The Heartborn Mate

by D. Brumbley

  He stirred somewhat in his sleep, but didn’t wake in the slightest as he turned toward her, snoring even more loudly in the process.

  She actually laughed softly as she watched him, but then she leaned in and kissed his forehead before she snuggled in closer to him. They didn’t always cuddle, really, because she was moving so much in her sleep. But now that she was awake and feeling even more energized by the coming Fulness, she just wanted to be closer to him.

  He wasn’t Nick. He wasn’t Orlando. But he was Ziem, and she was finding out a lot of things that proved that he was just as good as anyone else. Possibly better, since he was willing to look past what she wasn’t to what she was.

  He actually growled eagerly once as she got up closer to him, and came awake at last, having slept in far too long in the first place. After a bleary-eyed look down at her, he stretched out, sprawled along the bed with the metal actually resonating with his newly-awakened muscles until he relaxed back onto the metal sheet. It constantly moved to conform to both their bodies, but Ziem had a tendency to move it more often than Nick ever had, which didn’t help her twitching and moving in her sleep. “Gods, what time is it? You’re getting lazy, still in bed like this.”

  Aura laughed again as she looked over at the clock on the wall behind him. “It’s only nine in the morning. It’s not my fault you went to sleep so early last night.”

  “Ugh, nine in the morning?” He turned over beneath her, upsetting the delicate balance of her head on his chest, though his back was just as good a pillow. “That’s way too early to be awake. Never before noon. At the earliest.”

  She moved to sit on his back down by his waist but more or less on top of him instead of snuggling against him. “You’re a horrible snuggler.”

  “Yeah, well, I haven’t had much practice. And the steel is softer than you are.” He said with a grin half over his shoulder at her.

  Aura growled and then leaned down to stretch out along his back where she started to bite at the side of his neck. “Yeah, well, it can’t do all the things that I can do.”

  “That’s the damn truth.” He’d been getting an education in exactly what she could do over the last few days, but he’d been doing his best to be patient with her, even if his best wasn’t very good most of the time.

  She moved from his back to lie next to him again, on her stomach, but she turned her face toward him. She was already starting to show a little, though her clothes hid it well enough for the moment. But it was obvious when she was shirtless that she had little wolves growing inside of her. She only had two more months in her human form before she turned permanent wolf for the last three months of her pregnancy, and there was no telling how many pups were inside of her. Aura wasn’t that big a person in the first place, so it was hard to hide several lives growing inside. “Have you ever been with someone during the Fulness?”

  He turned to face her, his head resting on his arms and his blond hair spilling over his face, but his hazel eyes were still visible between the disheveled strands. “No. I might be stupid enough to have gotten into a makeout session with you when we were kids, but I haven’t been dumb enough to get a human knocked up. I usually chained myself up for the Fulness back up north.”

  Aura’s eyes instantly widened, since she had never been chained up for a Fulness. “You chained yourself up? How awful!”

  “It wasn’t that bad, actually.” He shrugged, muscles rippling over his shoulders with the motion. “I knew a guy who ran a kennel for babysitting dogs, and me and all the guys used to check ourselves in there over the Fulness. Paid him well and he made sure we had our own room, our own cages, and no chance of becoming a tabloid every month. It was a good arrangement.”

  Aura pushed some of his hair aside and she kissed him without giving him any warning. She looked into his eyes afterward. “I think this house will contain you. Don’t you?”

  “If it was me here by myself, then yeah, I would say it would.” He returned the kiss, leaning up on his side to pull her in closer to him. “But since you’re here, I’m not really sure there’s anything that could really contain you if you didn’t want it to.”

  She couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “I’m not that powerful.”

  “Uh huh.” He said without an ounce of belief in his voice. “I seem to remember you crushing a swing set with one hand when we were kids.”

  “We’re Ironborn. We can do that.” Aura ignored his compliment, even though she knew he was impressed with her. She didn’t find herself that impressive.

  “Not all of us.” He said with another kiss and then ran his hands over her exposed stomach. “You’re stronger than I’m ever gonna be, and these kids are gonna be even stronger. I just hope it takes them a while to figure that out.” He laid back and stretched again, clearly taking his time with waking up.

  Aura laughed weakly as she laid back and looked up at the ceiling. All the questions that ate at her had to be spoken. “Would you want some of your own someday? Some that are actually genetically yours, I mean?”

  “I don’t know, actually.” He shrugged again and sat up, cracking his knuckles as well as his neck, as he did every morning, though it annoyed her to no end and set her teeth on edge whenever he did it. “I guess we should see if I’m any good at being a father to these before that call gets made, really.” Most wolves, Ziem included, grew up with the understanding that they had centuries to live. Ziem in particular had never been in a hurry to do anything but have fun, and there were some wolves that intentionally waited until they were almost two hundred years old to even think about having children, so that they were old enough and powerful enough to take care of them without question of weakness.

