MATE AND HIS LOVER 11

1. Unconscious Mate

The three of them stand around Helena's unconscious mate.

"What did you do Helena?" Connie says, shaking her by the collar.

"I— uh— I think I might have erased his memory," Helena slowly says. She's putting it together in her head through the aftermath of what happened.

"You did what!" Bess says, "Are you out of your mind?"

"He was going to reject me!" Helena says. Her body shivers as she recalls Ethan's words.

"So you fucking wiped his memories?" Connie says, shaking her friend harder. "You fucking wiped Ethan Mortimer's memories? Do you want to start a war?!"

Helena feels dizzy from the shake down. "Not all his memories," she quickly clarifies, "But I think I got the wrong one."

"Which one?" Bess says, "Never mind, first check if he's alive."

"I didn't kill him!"

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure!" But just in case, Helena squats down and brings her finger near his nostrils. She feels warm air graze it in intervals and nods at her friends, before standing back up. "He's good," she says with confidence.

"He's not good!" Connie says, grabbing Helena's collar again, "Wake him up!"

Helena glances down at Ethan. He's somehow more handsome when he's this quiet. She turns to her friends. "And tell him what?"

A moment of silence.

"Which memory you erased?" Bess asks.

"I think—— he might not remember anymore that I'm his mate."

"What?!" Connie begins rocking her again. "Why did you erase that?"

"I didn't mean to. I was going to erase that memory. The one from back then. But I got flustered. He was so mad when he found out we were mates, and right away started talking about rejecting me. I panicked." How is she supposed to keep it together through that threat?

Connie continues to violently shake Helena, as if to help parts of her brain fall into the right spots so she could become sane again. Bess says, "Alright, let's just calm down, first. What's done is done."

Connie stops. But her hands remain clutched around Helena's collar, waiting for the order any second.

"Wake him up. Let's first see if you got the spell right, I mean, wrong," Bess says.

Helena gingerly frees herself from Connie's death grip and squats back down to Ethan. It's a shame he has to wake up. He would never let her near him if he was awake. She longs for more time to admire the symmetry of his features.

Bess clears her throat.

Taking a deep breath, Helena taps at his forehead with the tip of her index finger.

Ethan's eyes squint.

Helena is up right away, and the three of them back up a few steps.

When Ethan's sight comes, it's grainy at first. Then the blur gives way to brightness and clarity. He begins to see.

To be safe, Helena backs up a couple more steps. Up close, Ethan's frame is a little menacingly bulkier than she'd prefer.

The grass and the trees appear first. Then a couple of girls. When he moves his head, another girl is there. He knows this one. "You," Ethan spits out, "What did you do?"

Her nerves waver. "I didn't do anything," Helena stammers out, hoping he's still dazed enough to not notice her tellingly high pitch. "We found you on the ground."