Touch

Chapter 8| Torture

It had not been my intention to venture out tonight. I'd been in a sour mood all week, and after a long day, I just wanted to enjoy a glass or two of whiskey and try to get some rest.

Sleep had avoided me this week, and Maverick's restlessness certainly didn't make things easier. I was quick to anger and easily annoyed, shit, even Maverick pissed me off.

Training had proved to be an effective way to tire me to the point of exhaustion, but she plagued my dreams.

I'd close my eyes and I'd see her; a tender kiss, a passionate touch, our bodies intertwined were the images that flashed in my head in quick succession.

It felt so real, right down to the sensations that flared when I felt her. When we were joined, the euphoria was almost blinding, it made me wonder what it would feel like to really have her.

The way she'd sing my name was enough to send me over the edge, but the moment would always end before we could reach that point.

Instead, I would find myself in the forest desperately searching for my mate, my true mate, only to find her broken and bruised beyond recognition.

The pain that would set in was unbearable; I would run on trembling knees, falling beside her, knowing what I would find each and every time, but expecting a different result.

Insanity.

She was dead, not a single breath, not a single heartbeat, just gone. My Elaine, the strongest woman I've ever known, the kindest, fiercest soul I had been blessed to be linked to. The love of my life, lay cold in the foliage, gone from me.

To know what it was like to have felt her light, as though it were a living, breathing part of me and then to feel it's absence. To tear from me what was meant to be irrevocably bound.

There were no words to describe that kind of agony. No words to describe the chilling darkness that now resided in the space once occupied by the best part of me.

I cried and screamed, and Maverick would rise to the surface. Grief, and pure rage pushing us to shift, to kill. The snap of a twig would alert us to the intruder, the killer. My baser instincts demanded blood and I would have it this night.

Bending to a crouch I was on the attack, but from the greenery would emerge Amina, who instantly brought me happiness like I've never known.

The soul-crushing pain of losing Elaine suddenly lifted. My heart felt full again, but then I'd look down to the ground where my mate lay, her eyes absent of the light they once held-fixed on me.

"Did you ever love me?" The voice would whisper, "How easily you forget me," the voice said with more clarity. Her mouth wasn't moving, but I knew that voice, I'd know her voice anywhere. "Elaine, my love, I could never-" I couldn't finish, my voice broke off into a sob.

"I died for you," she'd say, her voice grief-stricken, "You knew what being mated to you entailed. That your enemies would come for me. You said you'd protect me! You promised!" She shouted as she sobbed. So much pain, I thought. She whispered, "Look how easily you've forgotten me. Your mate."

She sounded so tired, so broken, but what could I say? I was an alpha, a hybrid at that and I failed her.

I couldn't protect the love of my life, what kind of man was I? What kind of leader was I?

She was right, at the sight of Amina, I'd forgotten her like she never existed, what kind of person was I?

These were the thoughts that raged on in my mind as I watched Amina walk across the forest. She approached me, never uttering a single word.