My Love but Not My Mate

Chapter 4

‘...’ – speech in wolf form

“...” – speech in human form

Chapter 4

   The summer rolled into autumn and autumn froze over as the winter folded in from the north. The mountains and fields were now laid over in a clean blanket of snow and a few blizzards had stormed through.

   After one patrol I had been on turned out to be a folly attempt at finding the oxen herds, I was now ill with a fever. My body shook and turned in my sleep as I lay under the hides in mine and Tyson’s cave. I barely became conscious some days, and the lack of energy from not eating began to become more and more severe for my condition. Tyson refused to leave the shelter of the cave or camp, afraid that he might lose me.

   He had tried to comfort me and dabbed a damp rag along my forehead trying to keep the heat out of my head. The others had started to become anxious and disorderly with the absence of their Alpha for days on end.

   “You should see to them. Leave me here,” I had tried to convince him. “My mother can watch over me.”

   He grunted at my delusional comment. “I won’t leave your side while you’re like this. But I will have to go for a day or two in order to hunt,” he confessed to us both. “If I’m ill then who will watch over the pack.” He really did have priority issues.

   “My dad? And anyway, I’ll be fine,” I managed to whisper and then dipped into sleep for the fifth time that particular day.

*****

   During the hours that Tyson was away from me, I tried to keep track of his distance by the strength that my bond with him would feel throughout my aching body. Sometimes it would dim to a tiny beat and other times it would peak as he appeared by my side when entering the cave from a hunt.

   My fever had started to subside and I managed to gorge down mouthfuls of meat that my brother brought me after the latest successful hunt.

   “You seem to be looking better,” he commented. He was in his human form; I had only really seen him like this two times before. His dark blonde hair fell down to his shoulders and his moss green eyes watched me as I sat there cross legged with a deer hide wrapped around my shoulders.

   “I feel better. How are mum and dad?”

   “They want you to get better soon. You know how they hate seeing us ill or upset. Tyson is behaving very odd lately,” he added in an observational tone. “It started when you came back from patrol and passed out in the glade. He looked very concerned yet he always treats you like dirt. What goes on between you two?” He being young was a part of his innocence; he was a very curious young wolf.

   “One day, you’ll understand. Don’t look so disgusted, it’s bound to happen one day, and you don’t choose when or who. But you will find that you will start to care for them.” As I spoke my vision blurred as I thought on my relationship with Tyson. “You may hate them at first or love them, but you’ll find that life is hard to live without them by your side. Like when you split up for hunts or patrols, you can feel them close by or far away. And when they’re closer it’s like a breath of fresh air after wondering through the stuffy woods for five months. Tyson and I, we understand each other. Though he may hate me for where I stand, he cares for me and that’s all that really matters when you’re the Alpha’s mate. He has to be hard on me, for the sake of the pack and that’s where his duties lie.” I finished with my little speech and Jasper sat listening closely taking in every word. Looking at him, I could tell he was trying to mentally digest it all but he would never understand until he finds his mate and that bond exists to him for the first time.

   By Tyson’s orders, I was made to stay in the cave for another two days. I was beginning to get anxious as he didn’t look at me or touch me once when he told me to stay put.

   As I sat thinking about how hungry I was getting, I suddenly felt a great pulse in my veins, and it wasn’t from my heart. It pinned me down and my breathing almost ceased. If he didn’t intend it, he was out to hurt me and it felt planned. It was the same type of pulsing that passed through me when he slept with me intimately.

   I was outraged. Transformed, I sprang out of the cave with a snarl as ferocious as a female bear protecting her cub.

   ‘Tyson, why?!’ I cried out in a howl.

   ‘Because I can.’ I hadn’t thought he would be in the camp so quick. He stood proud and untainted from any guilt and behind him stood one of the females of the pack that I once had a violent past with, Jasmine. Growling as loud as I could, I leapt at her but fell short when Tyson sprang in my path. I didn’t want to hurt him with outrage at her. ‘Don’t touch her. I’ll deal with you later, Layla, go back inside.’ As definite as his order was, I stood fast and tried to fight against every fibre of my instinct that was telling me to just obey him.

   ‘No, you shall not have the pleasure of my company tonight.’ I growled at him, something up until now I would not dared to have done. Turning, I was met by my brother who looked as though he wanted to rip Tyson’s throat out. And by the looks that most of the pack gave, nearly everyone knew what had happened.

   ‘Then you shall not have the pleasure of this pack anymore.’ His words hit me like a falling rock from a cliff face. Eyes tight shut, I turned and then stared at him with beseeching eyes and my ears propped up above my head.

   ‘You can’t do that,’ I whimpered.

   ‘Yes. I. Can.’ He strode over and leaned close to my face, his low growling settling on my ears in a torturing tone. ‘Now be gone. Do not come back to this pack. Ever.’ His words cut deep, and the bond I shared with him snapped clean in two as his rejection became stamped on my life. The aching I now felt was tenfold what I had gone through with my rib.

   And with that I was banished, turned out like a mere dog. The rest of the pack now turned against me, with the order of our, their Alpha pushing me out. My tail dropped, and I slowly backed my way out of the camp. The last thing I saw of my pack was my parents and the heart break in their eyes and my brother wanting to run after me but being held back by two of the males.

*****

   Running with tears of loathing in my eyes, I headed west and carried on heading west until the pads of my paws became blistered and sore. Stopping by a small stream, I fell to my knees and lapped up the cool, refreshing liquid and sighed with relief as it flowed down my parched throat and into my aching stomach.

   The look in my brother’s eyes as I accepted my rejection played over and over in my mind and I bathed in the grief I had left him with. Never was I to see him again, or my parents. I missed them, all four of them.

   The fourth, though it pained me to remember, was Tyson. He had been my mate and no matter how he had treated me that was what we always would have been. It was a bond that I believed went deeper than love, though sometimes my mother tried to contradict me. When he had made that last order, he had broken the only thing that I ever thought tied me to this earth and this world. I sobbed and howled with grief and sorrow, and hoped he was safe and unharmed. Even if he had shunned me away, I still cared for him.

   But one thing still bothered me. How could he have done that? It would have been utterly against the instincts of having a mate, yet he went and broke our sacred link. I missed him, more than I missed my own family and blood. He had been my life and now it was over, along with being a pack member. Still, I would carry on and hope that he would search me out and reconcile with me and plead with me to take him back.

   I went on with that belief and hope for near two months. Every day that passed was another day where my hope would flounder and dip and bring me down. My legs were aching from all the running I did, still heading west in the straightest line I could. Every other day I tried hunting a lonely looking deer and most of the time I failed. It was so much easier with a pack; you had at least another wolf to get in the deer’s path and slow it down.