by Zoe Chant
Until now.
I thought finding your mate was supposed to make things simple, she thought suddenly, and was ashamed of the heat that flooded up behind her eyes. She groped blindly for her sheep. Despite how flighty it was normally, it was always there for her when she was down, and right now she needed its wooly reassurance more than ever before.
But it wasn’t there.
“There’s something wrong with my sheep,” she blurted out.
Fleance’s arms stiffened around her. God, this was the last thing he needed—he’d just spilled his heart out and she was making it all about her.
She shouldn’t have said anything. Bloody drama queen, overreacting to everything.
*What do you mean by ‘something wrong’?* Fleance’s voice was tight, and the mate bond twisted in Sheena’s chest.
*It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have—* Her thigh muscles spasmed. “Ow!”
She hissed and grabbed her thigh. Every time it had hurt before, she’d managed to stop herself from actually touching it, but this time she dug her fingers in around the edges of the bandage as though she was trying to tear it off. Tear off the bandage and the searing pain and the—the—
The cold, empty silence inside her where her sheep had always been, ever since she could remember.
Dread crept up her spine. She felt it crawl along the mate bond, cold and draining, but she couldn’t stop it. “I know I said before that everything was fine, but it’s… not. I don’t know why my sheep wasn’t scared when Parker was trying to herd me to a fiery death, but it did get scared as soon as he bit me, and now it’s… it’s not talking to me at all. And my sheep is never this quiet. So whatever’s happening now… I’m scared. Really scared and—and now I’m bloody running my mouth and that’s not going to help, is it, and… and part of me is asking me why I’m even telling you all this stuff, because I’d never tell anyone back home if I was scared, or weak, but… you’re my mate. I’m meant to tell you stuff like this. Aren’t I?”
“Yes.” Fleance’s voice sounded as though his throat was full of stones. “And you’re not weak. No one could think that.”
“I feel weak.” She felt as though her body was sucking into itself, becoming brittle and fragile beneath the smothering white dressing gown. She’d deliberately not gotten properly dressed because she thought she knew which way this evening was going to go. What a joke. “And I hate it.” She swallowed, her mouth a tight, unhappy line. “I hate feeling as weak and useless as everyone thinks I am.”
Fleance wrapped his hand gently over her leg, where the bandaged bite was covered by her dressing gown.
*Sheena…* Fleance tipped her head up so she was looking into his eyes. They were gray-blue, without a trace of hellhound fire. *You’re not weak. You’re going through something no shifter—no person—should have to endure. A hellhound attacked you. Weren’t you just talking about being easy on yourself when you’re getting over bad stuff?*
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. *That was advice for you, not advice for me. I—*
Her leg throbbed, and images filled her mind. A rush of rotting black fur. The fetid, sweet stink, like a weeks-old dead thing rolling over in brimstone-bubbling water. Her sheep trying to run. Claws scraping the ground. Teeth. Teeth that seemed too big for the creature’s sunken jaws, flashing close, jaws wide as a tunnel’s mouth—
“Fuck this,” she muttered, and pulled her dressing gown up so she could get at the bandage. She tore it off. “I’ve had bites before. None of them hurt for this long. Something’s wrong.”
“No, it can’t be—”
They both fell silent.
The wound was clean. It had started scabbing over, which accounted for some of the scrabbling, itchy pain, but something was clearly wrong.
Dark lines ran out from the three sharp cuts in her leg.
“No,” Fleance whispered, his voice hoarse.
“It looks infected.” Sheena’s voice whined in her ears, tight and nasal. “But it can’t have gone that bad so quickly, could it? It feels… hot…”
She trailed off. Fleance’s face had gone gray. He rubbed the back of one hand over his eyes as though he was trying to change what he was seeing.
