The Heartborn Mate

by D. Brumbley

  That actually made him laugh, with the free-ringing and faintly-echoing laughter of their kind, which made the air around her shimmer with the sound. “Looks like you’ve been doing a good bit of that already, actually.” He motioned to her pregnant belly.

  Aura laughed softly as she put her hand on her stomach again. “Yeah…well, the Fulness gets us all some time.”

  “Got my mate last month, actually.” He grinned, but it faded slightly with the gravity of the situation. “Seriously, though, your hubby needs to heel. We’re supposed to be on the same side, and he’s not really helping. I’m just glad he didn’t go for the Stoneborn. They don’t forgive as easily as we do.”

  Her smile faded as well and then she nodded. “I know. I’m sorry.” She sighed and looked over at the Skyborn again once they paused to go through another door. “Can you tell me what happened, exactly? Had he been drinking, do you know?”

  “We’d all done a couple shots, but that’s no different from any other day. We really can’t figure out what set him off. One second it was drills, the next second it was just…more than drills. Shattered my cousin’s jaw and smashed half another guy’s ribs to powder. They’re still working on him right now.”

  “I’m really sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”

  “The Princess just wants him away from our people. Your Prince said that you’d agree to make sure of that.” He seemed genuinely sad as he pushed open a door that actually led to a set of cages constructed from wood rather than from iron. There were a few Skyborn in some of them, some of their own offenders, and Ziem was in the furthest one. “Shame to lose the guy. I kinda like him.”

  Some of the others went and pulled Ziem out and led him over to her, where she looked at him with a sad expression. “Come on, let’s go home, Z.”

  He was completely docile under their care as they led him out. “Tell Cantri and Robb I’m sorry, please? I didn’t mean…”

  “Yeah, we know, Z.” The friendly Skyborn guard said with a pat on his shoulder. “See you on the front line sometime, maybe.”

  “Maybe.” He said sadly and walked out beside Aura, his hands bound in nylon cords behind his back.

  She didn’t say anything until they were able to talk privately, and she stopped to turn one of her bracelets into a knife and cut his hands free. After that she slapped the knife back into a bracelet on her arm and shook her head. “What happened?”

  He rubbed his wrists as they walked, looking quieter than she’d ever seen him. “We were going back and forth in exercises with mama jokes.” He shrugged at the look she gave him. “What? They were funny.” He wasn’t laughing, though. “I fired off a few, they fired off a few, whoever told the lamest one had to fight the guy who told the last lame one. I apparently suck at mama jokes, just FYI. Anyway, one of them changed the game and ripped one off about you being a whore, except he wasn’t joking. And of course everybody laughed.”

  Aura sighed heavily and she took one of his hands and caressed his wrists where they had been bound. “This place is filled with people like that, Z. You lost your job because of me. It’s not worth it.”

  “Yeah, well, the guy’s not gonna be talking shit on anybody or anything for a while, least of all you.” He said as though that was excuse enough for his actions. “Anyway, when push comes to war, they’ll still let me fight.”

  Aura leaned in and kissed the side of his neck and then his cheek lovingly. She should have known that Ziem would only fight so viciously for someone he cared about. “William tried to convince me I’m in danger.”

  “In danger? From what? Somebody wanting to assassinate you now?” Ziem asked curiously, obviously very confused.

  “Danger from you.” Aura clarified, even though she didn’t agree.

  He looked affronted by that for a minute, then the look on his face just darkened to the point of despondency. “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be the first one to be told that.”

  She stopped walking so that she tug him close and could kiss him properly, and then she hugged him as tightly as she could even with the basketball underneath her shirt. “I know I’m not in danger, and our children aren’t in danger. I love you.”

  “I love you too.” He kissed her back with heat and a growl, but he didn’t move any further from where they were. “But I can’t act like he doesn’t have a point. If I ever did lose my cool and hit you, you wouldn’t be the first.”

