Chapter 99 : My Mate is There
*Xander*
I spent the short day watching the wall of mist along the horizon, wondering what the hell was on the
other side and why Zeke hadn't gone with Ianthe.
Zeke finally crawled out of whatever hole he'd be hiding in around dusk, his face shielded from the
lingering daylight by the hood of his cloak. He looked sunken, and his eyes were burning with
frustration.
I flinched a bit as his eyes met mine, glowing like raw gold in the fading sunset. His expression went
beyond the hurt of sending his sister away. He looked hungry.
“You can't eat me," I said quickly, rising to my feet. “My blood is like poison, apparently–"
“I don't feed on people," he sneered, rolling his eyes as he turned his gaze to the water. He sniffed
indignantly, watching the surf. In a flash of black fabric and a spray of water, he disappeared below the
surface.
I waited and waited for him to come back up, cursing his name after nearly five minutes had passed.
That bastard was killing himself, I thought. And I still didn't know how to get to the Vampire King.
But his head breached the surface of the water in the distance, his mouth open and gasping for air as
he began to swim back to shore. He rose to his feet, the gentle waves swirling around him as he
carried several good-sized fish in his arms and dumped them on the rocky beach a few yards away
from me.
He was sopping wet and irritated as he pointed his finger to the sack he'd been carrying around during
our journey down the bluff and through the city.
“There's matches and kindling in there. Start a fire," he commanded.
“Yes, sir," I grumbled, watching as he knelt before the fish and chose his first meal.
I turned my gaze away before I witnessed him sucking the blood from a f*****g fish. That was
something I didn't particularly care to see.
I started a small fire while Zeke did whatever he was currently doing behind me. Eventually, he dropped
several pieces of driftwood next to me, sitting down with a long sigh of relief.
He'd dropped a fish in my lap, some creature I'd never seen before with pale pink flesh. I flayed it,
laying it over a level piece of slate to roast above the embers.
“Thanks for leaving me some," I said, glancing at the pile of shriveled fish carcasses just visible in the
distance.
Zeke shrugged, closing his eyes and tilting his face to the sky as dusk receded and night bloomed over
the tops of our heads. “You're welcome."
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I narrowed my eyes at him and popped a piece of fish into my mouth, chewing slowly. It had a strange
flavor, slightly salty, but fish was fish.
“Why didn't you go with her?"
“Because it's a realm of daylight and sun. The boat wouldn't have moved if I'd stepped into it, anyway. I
don't understand their magic, so don't ask."
“Okay…"
“And anyway, I need to return to Brune."
“You're still taking me to the Vampire King, right?"
“I'm taking you as far as I can," he said shortly, picking at the fish and putting a piece of it into his
mouth.
“What do you need to do in Brune?" I asked, noticing his expression go hard as steel.
He eyed me, then looked away. “You ask a lot of questions–"
“You just seem like… I don't know, you'd rather do anything else but go home. How long have you been
gone, anyway? Kiern and Costas didn't even mention that they had a son–"
He flexed his jaw, grinding his teeth as I uttered Costas's name. Interesting.
“At least a century, maybe more. You lose track of time after a while."
“And you don't get along with your dad?"
He clicked his tongue, his eyes meeting mine again with a silent nod.
“Well, he seemed fine to me," I murmured as I took another bite of the fish.
“He's just as bad as King Nikolas in many ways," Zeke said sharply.
I furrowed my brow, giving him a look of marked confusion. But that little flicker of unease I'd been
holding onto since leaving Brune flared across my skin.
“Why?"
“Did you make any deals with him?" Zeke asked, and I sucked in my breath before explaining his
desires to open a portal and allow his army, and the armies of the pack lands, to work as one against
the Vampire King.
“But you didn't agree?" Zeke pressed, somewhat frantic.
“No, I didn't. My sole focus is getting my mate out of here."
Zeke nodded, but then looked to the sack of bloodstones on my belt. “You should get rid of those.
Throw them in the water."
“Why?"
Before he could answer, a thundering cracking sounded above our heads, too loud and nearby to be a
storm. The ground trembled, and I turned to Zeke just as a light split the sky into two.
I almost screamed, but I gathered myself as something the size of a man fell from the sky and into the
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water.
Zeke was panting and had covered his face with his hood from the light. We looked at each other, then
out to the water as whatever, or whoever, had fallen from the sky resurfaced, coughing violently.
