by JJ Jones
“Pull the bullet out,” she ordered me.
“How?”
“However you need to.” Her voice was soft. “You need to be the one to do this.”
“Okay,” I mumbled as I looked up at her. I tried to stick my finger in the wound. I couldn’t feel anything, but Devin began to writhe and moan in pain. “I can’t do it. I can’t find it.” I started to sob uncontrollably, but someone handed me a knife. I was surrounded by solemn silence as I used the knife to widen the wound. I could see the bullet now. It was in one of his organs. That was why he was dying. “Is that his heart?”
“Yes, you have to hurry now.” The witch’s voice was gentle yet firm.
“I’ll do it.”
I could hear the rest of the group draw in a collective breath. I reached into his body and pulled the bullet out of his wound. I didn’t have a choice. He had saved me and now I had to save him. I had to do it. I needed to save this man. He had been there for me during our entire ordeal, patient. We had shared secrets that we would never tell another soul. We had become family and I was starting to realize I had already begun to consider him my mate. I wanted him to live. I needed him to live.
“Save him.” She was whispering as I reached in and pulled out the bullet. I felt the silver burn at my skin. “Hold it in your hand.”
I nodded. “I can handle the pain,” I said and I gripped the silver ammunition in my hand, clenching it in my fist.
It was burning. It hurt as the woman began to chant again. Water was sprinkled on me. It smelled odd, but I wasn’t paying attention to what was in it. She reached for my hand. I held it out to her. I hadn’t even noticed the knife in her other hand and flinched when she cut me, but I didn’t pull away. Devin was starting to draw in his death rattle. He wasn’t going to last much longer. She squeezed a few drops of my blood onto his forehead. It stretched and melded with his blood that covered his body.
Everything started to melt together. I couldn’t see anything. I was dropping into unconsciousness. I suspected we had been betrayed, but it didn’t’ make sense.
The last thing that I saw was Devin as I was draped over him, unconscious.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
He was looking at me when I woke up. We were in a bed, next to each other and he was staring at me. I don’t know how to explain the relief I felt. I don’t know how anyone could ever understand the intensity of my emotions at that moment. There were tears in his eyes and I knew that one was starting to form in my eye as well. It was my left eye I think. It didn’t really matter.
I embraced him. “You’re alive.”
He coughed a little because I hugged him so hard. “Be careful. I’m still kind of sore. They told me what you did for me.”
“Did that really happen?” I looked at him, not really knowing how to respond to the adventure that we had been on.
“Yes, unfortunately. Do you remember yet?”
I closed my eyes and tried to think back. I was starting to remember. We were being tested. Devin and I had been dating for a while and had considered mating permanently.
“I think I do.” His eyes were watching me. I felt like I was losing my mind as the memories came flooding back. “Was it?”
“A test. We had agreed to it. They returned the memories to us after it was over.”
“Were the hunters planned? Did they try to kill you?” I fought against my tears. I didn’t know what I would do if the others were involved in his near death. “You could have died.”
“They had ambushed them. They were trying to kill me. My people weren’t involved.”
“How do you know? It could have been a coup.”
“None of my men and women would do that. I promise you. I’ve known them for years. That isn’t something that they would do.”
I started to remember meeting the men. I had been dating Devin for almost three months before he had brought me to meet his pack. I didn’t have a pack to introduce him to. I had made the choice to leave my old one. I was a lone wolf. I remember that. I had been alone for a long time before I had run into Devin. I moved away from old pack, leaving with my job and eager to start a new life. There was nothing that I could do about the corruption among the shifters at my old home and my new home was a pleasant change. The shifters of the Pacific Northwest had been a thousand times kinder than the shifters in the Southwest. I was happy there, changing my life with my job.
It was at one of the local meetings that I had met Devin. We had known each other for a few weeks before he had gotten the nerve up to ask me out. My world shifted that day. There was something between us, a connection between an Alpha and a Lone. It was unusual, but we had support as we began to see more and more of each other.
“The beach.” I smiled and looked at him, remembering the first time that we had been together, under the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.
I kissed him and it had led to so many things, so many happy memories that were starting to invade my mind. I had loved him. I remembered that as I had looked at him. I had told him so under the moonlight in the local park. He had responded in kind.
“I love you,” I told him that as I propped myself up on my elbow to look at him a little better. We were together, our memories starting to flood back. That was what mattered.
“I love you too.” The sparkle in his eyes told me that he remembered. “You saved my life.”
“You saved mine first.” I reminded him of the fact as I remembered the amazing conversations that we would have.
“It was a test. It was all a test. Except for the hunters of course.”
The hunters had been waiting to take out an Alpha. That action would have been a destabilizing force. It would have shifted things and our people would have had to adjust and change. That would’ve taken time and it would’ve given the people that wanted us dead a chance to strike.
