by Jade Alters
Because I’m afraid she’ll stop caring for me.
The thought hits me like a ton of bricks. Shit, that’s it, isn’t it? I don’t want to take this potion because I’m scared it’s the only thing that is making her feel anything for me. And I want her to feel something for me. I want that so badly.
I shake my head, clearly my cluttered thoughts. If I drink this potion, it won’t matter what I want now. Once the bond’s broken, I’ll likely not care if Samantha even likes me or not. I just need to suck it up and do it. I think of her wide eyes, staring up at me, begging me to believe her and my heart twists painfully in my chest. I can’t stand the ache I feel.
Taking a deep breath, I put the vial back to my lips and tilt my head back, down the entire contents in one gulp.
Samantha
I’m not sure how long I sit in my bed and stare at my door, in disbelief that he just left like that. Without so much as a backward glance. I don’t understand what happened, really. He saw the research I’d done on phoenixes and assumed I was using him, but…why? Why would that be his immediate conclusion? And why would he latch on to it so vehemently, even when I’m begging him to believe me?
I just don’t understand. I don’t understand anything that happened this morning. How did we go from the bliss of last night to this chaos? This loneliness and heartache? This disappointment?
I reluctantly recalled all his terrible words to me, and I can’t seem to steer away from his accusation that I lied to him. How can he think that of me? How can he think that I’d do something so despicable as to use him and cover it up, putting on an elaborate façade every day, as I try to convince him I’m not his enemy?
I groan, dropping my head into my hands. It’s in that moment that I realize I’m still naked beneath my bedsheets. Scrambling to my feet, I go around and start picking up my clothes from last night and putting them on. When I’m dressed, I stand in the middle of my small room and wonder what in the world I should do next.
It’s not like I can leave or hide from him for long. It’s a small facility with multiple common areas, and while I could radio for a chopper, I’m not going to let my research suffer before of Aleixo. Whatever his issue is with me, whatever is really causing him to have this meltdown, it’s something that he has to own and work through. He also has to stop pushing his baggage onto my shoulders. It’s not fair to me, and then of course he’ll freak out if he has these expectations for me and I don’t meet them…but I never agreed to the expectations to begin with.
The more I think about our situation, the angrier I become. How dare he do this to me? How dare he accuse me of lying to him without allowing me the chance to explain or defend myself? Especially after the night we shared. Does he really think I would be capable of such deception after being so vulnerable with him?
My temper is up and so is my determination to get answers from him. Turning, I storm out the door and into the hallway. I don’t bother to check his room, because I know he’s not there. He wouldn’t go there to run away from me…he’d go to his lab. As I make my way through the facility, determined to confront him, I let my anger get hotter and hotter. I’m going to need it for this confrontation, otherwise I may falter when I see him.
By the time I reach the door to his lab, I am ready for a fight. If he thinks he can get away with sleeping with me than abandoning me like that, he’s got another thing coming. I raise my fist and begin pounding on the door.
“Aleixo!” I call. “Come out here right this instant. We have to talk, and I won’t leave until we do.”
Silence meets my demand, but I’m not all that surprised by that. If he’s hiding from me, I wouldn’t expect him to come out right away. However, my threat wasn’t an idle one. I don’t intend on leaving until he answers the door and faces me. I bang on it again, harder than the first time, though I’m careful not to hurt my hand against the steel.
“Aleixo! I’m serious! Come out here and talk to me if you want to prove you aren’t a coward!”
Still, there’s no response. Now I’m as frustrated as I am angry, and my mind begins to race trying to come up with ideas of how I can get this door open. Can I somehow take off the hinges? Pick the lock? Freaking melt it open with a blowtorch?
While I’m toeing the line between rightfully furious and legitimately insane, I suddenly hear the lock click, and then the door is slowly opened. I gaze up at Aleixo, ready to explode on him, but my words die on my tongue when I fully process his expression. He’s staring down at me with a completely baffled look, as if stunned by something. I frown, unnerved by his obvious confusion. Did he really not expect me to come and confront him?
“Aleixo?” I ask, some of the heat leaving my voice in the wake of my own confusion. “Are you alright?”
“Why didn’t it work?” he murmurs, his gaze locked on me as he completely ignores my question.
“Why didn’t what work?” What in the world is he talking about? “Aleixo, you’re freaking me out a little…”
“I don’t feel any different,” he continues, clearly lost somewhere in his own head. “Why don’t I feel any different? It worked last time. It freed me from her memories. Why won’t it free me from you?”
I reel back, stunned by his question. He wants to be free of me? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised based on his accusations earlier in my room, but hearing the words out loud hurts me like he took a knife and sliced it across my chest. I feel tears begin to form in my eyes, and I suddenly don’t want to confront him anymore. His feelings are obvious, and I know if I stay here and try to talk to him, I’m only going to end up more hurt than I already am.