  After wincing from the bone-cracking, she persisted. “What about me? How permanent do you want us to be?”

  He turned around to face her, his hair looking like it had been through a hurricane, but his face still as chiseled and inviting as it had been all their young lives. “Are you seriously asking if I plan on leaving you? Ever? Because you know that whole exile thing wasn’t my idea in the first place, right?” He pulled up one knee and rested an arm across it, bending up a corner of the bed with a casual flick of his fingers and pulling off bits of steel. The bits slid around his wrists and hands in bands and rings as he armed and clothed himself for the day casually. “You know I never would have left you if I’d had a choice. Or at least you should know that.”

  She sat up slowly and then she just kind of watched him get dressed for a while before she said anything in response. “Why are you getting dressed?”

  The metal stopped winding itself around his arms mid-movement as he looked back at her. “It…seemed like the thing to do?”

  “Do you like to create more work for pregnant women to do?” Aura smirked, but she knew that with the coming Fulness, they could both stand to linger on a metal bed for a while longer.

  “It’s not…generally a hobby of mine, if that’s what you’re asking.” He said cautiously, obviously confused by the question.

  Aura got up slowly and walked over to him before she kissed him passionately. After a moment, her kisses trailed from his lips down the side of his neck. “One of the only good things about having a girlfriend that is already knocked up is that the Fulness isn’t dangerous anymore.”

  He’d thought of that himself, and he returned the kisses to her own neck, as he ran the steel around his fingers over her waist. “Had a lot of pregnant girlfriends, have you?”

  “A couple. Think you can compete?” Aura volleyed right back, still smirking.

  “You know, I think I can. It’s a game I’ve been told I’m fairly good at.” He kissed down to her shoulder and held her tightly against his body. “Though I think I look forward to finding out your opinion on the subject.”

  Aura kissed him several more times and pulled him along with her back to the bed where she shoved him down on his back and grinned as she stood at the edge of the bed. “It takes some work to get a good opi
nion from me.”

  “I’m used to work.” He pulled her a little violently back onto the sheet of metal and looked down at her for a moment with a wholly different expression on his face than she’d seen thus far, searching her eyes seriously on account of the distance she had kept between them so far. Still, his emotions weren’t hard to read as he leaned down onto the bed and kissed her back into the steel. “Are you sure about this?”

  Aura kissed him passionately and then nodded as she looked into his eyes. He kept telling her that he would be around for the rest of their lives, and she needed to believe it. She needed to believe him. He was a good man, good wolf, good everything. They could be great together. “Just don’t put any more puppies inside. I’m running out of room as it is.”

  “I think you’re past that being a danger. For now, anyway.” And he leaned down and kissed her, gently for once, but it only lasted a moment before the wildness that defined Ziem took over again. The bed became a smoothed, flat sheet beneath their bodies, on which he intended to do with her as he had wanted to do for more than a decade.

  After several hours of behaving more like rabbits than wolves, they laid awkwardly on a twisted sheet of metal that used to be a comfortable bed. They were both breathing heavily and covered in sweat, but the world felt like a better place for both of them than it had in a long time. She was still holding on to him as though it was life or death, but she was smirking at the scratch marks they had both acquired, scattered all over their bodies.

  “You know…” he looked over his shoulder at the marks on his back with a grin. “I can see why you got those for tattoos. That way they just blend in with the rest.”

  Aura giggled and kissed him several more times. “I can’t help myself. That was incredible.”

  “You sure that’s not just the hormones talking?” He was out of breath, though, and he knew it was mostly because she was one of the few wolves he’d ever been with, and the only one he’d been with anywhere even close to the Fulness. He’d always known she was stronger than he was, but actually feeling that power running through her for himself was something else entirely. He was out of his league with her and not afraid to admit it, but he was trying hard to act like it wasn’t as completely obvious as it was.

  She hugged him tighter, moaning softly against his skin. If she was being completely honest, it wasn’t like being with Nick, but that didn’t matter. Nick was out there enjoying his time with his new Heartborn girlfriend. Aura needed to move on from the past, and she could create a future with Ziem. “I’m sure it’s not the hormones. It’s you.”

  That did wonders for his temporarily-unstable ego, and he relaxed a little more with her, if that was possible under the circumstances. “You know, a smarter man would actually be a little scared of what tonight’s going to be like, if that’s you when the moon’s not up.”

  Aura grinned and growled against his lips as she kissed him once more. “Scared? Why be scared? It’ll be fun.”

  “That’s definitely one word for it.” He was honestly a little scared, but he didn’t let her see that as he kissed her. Ziem made sure she knew that he had no intentions of going anywhere, or of letting her go anywhere, for at least the next three nights.

  * * * * *

  When the sun set that night, Nick was still walking the fences with some of the members of the Guard, making sure their border was sealed tightly. No one was to be allowed in or out. Things were too chaotic and too unpredictable during Fulness nights to allow for any weakness in their defense, and they were all going to be far too busy among themselves to have the caution necessary for their own defenses while the moon was at full.

