Fated Mate

Blood Ties

Emily was with Sara in the training clearing explaining a breathing exercise to her when the commotion began. From the main compound came shouts, urgent and panicked. Both heads snapped up.

"Stay here," Emily said, already heading in the direction of the noises.

"But-"

"Stay here, Sara. Please."

Emily sprinted toward the compound, a sudden sense of foreboding making her chest tighten. A crowd had formed by the entrance to the territory, calling on the healer, for Arthur, their voices piling atop each other.

She forced her way through the crowd and stopped dead.

A wolf collapsed on the ground, barely conscious. His clothes were ripped and stained with blood-some of it fresh, some of it dried into a dark brown. Deep s***h marks gouged his chest and arms, and a leg was bent at a terrible angle.

But it was his face that left Emily gasping.

She knew him. Garrett. One of her father's warriors from Sparkling Star Pack.

"Emily!" Margaret the Healer was already kneeling over him, the urgency in her hands palpable as she began to examine what damage he'd suffered. "Bring me clean water and bandages. Now!"

Emily was frozen. Couldn't breathe. Her whole world had shrunk to the shattered man on the ground, to the unimaginable this: that she would find someone from her past, from the place that threw her away.

Arthur was now at her side, his hand in hers. "Emily? Do you know him?"

"Garrett," she whispered. "He's from Sparkling Star. He was one of my father's best warriors."

Arthur's face shadowed with understanding. He turned to Victor. "Clear the deck! Give Margaret room to work."

The crowd was slow to break up but many remained on the sidelines, whispering. Emily stood frozen in place, watching Margaret as she worked to tend to Garrett's wounds.

"He's really lost a lot of blood," Margaret said grimly. "But he's strong. He'll live if we can stop the bleeding."

Garrett's eyes fluttered open momentarily, unfocused and glazed with agony.

"Emily," he rasped, his voice was barely audible. "Emily..."

Emily fell to her knees next to him, her training finally overcoming her shock. "I'm here, Garrett. Don't try to talk. You need to save your strength."

"No... no time..." His hand weakly extended, grasping at nothing until Emily caught it. His grip was surprisingly strong, desperate. "They sent me... to you, to you..."

"Who sent you?" But Emily already knew. She felt her stomach twist with dread.

"Your father... your mother..." His every breath was a labor and every word a strain. "Sparkling Star... under attack Vampires Theodore Shawn..."

Emily felt her face go pale. "When?"

"Three days ago. We held them off, first wave... but " He coughed, blood stained his lips. Margaret attempted to lower him back but he resisted. "He's coming back, big time. With more. We're not strong enough... we're getting:num too many dead already..."

"Please, Garrett," Emily said, her voice breaking. "Rest. We can discuss this when you are stronger."

But Garrett shook his head, frantically. "They need help. Your father...he sent me to ask...he knows he has no right..." Another cough, blood. "But the pack is dying. The omegas, the children... Emily, please..."

His eyes rolled backward and he went limp. Margaret checked his pulse immediately.

"He's alive," she said quickly. "But he's pushed himself too far. He should rest and he should get it now. Help me get him to the healer's lodge."

Victor and Arthur at last gently cradiced Garrett, carrying him away. Emily letto le la sveglia a terra, le mani tremavano,le mente si confondeva.

Sparkling Star under attack. Her family-who had disowned her, thrown her out, treated her like a curse-were begging for her help.

-

Emily wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting. The sunlight shifted across the sky; shadows grew longer, but she couldn't seem to get up. She was thinking about everything, and nothing, at once.

He eventually came upon her, and sat on the ground next to her.He just sat quietly, solid and serene, until she was ready.

"They left me," Emily said at last."My parents. The pack. They'd me like I was poison, like my very existence brought misfortune." She looked down at her hands, thinking of all the times she'd felt them alight with a power she couldn't contain, a power that had scared everyone she'd ever met. "And now they want my help."

"yes" answered arthur blandly.

"I should be vindicated. I should feel... something. Satisfaction that they're gonna need me for something now, that they realise that they were wrong." Emily balled her hands. "But I don't. I'm just empty. And I'm terrified."

Arthur took one of her hands, gently uncurling her fingers and lacing them with his. "What are you worried about?"

"Everything." The confession came out as more than a whisper. "I'm scared to go back, to see them once more. I'm terrified of what Theodore has done, what he'll do. "I'm just afraid that maybe if I go, I'll lose everything I found here."

She turned to Arthur, tears rolling at last down her cheeks. "And I'm afraid that if I don't go,... that I'll have to live with knowing I let innocent people die because I was too much of a coward to face my past."

