Broken Mate, Unbroken Bond

CHAPTER 3 - ASH

This time, when I pushed, he flew.

Dominic Conchubar Mac Nessa was tossed through the air like he was nothing, coming to a crashing stop against the far wall. Between him and me were broken chairs and fallen tables, glasses shattered and suddenly a silence, broken only by the sound of my heavy breathing and that rickety old ceiling fan.

His two flunkies stood there, mouths agape. A dizzy spell came over me and I reached out, trying to find something to steady myself. The palm of my hand slapped on the bar and I leaned over, nausea suddenly overtaking me.

I didn’t know what that was. There had been flashes - of him, of something else responding to him - something snarling, and then this immense force. It had come from me. It had punched its way out of me and straight into him.

Images were flashing before my eyes and then they all began to swirl together, mixing up and merging. It was too much. I straightened up and addressed the room. “Whatever that was… I want nothing to do with it.” I took back my bottle of whiskey. If I’d thought I might need it before, I definitely did now.

With a shaking hand I raised my arm and pointed toward the kitchen. “If any of you touch him again I’ll knock you into next week.” It was a weak threat, probably, but I meant it. Besides, I’d gained a little cred I suppose, by flinging their boss across the bar with just the power of…

Of what? My mind? Thought? Had I weaponised our physical chemistry?

Bottle in hand, I walked unsteadily from the bar. The sun had set outside but I knew where I was going. I took the familiar path to the Catalonia pack, taking generous swigs from the whiskey as I walked, all in vain attempt to quiet my roaring mind.

When I reached the southeast corner of the wolf habitat, I crumpled to the ground. Gone was any sort of balance or grace, my body just kind of gave up and my ass hit the stony gravel. Under normal circumstances, the trek up here was enough to work up a sweat. Thirty minutes of uphill hike on uneven terrain, in the Mediterranean heat, often at the very least would give a reasonably fit visitor a bit of calf burn. But I felt none of it. I couldn’t even remember the journey up here.

I pulled my feet in beneath me and twisted open the bottle of whiskey. Close by, I could hear those telltale shuffles of the wolves’ paws as they approached through the brush. In the faded light I could not see them clearly, but the movements of the rustling bushes as they passed by let me know exactly where they were. There was wiring fencing separating me from them, but they’d decided to make their presence known.

One by one they lined up in front of the barrier, and one by one each sat. Suddenly, I could see them. They were outlined against the approaching night in a way I’d never experienced before. Waves of heat were rolling off them, causing the darkness around them to quiver. I blinked, and then they blinked back at me.

Not taking my eyes off them, I took a long, deep pull from the whiskey.

By the time I’d swallowed, I’d accepted that there was something wrong with me. Not with them - they were exactly how they were supposed to be. But me, I was not.

I wasn’t supposed to be able to see them. I wasn’t supposed to be able to toss a large man across a bar. I wasn’t supposed to know that the soft footfalls coming up behind me were that same large man’s, either.

“You followed me.”

It was another statement; and I wanted to be pissed at him. Instead, I just kind of felt like I was accepting some kind of inevitability. The wolves began to growl.

I continued to look back at them, but they’d broken their staring contest with me, and were now all focused as one unit on Dominic. The threatening sound they were making came from low within them, echoing against their chest cavities. Their heads had aligned with their necks, hunched over a little, hackles raised in furry spikes.

“They don’t seem to like you,” I observed, my tone deadpan. Finally, I looked up. I could see him as clearly as though it was high-noon, and not dusk. And I could smell him.

That’s new.

It was all new. Too much new.

Dominic actually looked amused. That did manage to coax an emotion out of me: irritation. He took a step closer to the barrier, his arm raised, hand up and palm facing outward, toward the pack. The growling intensified for a moment, but then it suddenly just stopped. The sound cut off completely, and the pre-night returned to its usual noise.

One by one, from lowest on the totem pole to the highest, the wolves turned and loped off. Stumpy was last. She stayed behind for a little longer, studying the large human male. She seemed to be weighing him up. Then, as quietly as she’d approached, she slipped away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the sound of the heel of his boot scraping against the stones grating on my nerves as he turned to look down on me.

