Fragile Bonds

by Adelaide Walsh

Shaking off the memory from last week, and leaning my full weight into a gnarled and crooked tree trunk, I decided that I’d given the man enough time to get over his issue with what I'd done with Anton. While Joa was sulking, the political crisis centered around the snakes had continued. Three more people had been abducted in the four days since we recovered Beno. All humans. Unlike the changelings, there was no human alpha who would save them. No one but their families and my little rebel group were out there looking for them. Even my visions weren’t helping. The connection, it appeared, had to be a bond stronger than a few distant family members could generate. I'd tried, and failed, to get even the possibility of that hum I'd experienced with both Joaquín and Anton. People were dying, and my country was coming apart at the seams day by day, hour by hour, and we were all running out of time.

  In the days since the meeting I’d stayed at the den, taking up residence at Rora’s place, and being altogether ignored by the alpha. I had not been idle in that time though. I’d spent my days tracking Dariel’s movement. The cell phone I took from the man during the rescue mission had turned out to be a boon. The soldier had been a fairly high-ranking one and I was able to crack the phone and access all of his chats, messages, and emails. Using that access I’d put several much stronger pieces of spyware in place on the Snake’s servers and the information I garnered from that, coupled with the data my rebels had been feeding me, painted a fairly accurate picture of how Dariel was bringing his most dangerous resources into Colombia.

  Between Rora, Anton, and I, we’d put together the beginnings of a strategy. A guerilla style assault on Dariel’s supply lines. Act one of the rebellion would be to starve the Snakes of weapons, tech, and diesel fuel while disrupting their lines of communication. But we couldn’t execute our plan alone. The only way forward was with the support of the largest changeling pack in the area. The Bears.

  It was time I talked to Joaquín directly about what he was doing to me by freezing me out, to his people, to the other packs, and to his beautiful country, currently in the process of a total political upheaval, by refusing to align with other changelings. He couldn't possibly be so blind or so spiteful as to put his people at risk just because of what I’d done. There had to be more at play here. And I was going to find out exactly what that was so that we could work together to save our country.

  Chapter 18

  I found Joaquín playing chess against an elderly man in the market side of Punto Cero. The two men sat on upturned produce crates puzzling over their game in the fading afternoon light that filtered in through the glass sections of the ceiling overhead, the light still strong enough so that the solar lights in this part of the den hadn’t yet begun to come flickering on for the evening. I leaned against the doorframe of the small book store across the street and watched as the men battled out the final moves of their strategies.

  Joaquín may struggle with change, may find it difficult to embrace people in the same way I did, but he was a good leader. In the short time we’d had together, I learned that he was not the type of man to let power consume him. He’d grown up in this den, had matured into adulthood walking amongst these people. The application of his alpha status didn’t change that. He still spent time living among his people. Listening to them. Experiencing what they did, understanding the needs they had. That’s what made him so well loved as the alpha. Because he listened. I didn’t know anything about what it took to be a good alpha. No one in my lineage had ever been a leader. My mother was a simple woman who’d worked her ass off to give me a decent life. I was just a journalist. My father was a nobody who left us before I could walk. But I knew, down to my core, that Joaquín was good leader, not only because he listened, but because he heard his people. He never forgot that the choices he made every day translated into actions that would impact the real lives of flesh and blood people. In my time working as a journalist, I’d seen many regimes rise and fall. I often found myself thinking that the men in charge of all this chaos, at some point, thought only of their people as pawns on a chess board. Instruments to manipulate for some arbitrary gain. Joaquín hadn’t fallen prey to that particular side-effect of power. I didn’t think he ever would.

  As I stood there, watching him, I came to the understanding that to love an alpha, would mean to love their people with the same ferocity. I knew that my heart was big enough to find a place inside of it for the Bears. But I had no idea if Joaquín would ever be able to open his heart to my people.

  The truth of our situation was that we existed in a time of conflict. A period in history where both Joaquín and I had been asked to bear a mission beyond our happiness. I was responsible for the people of Colombia. Just as he was responsible for the Bears. It wasn’t just he and I in this relationship. My heart ached at the uncertainty of it all, but I made a choice. I chose to fight for Joaquín in this moment. Who knew what would happen in the future? Who knew if he would ever forgive me? Who knew if any of it would even matter when this was all over? Life was so uncertain, and the risks I was taking on a daily basis to do something with my life, only served to make the future that much more obfuscated. But sometimes, you just need to make a choice, pick a path, and accept the consequences. I’d chosen my path.

  “Check,” announced Joaquín, his voice tempered with the assurance of a victory.

  “Short-sighted, boy,” said the man across from him as he executed a complicated move, capturing Joaquín’s white queen with his knight. “Check.”

  “Shit,” Joaquín hissed.

  He’d been forced to make the only remaining move on the board and the elderly man, with his hair spraying out in a fluff of white atop his head and a blue and white checkered apron covering his thin body, captured the alpha’s king with a lowly pawn that had been promoted to a queen at some point in the game.