I thought about the men and women that hunted us just for being who we were. It was enough that we existed to people like that. It wasn’t right, but still I could almost understand the fear that they felt. Most humans that knew about the world we lived in were brought in through violence and they went out of their way to hurt us. It was one of the dangers of existing as a shifter or any other supernatural creature. It was what we lived with on a daily basis. It made the moments that we shared a lot more special. We appreciated life a little more than humans did because every day we could be killed just for existing. It made sense that the humans would go out of their way to destroy the special ritual that we were going through.
I remembered what we had been doing. We were going through a ritual, something that the local shifters required before a mate could be picked. My local tribe would never have considered anything like that. They had always tried to arrange mating’s and they ended poorly more often than not. That was one of the reasons that I had left. That was the reason that I had moved here. I had done my research and learned about the world that I was about to move into. It was a pleasant change, to be welcomed without a ton of suspicion. Still, I hadn’t joined a pack and there was no pressure for me to do it.
When I had met Devin, there was no pressure to join his pack, and even with the possibility of mating on the horizon, I had the opportunity to pick my own path. I liked that. This was something more tribes needed to do, but there had been a lot of bloodshed, a revolution that made the changes in this area. Still, the changes were starting to spread. I had helped with that, by phoning my cousins and other disenfranchised friends from down south to tell them about the differences up here. My sister wanted to join me, but my parents weren’t going to allow that. They had already lost one mate-able daughter; they weren’t going to lose another one, not so easily. Still I worried about her and had been working on a plan to get her up here.
Devin had helped me with that plan. I remembered that road trip now. I remembered having snuck my sister out in the middle of the night. I remembered his pack taking my sister in, giving her a home and she was dating his Beta now. We didn’t
know if it was going to go anywhere, but my sister was enjoying the freedom that came with the new life that I had brought her into. My parents now want nothing to do with me, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes I miss them, but then I remember that I am no longer currency. I am a person now, and this man, this wonderful man in front of me had helped me to learn about the different life that lay ahead of me.
“Did any of them get hurt?” I asked the question.
To be honest I hadn’t worried about it until then. My mind had been still wrapping itself around all of the memories that I had willingly forgotten.
“I don’t know. We can go and check on them.” He offered me his hand and we rose off of the bed. It was then that I noticed the scar. I reached out to touch it. “You saved my life.” He reminded me. “You gave a piece of yourself to save my life.”
“Do you remember that?” I asked the question.
“I was watching you. I could barely see, but I heard everything. I know what you did. You didn’t even hesitate. You would have sacrificed yourself for me.”
“Well I couldn’t let you be the only hero.” I laughed, but I wasn’t feeling it.
The pain of his near-death was still raw and bleeding in my heart. I could still feel his blood on my body and on my hands as I began to look down. Someone had cleaned me up, but I didn’t remember that. I was wearing a nightshirt now, with nothing underneath it. I didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t one of mine. In fact, it looked like we were in some sort of hotel room. I didn’t know where we were.
“Where are we? Do you know?”
“No, when I woke up they had already brought us here. I helped them get you changed. You needed more time than me to recover from the spell. You had given so much.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen now?”
It was starting to bother me. What had I signed up for anyway? I knew that no matter what I was doing, I would never take it back. I couldn’t force myself to regret the actions that I had taken. Still, I worried about the consequences. He had been saved from powerful magic and spells like that always come with a price.
“No, but we can go and find out.” He held my hand and walked to the door.
Opening it and looking outside, we could see that there was someone at the door. We were being guarded. Our guard motioned for someone, indicating that we needed someone to explain things to us. I began to listen to the consequences for the spell when the witch arrived along with the Beta that had supervised the trial.
I learned about the trial. We had passed; we were eligible to become mates now. We had proven ourselves compatible. I don’t know how we could have failed that test short of trying to kill each other, but the way that the Beta put it, lightning struck twice and that meant that we would work well together in the long run.
We were told that everyone had survived and that there had been a few injuries, but there weren’t any as severe as Devin’s had been. Everyone had made it through the fight and I had saved his life. I held my breath after getting this reassurance and waited to find out what I had signed myself in for. She told us that we would be connected for the rest of our lives. Devin and I would feel the strong emotions of the other person. We could foster this bond and make it stronger by spending time together, but we could also weaken it by being apart.
She had wanted to make sure that we knew these things. Devin’s and my life forces were bound now, intertwined together to make them into something different. We were going to do things differently. There was a chance that some habits could change as we adjusted being so closely connected. The more time we spent together, the closer we would become. We might even be able to send thoughts across the bond eventually. She couldn’t give us a bunch of specifics because everyone reacted differently to spells like this. We would be connected and there isn’t really anything that we could do. The only way to end this was for us to die. If one of us died, the other one would die too. It was the nature of his new life. He was bound to me. I would be weak for a while.
