The Tragic Mate

Mystery had certainly given him a boot up the backside this morning. She was right though. If he was going to deal with his mate's problem, he was going to have to be open and honest about everything. He needed his family. What on earth had possessed him to keep it all such a secret, locked up in his heart? She had really helped him to change his perspective, seeing it from his family's point of view. He was just so used to being there for everyone else, putting his needs last. Now that he had stepped back as Alpha, passing the responsibilities over to Drew, there was no excuse for not reviewing his life and his priorities for the future. He had given so much to everybody else and now it was his turn. Sitting in his favorite spot at the top of the mountain closest to his cottage, he realized just how much he had suppressed everything. In the early days, when his mate had left, he'd had no choice. It was the only way that he could survive. He'd respected her wishes but it had nearly crippled him. Since Mystery had left this morning, his head was spinning, memories seeping out of the box. Up here, he could face it. Up here, he could open the box and relive it. ********* It was a bright winter's morning when he first set eyes on her. She was the most glorious woman he had ever laid eyes on. He must have seen her before but her scent called to him. It was a mix of jasmine and vanilla and to him and his wolf she smelled delicious. Why had he never noticed this goddess before. He must talk to her. Seth rushed over to her, intending to introduce himself, when he realized that she was with an older man and woman - her father and mother. The man, her father, had his hand on her shoulder, looking forbiddingly at any male in the vicinity. Her mother looked timid and withdrawn; she really wasn't the picture of a happy woman. To the other side of the woman, a young man had his arm around the mother's shoulder. He seemed pleasant but there was undoubtedly an air of sadness and defeat about him. Another young man - older than the first - was on the other side of the woman whose beauty had entranced him. He held her elbow in a possessive manner. There was no doubting the message that he was sending out. She was his possession. His face was stony and held the same aggressive stance as the father. This was not a happy family. Seth hoped that the young man who held her elbow was not her mate. Both Seth and his wolf had recognized her immediately for what she was: she was his mate. Assessing this situation, there was no way that he was going to approach her with her family around her. He suspected that this would ensure that he never had the chance to see her again or get to know her. That must not happen. She was made for him and him alone. He needed to not mess this up. Despite his wolf's need to go straight to her and claim her, he held them both tightly still and watched, not moving an inch towards her. All of a sudden, her eyes caught his. He saw her nose flare and her eyes open wide. He could see her desire from where he stood. She had undoubtedly recognized him as her mate. Her eyes changed color to a bluish black. This was curious to him because only male shifter wolves' eyes were such a dark colour. He wondered at this oddity. He wondered so much about her and began to plot how he was to meet her alone so that he could find out everything about her. A frivolous thought popped into his head: Seth wondered what her favorite flavor of crisps was. He laughed lightly out loud, to which she tipped her head and looked curiously back at him. Her attention was suddenly jolted back to the man standing next to her as he shook her elbow roughly. Seth growled quietly, struggling to restrain himself from rushing over and ripping this man's arm off. How dare he treat his mate like that? "Protect mate!" growled his wolf in his mind. "Must punish him, pull his throat out, rip him to pieces. Now! Nobody can harm our mate." It was all Seth could do to stop his wolf from taking over. The last thing he needed to do was to scare her off. He had a feeling that she would be punished for his behavior and that couldn't happen to such a goddess as her. He had to be calm and calculated. He would rescue her and get her where she belonged - with him, forever! *********** Seth sighed at the deep hurt in his chest that had sat there for 17 years. He questioned himself - as he did almost every day - as to how he could have let her go. Why did he respect her wishes that were borne from the deep sadness at their great loss. They needed to get through it together, not apart. The view that lay before him seemed so distant to him. He gazed at its glory through a dim bubble, not able to be a part of it, to feel its freshness and glory. The day she left him, he had stopped living in the present. He went about his duty like an automaton, focusing on the wellbeing of his pack, unaware of his own body or grief. Seth slipped back into another flashback. His body and mind had woken up, leaving his primary emotion as unbelievable rage. His wolf howled in his mind, deafening him from the silence all around him. ********** "It's best this way Seth. I can never know happiness. Let me go so that I can find a place where the pain is put aside and I can exist without the burn of torment. Every moment that I stay with you, my body feels the fresh raw horror of everything that our love brought us and took away from us. I am nothing but poison and you are nothing but purity. I can no longer look at the destruction that our love has wrought." There were no more tears left in eitherher of us, but the anguish of her words cut so deep that there was no bottom to the chasm opening up beneath Seth. "Please." One word. She pleaded with him one last time and finally he let her hand go. Closing his eyes momentarily against the pain, he felt her her prescence leave him. He fought the panic as their connection pulled against him physically. The further she moved away from him, the more the panic increased. Finally, all he was left with was the hollow sound of those words in his memory and the ghost pull of their mate bond. It was a feeling that had never gone away. He stood there, alone, until he sat slumped on the floor....alone. ********************** Seth opened his eyes wide, the sensation on his face helping to draw his gaze back to the scenery around him. He touch the middle spot of his chest, pressing deeply into his core. She was still there. His mate was still tethered to him, even if it wasn't the real tether of a mate bond, but he had felt it as surely as if someone had kicked his sternum in his dreams, countless times over the years. Recently he had felt himself rubbing this spot, as if its ghost was haunting him.