Turning, I make to run away from him, but he reaches out and wraps his fingers around me wrist to hold me in place. I feel a jolt at his touch and heat seems to spread from the point of contact up my arm and to the rest of my body…but it’s not the same as before. When he touched me before, the heat was all-consuming. Mind-numbing, really, until I felt reduced to pure instinct and desire. There’s still that deep feeling of desire, despite how badly he’s hurt me so far today, but I haven’t immediately fallen into a lust-filled fog and lost my senses.
Frowning, I stop and glance back at him. His brow is furrowed, his expression even more confounded. Does the fact that his touch doesn’t evoke the same emotion in me mean that…that he really doesn’t want me anymore?
My tears break free and I can’t stop them. I gaze up at him as they run down my cheeks, and his eyes widen and he appears startled by my reaction. He lets go of my writs, but then cups my face in both his hands.
“Don’t cry,” he softly says. “Please, please don’t cry.”
But I can’t stop. The floodgates have been opened. I shake my head, but he doesn’t let me go.
“How could you believe I’d betray you like that?” I demand to know with a sob. “That I would use you like that?”
He appears stricken, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Wiping my tears with his thumbs, he appears to try and come up with some sort of explanation for me, but he can’t seem to force the words out. His mouth opens and closes, and opens and closes again like a fish.
At length, he releases a long sigh and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. Please, come inside and I’ll explain everything.”
I blink. I hadn’t expected such an offer from him. Excuses, yes. Some type of attempt to dodge telling me more about him or his kind, definitely. The whole truth, though, is very surprising.
Slowly, I nod my head, not fully able to speak without sounding like a blubbering idiot. Aleixo lets go of my face so he can take my hand and lead me inside of his lab. This in and of itself feels significant. He’s never let me into this space before. It feels like I’m walking into his world…into his mind, and I pray that I’m finally able to understand this man a little better simply by being in here. He leads me to his worktable and guides me to sit in the stool there. Once I’m settled, he leans his hip against the table and gives me a ve
ry focused look.
“I suppose I should begin by telling you about my research,” he says without preamble. “As it’s the reason I came here in the first place.”
I’m not sure that that’s really what the focus of this conversation should be, but I don’t argue with him. He’s finally willing to talk to me about his innerworkings, so I decide not to do anything that might deter him from this.
He takes a deep breath and begins, “I came here to study the Phoenix Cluster, but more specifically, I wanted to see if I could learn more about my kind and how we work. How we consume energy compared to humans. I thought if I could figure this out, I could unravel the secrets behind why we are able to regenerate, why we live so long…how we exist, really.”
I frown. “That seems like a lot for one person to try and uncover.”
He shrugs. “Well, that’s true, but I’ve been working on answering these questions for a few hundred years now. When you have the time to spare, it’s a little bit more attainable.”
Ah, yes. I forgot. He’s all but immortal.
Nodding, I reply, “All right, so you’ve been trying to uncover the secrets of why phoenixes exist. I can understand that desire…but it doesn’t explain why you treated me the way that you did.”
He scratches the back of his head, clearly uncomfortable. “I know…that explanation is somewhat complicated.”
“Then uncomplicate it.” I fold my arms over my chest and stare at him expectantly.
Releasing a long breath, he nods. “Alright. Well, the reason behind wanting to break down how phoenixes function, is part of our make-up consists of an internal connection called the mating bond. A phoenix is destined to its mate, and when two mates encounter each other, they form this instinctual bond that makes it so they are drawn to each other and connected for all eternity.”
I blink, rather stunned by this. “Ho…hold on. You have fated mates?”
“We do,” he confirms. “The bond is a powerful thing, and no phoenix is able to resist its pull. It takes over our minds and our bodies, in a way, and can force us to be with another being that we might not even actually like. We can’t resist the bond, however, and so we’re stuck in an unhappy pairing, completely powerless to change anything about it.”
“That sounds…terrible,” I murmur, thinking of what it would be like to be forced into a relationship with someone because of some biological instinct.
“It can be,” he replies softly. He suddenly looks far away and lost in thought.
“I get the feeling you have personal experience with the more negative aspects of the mating bond,” I say as I study him more closely.
The corner of his mouth twitches as if he’s fighting a smile. “Very perceptive of you, but I shouldn’t be surprised. You’re rather brilliant after all.”
“Don’t try to butter me up,” I tell him firmly. “You’re still on my shit list unless you can give me a really good explanation as to why you were such an asshole earlier.”
“Fair enough,” he replies with a nod. “Alright, well, the first thing you should know is that I had a mate several lifetimes ago…and I couldn’t stand her.”
“Why not?”
He actually shudders before he answers. “She was a bloodthirsty monster. She reveled in war and carnage. I don’t think she possessed a merciful bone in her body. She would spill blood as easily as someone might spill tea. Every moment I was with her was torment.”
My jaw drops and I can’t believe what he’s telling me. It’s so awful.
“What happened?” Is his mate still out there somewhere, wreaking havoc? Did he come to Antarctica in part to hide from her? “Where is your mate now?”
“Dead, thank the gods,” he replies with a bitter note in his voice. “She was cut down in a devastating conflict that wiped out a good number of magical creatures in this world. It was almost like a culling…thinning the head, so to speak.”