  When Nick finished his rounds, he dismissed the Guard to return to their families and stood near the main gate, to look out at the dirt road leading into the forest. Nick was so distracted by the nothingness that he was looking into that he didn’t hear anyone come up from behind him, but before she was close enough to be attacked in a defensive movement, Zara spoke up. “Looking for someone?”

  He flinched slightly, but didn’t turn around, recognizing her voice. “No. Anyone I would be looking for is already here.”

  “Mind if I join your walk?”

  He didn’t look at her as he started off along the line of the fence, looking up at the sky and waiting for the moon to rise in the darkness. “Is there anywhere I could go in the compound where you would not still hear my thoughts anyway?”

  “You know,” she started to say, bluntly. “You’re very defensive of something you traded for the chance to hear the thoughts of others. I am what I am.”

  “I wasn’t challenging that.” He said calmly, looking over at her with a patient look in his eyes that almost didn’t mind her being around anymore. “I only meant to point out that you’re still with me, whether we walk together or not. If I minded your presence anymore, I would have to go a good deal further away than the edge of the compound.”

  Zara sighed and continued walking with him, one hand running her pendant back and forth along the gold chain it hung on. She was constantly at war, these days, with all that went through her mind about Nick. It was hard to want someone that still kept her at arm’s length, even if he might not outright hate her any longer. “I enjoy walking with you. Being nearby.”

  He looked over at her with his hands in his pockets, taking his time as he walked, knowing he wasn’t really planning on getting anywhere in the first place. “What is the Fulness usually like for you, Zara?” It was a rare question in two ways. First, because he was asking her something personal about herself, which he knew would only strengthen the bond between them in her favor, and second because he was actually using her name.

  “It’s wonderful.” She said without looking at him. Zara walked on the side of him that was closest to the fence, and she ran her fingers across the metal as though she was caressing it as she walked. “The Fulness is the most fun when people share it with other people, be it friends during a fun game as wolves, or lovers. Regardless, it’s…intoxicating. There’s hardly any holding back for most, and while that may be chaos, it’s delicious chaos.”

  “You’re one of the few who actually enjoys it for what it is, then.” He said darkly, looking at the fence as he actually felt her fingertips along it, having set much of it in place himself. It was his metal, owned by his power, and the connection there was something that almost made him shiver. “Most of us fear the loss of control. Especially the Turned among us who are forced to get used to it after a lifetime of not having to worry about it.”

  “The only ones who fear the moon are the ones who still fear the wolf we truly are.” She grabbed a little tighter to the fence as she paused to look over at him. “How do you feel about it?”

  He shrugged as he stepped a few feet past her before he stopped as well, looking out through the fence instead of at her. “It’s like you said. I am what I am. The Fulness is just another piece of what we are. No point trying to fight it. You can howl at the moon all you want, but it never listens.” It was an oft-repeated saying in every language among wolves, just one way they all shared the futility of trying to fight against their nature.

  She looked out with a shake of her head. “How can you see your wolf as simply an inevitable part of you when it’s so much bigger than that? It’s not to be endured. It’s to be loved. Encouraged.” She wrapped her fingers through the fence so tightly that it was almost as if he could feel her pulse through it. “We come into the world as wolves and, Gods willing, we leave it as wolves.”

  ”You’d rather die giving than receiving, then?” He asked, since they could only give power while in their wolf, not take it in from the world around them.

  “Is there a better way to die than to die giving yourself to something greater than yourself?”

  He was quiet after that, but he knew even if he kept his silence, she would hear his honest answer anyway. “Yes. As an old wolf at the end of a good life, with six generations of your family gathered around y
ou, maybe. A lifelong mate at your side waiting to die with you and put their soul to use along with yours in strengthening the steel of the world you’re leaving.”

  Zara leaned into the fence and rested the side of her head against it as she looked over at him with a softened expression. “Okay, I agree. That’s a beautiful way to die.”

  “Yes, it would be.” He looked her over once, then looked past her out between the slats of the fence. “Do you think either of us will get that chance?” He resolutely did not turn around to look in the direction of Aura’s house, though he knew she could feel him want to look.

  “Yes.” She reached out to touch the side of his arm, trying to take his attention away from Aura. He deserved better than Aura. “The world is full of wonderful, worthy people, you know.”

  He laughed at that once, without humor. “Is it?”

  Zara stepped a little bit closer to him and she tried to get him to look at her. “I’m looking at one.”

  He did turn to face her, and for once, he didn’t look away from her eyes. Strange as they were, he had to admit they were beautiful, designed, some would say, by the gods, to draw people in closer to the Heartborn and make them more enticing. Through the contact with him, which he didn’t try to avoid or shake off, she could feel his nerves starting to tingle, the same as hers were, with the approach of the Fulness around them.