The Tragic Mate

The Speech

Seth looked around at the assembled family, those people that he loved more than the world itself.

"Looking at you all here, it has just occurred to me that you are all more important to me than anything else in the world, and that, finally, I am giving myself permission to make my needs and those of my family my priority and not the pack." He looked down at his fingers.

Seth focused on Drew, "Drew, I turned all of my attention to you three and the needs of the pack, using that to keep me from falling apart and from dealing with an incomprehensible situation. When Bell left, I was just 25. I was about your age, Drew. Look at you right now. You have a family of your own, and have really been a parent to your brother and sister for a long time now. Add to all of that, you have taken on being Alpha of this pack and conducted yourself as a wise and experienced one at that. I cannot say that I was as mature as you, but I pretended well. In all honesty, it kept me alive because I then had no room to think of Bell and our loss."

Seth paused for a moment as he let the memory of that day seep into his consciousness for a moment.

******************

"I can't stay Seth." Tears streamed down Bell's beautiful face, "I can't be a mother to this pack when I can't cope with the grief of losing our own child. The mood-goddess has cursed me and if I stay, I will just curse the pack too. You have to take care of your family, Seth. I will despise myself forever for abandoning you all when you need me, when your niece and nephews need family to love, care and protect them, but I have to take this evil, putrid hatred that has affected our lives away from this pack!"

"Stop!" She raised her hands out in front of her as a shield as Seth tried to hold her. A small sob escaped her lips.

"Stop Seth! This just isn't going to work for us. I am too broken. I am nothing but misery and despair. I can see how me leaving will cause you such pain, but I must. To stay would be worse. Much worse. Our hearts are already broken. This way, you can do what you must, because there is no choice. I will never be sorry that I got to know you and the moments of pure happiness that you have brought me, but I don't deserve it and I will only bring destruction to anyone who gets close to me."

Seth placed a hand on her face, allowing the tears to trickle over his skin. He pulled her close to him. Momentarily, she allowed Seth to hold her before she pushed him forcefully away.

"No!" She grabbed her bags from where they sat at the front door. "No. This decision is the right one. I cannot do this to us. Even if you weren't needed by so many other people - people who deserve you - I cannot live here any longer. The pain is too great." She clutched her chest as if her heart was failing, looking desperately weak.

"Know this Seth, I love you and I always will."

She turned and walked out of the door. He heard her car come to life as his life left. And he let her go. Again.

***************

"When Bell and I lost our baby, the plaster that held us in our cocoon of bliss was ripped off. Something else would have come along to do it, but at least I had something - you three and the pack - to hold onto that kept me alive, because the depth of pain I felt losing our baby and then Bell was more than I can describe. As I stand here before you now, I have to admit that Bell was the strong one. I was the weak one."

He turned to look at Mystery and Drew, "That mate bond, that link that you feel deep inside you?" He looked intently at them both as they nodded at him, answering the question, "It doesn't ever go, not until death. I have lived with the terror of losing that link every single second of every day ever since she walked out of the door. I cannot imagine what it feels like to lose that feeling." He gasped for breath for a moment.

Drew and Mystery had turned deathly pale. The rawness of Seth's pain reached out to them, but they had no answer. Their guts churned at the level of pain that Seth was displaying to them.

"Letting her go wasn't an act of weakness." Mystery began. There was a hitch in her voice. She was fighting to hold back tears of her own.

Drew grabbed her hand and squeezed it tight. "Seth, Mystery is right, but I also understand how it must feel like that to you. Your strength in letting her go is beyond my comprehension. Times have changed. In fact, everything has changed. What you are thinking of as strength in wanting to bring her home, is just a shadow of the strength that you managed to find in yourself then. In managing to keep going after betraying everything that being an Alpha wolf makes you, you showed steel beyond any other shifter I have ever heard about, let alone known."

Seth paused for a moment, holding Drew's gaze in shock at his words, "Thank you son." He eventually choked out.

Composing himself, he shakily resumed. "This is why Mystery commanded that I made a 'speech' today." He turned his gaze on Mystery, "Yes, I worked it out in the end." He mockingly saluted her, "Mystery set me a task. Her impatience meant that I failed the speed test, but I'm not sure that I would have managed to face this without her kicking my backside and here I am." He smiled briefly.

"I am going to bring Bell home. You know this. Mystery probably decided this the second that I told her about Bell, but the meeting with that Alpha who is holding her made it impossible for me to do otherwise. Drew, I know that mission was a diplomatic failure and I am sorry that it has implications for the pack because of it, but there will be backlash for the pack in getting Bell away from there, and I will not back down from that."

He announced this as if he expected some anger or dissent, but was beyond relieved to see that the family simply waited for him to continue. It wasn't news to them. They seemed fully on board with the consequences and were waiting to take his lead. Their trust in him was touching.

"Uncle, for the good of the alliances with the rest of the packs, it was good that you didn't s*******r that Alpha when you first met him. Since then, I have spoken to all the younger Alphas and as well as two of the older ones about what transpired. Obviously, they had no idea why you behaved the way you did. Once they understood that you hadn't suddenly become a rabid dog, they were happy to discuss future plans. Whilst that pack has done nothing aggressive, they have shown some worrying signs of becoming a military strength. They seem to have significant funding and are growing in size. Their neighboring pack suspects that they are taking on any outcasts that they can find and paying lone wolves to join their fighters. Their security is unbreakable and they haven't managed to get any intel in or out of the pack, even with our discrete help. All obviously worrying signs. Whilst none of the allied packs want any kind of battle, there is a feeling that regardless of whether we rock the boat, there may be preparations for battle coming our way."

Seth nodded, "But are they offering their alliance in whatever happens?"

Seth's expression was resolute. "Uncle, we don't need to ask. Firstly, we don't need the other packs unless something unexpected happens. Secondly, of course, our closest allies would help no matter what, even if we charged in unprovoked, and thirdly, the loyalty that is offered to this pack is reciprocated and they all know it. We know that we still have big problems out there somewhere. We also suspect that we have active spies working within our pack, plus there are suspicions that there are packs over the border in England that are being controlled by whoever was behind what we all survived together. However, we cannot play appeasers in this situation and not just because this is about you. This is about all of us. It really is that simple."

Seth looked alarmed. He noted that there was no surprise in the expressions of either Tempest or Mystery. "Why haven't you told me any of this? What the hell is going on?" He looked at them all again.

"Don't say anything." His expression went to one of self-disgust, "Whilst you have all had my back, whilst Mystery has become mother-earth to her own babies, the rest of the pack as well as me as I wallowed in my own pity, Drew, you have become a greater Alpha than I ever hoped to be." He sighed at his own self-indulgent ignorance.

Mystery got up, punched him hard in the arm, grabbed him by either arm and gave him a deadly look.

"You can stop that right now! Drew's amazing. Yes. No question. That's what you raised him to be. You've got nothing to be regretful of and self-pity at this point is just simply annoying. It isn't your job anymore, old man. Your job is to be the wise man and keep us all honest. Most of all, your job is now to get your family sorted out. We are all here to do it with you. No matter what!"

She walloped him on the arm again and marched off into the kitchen to sort out the pudding.

"Tempest! Come and do the custard for the Spotted d**k! I don't want to burn it." She called out behind her.

"You shouldn't call Drew that, Mystery!" Tempest giggled out as she joined Mystery in the kitchen.

Drew and Seth gazed after them, shaking their heads.