Mya: Night Chaser

Maybe: Patrick

Patrick stumbled through the hallway to his first-period class. He barely made it to the plastic chair in computer science. He leaned his head back against the top of his seat and tried breathing through his nose and out through his mouth.

"You okay?" Brody asked from beside him.

"Tired," Patrick croaked. By the gods, he hurt. His body ached with a pain so real it felt like he'd been running a triathlon for six months. His muscles contracted and expanded in spasms every night making sleep practically impossible. During the day, he'd break out in sweats to the point he'd manage to crawl his way into a locker room and take a shower. Meals were the hardest. He was ravenous to the point of starvation. He'd eat as quickly as he could only to throw it up later.

"You look like s**t," Brody's blue eyes looked honestly at his friend.

"Not surprising since I feel like s**t," Patrick ran a hand over his face and let it drop to his side. "Six months. One day," he closed his eyes and breathed out. "And five hours since she left."

Brody paused and tilted his head. 

"I was thinking," he announced after a moment.

"You're always thinking," Patrick grunted as another muscle spasm wracked his body.

"No. This time I was really thinking," Brody leaned forward. "She's been gone that long but you're in pain. So she has to be alive."

Patrick closed his eyes. That thought danced around his head like a pinball since Mya left. The pain he was feeling didn't seem like anything the widows and widowers of Pack soldiers felt when their mate died. Those wolves walked around like phantoms all the time. Nothing anyone did make them happy. They were like zombies. The lucky ones had pups to raise. Real-life evidence they were once loved with the mating bond. They focused on their pups and nothing else. Even the royal families were looked at with cold, dead eyes.

Patrick felt nothing like that. Nothing. He was in agony. Not just mental and emotional but physical agony. It was as if every nerve ending was on fire. Every muscle being torn apart and knit back together with searing needles. It was wanting sleep, desperately needing it to the point of crying out every night, only to lay awake and wonder if the bond was breaking or if he was feeling what Mya was feeling. He wasn't sure which was worse.

"Yesterday you said it was the mating bond fading because she was," he couldn't say the rest. He continued. "And the day before you said it was mother nature punishing me for dating Natalie."

"Yeah," Brody smiled sheepishly. "But none of those sounded right."

"You said that before, too."

"Yeah. But I looked at some statistics. Some anonymous boards about the Night Hunters," Brody tapped his pencil against the notebook and completely ignored the teacher as the man stood in front of the class and began talking. 

"Anonymous board?" Patrick opened one eye and looked at Brody.

He saw his friend cringe.

"Yeah. Well. You see," he inhaled and then quickly explained. "The princes kind of have this thing where we have a messaging board keeping tabs on the Night Hunters."

"Wait. What?" Patrick slowly sat upright and turned to Brody.

"Yeah. It all started with an Alpha. He wanted really good Hunters, right? So he sort of, well, he," Brody leaned in and whispered. "He bribed one of the recruits to make a messaging board. Anonymous so no one would know who it was. And that wolf kept everyone updated until he quit. The Alpha used it to hire the recruits that left. The longer the recruit stayed, the higher the Alpha paid them. But I guess when the recruit left, he turned it over to someone else. And then that person turned it over to someone. And, well, I just got access to it."

"What the f**k, man?" Patrick whispered hoarsely. "You know that's really f*****g illegal. Right? If the Council heard you guys were doing that they'd shoot you for treason!"

 "Yeah. That's why it's anonymous. And I use a VPN," Brody stressed.

"Brody," Patrick groaned.

"What was I supposed to do? Mya's gone without a trace. Her own mate hasn't heard a word from her in six months. You're a wreck. No one knows what's happening," Brody pointed out. "I'm becoming Alpha. You're going to be my Beta. Why wouldn't I use every tool I have to figure out what the hell is going on with Mya?"

Patrick mulled this over as another spasm clenched his stomach so tightly that he ran to the trashcan and threw up his breakfast. Brody followed him and offered him the bottle of water Patrick had taken to carrying around with him.

"Let's go," Brody muttered. He draped one of Patrick's arms around his shoulders and helped Patrick walk out of the classroom. The teacher never said a word as the pair left. All the wolves knew Patrick was sick because of Mya. They respected the fact he even tried to make it to school even though most days he had to leave early because the pain was too much to bear.