  “If you hit me, I’ll hit you back. Anyway, what reason would you possibly have to hurt me? And what do you mean that I wouldn’t be the first?” She was surprised to hear his confession about his anger and violence, since she never envisioned he would be violent other than brawling with other wolves.

  “I mean humans can be even bigger bitches than wolves sometimes.” He sighed. “Irish girls always seem to like to mess around like they’re one of the guys. Couple of ‘em pushed me a little too far a few times. I’m not saying I meant to do ‘em any real harm, just…they were human.” And therefore a great deal more fragile than wolves. A push from him, a wolf, might send a human female sprawling across the room unintentionally. Most wolves had to make a concentrated effort around humans.

  She didn’t really see humans as equals to wolves, and though she didn’t exactly condone hitting any of them, she could understand that something that didn’t seem like a big deal to a wolf would hurt a human easily. Aura kissed him again and she waited until he met her eyes before she said anything else. “The only bruises I want are from you shoving me down on the bed or against the wall. If I get anything else, you better be damn sure I deserve it or I may castrate you in the middle of the night. That or tattoo the word ‘asshole’ on your forehead.”

  He looked at her for a moment to make sure she wasn’t kidding, which she wasn’t, and then just set his head to the side a little. “You know, coming from anybody else, I’d take that as a joke, but I’ve seen where you keep your gun.” By which he meant her tattoo gun, of course.

  Aura smirked and kissed him again. “So you know I’ll do it.” She held his face in her hands. “I’m not afraid of you, Z. I’m not worried or concerned about my life with you. Fuck everyone else.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Save that for me.” He smiled slightly and kissed her back, before they headed towards her house on the other end of the compound. “So you know, this whole me being your prisoner thing could get kinda kinky if you had a mind to make it that way.”

  “Oh yeah? Are you into being chained to the bed?” Aura asked flippantly, but he certainly wouldn’t be the first Ironborn with a fetish for chains.

  “Don’t know. Haven’t tried it yet.” He said with a distinct emphasis on the last word. They walked back through the small town that their compound had turned into, past the looks they never failed to get from everyone that saw them. The place had turned into a mix of elements now that there were several packs all trying to work together, and so there was at least a variety of colored eyes staring back at them.

  Ziem saw Nick and Zara first and tried to subtly adjust course, but it was too late, and Aura caught sight of Nick. Nick stood with Zara leaning on his arm, as always, as they spoke to a group of Stoneborn.

  When she saw Nick she held tighter to Ziem’s hand, and she winced a little as though Nick was about to strike her. She wanted to look away, but all she could do was stare at Nick and Zara. Aura could tell that he loved Zara, from the way that he kept her close, the way that he glanced about suspiciously when bigger wolves got too close to her. It caused her physical pain to see them together, partially because it had only been months since Nick started to ignore her almost completely and partially because she knew that Zara was no good. She tried to warn him so many times, and the last time she said anything he actually looked like he might explode if she said anything else about Zara.

  As she stared at him, Nick looked away from the conversation he was in the middle of, as though he smelled something, and actually sniffed a few times at the air before looking di
rectly at her. She could almost feel the invasive touch against her thoughts as he looked her way, and the flick of disdain when he saw Ziem with her. He didn’t spare Ziem more than a moment’s glance before looking back at Aura, though, almost tenderly, but not quite. His scorn was more tangible than his compassion.

  Her eyes burned with tears as she looked at him, but she looked away before she actually started to cry. Both of her hands grabbed tightly to Ziem’s arm, and she tried to steer them in any other direction. “Can we turn around?” She whispered, since she didn’t want to even walk past Nick to get to her home.

  “Yeah. We’ll go the long way.” He headed the other direction with her, to go around the far end of the camp away from Nick. “He won’t stay this way forever, you know. We have long lives ahead of us. He’ll get over it eventually.”

  “I don’t care about him anymore.” She replied sharply as she nearly buried her face into the side of Ziem’s arm. “We’re staying here for the puppies. Not for me.”

