This Alien Soul

Chapter 33

Amber

"What the hell is a 'mate'?" I knew what it sounded like. What the human equivalent was. But I needed to hear it from his lips. Maybe it meant something different in Zionian. "What are you trying to say?".

I hated the desperation in my tone. However, it couldn't be helped as pain sliced through my chest.

Still looking out at something in the horizon, he cleared his throat before answering me. "A Zionian mate is their perfect other half. The completion of their soul. That one person that can bring you complete contentment."

"So your soul mate." I breathed out, through an ever constricting throat, as I forced my eyes to hold back the tears threatening to spill over. It was exactly what I had thought.

"Yes." He admitted. Surprisingly, he didn't seem all together happy about this news.

"If you've never met this girl. Why do you think she's your mate?" I was grasping at straws and I knew it. My heart just wasn't ready to let go of what we had.

"The mate bond normally works through bloodlines. Long before I was even born it was predicted that the daughter of the Sarios bloodline would be my mate."He had taken to staring at his palm, rubbing at unseen lines on his skin.

"Oh.." was the only thing I could say. Frustration mixed with my heartache as a lone tear escaped and ran down my cheek. I swiped at it angrily. The last thing I wanted was his pity.

I had never been broken up with before. But I refused to be that girl, the one who begs and pleads for a guy who doesn't want her. I did have my dignity.

"Okay." Was all I could say as I stood up on shaky legs, trying to hide the shakiness in my hands as I brushed dirt off my ass.

"Okay?" His gaze snapped back to me. He seemed surprised that I was giving up on us so easily. Like he wanted me to fight for us. But why should I when he was ready to toss me to the side at the first thought that his mate may be arriving?

"What do you want me to say?" I snapped. "Do you want me to beg you to pick me? Is there any point? Has any Zionian ever chosen a lover over a mate."

"No...not that I know of." He admitted reluctantly, shrugging a broad shoulder. "Most stay loyal to their mate from birth to death."

"Then why weren't you?" Why did he even start something with me in the first place? Just to cause me pain? Get back at me for my treatment of them? But no, he seemed just as affected by the arrival of his mate.

I stood there for a moment. Taking in his profile, waiting for an explanation. An apology. Anything.

When it appeared I wouldn't get any answers I turned back to my borrowed jet ski. I needed to get away, I needed back in the water. I needed the depths of the lake to swallow me and heal my aching heart.

Then I remembered one last thing that had me stopping to face him again. "What about the markings? How can you explain my drawings of them?" We had to have some sort of connection right? Something he couldn't just pass over. "You had said your markings changed because of me."

During our night together he had explained the meaning behind many of the markings. Then had shown me the changed markings since meeting me. The markings that seemed to be reacting to us being together.