I frowned and looked up at him, my irritation deepening. “That doesn’t really cut it, pal. You need to go.”

I went back to my whiskey, purposely now avoiding his gaze. There was quiet for a moment and he was still. I don’t think I’d even heard him take a breath in those moments. But then he was lowering himself to the ground beside me. I grimaced.

“You seem used to giving orders, Aislinn.”

You’re one to talk, Bossman.

His voice was a rumble. He’d seated himself next to me, his body facing in the same direction as mine was, though I could tell he’d turned his head to look at me. He continued to study my profile as he waited for my answer.

“You seem used to not taking them.”

He chuckled, a deeply pleasant sound that I probably would have enjoyed under normal circumstances. These were not normal circumstances. I turned this time, hand with bottle half-way to my face, and stared at him.

“If looks could kill…” The laughter had died in the air, but somehow he still looked amused. He held my annoyed stare for a few seconds, and then broke it, eyes sliding away to look ahead of him instead. He shook his head then, his dark hair falling over his eyes. “I am sorry. That should not have happened. You should have known what… who you are. Pushing you like that was unkind. It was grossly unfair. I’m sorry, Aislinn, forgive me.”

I was discomfited. I wanted to be angry because it was distracting me from dealing with all of the other stuff. I’d been trying to ignore it, trying to lock it all back up in its box and leave it in the corner of my mind. To go back to how I felt about myself and about my life before this handsome prick walked into the bar and tipped my world on its axis.

I had stayed silent, and this seemed to make him uncomfortable. He shifted a little, and then brought his knees up, resting his forearm on them as he continued to stare at me. “These are all things your parents should have told you. You should have had that support from them, or from anyone, really, who might be pack, when you were going through The Shift.”

He paused, but my mind was going full-speed. Parents, support, pack, Shift… Yes, they were all indeed words. But what had they really got to do with me?

“It’s just my aunt and I. My parents are dead. I never knew them.” I always added that last part quickly to stop people from giving me that simpering, pitying look. When they’d inevitably say something sympathetic, I’d follow up with, ‘Can’t miss what you never had, right?’ Technically, it was true enough, but I still missed it. Particularly as a kid, I’d always felt I was missing something integral. That I had a gaping hole within me that my parents’ absence had caused. I probably could really use a couple of decades of therapy.

Dominic hadn’t responded. Somewhat surprised and a little curious, I glanced over at him. I expected to see that same expression of pity that I’d always seen before, but that’s not how he looked. He looked thoughtful, for sure, but there was no pity there. I might have been mistaken, but it looked more like pride.

“It’s a miracle you survived.”

For a brief moment, I thought he was being sarcastic; snarky. But it was clear that he wasn’t, that the words were genuine and his eyes were appraising me with the air of someone who was impressed. He was so strange.

“Babies aren’t rocket science, Dominic Conchobar Mac Nessa,” I returned, and I was being snarky. “You put food in their face holes, wipe their shitty arses and make sure they don’t eat tide pods.”

The corners of his mouth quirked upward with amusement. “Very droll,” he said, an eyeroll following close behind. “That’s not what I meant. For people like us, childhood can be very difficult. We tend to be harder to manage. And as for puberty... Ten times worse with The Shift.”

There were those words again. They precipitated a sudden flood of memories. I could not fight against the onslaught, as suddenly image after image raided my mind. They were followed by accompanying sensations; the smell of different people, places, the emotions I felt - far too strong to contain within the tiny body of the toddler I was in this flash of recall.

The tantrums had always been intense. I’d screamed and lashed out too many times to count, tiny fists pounding in the wake of not getting my own way. Not being able to go where I wanted, to touch what I saw. Other children facing me, one who’d taken my favourite stuffed toy - the last thing I’d had of my parents - and then being separated from me, torn from my reach as I pounded relentlessly on his face. Pre-teen years spent in isolation, eventually sought by me, and encouraged by my aunt. Not fitting in anywhere. Not wanting to fit in anywhere. Fights, so many fights. Being pushed, punches thrown. Nothing ever hurt as much as the names had, though. At least, nothing until that night I’d been ill. I’d been fourteen, almost fifteen, and I’d screamed and cried until I’d had nothing left inside, and still I’d felt like I was going to be physically torn apart. I’d been on fire, I’d begged Deirdre to end it all for me. And then, as quickly as it had begun, it had stopped, my aunt standing over me, muttering comforting words...