  The men chatted over the remains of their game for a few minutes until Joaquín noticed me. When he did his face contorted into a pained look that almost made me turn around and leave him to this moment of peace. I was tempted to spare him the pain of the conversation we needed to have. Of the pain I was responsible for creating in him. Almost.

  When he finally got up and left his chess partner, I fell into stride beside him as we walked toward the quieter, residential sectors of the den.

  “It’s been days, Joa. We need to talk.”

  He was silent and I thought he’d ignore me completely before he clipped back a reply. “Well if you feel like talking, please, by all means. You seem to do as you please anyway.”

  I ignored the deliberate attempt to cut me. This man was so strong in so many ways, but his pride left him vulnerable. And I’d not only bruised that pride but trampled it.

  “That’s not fair, Joa.”

  “Well, Adriana, if you’re planning on becoming the human alpha, it's best you learn sooner rather than later that not much in life is fair.”

  The ‘human alpha’. I shook my head, consciously tamping down the angry, spiteful rage I felt growing inside me. I wasn’t a human alpha, but I could see why he would think that way. I’d drawn the line in the sand, firmly ensconcing my people with it. To me, I was just doing what needed to be done to protect the rights of people who were having those rights threatened. To him, I was claiming my own little segment of the population under my protection. I didn’t think in the terms and exclusions of a pack. But Joaquín had never been able to see that. He’d never been taught any differently. If I was going to show him a better way, I couldn’t get lost in the hurt and anger of his words. I had to get through to him.

  “What I did to Anton put you in a shit situation. And I’m sorry it had to be like that. But what other option did I have?”

  “You could have walked away,” he snapped. “You could have remained loyal to what we had and walked away.”

  What we ‘had’. That hurt, but I had to keep pushing. Had to make him see.

  “You would have had me turn away and leave that soldier to die?” I asked.

  He didn�
��t answer. Just stared straight ahead as we continued to walk.

  “Joaquín, you have to know by now that I won’t turn my back on the people who need me.”

  “What about me? What about us?” He gestured not between the two of us, but throwing his hand out behind him, indicating the whole of the den. The Bears. “We need you, and yet your loyalty seems to land everywhere but with us.”

  “You know that isn’t true.” I fought to keep my voice low, but I wanted to scream. “I tried to help Carro when he needed me. I’m here, right now, fighting to make you see past this hatred you’ve got buried in you so that you can get your head together and join an alliance that will protect your people. I sit with Rora every single day and hand her terabytes of data that the rebels have dug up. All so that you,” I spun around to face him, stabbed a finger at his chest, halting our progress, “can keep your people safe. You do not get to tell me I have forsaken you and all the Bears.”

  He leaned forward, slapping my hand out of the way.

  “But you stood in front of me, in front of my officers and all but fucked that God damned cat. Am I supposed to believe that was you maintaining your loyalties?”

  “Yes, Joaquín. You are supposed to believe that. Because after I did that, I turned around and spat out information no one else had, and then walked into a firefight to save a man’s life. I did what I had to, to protect that soldier, and that act was what drove Anton to ask for an alliance. And this alliance is going to save not only the Bears and the Jaguars from being decimated by an army bigger and more powerful than you are, it's going to save every fucking changeling pack in South America. What I did, put you, Joaquín, in the position to shape that alliance and walk into a new era in history as a leader among changelings, not just among Bears.”

  He tore his gaze away from my own to look out over the expanse of small homes dotting this section of the den. The apartments built into the rock that made up the borders of this whole cave system. He was silent for a very long time. I’d said my piece, and now it was up to him to sort out whatever was still tangled in his head. When he began to walk, I simply followed him in silence.

  “My mom was a perfect alpha’s mate.” I didn’t try to respond, just let him speak. He’d never brought up his mother before. I knew his grandmother was the only family he had in the den, and anytime the subject that even come up in a tangential way, he’d shut down. His mother and father were obvious sources of strife for him, and the fact that he was bringing his parents up now, told me that there was so much more to this painful wound between us than the actual events that had taken place. “You know that our culture, our society is different than the humans. You’ve spent time with Rora, but she’s different. She’s so fucking strong, mentally, physically, she doesn’t look like it, but if she wanted to lead and decided to challenge me, I think she’d have an honest shot at taking me out. She won’t do it, but she’s powerful enough. She could. But that’s not the way it is with most of our females.

  “My mom supported my father with a ferocity that was fuckin’ terrifying at times. But she knew her role, and she loved what she was to my father. You aren’t the same kind of woman my mother was.”

  That was a direct hit. I rubbed the palm of my hand over my heart in an absentminded attempt to ease the ache. I couldn’t disagree with him. I’d never been that kind of a woman. I admired women who could set aside their own self-interest and support the person they loved, but that just wasn’t me. I refused to take a back seat when I knew I could make a difference in this life.

  “No. I’m not that same kind of woman.”

  “You’re right about the alliance. I know the packs can’t stay isolated.”

  “Good.”