“It’s exactly what mine looked like,” he said. His voice was as ashen as his face he lifted one hand to shiver across a row of scars on his neck and shoulder. Sheena had noticed them before, but now she guessed without him saying anything what they were. Bite marks. “I thought I was dying. Out in the middle of nowhere, attacked by a wild animal. I had no idea about shifter healing. I had no idea about shifters. I thought I was bleeding out and I think it being a dangerous wound meant I turned more quickly, because Rhys only got bitten on the hand, and it took weeks for his hellhound to… You don’t want to hear this,” he said, suddenly changing course. He pressed the heel of his hand hard against his forehead and groaned. His voice cracked into a pained rasp. “I should have gotten us both out of there the moment Parker appeared. If I’d acted faster, I could have kept you safe. I wasted time fighting when I should have—I’m so sorry, Sheena. I didn’t save you.”
He pulled his hand away from where it had been resting on her leg. The golden cord in her chest tensed, as though the physical connection had strengthened it and now it was straining to cross the space between them.
Sheena snatched his hand back and twined her fingers between his.
“But you said it was impossible. I’m already a shifter,” she said, and the words echoed in her ears.
Fleance’s eyes looked haunted. “Can you find your sheep?”
She tried. God, she tried. But there was nothing inside her but emptiness… and the smell of smoke.
Her shoulders tightened. “How is that even possible? My sheep is like…” She waved her hands as though she was literally trying to pick up the words she wanted. “God, I don’t know. My cousin Aroha is the one who’s into all that spiritual stuff. It’s a reflection of my soul and part of it, too… how can you get a new part of your soul? Or if it’s a reflection of your soul, does it change who you are totally?”
She stopped. Fleance had gone gray; his face looked like a skull in the light sifting in through the window. She swallowed. “I didn’t mean—obviously you didn’t change who you are, when you became a hellhound shifter…”
“I don’t know if you’re right or not.” His expression was still locked in harsh, fleshless angles, but his voice was strangely soft. Sheena pulled him closer and he moved reluctantly, as though his muscles were as paralyzed as his face. “I was eighteen when Parker turned me. I’d just lost my parents, the house I grew up in… I don’t know if I am the same person I was then. Sometimes he feels like a different person.”
Sheena wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t say that. I’m talking rubbish, ignore me.”
He shivered against her, once, then relaxed and turned towards her. He rested his head on hers and murmured, his breath rustling against her hair: “You might be right.”
“I’m never right about anything,” she said quickly.
“But if you are, this is the first time I’ve ever been truly glad Parker turned me.” He lifted his head and she looked up to find him staring at her, a strange, helpless look in his eyes. “Because what I am now is your mate.”
The skin around his eyes crinkled as he looked at her. Soft, gentle lines that wiped away the harder ones. Then he smiled, a crooked, tentative happiness that caught Sheena by surprise.
She touched his cheek, where the deep line on one side of his mouth had transformed into a dimple.
“If I’m your mate because of what happened then it was all worth it,” he said, his voice shaking. “Becoming a hellhound. Being under Parker’s control. If he’d never turned me, I wouldn’t be here. I would never have met you. I’d rather be this, and yours, than anything else.”
“You’ve only just met me,” she protested. Weakly. Her heart was beating too hard for her to push away his words entirely.
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��And I already know you’re brave, and that you’d throw yourself into a burning building to save your family, and that… that you think things through more than you think you do.” He brushed a stray strand of hair off her face and his fingers lingered along her jawline. “The mate bond is magic. It’s incredible. But the fact that it means I get to know you better is the best thing about it.”
Sheena had never wanted to run away more.
It was too much. She wanted to sprint as far as her legs would carry her and find a bush to crouch behind or a hole to fall down and stay hidden until she could deal with everything she was feeling. Fleance wanted to know more about her? He thought she was brave?
All her life she’d been treated as small and unreliable. Helpless people like her didn’t need to be brave, they needed to get out of their own way and let someone else look after them.
She’d wanted to prove for so long that everyone who thought she was small and weak was wrong, but she hadn’t expected it to work. She hadn’t expected anyone to look at her and see that she was more than everyone said.
