Faded Mates

Nearing an end

Present Day

*** LEAH ***

 My heart was pounding, just as it was the day I’d arrived. Adrenaline rushing through my body. I hadn’t felt this much fear in years. Two to be exact. Suddenly, I felt as if I was getting swallowed by the air around me...

“Leah, open your eyes.” I felt a soft kiss on my bare shoulder. 

I lied on my back taking in the morning light “What time is it?”

“Almost eight fifteen...”  the soft masculine voice trailed off slowly as I began to replay my dream in my head, analyzing every last detail. It happened this way every time... the processing of all my feelings, followed by nostalgia and yearning, and then, a strong pull to something missing, something familiar. Clayton and the ocean. The two memories that stirred these emotions and made me endlessly restless. The two things I’d only seen in dreams for years now. 

“Leah, are you listening?” Mark’s firm voice brought me back suddenly. “We have to get moving if we want to make it over the ridge by nightfall.”

“I’m up” I said, reaching for my clothes as I sat up. Stepping outside the tent, I grabbed a water container and proceeded to brush my teeth. I stood there scrubbing as I watched Mark assemble our packs. He was strong, steadfast, and beautiful, and the one I had kept the longest so far. 

Mark smelled of spearmint and ocean spray. Clean in an appetizing way. The day we found each other I’d been able to scent him over the smell of a heavily wooded forest and a large group of weres. We’d been receiving instructions on how to safely move through the area when I’d picked up the scent behind me. There he was, a quiet force, watching and listening. Today, as I moved around our tiny camp, I could barely scent him a few feet away. It was fading, as it always did. I’d been ignoring it for a while now. s**t, I had tried to ignore it every time and as always, I was failing. This was it, I was done here. We were done. It was time for me to move on. 

Mark was... is my Mate. My perfect fit, the other half of my soul, my promised. He is the one the moon goddess destined for me, and I for him. As wolves, we were intended to mate for life. At least this is how it had been before. Now we were a dying breed struggling to survive. Still, our origins and our pasts remained alive within us. Lifting us up, and at times also haunting us. The moon goddess, our packs, our mates, our destinies, were all the essence of our kind. When we found our mates, we were bound to them with every thread in our being. Smell, touch, lust, love, everything. Somehow though... I was different. 

In all fairness, the world was different. Maybe the moon goddess had abandoned. There were no packs, no homes, no community, no alphas, why would the mating tradition survive when nothing else had? The earth had swallowed almost everything. Shortly after, the ocean had swept away most everything else. The last of it... of us, were doing a good job making sure nothing was left, not even each other. The Moon goddess must have gone with the earth or maybe the water. 

I carried these thoughts with me as we trekked up and over the mountain. Frankly, there was no point in sharing the inevitability of our end with Mark. He wouldn’t understand, they never did. Mark was different though, smart and pragmatic. If this could be explained to anyone, it would be him. Lost in contemplation as we pushed across no man’s land I hiked ahead, failing to notice the rigged netting on the ground. Just as I stepped in, I was pummeled to the ground by a large body and the trap slid up the large pine tree empty. 

“f**k! Dammit Leah! What were you thinking?! Stay alert! That’s what we always say” Mark barked at me as we both stood up. Once we had finished brushing the shrubs off ourselves he stepped in closer to me and his voice softened “What would I do if I lost you…? I would have to hunt down every f*****g person left on this planet until I found you and then make them pay for taking you from me.”

There it was, the reason I would not... could not tell him. Smart and pragmatic, yes, but also very passionate about the things he loved. Unreasonably so. Just as I decided not to discuss our fading mate bond with him we heard a sound moving towards us and quickly crouched down behind some brush. 

“Come on out, we’ve already smelled you” a female voice called.  

Mark and I stood up and walked slowly towards the group of weres. Roughly eight of them, the female clearly the leader. She was average height, with a very athletic build. Her beautiful almond shaped blue eyes were far set giving way to a perfectly bridged nose and plump lips with a peaked Cupid’s bow. She was stunning, but her facial expressions and body language were aggressive and dominant. 

“We won’t hurt you if you’re civil. We use the traps to catch wild game... for food. My name is Ahna.” 

Mark stepped in front of me quizzically “you’re weres, why don’t you just hunt?” he asked. Ahna looked around Mark sizing me up, and then back at him “we don’t know how safe it is to roam, or how far we can go without any trouble, we move out a little farther every day, gaining ground in our human form and establishing a new perimeter.” She was speaking Marks language now. “She mute?” the woman asked gesturing at me but still looking at Mark. 

“Leah actually, but you can call me Lee” stepping around Mark I held out my hand.