The Feral Mate

Chapter 7: Carrie

Chapter 7: Carrie

My stomach wouldn’t stop convulsing. It was worse than the cramps I got during my period. It was worse than being sucker punched by a gorilla. I wanted to puke, but my body refused. It wasn’t happy with me, just like how Lea wasn’t happy with me. Hell, I wasn’t happy with anything at the moment.

Our adversaries' final crew member, the one left guarding the ship, had come to the island just before sunset. He was looking for his missing compatriots, and had walked directly into one of our traps. In the past, the larger ships had always left their fallen comrades behind. This group clearly wasn’t very smart.

However, they were tenacious. I was sore everywhere. My left side, where their leader grabbed me, had already bled through one set of bandages. Those would be washed and reused since we had a limited supply. Amelia was fine though, which was all I cared about. I could feel my body quickly healing as we allowed our wolves to rest. Not that Lea was at all interested in resting. She wanted to go check on that man, which was ridiculous. We both knew what he was there to do.

“You don’t know for sure, though,” Lea said, tail wagging hopefully.

“I do know for sure,” I muttered out loud.

“What?” Amelia asked, opening her tired eyes. We were lying side by side in her hutt, which was tradition for us after every fight.

“Oh um…nothing,” I said, mentally cursing Lea. I hadn’t told anyone about the blonde man calling me his mate. I was scared. The only people who came to our island were monsters, looking to enslave us. How could someone like that be my mate? Why would the Goddess do this to me?

“These pirates are strange,” Amelia remarked after a while. I looked at her, but she was wearing the same unreadable expression as always.

“They are. They seem…different,” I supplied, rather unhelpfully. I was trying to probe Amelia to see what she thought about our new prisoners.

“Different how?” she questioned. Damn. She was obviously trying to gauge my opinion of them.

“Well…one of them is a woman,” I said, which wasn’t a lie. I did find that strange. Amelia nodded.

“She’s probably with them to help build trust. Make girls more cooperative,” she grimaced. My stomach turned for a whole new reason, and I shivered. Bad memories.

“Anyways,” she continued,” Great job today. You did everything right, and you saved me. So…thank you,” she said. She took my hand and squeezed, but at the same time my heart clenched. I didn’t do anything right today. I froze, and then I ran away. It was only half way through running away that I realized I should be leading my hunter towards a trap. Then, when he was caught, I froze again. I was worried. I felt sorry for him! And at that moment, their Alpha tore into me. My weakness could have cost me my life.

“You saved me first,” I whispered. I felt like crying. The very idea made my lip tremble, and I had to sit up and turn away to collect myself. While I did, a new thought entered my head. “Why didn’t he kill me?”

“I don’t know,” Amelia said, softly. The question was plaguing her too. “ I think…I think the leader was trying to talk to me,” I turned to look her in the face, and I could tell she was deep in thought, replaying the fight over and over again in her mind.

“When you were watching them from the tree?” I asked. The other girls had given me a play by play of Amelia’s initial encounter with our would-be captors. They gushed over how cool she’d been, like always, but they hadn’t mentioned the Alpha saying anything of significance. Amelia shook her head, and stared at her folded hands.

“When Wolf takes over…it’s like I disappear. I see, hear and feel what she does, but my own mind is hazy. I can’t control anything. Most werewolves consider their wolf to be an extension of themselves. They can rein in their wolf if something isn’t a threat, or tell them to investigate a scent. They instruct their wolves in some way. I can’t even get Wolf to turn her head,” Amelia confessed. We had only spoken a little about this in the past. During our training, Wolf would sometimes be a little too rough, and Amelia would apologize for losing control. I had no idea that she had no control in the first place. I’d heard of werewolves suffering from this sort of thing. Feral, they called it. And feral wolves were always killed by the pack. They were simply too dangerous.

“ Wolf has protected me my whole life. She has a sixth sense when it comes to fighting, but something happened this time,” Amelia continued, unaware of my dark realization. ”I thought…I heard a voice,”

“A voice?” I swallowed, but my mouth was dry.

“I think…I heard the leader’s voice say ‘wait’. It was faint, though. I keep wondering if I imagined it, but that’s not all. The longer I fought him, the more the clouds in my head began to clear. For the first time, I felt my mind separate from Wolf during a shift. It made us lose the fight, but I can’t stop thinking about… how it felt,” Amelia was sitting up straight now. Her eyes searched mine for answers.

“I felt something strange as well, and I heard the blonde one’s voice over a mind link,” I confessed, easing some of the ache in my heart, but causing my stomach to clench impossibly tighter. Amelia looked shocked.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

“I was scared. He…he called me his mate,” I whispered, knowing that the younger girls could waltz in at any second. Amelia’s green eyes grew wide, and I saw a flash of red enter the irises. Her body tightened, and a low growl escaped her throat. Her breathing became erratic.

