My mate and my gift

Chapter twenty-four: Matthew

During the night, I was being hunted in my dreams, by a white-gray wolf with red eyes. He was twice as big as me, and no matter where I ran, he always appeared right in front of me just as I thought I’d lost him.

The sight of him terrified me, although I had no idea who he was.

He howled with mock amusement. His wolf-grin was unnatural and evil, his voice filled my head.

“Where is your mate?” it echoed in my mind. He was not supposed to be able to communicate with me through our minds.

“Where is Mira?!” the voice persisted. I was paralyzed. How did he know her name?

“I want her!” he shouted. My head was pounding, the pain disorienting me.

He appeared right in front of me. “She will be mine!” his voice shouted in my head.

The fight instinct was triggered by the thought that he would take Mira away from me. I pounced on him, but as soon as I collided with him, he dissolved into a cloud of white smoke. His manic laugh filled the air.

“You can’t hide her! I know what she is, and I will have her!” his voice carried through the woods.

I suddenly felt pain all over my body and fell to the ground, unable to move. I felt a cold nose nuzzle into my neck, but I had no control over my body, and I could not turn to see who it was.

A lick on my ear, then on my chin, followed by a whine told me that this was probably not someone who wanted to do me harm.

Mira laid down on the ground in front of me, her nose touching mine. She was still whining. Her eyes were the same color in wolf form as they were in human form. Right now, they were big and worried. She poked me with her nose, like she wanted me to do something, but I didn’t know what it was.

She shifted to human form, tears in her eyes.

“Matthew!” she barked “Answer me, please!”

It dawned on me that she had been speaking to me through her mind, but I hadn’t been able to hear her.

The terror I had been feeling was intensifying. My heart was pounding, and I was having difficulties breathing. I tried to shift to human form, but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed.

A white cloud was appearing behind Mira, and I was yelling for her to watch out, but she clearly couldn’t hear me either, because she didn’t react.

The cloud started to take form and soon a human was standing behind Mira raising a silver knife. Something inside me snapped. The fear I had been feeling turned to anger and I broke free of my paralysis. I tackled Mira and covered her with my body. I felt the knife connect with my shoulder. I yowled in pain. Deja-vu hit me and I knew where I had seen this guy before; he was the alpha of the shadow pack. The one who had left me for dead on the stone-cold floor in a random house in his village.

But how did he know about Mira? And what did he want with her?

I felt the knife dig into my back and I jolted awake in my bed.

It must have been late night or early morning because Mira was still asleep, using my shoulder as a pillow, preventing me from looking over at the clock.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw his face.

I decided to stay awake and cuddle with Mira until she woke up. I fumbled for my pants on the floor, searching for my phone. I found it and unlocked it. I noticed the time was almost 7. The wolves in the mansion was probably starting to wake up around now.

On my nearby connections I saw an unknown device pop up. I tried to connect to it. It went through.

I looked around in the different folders I could find. One caught my interest. It read “Productions”. I opened it. It was full of audio files, all of them called a name followed by a version number. The names seemed familiar. One title surprised me. It was called “Matthew’s track”. I clicked on it and music filled the room. I recognized the melody as the tune Mira had been humming to me when I had had a bad dream and also the melody, she used to sing to me when I was unconscious. I looked down at Mira, trying to piece it all together. I saw another file called “Roxy’s song lyrics”. I opened it and I heard Mira’s voice fill the room. But this was the song on the new album from DJ Howl. The one that had blown everyone away, where a girl was singing. I had heard a lot of people say that this wasn’t actually DJ Howl, but just some other artist featured on one if his tracks. Boy how wrong those people were. It was Mira. She was DJ Howl.

The realization of how ironic her choice of artist name was made me laugh. The ‘Howl’ part was one of the reasons almost all young wolves knew about her music. The other reason was that her music was really good, and people loved sharing it.

Out of curiosity, I opened the music streaming app on my phone and found her album. It had been out for a good 48 hours, and already had over a million plays total. I could see mine and Roxy’s songs had been added to several thousand playlists.

I played the song she had made for me on repeat. I tried to remember the words Mira had been singing to me, but I could only remember bits and pieces, nothing that fit together. Still, the track was over 7 minutes long and the melody kept shifting mood. It filled me with joy, sadness, hope, but more than anything, it was a fast beat that I just couldn’t help but move my body to.

It was big contrast to Roxy’s song, which was sad and apologetic. The beat was slower, and the tones were on a lower register. The flow didn’t change much, but it didn’t need to because of the vocals. Her voice was utterly amazing. I found the file with her singing the lyrics to no music and played it again. I listened carefully to the words this time. There was a part that filled my eyes with tears. It went like this:

“I didn’t ask for this to happen, I didn’t even want it to,

And I’m so sorry for how it has affected you,

If I could have my way, you would take my place

And all this pain would disappear without a trace,

I’ve prayed countless times to change my fate

but it seems what’s done is done and now it’s too late,

It might be the end of me if I am forced to choose

This is a battle that I can only lose”

I didn’t know she had felt this way when we first found each other. I had thought I was the only one suffering from her rejection. When she had told me about her past, I didn’t connect it to her newfound friendships with Roxy and Sascha. I felt both guilty and grateful that things had turned out the way they did.

I was still engrossed in my thoughts when I felt Mira move. I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.

“Thank you” I whispered.

“You’re welcome” she muttered, her eyes still closed, her breathing even.

I hit play on my song again, closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against hers.