Never Leave, A Human Mate - (Book 2 The Mist Series)

~Chapter 27 - Freya/Voices~

~Dawn~

By the time I stumbled back to the house, the rain had all but soaked me through. Reece was there, a statue of misery on the porch, his head bowed, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. My heart, already a raw wound from Matilda’s confession, ached at his distress. But the words… the words churned in my gut, making me want to flee. Werewolves, they’re all werewolves!

“Dawn,” Reece’s voice, a desperate whisper, reached for me. His hand stretched out, and as our fingertips brushed, a jolt of raw energy, like a static shock amplified a thousand times, shot through me. I recoiled, pulling my hand away as if burned. “Please, listen… you’re my mate. What Matilda said… it’s true. I’m a werewolf. We all are, except Agatha, and possibly Anya.”

“But I’m a human!” I choked out, my voice a fragile tremor. “And none of this makes any sense! Werewolves don’t exist! It’s all folklore and fairytale!”

“We exist,” Reece insisted, his voice gaining a desperate strength. He dropped to one his knee before me, his warm blue eyes now an abyss of swirling blackness that sent a primal shiver down my spine. “Dawn, I want to marry you. To spend the rest of our lives together. Please, don’t leave… not ever. I’m begging you.”

I stumbled backward, clinging to the porch railing, fighting the urge to crumple into a sobbing heap. “No, I can’t stay. I can’t think. Please, just get me my car. I need to leave!”

He rose slowly, his movement fluid and unsettlingly powerful. He reached for my hand again, and instinctively, I flinched away. “Dawn, you’re not human anymore. I… I reached out to the Moon Goddess—our Goddess. You were so sick, dying. I wanted to help you, to save you… because I love you, Dawn. I asked her to save you and she listened. She gave you a wolf’s soul. You’re one of us now.”

“No, that’s not possible!” I shook my head, my denial a desperate shield against the impossible. “This isn’t… No, it can’t be real! Just… where’s my car?”

“I’ll have Jack bring it around,” Reece said, pressing a hand to his heart. “But don’t leave me!” His plea was a raw, guttural sound that tore at something deep within me. “Please, Dawn…”

“I can’t be here,” I said.

I spun and fled up the stairs, my feet pounding a chaotic beat against the wood. Only when I reached the room did I stop—the very room that, just hours ago, had held such promise, where I’d been lost in Reece’s arms.

Packing was a blur of fumbling hands and racing thoughts. But as I reached for the door, a suffocating fog descended upon my mind. Everything slammed to a halt. My head exploded with pain, and I crumpled.

“Argh!” I cried out, hands flying to my throbbing temples. “What is this…?”

“You’re finally letting me in…” A gravelly voice, like stones grinding together, echoed not in my ears, but inside my head. “It’s taken a while!”

“Who said that?” I yelped, falling back against the door, my eyes wide with terror. “And why does it sound like you’re inside my brain?”

“Dawn?” Reece was suddenly beside me, his hands cupping my face, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that was both terrifying and compelling. “What is it? What did you hear?”

“I-I don’t know…” I stammered, eyeing him with a fresh wave of suspicion. “B-but, I heard a voice in my head… I thought…”

“Oh, you heard me,” the voice rumbled, a predatory amusement lacing its tone. “You heard me loud and clear!”

“Argh!” I shrieked, scrambling to my feet. I stared at Reece, my breath catching in my throat. “It just spoke! What! It’s intelligent!”

“It!” It snarled. “I have a name. Thank you very much!”

“Name?” I spun around on the landing, my gaze darting from wall to wall, desperately searching for hidden speakers or some elaborate prank. “Is this some sick joke?”

“Dawn, this isn’t a joke. You need to sit down,” Reece pleaded, his voice a gentle current against the rising tide of my panic. He guided me to the bed, helping me to sit. He knelt beside me. His hands remained on mine. “I didn’t want you to find out this way… Everything I’ve told you is the truth. We’re all werewolves… George is our patriarch, and his son Joseph is our Alpha. Louise is his Luna.” He stroked my cheek, his touch soft, urging me to meet his gaze. “I’m a George’s beta, which is why Jack called me beta when we went to his shop… And why I get a nod from everyone in town.”

The words were a tidal wave, crashing over me, pulling me under. “This… I can’t!”

“Now you’re one of us.” He continued. “I wanted to keep you alive… to save you from the leukemia.”

I collapsed back against the bed, cradling my head as my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “This can’t be happening!”

“I’m sorry, Dawn,” Reece said, his voice laced with a sorrow that almost broke me. “This is my fault… And I wish I had gone a better way around it. But that voice, it’s your wolf’s soul… It’s completely normal.”

“Hearing voices is not normal!” I argued, my voice cracking.

“Are you going to ask my name?” the voice interjected, a flicker of impatience in its tone.

I clenched my jaw, squeezing my eyes shut. Go away… I’m not crazy! “I don’t want to know your name!”

