His Fateful Choice

The ugly truth

“No Emma, I don’t think that is what happened. I think you are in a big trouble.”

I stared at him blankly after those words. What does he mean by that? I just fainted. True, being out for almost a week is a bit too much, but what can I say, I probably really needed to some me time. Although personally I would prefer a spa.

"Em, what do you remember just before you lost consciousness?" Bill asked cautiously, as if trying not to scare me with his question.

"Um, I'm thinking. We were in that club. You had tacos and I had quesadilla. I don't remember what we drank anymore, but I guess there was tequila in it.” I glanced at him. "I also remember Martin and his futile attempts to enchant me. And also your futile attempts to enchant another "friend" of yours. I thought I was going to go home, it might have been around half past one in the morning, but I don't remember what happened next.”

Bill stared at me for a moment, as if wondering if I was telling the truth. Or he was wondering if he should tell me the truth.

"And do you remember if anything hurt?" Bill continued his cross-examination. Probably occupational deformity.

"Well, yeah, now that you're talking about it, I remember the pain. It started in the head and continued down the spine. The pain was quite severe, crippling. I remember trying to call for help, but I couldn't even speak. Strange, if you hadn't reminded me, I would have forgotten.”

As I spoke, Bill's expression changed beyond recognition. His troubled face took on a new, dark shadow. As if what I had just told him confirmed his assumption. Anger flowed from every part of his tense body.

"That bastard!" Bill cursed under his breath.

"Bill, will you please talk to me normally? Ever since I woke up and you came, you've been acting like something terrible has happened, but you refuse to tell me what it is. Whatever you’ve learned, tell me. I'm a big girl and whatever it is, I'll stand it. Besides, there's nothing worse than when your loved ones don't tell you the truth.”

Bill's eyes flashed at my words.

“You're right. You need, no, you deserve to know what happened. And you're right that you're strong enough to handle it." he took a deep breath and continued “Okay, what you described was not exactly what we saw. Naturally. But to understand what I mean. When you got up to go home, I was just looking at you. Your whole body froze as if in convulsions, and you let out one frightened sigh. We tried to talk to you, but you didn't respond to us. Your eyes looked scared and shed tears. Then you started shaking, as if you had a seizure.

We called an ambulance right away, and when it arrived, they couldn't tear you off the table as you held on to it. They had to give you some relaxants.”

I listened to him in fright. I honestly didn't expect that much to happen. My expression woke Bill from his memory, and he nodded at me. "Yes, exactly. I still have nightmares about it. When I am lucky to sleep at all.”

"What happened next? What did the doctors say it caused?” I asked. An uncomfortable feeling somewhere in the back of my head suggested that the worst was yet to come.

"Well, the doctors couldn't come up with anything at first, and they were trying to blame it on epilepsy."

"I don't have epilepsy, I've never had a seizure." I objected.

"I do know that. I tried to explain to them that you had just undergone a thorough medical examination as part of your admission to the police force. But they were probably clueless, so they didn't want to debate very much about your diagnosis.

When you were in the hospital for about the third day, one of my acquaintances stopped by.”

At his words I raised an eyebrow at him as if saying “Really?”.

"Fine, one of my "friends". Bill said as he imitated quotation marks with his fingers following my example. "Uh, I hate you." he chuckled

"See, it’s not that hard!" I encouraged him enthusiastically, for which he rewarded me with a significant side-eye. "And what did he tell you? Did he come up with something? Wait, wait! Are you sleeping with a doctor? Isn't that like some double fetish? You know how, uniform and unform?” I teased him.

“Ha, ha very funny. Keep interrupting me and I just won't tell you.”

“Sorryyyy.” I stretched.

After one last disapproving look, Bill continued. "When he met me, he asked me why I was here. I explained to him that you were hospitalized here and what happened to you. When I described your symptom to him, he asked me if he could see you.

So, I led him to you, and it took him about five minutes to tell me his suspicions. You see, he's not, unlike the doctors who looked after you, a human doctor. He works on the upper floor, where werewolf care is provided.

And apparently, these symptoms appear in werewolves, who, uh, well, whose mate had cheated on them. This is a very rare phenomenon, given that, you know, the mate bonds are extremely strong, and mates don’t very often cheat on each other.” Bill said, looking at me sadly.

I couldn't understand what Bill was telling me and I wanted to start laughing. "Bill, I don't understand. You know very well I don't have a mate.”

"I know, and that's exactly what I told him. But he is very experienced and insisted that your symptoms matched. Technically, it's something called “mate’s wound”. And when he explained to me what the consequences might be if left untreated, I decided to check it out just to be sure. I searched a bit in books and on the internet and found that you were not entirely right about the whole "I don't have, and I can't have a mate".

Apparently, crosses who cannot transform and are therefore not connected to their wolf nature may have a mate. They just don't automatically know they have them. If a second voice doesn't ring in your head, announcing that your other half is somewhere in the hundred feet perimeter, it's much harder to find him or her, because you have to know what the secondary signs are. And that's why the myth seems to have arisen that crosses can't have a mate.”

I didn't like what he was saying. Not a bit. I'm not stupid and I knew where he was going with it. Josh. He was the only one to whom I've ever felt attracted. However, I just didn’t know what to say, so I just continued listening intently.