Chapter 28 - Her Love

COVYN

After Ellion and Daley left for food, Sequoia suggested that Eva have a shower and Spencer went to take care of her.

“Covyn,” Sequoia began, “I suspect that Evadiene and Spencer are more than just regular mates, and I think she suspects it too. She was holding back with him before, but I think now she’ll start to show signs. Particularly now, so soon after.. you know, her old animal instincts or habits tend to drift in. It should be easy to spot.”

“And what if you’re right?” I asked in return, knowing the truth and knowing how this would work out were not the same thing.

“If I’m right, he is who her life has been missing for some time.” Sequoia paused and chewed her thumb for a moment. “It’s… it’s a long story, and one I’m sure she’d tell if I’m right. The long and short of it is, some stuff went down that she can’t remember and I wasn’t there for, but we did the math and two plus two means she gave up something very important for something of equal value, and the only thing that could be is her true mate.

“If I’m right, she will both love and hate me for revealing it, and if I’m wrong she will want to wring my neck for merely trying to.” She took a big sip of her drink, barely wincing as she met my eyes ad smirked. “Protect me?”

I chuckled. “I won’t let her hurt you. I think you may be on the right track. I’ve seen a lot of wolven mate pairs, and something about them does feel different.”

She nodded, holding her glass out to me for a refill. “Nothing really changed if I’m right but..I made a deal with her.” Her gaze moved back to me desperately. “Ineedher to care more about this life than the last.”

My eyes narrowed. “In the medical bay? When you were speaking that other language?”

Again she nodded. “I can’t tell you what we agreed.. There’s still too much of the why that she’ll want to talk about out of context to this, I can’t tell you any of that first.”

I didn’t want to agree but Ellion and Daley returned with plates and then Sequoia dragged me down the hall to get Evadiene and Spencer fresh clothes, using me as her arms.

They hadn’t been sitting with their food for long before Sequoia dropped the true mate bond bomb. Nova looked so surprised and betrayedwhen her true name was said. The only thing that finally brought her out of the look of heartache on her face was Spencer. She held him so firmly that I knew he was calming her bubbling anxiety.

My heart was through breaking seeing Nova and Spencer together. He was a much better mate than I had been, and cares about her so fully… even when he didn’t remember her, didn’t feel the pull of their bond, he had taken care of her and protected her.

Spencer was the partner she deserve.

“What’s just happened?” Ellion asked, apparently not frustrated at being out of the loop.

Sequoia cleared her throat but Nova spoke first. “Ambrose and I… we’re true mates. We were together before,” her voice broke as she pulled back from him, looking into his eyes. “He sacrificed himself for me in another life.”

“And she gave up a piece of herselfto save me, and I’ve missed her every life since.”

His words were gentle but they startled her.“You weren’t supposed to remember me.”

“Not remember.. you ? My Angel? How could I forget.”

NOVAESTARUS

I stayed leaning against Ambrose for a while longer. His hands spanned over my lower back as he silently rocked back and forth, and the comfort he always gave me only became more with the truth. He was softly humming a tune, an old rhyme I had taught him, or he had taught me, but regardless we shared it now.

“Don’t cry my weary wolf,” I sang gently, feeling the tears on my chest despite the silence of his pain and even humming.

“My Angel, my only,” he sang in return, in a gruff voice that made my thighs try to pinch together. “You gave up too much for me.”

“It was the easiest split second decision I ever made,” I sighed holding him before leaning back to sit on my heals, well.. his lap.

Our foreheads touched and.. my stomach roared in protests. Ambrose laughed, “you are more hungry than usual. That must have taken a lot out of you.”

I nodded against him. “It’s pretty exhausting without my phoenix.. but it’s been a while, I couldn’t have been out long.”

“Maybe ten minutes,” Sequoia informed me.

He gently lifted me over to my place beside him but I didn’t want to be so far away, so slid in so our hips touched. I groaned as he moved beneath me, ruining my comfortable position against his arm but he handed me my plate and his fork. His lips brushed over my forehead and he smiled down at me as he watched me take another bite.

Everyone else had remained pretty quiet during this time, and I would have forgotten they were there if it wasn’t for Daley’s quiet weeping. I heard her sniffle before she got up and went to the bathroom to blow her nose. She returned to sit beside Ellion, moving as close to his side as I did with Ambrose, and wrapped her arms around him.

“What does ‘true’ mates mean?” Daley asked, squeezing her own mate.

I glanced up at Ambrose. “We look to different Goddesses, but they both agreed that we were for each other. The Moon Goddess wanted to thank me for protecting her children, and Calipso, my Goddess,… they thought I deserved someone as wonderful as Ambrose. It’s rare for inter species couples’ deities to agree, but for us they did.”

He reached around me, holding me to his side, and rubbed the back of my hand with his thumb. “My pack was struggling. We didn’t have the protection of one of the barriers Nova and her mom made around the wolven packs, but we had a lot of important people. The pack wasn’t physically strong, and it was attacked almost monthly.I met her in town, absolutely thrilled that we both felt the bond and knew what it was, and I brought her home to meet my family. While she was staying with us there was another attack and she saved us.”

“But also brought the wrath of my family who didn’t want me with a wolven. Ambrose moved between me and a stray attack when they invaded.” I turned my hand over in his to squeeze it, and took another bite upon his beckoning.

“It may have been a stray dart, but I know you moved into its path to save my mother. You would have died.”

“She traded her phoenix to save me, and they’ve brought me back again and again -AT my request,-” he interrupted me before I could say anything, “- to look for you. My soul needs yours Nova, and each life I have gotten stronger, working my way to deserving a place in the strongest pack around so that I can better take care of you.”

“You… planned this?” I asked, my voice was shaking. “But… the bonds were erased. We couldn’t recognize each other… that we were mates in this life shouldn’t have even been possible. You were there, the deal was for you to not die…” I choked, or more like my throat closed around the words I couldn’t say.

Ambrose pet my hair back, understanding exactly what had happened. “I woke up in the medical bay a week later. I couldn’t remember barely anything that had happened for months, but everyone else remembered. The bond was gone, you were gone, but I kept hearing about you. ‘Ambrose your mate saved us’, your mate, your mate… I knew they wouldn’t lie to me like that, but no one could describe you, no one could remember your name. So I just started looking….”

I cut him off. I could figure out enough of the story from that but my heart was already clenching in my chest at the thought of him missing and looking for me all those years and all those lives without knowing me. His arm slid down and he pinched my hip between two fingers painfully enough to make me yelp.

“You erase that guilt from your heart, because I would do it again.”

I was already starting to feel tired and the gentle patter of the rain on the deck outside wasn’t helping that. Someone was talking but I wasn’t listening, the rain was picking up outside and I watched it hitting the window with small bits of hail mixed in.

*tap*tap*tap*

I could feel the power of the storm rolling in and my eyes grew wide with numb awareness. Before I was thinking about it I drifted out of my seat and to the patio doors. Thunder boomed but lightning didn’t strike.

Head on