“f**k me, that hurt," said a voice over the sound of the waves, and I jumped to my feet.
“No f*****g way," I whispered, shock numbing my body as I ran to the water's edge. “Oliver?"
***
*Oliver*
Mom's letter was curt, and to the point. According to her, I was a hard-headed menace who didn't care
about the repercussions of my actions. There was a war going on, for Goddess sake. Where the hell
are you? So on, and so forth.
I folded the letter up and set it on the side table in the sparsely furnished bedroom I'd been living in for
over a month now, tucked in the upper level of Gideon's house. I could hear Adrian and Abigail talking
in hushed voices next door, bickering about something. Adrian has just returned from another trek back
to the camps outside of Breles for information on the current situation in the pack lands. He'd returned
with news about feuding Alpha's and bored warriors, and to my great surprise, a letter from my mother.
She was going to Winter Forest. My grandma, Rosalie, was still up there, tending to the refugees who
had crossed the sea between Red lakes and the eastern continent. Clare, Sasha's mother, had been
one of them, and after a month of speculation and worry, Sasha and her mother were to finally be
reunited.
I knew something strange was going on in Winter Forest based on the wording of Mom's letter and her
vague description of her itinerary. Aunt Hanna was going too; something was up.
“I know you're trying to find Lena," Mom's letter said toward the end. “But this is a journey she needs to
go on by herself. She needs to find out who she is, and what she's capable of."
The words stung, only because I was selfishly wondering why no one seemed to notice that I was also
strange and powerful in my own right. I felt as though my parents had sheltered me the same way
Hanna and Rowan had sheltered Lena.
In all honestly, I wasn't too worried about Lena. She'd always been able to hold her own. I didn't know
Xander well enough to form an opinion on his disappearance, but whatever had happened to them had
stopped the nightly attacks in the small villages dotted across the west. The portals to our realm had
been closed.
Or so I thought.
“You better be in Breles when I get back," Mom's letter concluded.
Sure, I thought dismally. We'd have to leave Gideon's house eventually. We'd been sitting here for
weeks, looking for clues. There was no sign of Lena or Xander anywhere.
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I decided to go on a walk as night fell, much to Adrian's chagrin. Gideon and his brothers were off on
some errand, and Alma kept to herself in the kitchen most nights, preparing what would be another
delicious meal laced with blood root. I was getting used to the taste, and as I made my way down the
stairs and into the living room, I realized I'd never actually seen the stuff before.
Adrian said it grew like moss in the distant hills.
Well, I had nothing else to do. Maybe Alma would be nice to me if I brought some back for her. Maybe
she'd even make those oatmeal cookies I liked.
I walked out into the night, my hands tucked in my pockets. I considered shifting, but was enjoying the
cool night air on my skin too much to want to coat myself in fur. It was mid-February, and the first hints
of spring were evident in the air. Mist clung to my feet as I walked in no particular direction, just
forward, toward the distant stars.
But then I felt it–a ripple of electricity spreading across my chest. I stopped walking and looked around,
wondering if Abigail was coming up behind me. I only felt this way around her, and after she'd
explained that she had a twin, it made a lot more sense, especially since now that unusual spark was
tearing into my chest.
It was intense, like I was being pulled toward whatever was causing it. This was much more that that
little flare of heat toward Abigail.
This was it–my mate bond. And it was pulling me toward my mate, right at that moment.
My breath hitched in my throat as I walked forward into the misty darkness, unaware of what direction I
was traveling in. I was too caught up in the feeling gripping my body, mind, and soul to see how the sky
seemed to contract in front of me, the stars hanging upside down, the air pulsating with energy.
I thought I heard a voice nearby, soft and feminine and lifted in laughter. It was her; it had to be–my
mate.
I took a few more steps, then I was hit by a force I didn't have the words to describe. A panicked
scream was ripped from my mouth as I was pulled apart, my body knitting itself back together in
seconds as blackness consumed me, then spit me out, and then I was falling, and falling, and falling.
Water–I'd fallen into water, and lots of it. I struggled to the surface, gasping for air as my head
breached the water and I opened my eyes.
Pure night.
“f**k me," I coughed, looking around. “That hurt."
My eyes focused on a fire in the distance along a beach, and two shadowed figures rising from the
rocks, watching me.
“Oliver?"
“Xander?" I gaped, swallowing water and choking just as Xander ran toward the waves breaking
against the beach.