Cursed, Loved, Redeemed

Finally Alone

“Earth to Dominic” Xander’s voice breaking me from my thoughts. “So how is it having a mate? What’s it like? I can’t believe you found your mate the exact same time you gained your wolf. Most people wait years before finally finding their fated mates, some never find them!”

Yeah… lucky me. I still haven’t had time to really process everything.

It’s not that I don’t care for her or anything, because I do. I’ve loved her since the moment I saw her. I didn’t even realize she was my mate but still I fell head over heals for her. And caring about someone this way has never been a strong suit of mine. I’m very happy being a “lone wolf”, only spending time with my close friends, who really are the closest thing to a family I’ve ever known. And now, everything is different. It’s no longer going to be just and the twins, now I have a small blossoming family of my own. Maybe we’ll have pups one day, maybe we’ll even follow the human tradition and get married, like I have always secretly wanted but never dared to dream possible for myself. Could I really open up to someone new, when I haven’t really opened up all the way to my oldest friends? The only people I’ve ever been close to, and I’ve had them my whole life…

-Flashback to age 10-

Alex, Xander and I are sitting in his parents living room, sheets and blankets everywhere, trying to construct a fort like we do almost every weekend. The twins’ parents are in the kitchen making dinner and laughing with each other, everything they do seems to spark so much joy.

The twins and I finish construction on our fort and begin planning our night. Movies and popcorn, all the junk food we can get our hands on, and my favorite part of the whole weekend, our Pokémon cards. The twins and I collect them, and have Pokémon battles all the time. I’m the best at the game, and I almost always win. I’ve even got my favorite card, my holographic charizard. He’s my absolute favorite Pokémon, and my favorite character from the cartoon too! My excitement is palpable, and everything is perfect in this moment.

-End flashback-

“Having a mate is… different” I carefully say, not wanting to say or do anything to upset my sweet mate right now. “It’s still very new and Ellie and I haven’t exactly sat down and discussed what this is going to mean for us down the line.”

“We are both still young, and it’s very uncommon for people to find their mates at this age. I don’t think it’s going to change much for us right now. Maybe down the line a bit, but we need to get to know each other and finish school first” Ellie adds, relieving me immensely. I can’t even believe my luck. We already seem so in sync with this whole mate thing. I can only hope it stays this good.

“Yeah that definitely makes sense.” Alex says through a mouth full of potatoes. He can’t ever seem to stop talking or shoving his face full of food. He’s probably the only person I’ve ever met that eats more than I do. And that’s not an easy thing to accomplish.

“That’s no joke” Pyro snorts in my head, of course my wolf has to interject with his opinion, when does he not. “Hey asshole, you’re one to talk” he growls. Of course. He knows everything I think. “Did you forget already that we share a brain or something?” He chides me, but in fact I had forgotten. I am still getting used to this whole wolf thing. It has only been a short time since we officially met.

“So Ellie, how are you liking this grumpy f**k being your mate anyway?” Xander says jokingly, earning a low growl from my sweet mate, completely shocking everyone at the table. “Whoa it was just a joke, my bad” he quickly adds in response to her clear disapproval of the joke.

“Sorry, the mate bond is pretty intense. Anyone speaking negatively about my mate apparently makes me very angry, pretty much instantly. So, to avoid any future incidents, can we please try to refrain from talking poorly about the man I love?” She says with a hint of anger in her tone, eyes locked on Xander. Man, if looks could kill, I don’t think my friend would still be with us. “Dom, baby, do you have any plans after dinner? I was thinking you and I could go down to my aunt’s house and talk? My aunt won’t be there until tomorrow, so it would give us the best chance to have some actual privacy.”

When she looks at me like that, her eyes sparkling at me, it makes my heart flutter. Man, this angel of mine sure is crazy about me. It seems like my wolf may have been right about her. Now it’s up to me to not f**k it up.

