Chapter 14: Answers
1474 Words
I waited until Jax was at his desk, finally typing something up, and then I went to Matilda’s office and knocked. “Come in.”
I walked in feeling nervous and embarrassed admitting what was going on, but I didn’t know what else to do, I just knew it was doing no good keeping it to myself.
“Hi Rose, what can I do for you?”
“Hi, uh, well, I just, uh, the thing Jax mentioned about me being on heat, have you heard of anything like that before?”
Ok, I wasn’t quite ready to admit everything, not until I knew she had useful information. It would be humiliating to blurt it all out only to find out that she didn’t really know anything more than Joel had.
She took her glasses off and looked up at me. “When did it start?”
“Hmm, I think around the time of my kidnapping.” I blushed so hard, did she know it was because of Nick?
She nodded like she was expecting that and said, “it comes and goes, right?”
I nodded, and she held a hand out to the chair in front of her desk. I sat down in it, and she asked, “is Nick Darke your second chance mate?” I hesitated, but then forced myself to nod.
She looked more softly at me and said, “it’s not your fault Rose, we don’t get to choose our mates. It is an extremely rare occurrence to go into heat, though. I think there’s only four cases of this that has happened worldwide.”
“What does it mean?”
“I’m not entirely sure myself, usually it’s when there is no true mate which makes me believe that perhaps his true mate died.”
Just thinking about that made me want to cry for him. Poor Nick, he may not be a great person, but to lose your true mate was one of the most horrific things a werewolf could go through.
I couldn’t bear to think how I’d carry on without my mates’. Jax and his playful sense of humor and his wild ways and passion, life would be empty without him in it.
Then Romulus, the romantic one who gave soft touches and kisses that could take your breath away and say the sweetest things so that you’d cry from the love you felt in those words, and of course, my Fenris, the strong and sensible one who looked after me and was the most loyal and respectful man I had ever known. I wouldn’t survive without them.
I pulled away from my dark thoughts and asked, “why would I go into heat?”
“It’s the mate bond’s way of trying to make you complete the bond with him, it has no other mate for him, so to protect both itself and him it will try and force a bond between the two of you.”
“Protect him? What does that mean?”
“If he has lost his true mate then finding you is his last chance, if you were to, and I’m sorry for saying such a dark thing, but if you were to die as well, it might very well kill him too. I’ve seen people who have lost both their true and second chance mates, I’ve seen what it does, how it drives them to madness or even s.uicide. Be careful with this information Rose, if it gets into the wrong hands or other enemies of Nick, they can use you to hurt him, they could even kill him through killing you.”
That was a terrifying thought, and I had to swallow the gulp of fear that threatened to drown me. I made myself ask, “I can feel my wolf inside of me, like she’s moving around, I thought we were the wolf and not separate?”
She leaned forward in her chair, looking at me more intensely. “So you’ve formed a bond already with him, you’ve kissed?”
I blushed so hard, and I loved my black skin right now so much. I nodded and whispered, “it’s complicated, his brother was suspicious about why Nick wouldn’t let him touch me, so he made Nick kiss me as proof he wanted my body for himself.”
She nodded, and knowing I didn’t want to get into the details, said, “we are the wolf yes, we are one and the same, but in a rare case like this, the bond can also come alive in a way, we think of it or feel it as a line between us and our mate, but it can take on other forms too, like the wolf for example.”
“So it’s the bond I’m feeling?”
“Yes, it’s trying to force you to complete the bond with Nick.”
“What if, I…” I trailed off awkwardly and fiddling with my hair nervously, I tried again. “So, like, what if it completed the bond between us on its own?”
Her eyes grew wide, and she asked, “what do you mean?”
“I felt something strange, like the bond with my mates’ split off and created a new link to Nick.”
“That is very rare indeed, only once has that ever happened, and I mean worldwide. He is your mate now.”
“What!”
“Ssh, it isn’t fully complete, it sounds like it’s completed the ritual itself, but you still haven’t mated with him yet, right?” She asked, suspiciously.
“No!”
“Ok, well, I’m going to take a wild guess and say you will suffer the effects of being in heat on and off until you do, it may even get worse.”
“But I was, uh, intimate with my other mates’ and it helped.”
“It will do for a short time as they are also your mates’ but it’s Nick the bond wants to claim right now, so until Nick mates with you, it won’t go away. You’re in heat for him and only him.”
I sat back in the chair feeling defeated, and she said, “try to fight it and in the meantime, I think it would be a good idea to be honest with your mates’ about what’s going on.”
“Is there anything I can take to help, or a spell?”
She shook her head. “No, there’s nothing to be done short of Nick dying, which could possibly kill you too with the bond this far gone. As for spells, there is no spell powerful enough to truly break a bond.”
I knew that, the bond between me and my mates’ had been broken before by a nasty spell, even then it hadn’t completely gone away.
We had a spell done so that our bond could never be touched or broken again, and now it had split towards Nick, there was nothing I could do. I was just glad that I was the only one who could feel it, my mates’ didn’t seem to notice a change.
“I didn’t realize your mate dying could kill you too.”
“It doesn’t usually, rarely does the bond react in this way, but this isn’t a usual bond and you met through traumatic events, perhaps it woke the bond, you are Nicks last and only chance of having a mate and so the bond will cling to you tightly like a vice, it quite literally could take you down with Nick if he dies or vice versa.” Great.
I tried to get back to work, but it was hard to concentrate, did I tell them and risk their fury, would Fenris go berserk again and kill me this time? I didn’t know.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t react when Jax threw a pen at my head. It wasn’t until I felt him behind me that I looked up. “Huh?”
“What’s up with you today,” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re still a terrible liar, talk to me.”
I ignored him, so he tugged my hair. “Oi, answer me.”
“Leave me alone, I’m fine.”
He kissed my cheek and said, “fine, when you’re ready to talk, come to me, ok?”
I wasn’t used to him being like this, usually he’d demand an answer and I smiled up at him gratefully.
He went to walk off when I grabbed his hand. “Later, can you dance for me?” I whispered.
He rose an eyebrow at me and grinning, whispered into my ear, “I’ll do more than just dance for you darling.”
- Writer
