accompanying ache. I think I want space, somewhere to stretch my wings, but I know I need Greg to wrap me in his arms while I contemplate whether this whole plan has been naïve. How quickly I have grown to need both of my mates.
I make out my aunts’ smug faces as I locate my purse and keys. The knowing looks they exchange burn through my fragile control on my raging emotions. I snarl as I turn to them.
“This changes nothing that I told you. I want you out of my house and my life until the point when you can treat my mates civilly.” My words and the vicious way I deliver them shock them.
I turn and leave before I can do anything like physically challenge them. I don’t care if they leave right now, I have bigger things to worry about.
I power walk to my car; we’d parked it on the street so it wouldn’t be blocked in case we needed to run out for more supplies. I let my tears fall without trying to suppress them. It doesn’t matter. No one is watching me now. The waterworks obscure my vision and I almost trip on the sidewalk.
Has all of this been for naught? No one had voiced the insecurities that were festering until that catastrophic proposal. Was the pressure of the clutch so soon in our relationship that we couldn’t have a strong foundation? If the clutch hadn’t happened would I have accepted Asa and Greg’s promise that this could work?
Stop. I force that train of thought to an end and I fumble with my key fob. I take a deep breath. I chose Asa and Greg as my mates before the clutch. I had accepted Greg’s mating mark. I will not blame this current dumpster fire on our clutch.
The car beeps as I unlock it, but something wraps around my neck and mindless pain holds me in a vice. Magic restraints.
“You made this too easy, harpy. Maybe we’ll play a game later and you can give me a real challenge.” The slimy voice of Wyatt Henderson penetrates the red fog of agony. Fear goes hand in hand with the pain and I want to scream and thrash, but I can’t. The magic restraints stop everything.
“Let’s get out of here before any of the esteemed guests or her mates come looking for her,” says a faceless voice. More enemies that I can’t even see.
No no no. No one will know where I’ve gone. They’ll never be able to find me. My mates won’t even know to look. I need to escape. I try to plot past the debilitating pain, but the world goes dark.
Chapter 15
Asa
The coldness of the stone bench seeps into my bones. Zephyrine is gone; s
he abandoned me just as Gregory had. They left me. I knew they would.
I close my eyes and forcefully address that thought. Zephyrine did not abandon me, I pushed her away. Just like I had been keeping Gregory at arm’s length ever since he had apologized. I kept my space even after I told him I had forgiven him.
I’ve done this to myself. I sabotaged my own happiness because I believed that my mates would eventually leave me. Mace had been right.
I sit on the garden bench and hang my head in my hands. There are so many things I should be doing. I should run after Zephyrine. I should be planning some grand gesture that will fix everything I have so callously shattered.
I should do anything other than just sit here. But I don’t know how to go about wooing my mates when the crack in my heart is so visible. I have a defect and no seduction or romantic gesture is going to keep me from crumbling at the next bump in the road.
A sound makes me startle. I’m a prideful creature even if I’m only held together with weak staples at the moment. I don’t want anyone seeing me so broken. Hester approaches my stone bench and it’s a relief. Now this harpy mother can make my physical body match my mental one. I’d hurt Zephyrine. There is no doubt in my mind that I will pay for that transgression with my blood.
I close my eyes in anticipation for the first freeing blow but snap them open in surprise when Hester sits down beside me.
“You have truly fucked up.” Hester’s voice is soft, the smallest amount of accent curving around her words. This woman of tooth and claw, who has undoubtedly seen war and slain her enemies, now looks at me with a sad sort of pity. It feels worse than if she skinned me.
Hester sighs when I stay silent. “Why did you do it?”
Hurt the people I love? But no, Hester is asking about the proposal.
“I thought it would keep them from leaving me.”
For being someone that delights in being in control of everything, I sound so weak. Perhaps it’s because my control is nothing but a fallacy. It isn’t a comforting thought.