“Sorry,” she strained “One second,”.

“It’s okay,” I said, softly. I hoped no fear entered my voice after learning the true extent of Amelia’s control issues. My Luna’s breathing returned to normal after a few moments, and she looked at me seriously.

“Is he…?”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t see how he could be.”

“But you mind linked with him?”

“Y-yes,”

Amelia frowned. Lea was still pushing me to go and help my-…the blonde man. It occurred to me that if Amelia really heard the leader’s voice, it was possible that he was her mate. Surely the Goddess wouldn’t make both our mates repulsive, evil men. Especially not Amelia’s. She had suffered enough. I waited for my best friend to respond.

“We need to explore the ship they came in on. Find out who they are and what they want,” she said.

“Do you think those small boats will get past the sharks?”

“They got here in one piece. I’ll risk it. Tomorrow,” Amelia laid down again.

“What if they're not human traffickers? Or pirates? Some of them are really hurt right now,” I murmured. The guilt from before was seeping into my flimsy heart.

Sickness and infection were things we worried about constantly. With no antibiotics, we relied on the native herbs and plants for medicine, and scavenged what we could from the people who would come to hurt us. We hadn’t given any medical treatment to the intruder's wounds. They were in separate wooden cells we fashioned from the strongest trees around. All of them were bound with the silver chains and shackles that we were once forced to wear. The group of three that had shifted hadn’t been given their clothes back, so the bugs were probably eating them alive. Particularly the injured, bloody individuals.

“For tonight, we’ll let them bind their wounds. Let Gail know to give them some supplies and water,”

“What about the bugs?” I asked. Amelia blinked slowly.

“You’re really worried about these people? They could be just like the others,” she looked at me pointedly. I sighed, and wondered if I should share some of the hope I carried deep in my soul with Amelia. I decided it wasn’t the time.

“I just want to be thorough. If one of them dies overnight, the others might become more difficult to deal with later,” I said. Amelia gazed at me thoughtfully, then closed her eyes and relaxed.

“Then I trust you to do whatever is necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

With that, I was dismissed. I had been given Amelia’s blessing to treat the prisoners however I saw fit. I stopped by Gail’s supply hut to grab the things I would need. Water, a half-used bottle of rubbing alcohol, bandages, the minty-smelling salve we made that kept bugs away, and a bit of fruit for each of the prisoners.

I approached the cell of a man with a thin build and short black hair. I told him to stand on the side furthest from me, and then I placed his items down through the bars. I watched him inspect his provisions with still-bound hands, and explained what the salve was for. When I started to leave, he asked me how Cliff was doing.

“Who’s Cliff?”

“My mate,” he said, and pulled his shirt collar aside to reveal his mate’s silver mark. I told him he was the first prisoner I’d visited. He sank down, and cradled his head in his hands. I felt pity for the invaders once again, so I said I’d check on Cliff for him, and come back. Me and my big soft heart.

“What’s your name?”

“Johnathan,”

I nodded, and made my way to the next closest cell. They were all spread a good distance apart so that the prisoners couldn’t talk to each other. As I approached, I saw that this captive was a heavier set man with glasses. He was the one that came to the island last. He followed my instructions without complaint, and began to greedily gulp water from the flask I brought as soon as I moved away from the bars.

“Are you Cliff?” I asked, and he stopped drinking. He glared at me suspiciously.

“Who wants to know?”

“Johnathan,” I responded. This made him pause.

“No, I’m Jake,” he grumbled. “Who are you? Why are a bunch of teenagers doing this?” he questioned. I simply adjusted the bag I was carrying and walked away. I had four more stops to make.

The woman was much more hostile towards me and refused to move away from the bars. I tried to push her items towards her with a stick, but she kicked them back at me. Eventually, I gave up. I threw her rations and clothes where she could reach them, and left.

The next man was extremely fit, with long brown hair and a bushy brown beard. He growled when I approached, and also refused to move away from the bars.

“Are you Cliff?” I asked. He growled louder.

“How do you know my name?!”

“Johnathan told me,” I replied. He began to rage against his cell so fiercely, I thought for a moment it might break.

“Where is he? What have you done to him?!”

“Nothing! He’s fine. He just asked me to check on someone named Cliff,” I explained. The man calmed down, but I could tell his thoughts were still going a mile a minute. I asked him if he wanted the supplies I brought, or no? He sat down on the opposite side of his cell, and I made my delivery. Satisfied, I turned to go.