As awful as it seems, I feel no small amount of relief that he was able to escape such a fate and wasn’t stuck with such a horrible creature for all eternity.
“What happens when a mate dies?” I ask.
“You’re haunted by them,” he confesses, his shoulders tensing. “They follow you in your dreams and consume your thoughts, even when you don’t want them in your head. It’s almost as maddening as being shackled to them in the first place.”
The more he talks about this mating bond and his experiences, the more tortuous it all sounds. I’m sure there are mated couples out there who love and cherish each other, but there are probably even more couples that have had similar experiences to Aleixo. What a terrible way to be forced to be with someone. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have my free-will taken from me like that.
“So, you’re constantly thinking about your dead mate?” Was he thinking about her when we were together last night? The thought twists my stomach and makes me feel a little nauseous.
He shakes his head. “No, actually. I’m not. One of the ultimate goals in doing my research about my kind was to find a way to break the bond between mates so we wouldn’t be forced to endure the torment it can cause any longer.”
I gasp. “And don’t tell me…you figured out a way to do it?”
Pushing from the table, he crosses the room to a small safe seated on a countertop. He opens the safe and retrieves a tray of vials that he brings back to me and sets in front of me. There’s some dark, shimmering liquid in each of the little tubes, and I gaze down at them in fascination. I notice that one vial appears to be missing, but I only spare that a passing thought.
Aleixo picks on of the vials up and displays it for me.
“This is a potion I created, a mix of science and magic, that will break the mating bond between two fated beings.”
My eyes bounce between the vial and him as I ask, “And you’ve taken this potion yourself?”
He nods. “Yes, I have. Even though my mate was gone when I first created it, I still felt that bond to her and wanted desperately to break it so I could move on with my life at long last. When I drank this potion, it was as though every feeling and connection I had toward her was totally wiped from my mind. After years of being tormented by her memory, I was finally free. Now if I think about her, it’s almost entirely voluntary, and the reality is that I don’t often think of her.”
Things are clicking into place for me at long last. His behaviors and obvious caution in interacting with me and other people are making more and more sense. Clearly, he’s suffered some significant emotional trauma in his life and that has shaped him into the brilliant but socially insecure man I’ve come to know.
There’re still a few things I don’t understand, though. Namely, his terrible treatment of me.
“Alright, I understand all that, and completely understand why you would hate that bond so much,” I tell him, feeling much more reasonable than I did before when I was a blubbering mess. “But what does that all have to do with me?”
He hesitates to answer, which can’t be a good sign.
“Aleixo?” I press, trying to snag his gaze, because he’s clearly avoiding looking straight at me right now. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He still doesn’t answer me right away, but he does finally look at me again. I can see some internal struggle happening within him. I’m not sure what it is he’s wrestling with, but it’s making me admittedly nervous, and that anxiety only grows worse with each moment he doesn’t speak.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore and snap, “Aleixo, enough! Tell me.”
He jerks, as if I’ve startled him, but then nods. “Yes, yes, you’re right. You deserve the whole truth. Okay, there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it…you and I bonded, Samantha.”
His words kind of bounce off of me for a moment and I can’t fully absorb them.
“Excuse me, what?”
He nods, looking pained. “You and I formed a mating bond. It’s why we were so initially…drawn to each othe
r.”
“I don’t understand,” I murmur, my mind beginning to race. “I’m not a phoenix.”
“The bond is not restricted only to our kind. We can form it with beings of a different species.”
Oh, now he suddenly has answers for everything.
“But…but you already had a fated mate,” I point out, as if I can convince him he’s wrong about this. “Isn’t that pretty much a one and done type of situation?”
He shakes his head. “Not necessarily. It’s possible to obtain another mate if yours has perished, though I don’t believe it’s a common occurrence. I understand that this is a lot to take in, but I want to assure you that I’ve broken the bond.”
Those words stun me into momentary silence.
“Wh…what?” I finally managed to stammer.
He nods. “I took a second dose of the potion in order to break our bond with each other. We will no longer be forced to be together.”
I know this should be good news and that I should feel relieved, but I don’t. In truth, I feel rather…hurt.
“How long have you known I am…was your mate?” I ask softly, my gaze on my hands in my lap.
“I figured it out a few weeks ago,” he said. “I had suspected it for some time, but I didn’t want it to be true, so I tried to ignore the signs. They became too obvious to ignore, however.”
He’s speaking so calm and rationally, and yet each word he says feels like a physical blow to my gut. He didn’t want to be bonded with me. He didn’t want it to be true.
“When did you take it?” I ask, though I’m afraid I probably already know the answer.
“This morning,” he states, almost matter-of-factly. “After our fight.”
He didn’t want to be bonded with me, yet he didn’t take the potion until the morning after we’d made love. What is that supposed to tell me? What am I supposed to think?
“Why did you wait so long?” My voice sounds small and scared, and I feel tears forming in my eyes once more though I try to fight them to keep them from falling.