  I felt a weighing sense of loss in that moment. Half of me wishing I could be for Joaquín what he needed. The same way his mother had been what his father had needed. The other half of me though, knew and was secure in the knowledge that I simply was not cut from the same cloth; was not a woman meant to be tied in that way to her man. The situation we found ourselves in was a difficult one, and if Joaquín was asking me to choose between him and my people, the lives of Colombia would win out every single time. That knowledge didn’t make the loss of what he had any easier though. I wasn’t going to be able to change on this subject. Relationships were about compromise, but I simply could not shift such an integral piece of myself. If our relationship had any shot in hell of continuing from the point, it would be Joaquín who would need to move toward me.

  “You’re incredible, Adriana. Unlike any woman I’ve ever met. Hell, unlike any person I’ve ever met. I want you so damn badly. I want all of you, but every time I turn around you’ve done one more unbelievable thing. I keep expecting to look at you and see my woman, my mate, but I don’t see that. I see an alpha. An equal. Fuck, sometimes I look at you and see a fucking threat. And then you pull that shit with Anton and it just became blatantly obvious that you’re the one holding the reigns in this relationship. How am I supposed to cope with that? Alphas don’t mate with other Alphas for exactly this reason.”

  I sighed, wishing he would be able to just see me, instead of all the crap in his own head. I wished he would stop thinking in titles and stop caring about what we were ‘supposed’ to do. I respected the culture he’d come from, understood the value in preserving it, but I wished he could have seen how the bonds of those constructs were strangling him.

  “I don’t know, Joaquín. I just know that I never asked for any of this. I never wanted to be seen as anything more than just...me. Just Adriana.”

  “That’s the problem. You still see us all as just people. But I can’t help but see the lines that divide us.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” I said, wishing so fucking hard that he would just open his eyes and see. “We don’t need to live and die by those lines. You can choose another path.”

  The Bear alpha stared at me, gold eyes glimmering in the fading light. I wasn’t sure what he saw in me, but whatever it was had him suck in a deep breath and close his eyes. I had no idea where we went from here. I had no idea what would happen next between us, in the fight for Colombia, in any of it. But Joaquín had always had a way of surprising me. After long, tense moments of quiet, he reached out his hand to me.

  “I’m not like you, Adriana. You’re something this world has never seen before. I can’t just shrug off the strictures of my people’s ways. I can’t just choose not to see the divisions between all of us. My people have not changed, our ways have not changed, but I’m not completely blind. I do see that the world around us is changing.” He gave a sad, thoughtful look, pausing a moment to stare around at the beautiful blend of old and new that we stood in right at that very second. “The world is changing. I’ve known for a while that the packs would need to adapt. I don’t know why it stung so badly that you were the one telling me what that adaptation would require. I’m not willing to give this up, Adriana.” He squeezed my hand. “But I won’t be able to change overnight. I know that I need to make a change. For myself. For my pack. For us.”

  “Right now, with everything that is happening, we are all being forced to make changes. Things cannot stay as they have always been,” I pleaded with him, begging him to understand that, to survive, he couldn’t just pretend Dariel hadn’t happened. Couldn’t just pretend that I was some regular woman whom he could expect to just fit into his life.

  “I know,” he said. And broke my heart. “And I am willing to try.”

  I curled my fingers around his and he tugged me close. He was willing to try! I blinked back the tears in my eyes, my throat stinging with the sheer enormity of the emotion that rocked through me at those six simple words. If he was willing to try to change his perspective, try to change the way he expected his pack, his role, our relationship to fit into this world, then there was a chance. If he was willing to try, maybe, just maybe he would be able to overcome the distance between us. And maybe we all actually had a chance to come out o
f this alive. Maybe even a little bit happy, too.

  “I’m glad,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around him in a fierce hug.

  He was going to try, and that was all I could ask of this man. Joaquín was an alpha, a bear, and a being entirely other from my perspective. To try would be a tremendous sign of respect from this man, and a tremendous sign of shifting tides in our world. The fact that he was willing made my heart sing and, for just a moment, I let myself hope. I stood there in the circle of his arms hoping that if I wasn’t able to move, that he would be. Hoping that he understood I would never be claimed by just one man. Hoping that he understood that my heart belonged to my people, to the people I could help first, and that I could never give that unwavering, exclusive brand of support he’d learned a mate was expected to give.

  My heart was big, and I had so fucking much love in me that I could hold close all twenty-five million people of my country and this alpha at the same time. If only he understood that by giving my heart to my people, it didn’t mean I had any less room in it for him.

  When we separated, he lifted a hand to cup my cheek and I leaned into his touch, wanting so badly this connection to be real. Hoping against hope that we’d get the time to learn, and grow, and explore all the facets, good and bad, of this fledgling bond we’d begun to build.

  “For you, Adriana, I will try.” I gave him a watery smile and he wiped at the wetness leaking over my cheek with the pad of his thumb. “But did it have to be that damn cat who came up with the alliance?”

  And just like that he brought us out of the heavy into a lightness that gave me butterflies thinking about what Joaquín and I could become. There was so much potential here. He was such a good man. Such a good leader. When we were together it was like a tiny little piece of my soul that I hadn’t even realized was missing had suddenly been put back in place. I felt more when I was with him. Better. As though I might actually have the strength, the stamina to ride the changing tides of our world. To survive the coming war, the bloodshed looming on the horizon.