  Ziem was far from being a Heartborn, but he knew that wasn’t completely true. Even so, he nodded and kept walking with her back toward her house.

  The path they had to take to get there, though, took them close to the fence line that Orlando and Candra’s makeshift home was near. As they got there, there was no sign of human activity, but outside the house, there was an unnaturally bright spot of light centered around a small wolf that was currently chasing a large black wolf around the house. Every few moments, they would both stop, and it was obvious Candra was listening to Orlando give her some directions, because she would attempt the same run again, only a different way.

  “Gods above…” She said quietly. “Can I not get a fucking break?”

  “See, this is why I never take you anywhere.” Ziem said teasingly beside her, hoping to lighten the mood even though he knew it wasn’t terribly likely.

  “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to leave this place.” She wondered out loud, certainly feeling defeated as she kept walking along the path, hoping to get away before Orlando noticed her. Not that he would attempt to talk to her with Candra there. The light of his life.

  It wasn’t long before he did see her, though, and it stopped whatever game they’d been playing in its tracks. Orlando looked at her for a moment, then back at Candra, obviously getting her attention. After a brief conversation (speech went faster when it didn’t have to be spoken), she went back into their house and came back out with a black piece of cloth that she handed off to him, jaws to jaws. Once he had it, he shifted, and wrapped the single black piece around his waist in a knot as he stood next to the fence looking at her.

  “Hi.” She said quickly, but she just kept walking, since she wasn’t exactly interested in talking.

  “How long do you want to keep doing this?” Orlando’s voice said gently from behind her.

  “Another two hundred and twenty-four years. Give or take.”

  “I hope more give than take.” He said just as gently. “Aura, stop. Just talk to me. Please.”

  She looked over at him for a moment and she slowed down, but she didn’t stop. “Talk to you? What the hell could there be for us to talk about?”

  “I don’t know, new ways for me to die that you might’ve invented this past week? I don’t care. I haven’t talked to you in months. I’ll take vivid imagery of my demise at this point.”

  Suddenly she stopped and she looked over at Ziem as though she needed him to sustain her, but then she looked back at Orlando. “Why? Why do you care about talking to me?”

  “Do you hate me?” He asked, completely heedless of Ziem’s presence. He was leaning on the wall made of scrap metal, and Aura could see sparks flying from his hands even without intention. He was that filled with power as long as Candra was around.

  “I want to.” She looked down at the ground, her insides twisting and making her feel sick, which didn’t exactly make the puppies inside of her too happy either. It hadn’t been nearly long enough for her to have a conversation with Orlando or Nick. She’d loved and lost twice, and the wounds were still fresh.

  He sighed at her answer, since he knew it wasn’t one she really wanted to give. “I wish you did too. It would make things easier for you.”

  Aura was crying quietly when she looked up at him, and though she didn’t want him to see her cry, she couldn’t fight it back as much as she tried. “What do you want from me, Orlando?”

  He moved along the fence to be closer to her, but he didn’t try to reach through or touch her at all. “For you to forgive me, maybe. Someday. Not today or tomorrow, but you know, maybe sometime in the next two hundred twenty-four years.”

  “One minute I was walking to turn my life completely upside down to be with you, the next I was a prisoner, and the next I had to watch you forget me for her.” She didn’t even look at Candra off in the distance, or even the house. Using her name was even too much. “It was like one minute you loved me and the next it was over. I don’t know how to forgive that.”

  “I didn’t forget you.” He leaned heavily on the fence and looked down at the ground. “How are you? With the…pups and all?” He looked up at her halfway, but only at her stomach and a glance toward Ziem instead of the rest of her.

  She put her hands on her stomach and stared down at it. “I’m okay.” Aura stared down at her stomach for a moment longer before she finally looked back up at him. Only Ziem knew the truth about her, and often she wondered what Orlando or Nick would say or do if they knew. “Do you think about what it would have been like? For us?”

  “It would’ve been perfect.” He said without any hesitation whatsoever. “Exactly the way the world isn’t now.”