"You're not a coward," Arthur said firmly. "You are one of the bravest people I know."

"I don't feel brave."

"Not many 'brave' people do." He held her hand. "Emily, whatever you decide, I will be behind you.

If you want to help them, then we'll help them. You can't confront them, your wounds are too deep, that's okay too. There's no wrong answer here."

"Emily shook her head. "There is though, isn't there?" It's not right for me to let unarmed people die-children, omegas, wolves who hadn't any part in how I was treated-that's not right. I know it is."

"Then that means you've already made up your mind," Arthur said in a quiet voice.

Had she? Emily rubbed her eyes shut as she attempted to decipher her jumbled emotions. Anger at her parents for not being there except when they needed something. Fear of going back to a place that had caused so much hurt.

Sadness for the members who had already passed away. Guilt thought of more dying as she hesitated.

And beneath it all, an infinitesimal and deeply manipulative part of her still longed for her parents' approval. That still wished, for all that had passed, that maybe this gesture could be a stepping stone to some sort of reckoning with them.

"I hate this," Emily said, voice hoarse. "I hate that they get to do this. They get to reject me, treat me like garbage, and then they come crawling for help when it suits their needs."

"I know," Arthur said. "And you're justified in hating it. You've earned that anger."

"But Emily," said Samantha. "I can't just be angry at this situation, can I?" Emily opened her eyes, observing the sky changing color of pink and orange with sunrise. "People are dying, and I can help them. And I could do something. If I don't, how can I live with myself?"

Arthur was quiet for a long moment. "You can't," he said, at last. "Because that's who you are, Emily. You recognize suffering and you want to alleviate it, even when it costs you something."

"No, no, no. That's not weak. That's strong." Emily exhaled shakily. "I don't want to go by myself."

"You won't," said Arthur immediately. "If you go I go. Victor too, and anyone else who wants. You won't go it alone."

"Your pack-"

"Can spare some warriors to assist in the defense of an ally." Arthur's face was determined. "And make no mistake, Emily – if you go to help Sparkling Star, they become our allies. We take care of our own."

Ours. The words settled something in Emily's chest. She wasn't returning to Sparkling Star as the cast out daughter crawling home in disgrace. She was going as Luna of Woodland Territory, as Arthur's mate, with the full support of her pack.

The thought gave her courage she didn't know she had.

"I need to see him," Emily said suddenly. "Garrett. I need to know what exactly happened, what we're up against."

Arthur raised his head and rose, holding out his hand to her. Emily took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

-

­­The healer's lodge was empty, save for the heavy breaths of Garrett. Margaret had dressed his wounds and he was lying on a cot, his face pale but calm in unconsciousness.

Emily came closer, gradually, looking down at the warrior who had once looked on her as beneath him. Now he looked diminutive, shattered, human in a way she'd never concentrated on when it came to her father's fearsome soldiers.

"Will he make it?" she asked Margaret.

"Yes he is. He's tough and while the wounds are bad, they are not fatal. He's going to need a lot of time to heal." Margaret looked at Emily with knowing eyes. "You're thinking of going to Sparkling Star."

Yes, but I know. Emily nodded anyway.

"It is going to be hard work," Margaret warned. "To see them again. Especially your parents."

"I know." Emily's throat tightened. "But I don't think I have a choice."

Margaret said, "We always have a choice... " "But sometimes when you have a lot of choices," she continues on, "All of them are really difficult, and when you are under that kind of pressure, you just have pick which one is the least worst."

Emily stared at Garrett's sleeping face, and then at the mark of Theodore's cruelty upon his body. She thought of the Sparkling Star territory-the place where she'd been born, where she'd been first rejected, where every corner was a fresh stab of pain.

And the children, she said to herself. The omegas. The wolves who had never hurt me and even as I speak my soul is breaking into a million pyres because a pack of vampires targeted them.

"When will he wake up?" Emily asked.

"Tomorrow perhaps. Day after tomorrow."

Emily nodded. "Tell him tell him when he wakes up that I'll help. We'll help. But I need to know everything - how many warriors they have left, what defenses remain, and what exactly we are up against."

Margaret smiled. "I will tell him."

Emily, stepping out of the lodge with Arthur at her side, felt the weight of her choice descend upon her like a heavy cloak. She was going back. Back to the place that had broken her, back to confront the people who had left her.

But this time, she was not going to be a scared, helpless little girl.

She was going as Emily, witch-trained, love of an Alpha, Woodland Territory. She was powerful now, and had a purpose, and people who loved her.

No matter what is waiting for me in Sparkling Star, I will meet it.

But she had to get ready first. And she had to learn how to look her parents in the eye without breaking down.