Even her mate.
To her horror, her eyes welled up.
“Don’t cry,” Fleance said, his own voice wavering. “The idea of me hanging around isn’t that bad, is it?”
The golden thread that Sheena was still holding tight in her heart trembled. He was as scared about this as she was, she realized. The big bad wolf was as anxious to get this right as she was.
God, she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and make him rethink that.
Sheena tucked herself closer against him and kissed his collarbone. His arms tightened around her. “At least we know where we stand. Together.”
He lifted one of her hands and his lips grazed her knuckles. A warm hum flooded from them through the rest of Sheena’s body, a long, slow uncoiling so different from other times she’d been turned on that it took her a moment to recognize. When she did, it was like opening the curtains to find the day at full light behind them. No nerves, no anxiety that she was doing the wrong thing or about to make a fool of herself—just longing and a certainty singing bright and gold inside her that that longing was returned. The only wrong note was the lump of silence deep inside her.
“Together,” she said, breathing in his masculine scent. “What the hell was the universe playing at, putting us down on opposite sides of the world?”
“To hell with the universe,” Fleance growled. “I found you. You’re mine.”
Until I turn.
Cold flooded Sheena’s veins. She must have tensed; Fleance went still, his eyes locked on to her. She wet her lips and whispered the words that had appeared like spears of ice in her mind.
“It’s true, isn’t it? We’re just waiting for it to take hold. And then he’ll be able to control me like he controlled you. D-don’t tell me it’s not going to happen,” she forced out as he opened his mouth. “I can feel it. Where my sheep used to be. There’s this… bit of me, inside, that I can’t see into. The edges of it hurt. They’re hot. Like a cut that’s got infected.” She wet her lips. “Which is what it is, right? An infection.”
A virus, taking over her soul and turning her into something else. Taking away a part of her she’d half-tolerated, half-resented for so long that it took her until now to realize what she really felt for it was all love.
Fleance looked as though he was struggling to stay calm. He ran one hand down his face. Fire flared in his eyes, just for a second, and he squeezed them shut. “I know!” he muttered, his voice pained, and Sheena guessed he wasn’t talking to her. Her chest hurt. She’d just as good as told his hellhound it was an illness nobody wanted—which wasn’t true, it was part of Fleance and Fleance was all she wanted, but if who she was changed then what she wanted would change, too…
“I should have known better than to go up against him.” Fleance’s voice was empty of all emotion. “I never escaped. Not truly. And now he’s caught you, too.”
He stood up and took a deep, shaking breath. “You’re right. It’s an infection. We should treat it like one. If there’s any hope you can recover—” He broke off and shook his head, a short, sharp action that tugged at Sheena’s heart. She knew what it meant. Stop. Don’t even think it, in case thinking it tempts fate. “He got me in the neck and I turned quickly, but this is—it’s so small an injury, maybe you can fight it off. You and your sheep together. Rest and liquids. That’s what you need. We wait it out.”
“No.” Sheena’s heart was solidly in her throat. The panic she’d felt at the first moment of realization was gone, replaced by a ferocity that barely felt like her own.
She strode over to Fleance and took his face between her hands. His skin was warm, the sandpaper of a day’s stubble rough under her palms. He was tired, and in shock, and as close to falling apart as she was.
And he was hers.
The light inside her flared bright enough that just for a moment, she couldn’t feel the numb hollow deep inside her chest. She focused on the mate bond, pouring all her new ferocity and everything else she felt into it. The joy she’d felt when she first saw him, the wonderful confusion, the way she didn’t even care that they’d fallen into each other’s arms in the middle of a bloody housefire and, yes, how ridiculous that was. How much more she wanted and how afraid she was of losing all those half-formed dreams.
Fleance groaned and pressed his forehead against hers. Their breath mingled as light spilled from the golden cord that connected them, overflowing with her emotions.
“You’re mine,” she said, her voice shaking. “And I’m yours. Now, right now, I’m only yours. I’m not going to sleep through what might be the only time we have together.”