  Aura cried harder, her tears falling on top of her stomach to the pups that very well could have been his. “Don’t even say that. You’re happier this way.”

  “I don’t know that. And neither do you.” It was one of the many loops his mind had gotten stuck in over the months he’d been away from her. “No one ever gets to know what would’ve happened.”

  “You don’t know that? You don’t know if you’re happier now than you were with me?” Aura scoffed, since she didn’t believe him for a minute. Even if he sounded genuine.

  “The world is different today than it was that nice.” He said honestly, then pushed himself off the fence to put some distance between them. “I’m sorry. You were right. This doesn’t help you.”

  She only touched the fence after he let go, and she looked out at him as tears streamed down her face. Their home was just outside the fenceline, by their choice and design. They could protect themselves from just about anything. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.” He said without approaching the fence again.

  Aura turned away sharply and started walking quickly again, but she didn’t reach out for Ziem because she didn’t want him to think all the horrible things he could be thinking about her at that moment. She didn’t want him to think that she was using him, that she was a horrible person for still loving Orlando, that she was even more horrible for admitting it and crying over him in front of Ziem when she claimed to be his wife. It was an extremely difficult situation, and the last thing she wanted right now was for Ziem to be angry with her.

  Ziem stayed behind for a moment to glare at Orlando for making her cry just for being alive, but he’d already gotten into one stupid fight that day. He knew better than to pick that particular fight. Instead he just followed her to her house and walked in after her, locking the door without touching it. He moved to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, not sure if she wanted him around at the moment or not.

  “I’m sorry.” She barely muttered out through her tears, her face puffy and red from crying. She was a mess, but she just couldn’t stop crying. “I’m sorry that you had to stand there and watch that. I’m sorry that I put you through so much shit. I’m sorry that you lost your job because of me. I’m sorry that everyone hates us…”

  “Aura…” Ziem said quietly as he w
ent to take a seat near the bed. “You loved him. You don’t have to be sorry for that.”

  Aura looked up at Ziem and a few more tears slipped down her cheeks. “That’s my problem, isn’t it? Loving people. I loved Nick and I betrayed him. I loved Orlando and he left me. I love you. So what does that mean? What’s going to happen because I love you?”

  “Well, they say the third time’s the charm, right? I’m good at charm.”

  She reached out for him and slid into his lap and curled into him. “The Gods sent you back to me. I’m convinced of it.”

  “I haven’t talked to the Gods much since we were kids. They don’t seem to do much talking back.” He kissed her neck and held her, much more relaxed with her actually in his arms again. “Careful, or you’re gonna rust.” It was an oft-used phrase that Ironborn told their Iron children to stop their tears, but it won him a small smile.

  “What are we gonna do when I shift at the Fulness? I’ll go crazy without you to talk to.” She sighed. “What are we gonna tell people?”

  “We don’t have to tell people anything.” It was the natural pattern of their race. As humans, they could take in power from the world around them. As wolves, they exuded it, and a pregnant woman with who-knew-how-many pups inside her was constantly giving her own power to her unborn children. For the second half of a wolf’s six-month pregnancy, there was no way for her to be human without serious risk to the pups, and so the mother almost always remained a wolf the entire time, relying on her mate or her family for the energy to make it to term. “You’ll stay in here, tell people you’re watching over your prisoner, and let them think whatever they want.”

  “It’s too early. They might find out the truth.” People believed the pups were Ziem’s by his constant attendance and care, and that they claimed each other married. But if Aura remained public after shifting into her wolf form, the math wouldn’t add up. People would know she was pregnant before Ziem’s arrival.

  “If you decided you wanted to be a wolf more often and remain out of everyone else’s line of sight, no one would judge you for that.” He reconsidered that statement. “No more than they already do, anyway. We can spend more time running out in the woods if you want. With the Forestborn on the way, I’m sure our patrols in the area will be safer than they were the last time you went out for a walk. No one would think anything strange about that.”