“Well, I was going to hang out with the guys tonight actually,” I begin “Don’t you dare tell her no you i***t!” Pyro growls in my head, cutting off what I was saying. “You tell her that you are going to reschedule with them and give her your complete and undivided attention tonight.” s**t, yeah he’s definitely right.

“But,” I start again, hoping I recover this smoothly enough not to hurt her feelings. “The guys will have to hang out without me tonight, because I’m all yours angel.” Please for the love of The Moon Goddess, let this be okay with her… I look back at her again, staring into her beautiful eyes, watching intently as the golden flecks almost appear to be dancing around her iris. A smile slowly creeping across her face, making her already sparkling eyes twinkle even more.

“Oh, baby thank you!” She gushes at me, clearly beyond excited that I’m prioritizing her over the plans I already had in place. “You really didn’t have to change what you were doing just for me. But the fact that you would do that for me is just the most amazing thing. I’m even more excited for this than I was before”

Watching her overflow with joy at my small act of kindness towards her filled me with happiness. How did I get so lucky? Something as simple as deciding to spend just a couple of hours of my time with her instead of playing video games like I do literally every single night completely overjoyed her. She’s very easy to please, she really just wants my time??? Or maybe it’s just because it’s all so new… maybe she’s going to be completely different in a few weeks, changing up on me like everyone else has.

We finished our dinner pretty quickly, Alex and Xander mostly talking amongst themselves about their plans for the night since I had committed to spending the evening with my mate instead. Ellie seemed preoccupied with something, and didn’t really eat much, offering me the reminder of the food on her plate when I finished mine, which I gladly accepted and quickly ate. When we all finished, we said our goodbyes to the twins and made our way to her aunt’s cabin near the tree line. The walk took about 15 minutes, which we undertook in complete silence.

Once we made it to her aunt’s place, she unlocked the door and we proceeded to enter the cabin, Ellie took my hand and lead me through the house to her room, locking every door behind us to ensure that we maintain our privacy for whatever it was she had in store for us this evening.

The only thing I knew was that as of right that moment was that my mate had a plan, and I was just along for the ride. Anything to make her happy was what I was going to do, and hopefully this is going to do just that.

She sat down on the edge of her bed and gestured to the empty space next to her “Have a seat my love, get comfortable, make yourself at home,” she says, removing her shoes and sliding herself backwards on the bed, leaning against her headboard and adjusting her pillows to her liking. “Just please, remove your shoes. House rules are to remove our shoes at the door but I was in such a hurry to get to my room that I decided it could wait until we were here, just this once” she told me with a wink.

“So, what is it you have planned?” I ask her, reaching down to untie my sneakers so I can remove them.

“Well, I was thinking first we could watch this movie I’ve been dying to see, and afterwards we could get to know each other better, discuss our plans for the future, and talk about how we’re going to proceed with our relationship. Normally fated mates immediately move in together after completing the mating ritual, but normally they aren’t this young either.” She says, looking at me with a smirk playing across her lips.

“Oh, yeah that definitely makes a lot of sense. So what movie is it you’re dying to see? Some kind of chick flick or something?” I ask her playfully.

“Oh, actually it’s the latest superhero movie, but if you’d rather watch a chick flick, we can do that instead. I’d hate to disappoint you, my sweet mate.” She says, c*****g her eyebrow at me.

I immediately burst into laughter, my mate laughing along with me. “Ok ok point taken” I say trying to stop laughing enough to get the words out.

“Alright, I’ll get some snacks and drinks, can you grab the Xbox controller and get the movie ready while I do that? The disk is right there next to the console.” She asks me and I nod in agreement before she exits her room leaving me to set everything up.

When she comes back with the various snacks and drinks, she sets them to the side and climbs back into her bed how she was before, only this time she reaches her arm out to me. “Come here, let’s lie down and cuddle. There’s no reason to sit awkwardly on the edge of the bed when we could be cuddled up and comfy instead.” I gladly oblige, and we settle in to watch the movie.