“But Parker—”
“If I do change, then he’s going to catch up with us no matter what, right? And if I don’t, we’ll have to face him anyway, to stop him from hurting anyone else.”
Fleance nodded reluctantly.
“I don’t want to waste time running. Or resting. If this is the only chance we have…” She kissed him and the languid longing that had unfurled in her at his first touch quickened. Urgency crackled through her veins and when Fleance hesitated, she almost groaned aloud. Maybe it would have in different circumstances, too, but here, now, she didn’t have time to think about that. She didn’t want to waste another second.
She kissed him again as his fingers tightened around her waist. He kissed her back, but again, there was something missing. He was holding back.
*Isn’t it meant to help the mate bond form, anyway? Make it stronger?* She was sure she’d heard that somewhere. Or heard gossip about it, at least. It was probably as real as anything else people said about how shifters worked. Like how—
She’d reached out to her sheep to reminisce out of habit. Her mind buffeted against the nothingness and she cringed back.
Fleance hesitated. *I want you, too.* His telepathic voice was layered over with concern, and wariness, and oh, God, yes, the same desperate need she felt. *But I don’t know if this is a good idea.*
*I’ve never had a good idea in my life. I’ve never let it stop me before,* Sheena joked. Her telepathic voice felt raw. She wanted him so much it hurt.
She put her hands on his chest. The thin fabric smelled like washing detergent, and beneath it he smelled clean and masculine and good. She didn’t care what he said about failing to do the right thing—he’d lost so much of his life to his evil uncle’s cruelty, and if she couldn’t convince him that beating himself up over not recovering as soon as he was free didn’t make him a bad guy, she could at least show him it didn’t change how she thought about him.
The slightest hint of smoke teased at her nostrils as she pulled him closer, but the reminder of what they’d been through just made her need him more. From the expression in his eyes, he felt the same.
He put his hands on top of hers. *I don’t know how much time we have,* he admitted. His shame about not knowing enough about how the turning process worked to reassure
her was clear. *I don’t want to waste it, either. But I don’t want to lose you because of my own selfish desires. What I want here shouldn’t matter. You deserve better than—*
“Hey.” She lowered her head until her lips were so close to his she could almost taste him. *What do I have to do to make it more obvious that I want this, too?*
He kissed her like a drowning man taking his first breath of air.
She had her hands on his chest. It was the perfect position to push him down onto the sofa, but she lost herself in the headrush of the kiss long enough for him to steal the lead. He picked her up, one hand around her torso and the other holding her firmly by the arse and took her to the bed.
He lay her down and kissed her until she was the one who needed to come up for air. He tugged at the hem of her shirt and she mumbled a protest.
“It’s not fair,” she gasped, and felt his question brush against her mind. “You kept your clothes on when you shifted before. I haven’t even had a chance to perv.”
Fleance barked with surprise. He buried his face in her shoulder and kissed the nape of her neck but left her shirt alone.
Sheena ran her fingers along his collar. She undid the buttons one by one, resisting the urge to kiss his chest. She wanted to see him. All of him. If this was the only time they had together, she wanted as much of him to remember as possible.
He was lean under his shirt, muscles tight and hard under her fingertips. His heartbeat thudded against her touch. Old scars crisscrossed his ribs. Sheena paused, her fingers brushing the edges of them. Shifters could scar, but it took a lot more to leave a lasting mark than it did for humans. For Fleance to have this many scars…
“Don’t,” he said softly. She looked up at him and he said, “I could feel you wondering. I don’t want you to worry about them.”
“That doesn’t make it any better,” she grumbled. He might not want her to worry about Parker, but she could put the dots together and figure out what he wasn’t saying. Even a wooly-headed—
Cold washed over her. Was she still a wooly-headed sheep shifter? Those bursts of anger, the strange emptiness inside her—what if her sheep was gone already, forever, and she just hadn’t noticed?