“People like… us?”

I knew the answer before he said it, of course.

“We are Mac Tíre.”

Well, perhaps I did not know the complete answer. “Mac Tíre?” My forehead creased, recognising the Irish language but not the words.

“Celtic wolves. We are an ancient and powerful people. Once ruling lands and kingdoms, now relegated to myth and folklore.”

Such a grand explanation. It was almost poetic in a way. And here I was, feeling like a useless lump, cross-legged on the dirty ground and whiskey between my legs, wanting to believe he was a lunatic.

“They are wolves,” I muttered, pointing at the habitat containing the Catalonia pack. “Or are you trying to tell me they can walk and talk and bullshit, too?”

The next noise that came from him was a sigh, and I could feel his frustration through it. Or was it something else? “They are wolves. We are Mac Tíre.” I looked over, curiosity getting the better of me, but the look in his eyes that I saw was not what I was expecting.

His features had softened, his eyes, which I could now see quite clearly, even in the dark, were sad, sorry. His brows were lifted, his full mouth turned downward. He reached out to take my hand. At first I flinched; my nature to avoid being touched or being too close, but then when the tips of his fingers brushed the skin of my wrist I found the stiffness melted. My shoulders lowered a little and I stopped pulling away.

“Come back home with us, Aislinn. I can explain everything. We can find out where you’ve come from, protect you-”

“Protect me?” I was sharp once more; alert. I looked at him with disbelief. “I don’t need your protection.” What was he on about? I’d gotten through these last 26 years just fine, thank you very much. The only thing I’d need protection from is the hangover that would follow the consumption of this entire bottle of whiskey.

“You don’t understand!” The calm, almost sorry tone was teetering on being broken. I took my hand back and moved to stand up. He reached for me again but I swatted him away. “There are rules, Aislinn.”

“Rules, smhules,” I retorted wittily, as I stood, waving a dismissive hand and taking another swig from the bottle. “There are no strings on me.”

“Actually, there are.”

I stopped short in my tracks, and narrowed my eyes at him. The anger was returning and once again, I felt the need for flight.

“Someone has tampered with you, somehow. I have no idea how they did it. It must have been someone with a lot of power and ability, and you must have been very young, not yet transitioned, but someone placed a block within you. It’s old magic.”

I knew my mouth was hanging open, but I really did not care at that stage how stupid I looked. Eventually, I recovered enough to curse at him, managing to make it sound like an accusation, too. “What the feck are you talking about, Mac Nessa?”

“Come back to Ireland with me. I promise I’ll show you everything.”

He followed suit, standing with a grace I had not. I held out a hand, palm outward, trying to keep him at bay again. “Stop, just… stop. I need space.”

I turned and took off at a brisk pace, grit and stones grinding beneath my heels and flying behind me in my wake. I did not look back and I did not stop until I reached my cabin, ten minutes later. There’d been no sound of pursuit.

I didn’t even turn the lights on. Instead, I slammed the door shut and leaned back against it. I closed my eyes and eventually gravity did its thing and pulled my suddenly exhausted body to the ground. I stayed in that position, my head between my knees and my eyes squeezed shut, fighting against that flash of fur, that vision of it in that cage, behind that wall. It wasn’t until something began buzzing insistently against my ass cheek that I began to shake myself from the reverie.

There it was again. And again. Belatedly, through a mind filled with a haze of snarling anger and whiskey, I realised that it was my phone. When I pulled it out and glanced at the screen, lighting up my small room with its warm glow, I let out a surprised sound.

I brought the LED screen closer to my face and squinted, having not believed my own eyes at first. But there it was, 26 missed calls and 11 text messages. The most recent message flashed for a quick moment on the screen.

AUNT DEE:

Come home.