They walked slowly to the Land Rover Brody drove. Brody helped Patrick into the seat and rounded the hood to the driver's side. He put his keys into the SUV, turned on the air conditioning, angled it to Patrick, and then slowly made his way to the Beta House.

"So?" Patrick rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hand.

"So?" Brody glanced at him worriedly as Patrick bit the inside of his cheeks to stop from shouting.

"Did you hear anything about Mya?" Patrick grunted.

"No. Not exactly," Brody hedged. "All I got was a bunch of statistics. Half the class she came in with is gone. And I heard the commander is a real asshole."

"That does not make me feel any better," Patrick clutched the handle on the door and sucked in a breath through his teeth. 

"Only half, though," Brody tried to be cheerful. "Meaning there's only a fifty percent chance she left and went rogue. Or she might be," he watched Patrick's jaw tick. "Well. You know."

"Please," Patrick coughed through pain in his chest. "Pleases don't say it."

"I won't," Brody turned the Land Rover into the Beta House driveway.

Another spasm jerked Patrick's body. He yelped out and moaned, "I just want this to end."

"Yeah. I know. But just think about this. What if she makes it?"

Patrick laughed humorlessly as Brody parked the Land Rover but kept it running, "And what if Thor beat Captain Marvel in an arm-wrestling match?"

"Okay. First of all. Ouch," Brody was nerd enough to sound affronted. "And second, I'm serious. What if she makes it?"

"Brody, you saw her. She's tiny," Patrick's mind flashed to the last time he saw Mya. She wore that damn dress that was way too big on her slight frame. She looked like a strong wind would carry her away.

"So? Tiny people can be strong," Brody warmed up to the idea. "And you heard the Night Hunter who took her. He even said she'd do. Those were his exact words. You remember."

Patrick tried his best not to remember that night. He tried to block out her kneeling in front of the Alpha and get her sentence. The Alpha couldn't convict her of a crime she didn't commit. And for whatever reason, Edmond the Fearsome didn't want Mya to be an Omega. So he got rid of her the only way he knew how. He ordered her into the Night Hunters. The fact Mya had maybe, possibly made it six months was a miracle. And the last thing she said to Patrick was to mouth the word, "Please." Patrick squeezed his eyes shut as he thought of the look on Mya's face when he pulled Natalie closer to his side in response.

"Dad's definitely not going to piss off the Night Hunters. He doesn't want you marrying Natalie unless Mya's," Brody quickly said, "Dead."

Patrick felt that in his gut. He opened the door to the Land Rover and began dry heaving on his own driveway.

"Please don't say that again," Patrick rasped as he grabbed the water bottle from the console and took small sips.

"Sorry," Brody was completely repentant. "But what I'm saying is what if Mya makes it all the way?"

"Brody, what are the chances of that?" Patrick asked with more force than befitting a Beta to his Alpha.

"Small. Miniscule actually. But stranger things have happened. And you as her mate, well, I'm sure they'd tell you if anything happened."

"They don't have my number," Patrick said another thing that also kept him up at night. If anything had happened to Mya, the Night Hunters had no way of telling him.

"We're talking about the Night Hunters," Brody pointed out. "They are probably listening in to this conversation as we speak. They know everything. They probably already know Mya's your mate."

"Unless she told them I'm dating her sister," Patrick groaned at the thought of the deadliest group of wolves knowing he'd done that to her. Even if she was dead, she pledged her fealty to the Night Hunters. She was one of them the moment she stepped off Woodland ground. The last thing he needed was a bunch of assassins knowing what an asshole he was.

"Yeah," Brody sounded dejected.

"Thanks," Patrick turned to his best friend. "For not saying 'I told you so' every second of the day."

"Nah. I only think it about every five minutes," Brody nodded to the front door. "Go on. Go to bed. Like I said before, you look like shit."

Slowly, Patrick got out of the Land Rover and hobbled his way up the steps to his house. He watched as the servant opened the door and let him inside. She took a big step back and allowed him to pass by her without a word.

"Thank you," Patrick's voice was thick as if he'd had too much to drink.

"You're welcome, sir," she bobbed a curtsey and moved to clean the library.