I was to expect to sleep a lot and need more to eat. I had sacrificed myself to save his life. I would be tired while my soul started to recover from the wound that had been inflicted upon it. My life had healed his wounds. He was strong and powerful, able to carry me through my weak point. He promised to stay by me as we were left alone.
“I’ll make sure that you get through this.”
“Thank you.” I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. I struggled to find my way into the bed. “I think this has all been a bit too much.”
“Before you go to sleep…” he let his question trail off.
I knew what he was talking about and I already knew my answer. “Of course I will, just let me get some rest first.” I yawned.
It wasn’t as romantic as I had dreamed about, but there it was. The decision was made. I vaguely remembered him running to the door and announcing the fact that I had said yes. He came back to the bed and carefully pulled the blanket back up over me as I faded into oblivion.
Epilogue
I was nervous. In fact, I felt like I was about to puke as I looked at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t exactly how I had planned this as a little girl. I had planned to do everything in my power to stop this from happening when I was a child. I had hated the idea of going through this ceremony and now I felt my hands shaking as I looked forward to it. My life had changed so much over the past year as I thought back over it all.
I was ready. I knew that I was ready for this. This was going to happen. Our ordeal had ended almost two weeks ago, but still I dreaded this. There was a knot in my stomach. We weren’t chained together any more, not physically at least, but I could still feel him. He was nervous too. I worked with my hair. It never worked right, but still I tried.
“Damn it!” One of the ladies came up to help me. She was an older woman, a member of Devin’s pack.
“It’s fine. It will be just fine. Everything’s going to be okay,” she crooned at me as she worked carefully through my hair. “We’ve all been through this.”
“Where’s my sister?” She was the only family that I had left. I didn’t want her to miss this.
“She’s outside, setting up. Do you want her in here?” The woman looked concerned, taking a stance that showed that she was afraid that I was going to bolt at any moment. I wasn’t going to run, but still that didn’t take away the fear that I was feeling. She continued to stare at me. “I can send someone to get her here.” It was a hastily made promise that I knew that she would keep.
I felt like crying, but fought against the urge. “Please.”
The woman working with my hair turned to another lady in the room. “Get her please.” There was an exchange of knowing nods as they ran out to get my sister, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
“Fynna!” It was less than a minute later that I heard her voice calling my name.
“Thank God you’re here.” I turned to my sister, destroying the work that the older lady had done with my hair. “I can’t do this. You have to get me out of here. What’s going on? This is so permanent. I can’t do this. I can’t do it.” I was starting to hyperventilate.”
“You can do this. You want to do this, remember?” She reached up and touched my arm. “It’s going to be fine. You love him, remember?”
“I know I love him, but is that enough?”
“It was enough for you to give him a piece of your life.” She reminded me of something that I didn’t want to think about.
I shuddered as I felt his mind. He was freaking out a bit too. He was close, that’s why I could feel him so strongly and the time that we had spent together planning our shifter wedding had been a nightmare to put together. At least, it had been until the local witch told us not to plan over everyone else’s free time, but to place this event when we wanted it. They could work around us. We had moved all of my stuff into Devin’s house over the past two days, and I knew that my stuff would be waiting for us. Tonight would be the first night that we
officially lived together, even if we had spent several nights at each other’s houses.
We hadn’t lived together before. This was a change in my life, something that would affect the rest of my life. It was perfectly natural for me to feel nervous about it. All of the ladies went to work, helping me with my dress and my hair. They put make up on me but it didn’t feel right. I wasn’t comfortable.
We had picked up some human customs over the last few years and our ceremonies had become more and more like theirs. In a sense I was getting married in less than fifteen minutes, but this was a bit different. He was going to be my mate. I fought to get myself in control and I reached out to him. He was going through the exact same thing. This was permanent, and as a result, was meant to be frightening. We mate for life; living together and raising a family, growing old and helping his pack accomplish its goals.
I tried to remember what they would expect from me. I was going to be a defender, a supporter, a lover and a friend and he was expected to fulfill the same things. We would live through illness and attacks. We would have adventures together and because of the spell, we would die together. It was the way that we were expected to live.
I took a deep breath and walked out to the man that would become my mate. We met each other in the small park, and I looked at him. He was dressed to the nines, a handsome man and a part of me wanted to faint at the sight of him. He was magnificent looking and the way that he was staring at me, I could tell that he was impressed.
Obviously, the other women had done pretty well. The ceremony was beautiful, but a little too long for my taste. I just wanted it to be over. When it was over, that was it. We were mated. We had no reception. I saw no need. The next day there would be a party at the tribe where people could celebrate an Alpha’s mating, but our first night would be ours and ours alone.