Mated

Nineteen

A/N: Sorry for the wait! Needed a little motivation this week. It helps me to upload faster when I know you are reading! Please leave a vote or a comment or a private message letting me know you support, it all goes a long way (:

I woke up to the sound of my own gasps for breath. James stood near the window again. He held a mug in his hand and the other held an open book he'd been reading. My lungs, which felt like fire, were beginning to cool. He moved to the bed and I slowly sat up, rubbing my chest.

"You're still here," I said, pushing down a wave of nausea that started in my stomach. He offered the cup. I blew over the rim and watched steam from the dark, bitter smelling tea whisk away then drank. He nodded and when he took the cup from me, he also took a few sips.

"Last night you said it didn't hurt any more. You looked like you were in pain." I noticed his jaw twitch.

"Diana was dying."

"You felt that?" His watchful eyes widened, then flared.

"I feel everything."

He frowned, not seeming to like that answer. "Did you see the war?"

I nodded. When I did, I noticed his relief. Did he too hope that witnessing the war meant the last of the memories?

"The war started because Sephiran killed the Jilo Chancellor—breaking some sort of treaty. Diana was captured shortly after."

"They killed her?"

"They were going to but she killed herself first."

"Hmph," he said, then looked away. "There's no need going back if you can help it—now that you've seen the war."

"What am I supposed to do with what I've seen? She wanted me to know something." My mind was wheeling as questions tumbled over each other in my head.

"We'll figure it out soon. Right now, you've been through enough for one day."

I didn't have any more memories. I could only make sense of the facts that fit together. I'd tried to take myself back but drew a blank each time. I ran over what I knew again and again until I was sure I'd memorized every name and every face.

Diana Norbury was my ancestor. And we were identical except for her black, raven like hair. Somehow she sent me her memories, a glimpse of her life leading up to her death. She seemed powerful, in-charge and, despite being a Rogue, people listened to her. I'd also learned that a group of humans knew about us. The Jilo, who still exist and still hunted our kind, and this revelation frightened me. Not only were Rogues becoming threatening around our territory, but there were Hunters out there who will stop at nothing to annihilate our existence because of a broken treaty.

Sephiran broke that treaty.

Diana's first lover was Sephiran who must have been a Rogue because it was the only explanation for why Diana was still a Rogue. If Sephiran belonged to a pack, I'm sure he would have accepted her or have his brother, their town's Chancellor, accept her into their pack if she loved him like she'd said. I realized her new lover, Mel, was not a Rogue. He'd shifted into his complete wolf form–he had to be an Alpha. His 'men' as they called it, were his pack. Then another thought took over: Why didn't Mel accept Diana into her pack? She was Rogue when she died. I felt it.

I wandered along the perimeter of the woods, not far from the garage and within view of the house, going over these facts over and over. I couldn't sleep and had gotten up early for a walk at dawn before the rain. Colby wasn't at his post outside my door, and no one stirred as I moved about the house so I didn't want to wake anyone to accompany me. I didn't plan to be out for long, I needed to get back before James woke. He was not someone to try and upset intentionally.

Drowning in my thoughts, my head snapped in the direction of the sound of twigs snapping. It sounded too light to be anything larger than a rabbit, and I only smelled the trees and dried leaves of the woods in front of me. I started to trek back to the house, but when the hair on the back of my neck stood straight, I went rigid and looked behind me.

A man stood before me. I wheeled back at his sudden appearance, a sense of uneasiness tugged at my stomach. My stomach wrenched at the realization that he'd gotten so close without me hearing footsteps or scenting the human before he approached.

Dark curls framed dark marbles for eyes and a long pink scar zigzagged from his hairline above his temple to the middle of his cheek bone. A brown mask covered the lower half of his face from his nose to his chin. His stare was menacing, calculating my next move. He'd been holding a silver object behind his back and it glimmered as it came into view. A loaded weapon.

I looked back and forth between him and the gun, somehow unable to move. The blood drained from my body. My heartbeat quickened, unsteady. I knew I had to run but I couldn't.

"It's true," his beady eyes were wide and perplexed.

As if some force reached through me and pulled me to my senses, I gathered the strength to bolt for the house.

"James!" I heard the man running after me and my limbs began to stretch as I pushed my legs to run faster, my natural instinct taking over, shifting to protect myself. A quiet sonic shot whizzed in the air and hit me square in my left shoulder. I screamed.

The sheer force of the bullet was overbearing, knocking me off my feet as it entered my body. I felt it tearing at my muscle, ripping and cracking its way between my bones like lightning, nestling deeper. Tightness started where it had entered and it moved down my arm. The arm felt heavy, weighing me down like a steel anchor, and I couldn't get up. A cloth came into view and he was behind me, pushing it into my face as I strained to pull away. It was radiating with a poison any wolf would recognize.

Wolfsbane.

The world blurred before me and then it went black.