He noticed she didn't help him up the stairs. She didn't get him a glass of water or run him a bath. She would if he ordered it. But she'd never do anything for him without the strictest of commands. For a millisecond he thought of Mya being in his library taking each book down one by one and dusting it off. He thought about her wearing those stupid uniforms and sleeping in the attic of the Pack House never to step a foot on the earth ever again. The thought made him want to throw up again.

He had another attack about halfway up the stairs that brought him to his knees. He had to crawl to his bedroom panting the entire way. It took every ounce of strength he had to make it to his bed. 

He curled up in a ball and watched out his window. He could see the tops of the trees that stood on either side of the driveway. He could see a few clouds. The sun. Some random wisps of nothing. He just laid there and stared until he heard footsteps into his bedroom.

"Hey bud," his mother sat on the edge of the bed and felt his forehead. "You make it to school today?"

"Yeah. The first period," Patrick croaked.

"Honey," she pushed the hair off his forehead. "Do you want some Tylenol?"

"Doesn't help," Patrick ducked his head out of her reach. For some reason anyone touching him made him feel even worse.

"Have you heard from Mya?" his mother asked quietly as she dropped her hand in her lap.

His mother was the only one who thought the plan the Alpha came up with was crap. She even said as much to Patrick's father, her mate, even though Patrick's dad could've turned her in for treason. She would pull Patrick aside on multiple occasions and ask him if he truly wanted to marry Natalie. And instead of telling her the truth, Patrick lied through his teeth and assured her that he did. His mother would bite her bottom lip as if to say something only to push it back out, nodding her head, and go about her business.

"No," Patrick grunted.

"Nothing?" his mother asked for the thousandth time.

"She doesn't have my number," Patrick responded just as many times.

"And you're sure there's no way she can get ahold of you?"

"No, Mom. She doesn't know how."

"Well, is there any way you can contact her? An address? You could write a letter."

Patrick thought to the dozens of letters he had inside his desk. He'd written them when it was too hard to sleep. The times when the pain was so bad he could only think about Mya and what she might be going through. 

"I don't know where to send one if I did," Patrick admitted.

"I'll start researching a bit," his mother got up carefully as to not upset the bed. "See if I can find out a way for you to write to her."

Patrick only nodded and burrowed into the bed. He had enough energy to turn his head and watch his mother walk out of his room. He heard her bark at the maid to bring his mother her laptop and cringed at the sound. He tuned out the words and turned back to the window.

As wonderful of a mother she was, she was awful to the servants. Everyone was. The fact that Mya could've been regaled to the Beta House and yelled at by his mother hurt Patrick's head.

When the pain first came, Patrick tried to wait it out. He'd turn on his television and attempt to focus on the television shows. But soon the sound even turned down on the lowest setting gave him migraines. So he started trying to read. But the words blurred together and he got another migraine from that. Then he tried listening to audible books, meditations, anything but nothing worked. So he demanded complete silence as he laid in his bed. 

The only thing that helped was laying down in a cold room as he looked out the window at nothing. He saw the sun dip into the sky and then the moon glow. He wondered if Mya was awake or asleep or neither. He wondered if she was thinking about him at all because his thoughts seemed to be about her and only her. He wondered what she was doing and if she was looking up at the sky at that moment as well. Somehow thinking that she might be doing the same thing as he was at the exact same time calmed him enough that he caught a few precious hours of sleep.

"Where are you?" Patrick whispered into the empty room. "Are you okay? Are you even alive?"

He wondered if she could hear him. Sometimes he had flashes of barely understandable sounds in his head. Usually, it was some man or woman shouting at the top of their lungs. But sometimes he swore he could hear Mya's voice through the pain. For some reason, it sounded like she was counting down from random numbers. In those moments, he'd count with her. He heard himself mumble, "Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One."

When he finished he felt a sense of accomplishment. It was as though he'd scaled a mountain or swam an ocean. 

It was about one o'clock in the evening when he felt his eyes begin to close. He squeezed them shut when he heard the voice in his head like a siren song from a mermaid on the coast of an ocean.

"Twenty. Nineteen," he counted down with the voice. He knew it was Mya's even though he'd only heard her say a handful of words in his life.

Soon, he was down to one. His eyes drifted shut and he prayed a quick prayer to Mother Nature that he'd get a few hours of rest before he woke up screaming.

Maybe she was still alive. Maybe she'd become a Night Hunter. Maybe she'd return and they could be together. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.