“Wait!” he called. I looked at him expectantly. “Can I see him? Please? I won’t try anything. I swear,”

My immediate thought was ‘no’. What kind of i***t would I be, if I let him out and he hurt someone? Amelia would kill me, and I’d let her. However, before I could say that, I looked into his eyes. I saw pain, desperation, and the kind of fear that only love can cause. Damn it.

“They’re mates,” Lea said, like the answer was obvious. I stood there thinking for what must have been a few minutes. Eventually, I sighed. My intuition was telling me that these people hadn’t come to harm us, but I needed to confirm it before I set anyone free. However, I could risk imprisoning two people together.

“I’ll bring him here,” I said, and left. My mind was a jumbled collection of uncertainties and romantic notions from my wolf. I dropped another bundle of supplies off at their leader’s cell. He didn’t say anything to me. Just stared, which I’m ashamed to say I found chilling. I knew that after I brought Jonathan to Cliff, I’d have no more excuses to delay me from visiting the last cell I most dreaded. I reached the shorter man’s cage and double checked his restraints through the bars. They were secure.

“What’s happening? How’s Cliff?”

“Good. Angry, but physically fine. I’m taking you to him,” I replied. Jonathan looked like an enormous weight had dissipated from his chest, and walked out of his cell with eager energy. I expected the journey to be mostly silent, but my captive began asking all sorts of questions as we trudged through the dark undergrowth.

“What’s your name?”

“Carrie,”

“That’s a pretty name. How old are you?”

“Nineteen,”

“Are you a rogue? You don’t smell like one.”

“No,” I said, indignantly.

He also asked why we attacked them, just like Jake had inquired earlier that night. I wondered why the entire crew was playing dumb with us. They were so different from the hunting parties that had previously come to the island.

“Whoever hired you didn’t tell you anything about this place, did they?” I asked.

“Hired us? No one hired us,”Johnathan replied. I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t falling for that. They hadn’t arrived on our island in a rescue boat.

“I know what a pirate ship looks like. I’m not an i***t. Where do you think those skulls on the beach came from?” I clipped, guiding him along the trail.

“Wait, we’re not pirates!” he exclaimed.

“Certainly not good ones,” I grumbled.

“Do we smell like rogues to you?” he challenged. No, they didn’t carry the rotting stench that clung to most rogue wolves. I shrugged.

“There are ways to hide your scent. We did, when we ambushed you,” I replied. Lea growled in my head.

“You need to open your mind to the possibility that they did not come here to harm us. Don’t ignore answers that are right in front of your face,”

That really pissed me off. I was literally in the process of reuniting two prisoners out of the kindness of my heart. A decision that was super risky, and in no way benefitted myself. Yet Lea thought I was closed-minded? Blind and unfeeling? I had to stifle a growl as I threw up a block between Lea and myself, which I almost never did. When I had cooled off enough to speak, I was addressing Lea, Johnathan, and myself.

“We need to be very very cautious when it comes to strangers. Pirates and hunters have hurt everyone here. And I won’t go back to being a slave.”

Jonathan glanced over his shoulder at me with large, questioning eyes. Before he could ask, we were thankfully interrupted.

“Johnathan!” Cliff shouted, clinging to the bars.

“Cliff!”

“Other side of the cell, please,” I said, and Cliff readily complied. They met in the center of the cage in an awkward, but meaningful embrace. When they figured out how to get their arms around each other with still-tied hands, they shared a long, passionate kiss. I pretended to check the condition of the cell’s lock while waiting for them to finish. My heart couldn’t help but flutter at the thought of kissing my own mate. I wondered if Lea’s nonsense had turned me into a hopeless romantic. The couple was now whispering to one another, so I cleared my throat to get their attention.

“I’ll be back in the morning. Don’t try anything stupid. Tomorrow we will find out exactly who you are, and why you’re here.”

“Good,” Jonathan smiled. “Then by this time tomorrow, you’ll see that I was telling the truth.”

My brow furrowed, but I nodded before walking away. I hoped Johnathan was right, for his sake. And maybe for my sake as well. If these were good people, we could finally leave this island. See our families again.

“Be with our mate,” Lea supplied. I never maintained a block between us for very long.

I took a deep breath as I marched toward said man’s prison. No more stalling. My stomach went back to its previous churning, and I was nervous for reasons I had never been nervous for before. I wondered how my hair looked, probably wild and curly like always. I worried about how I smelled, and what I was wearing. I probably looked filthy, but that had never mattered before. Why did I care so much? Why did I care what a man, a pirate covered in blood at the foot of a cell, thought about me? Before I could come up with any answers, I noticed two figures standing outside the blonde man’s cage.

Wait.

“Amelia?”