A low growl vibrated through the room, making my head throb in response and I realised it had come from me. I pushed myself to my feet, my limbs trembling. My teeth chattered uncontrollably as I turned back to Reece, the need to escape overwhelming. “Where’s my car?”

“Jack fixed it. It’s parked outside the packhouse,” Reece said, but his eyes were filled with a pain that almost crippled me. “Please, don’t leave me…”

“We need to say,” the voice said, its tone sharp and commanding. “He’s our mate!”

“I don’t care!” I shouted, shaking my head violently. “No, I can’t be here…”

With my bags clutched tight, I fled down the stairs, avoiding Reece’s pleading eyes like the plague. Every step on the path was a victory. The open gates felt like a cruel invitation, leading to my car, my only hope. I wrestled my luggage into the trunk, the metallic slam echoing my own heart. Sliding into the driver’s seat felt like a surrender. The keys beckoned. I turned them, a desperate prayer caught in my throat. The engine sputtered, then with a surge, roared to life, the music flooding the car, a bittersweet soundtrack to my escape.

A wave of something cold washed over me as I blocked out the image of Reece, the phantom touch of his skin against mine, the echo of shared laughter, the nascent love that had bloomed. A fierce, fleeting impulse urged me to turn back, to hold him close and never release him. But everything he had revealed was too overwhelming… Too impossible to be true. I slammed the car into gear, catching sight of them—Reece, Louise, Joseph, Agatha, Kingston, all standing in the rearview mirror. I ignored them and followed the road out onto the freeway, leaving the bizarre, moonlit town of Mist behind in the darkness.

“Go back!” the voice commanded, a furious storm raging within my own mind. “Now!”

“No!” I screamed, fighting against the intrusive thoughts, the unwelcome presence. “You’re just a figment of my imagination… a creation of the leukemia! You’re not real!”

“We need to go back to Reece and Donte!” It defended.

Donte? The name was a ghost, a phantom whispered in the wind. Who was Donte?

A chilling, predatory chuckle snaked through my thoughts. “Donte is Reece’s wolf. They are our mate. He has claimed you, and by extension, he has claimed me.”

The words struck like a physical blow, stealing the air from my lungs. He has claimed me. The concept of a mate, of being claimed, was an alien terror. And the horrifying realisation that this unseen, uninvited entity inhabiting my mind was bound to Reece… it was a reality I couldn’t begin to process.

“He’s lying!” I spat, my voice a ragged tremor. “This is all a lie!”

“A lie?” The amusement in the voice was a silken threat. “He is your mate, Dawn. Can’t you feel it? The pull. The connection… The… belonging.”

Oh, I felt it, and most likely had the second I saw him barefoot beside my car. A faint, insistent hum beneath the crushing weight of terror, a yearning I’d tried to suppress. It was the echo of Reece’s touch. The memory seared into my senses by his gaze.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head, a frantic attempt to dislodge the insidious thoughts burrowing into my consciousness. “It’s shock. It’s fear. None of it is real.”

“Oh, it’s real,” the voice purred, the predatory undertones sharpening. “And soon, you will embrace it. You will embrace me. And together, we will embrace him.”

The car plunged deeper into the inky blackness of the winding road. Trees became monstrous blurs, their skeletal branches clawing at the night sky. I had no destination, only a desperate need to escape. Escape the house, escape Reece, escape this terrifying new reality that threatened to swallow me whole.

Suddenly, spectral shapes materialised from the darkness, their forms shifting, coalescing into hulking, animalistic figures that blocked the road. A wave of fur and teeth.

“No!” the voice within me howled, sending a searing pain down my spine. “We need to go back. Now!”

A woman emerged, her delicate features illuminated as if touched by moonlight. A halo of blonde hair framed her face, and her eyes, two burning embers of crimson, pinned me to my seat. Beside her, a creature of immense size, a wolf with a thick coat of brown, opened its maw in a low, rumbling growl that sent a sickening tremor through me and my vehicle. And then I saw him—Nate, slumped against the passenger seat, his face a mask of blood and fractured bone. The nightmare! A strangled scream tore from my throat as I slammed my foot on the brake. The car fishtailed, then died with a final, shuddering cough. Nate vanished, and it was just me and the car… and the terrifying strangers outside.

“We need to run!” the voice urged, its urgency underscored by a surprising lack of shrillness. “Let me take over! We have to leave now!”

“Shut up!” I shouted back at it.

I fumbled for the ignition, but the engine remained silent. The wolves behind the woman watched us with an unnerving, predatory focus. My heart hammered against my ribs, a trapped bird beating its wings against a cage. Despite the ethereal glow she exuded, an instinct, raw and undeniable, screamed that this woman was dangerous.

She raised a hand, and as if commanded, my car door swung open.

“What do you want?” I managed, my voice strained as I tried to shrink away from her reach.

“You will come with me,” she said, her voice like the whisper of silk against stone, and her hand, cool and unnervingly strong, closed around my arm. “You and Freya are just what we need…”