He Left Me Broken

Zayla

I watch as he backs away from me, his body slowly dissolving into the burning ring he summoned behind him.

His ‘I love you, Zayla’ is ringing in my ears over and over again.

He loves me and yet he’s leaving me. Instead of figuring this all out together, he’s decided to do it alone.

I’m so hurt—and I’m so pissed.

Hurt that the love of my life is almost gone in the blackness of this portal, pissed that he’s decided my future without asking me.

Heartbroken seeing the pain in his eyes as the portal makes its final close around his face.

“I love you more, Soren.”

And then he’s gone. Nothing of him is left except a burn mark on the floor from where he walked through the portal. The floorboards are now forever scorched with a crescent moon.

I stand there in silence for a few moments, letting everything that just happened sink in. And then, like a scene out of a teenage drama, my whole body shuts down. Literally.

Dropping to my knees, I start to panic. The link between my wolf and me is going haywire. I can feel her shifting in and out of my mind, her link to me fracturing before it comes back stronger.

I try to hold myself up, but my body is too heavy. With my face lying on the carpet of Soren’s bedroom, I start feeling a burning feeling sweep through my body, and then it’s gone.

Over and over again the feeling flashes back and forth—almost like a connection is trying to build but is being severed before it can be completed.

The pain is so great that after fifteen minutes of screaming in pain, I finally pass out. My body is exhausted from whatever is happening to me.

By the time I wake, the sun is already falling from the sky. My body is burning, but the pain is more tolerable, so I’m able to move to sit up.

Only, when I go to pull my hand up, I’m met with a paw instead.

Searching my head for any sign of my wolf, I’m met with emptiness. Confusion takes over me.

~How am I in wolf form and still fully in control?~

While I’m in human form I take control of my body. However, I can still hear and feel her wants and needs, the same as when we’re in wolf form.

She takes the lead but I’m still heard.

Our minds are in sync at all times, making us one being with two forms.

I try to pull my wolf back in, hoping that maybe once I’m human again I’ll be able to feel her more, hoping that I’ll be able to find her. But I can’t.

I try to pull my wolf in for over three hours. Each time is more painful than the last. My bones start the breaking process, but then snap back into place.

Which brings me to my conclusion: I don’t know what happened to me once Soren went back to Hell, but whatever it was or whatever it did, I’m fucking stuck in this form.

Too in pain and too panicked to let the reality set in that I just lost my mate. Again.

Not only did I just lose Soren, but I lost my wolf as well. The random stings of a connection trying to form continue to burn in my skull.

Jumping into Soren’s bed, I try to breathe in as much of his scent as possible, hoping and praying that it will help calm my mind enough to numb the pain even slightly.

And honestly it works for a bit. I’m able to sleep somewhat fitfully for a few hours.

That is, until it feels like a white-hot poker starts to stab me in the brain.

Jumping up, I howl—the burning becoming unbearable.

But for a split second I can feel my wolf again. She’s so on edge, almost like she’s guarding something.

Then the pain starts all over again and she’s gone. I roll my head and body around, trying to find Soren’s scent to help the pain, but just like my wolf, it’s gone.

All I can smell is myself, my wolf form’s frightened scent overpowering everything else in the room.

~“Mom! Mommy I need you!”~ I try to mind-link, the pain becoming unbearable again, but I get no answer.

~“Mom!”~

Still nothing.

I try crying out for my mom through the mind-link over and over before realization dawns on me.

Soren spelled the house.

Which means my parents probably can’t mind-link me either.

Wait! Can they even feel me while I’m here?

I try sifting through the pain, looking for the tethers of my pack, of my family. But nothing’s there.

Knowing what I have to do, I slowly make my way to the front door.

My movements are so fucking slow as one thought sits in my head: “If I leave, what happens if he comes back?”

That thought alone has me stopping at the front door, too scared to open it. But as another wave of burning hits me, I push the door open and fly out.

I listen for my parents’ voices, but nothing, so I run toward the house. It isn’t until I’m about a half mile away from Soren’s cottage that I’m hit with nothing but heartbreak.

My family and my pack mourn me. Having had my connection to them broken for more than twenty-four hours has confirmed to them that I must be dead.

Sifting through the sadness of my family, I finally make it into my mom’s link. Hers is the saddest as she mourns another dead child.

~“Mom, please help me!”~ I shove my panicked mind-link through our bond and instantly her link changes. From on the verge of a mental breakdown to nothing but relief.

~“Zayla! My baby, you’re alive! Where are you? Tell me and I’ll come get you, baby! I’ll be right there.”~

Her voice is worried and yet hopeful. It’s exactly what I needed to hear.

~“I’m almost home. I need help, Mom, something’s wrong.”~

I run through the pack territory quickly. Having run through these lands my whole life, I’m able to make it home in less than thirty minutes, even through the pain.

When I make it home, my parents are standing there; they both have tear-streaked faces. My father’s more than my mother’s. They run down the stairs, throwing themselves on me in my wolf form, hugging the life just about out of me.

“I’m so glad you’re home, I’m so glad you’re safe,” my father repeats over and over again. His head is nuzzled into my neck, and his grip on me is so tight it kind of hurts, but I don’t move.

Instead I break down.

Sobs rack my body as I take in the last twenty-four hours, finally letting my body process everything that’s happened.

I almost died, was almost raped, was fully marked and mated to my mate, then abandoned by said mate on some self-righteous journey to save my soul.

Also abandoned by my wolf, who left the same time Soren did…

And, oh yeah…I’m also fucking stuck in wolf form.

“Zayla, what happened?” My mom’s voice is so soft and so fucking delicate against my coat, like I will break at any moment if she even breathes on me the wrong way.

I want to answer but I can’t.

Pain rushes through my body once more and I can’t stop myself from collapsing. Whimpers rip out painfully from my throat as wave after wave of burning touches me again.

“Shift back, Zayla! We’ll get you some help!” My father’s voice holds so much alarm as they’re now able to feel my pain slightly through the pack bond.

The pain they feel through is the equivalent to a bee sting. The harder the sting they feel, the worse the pain I feel.

“Zayla, shift back!” my father yells. His voice is laced slightly with his alpha command as he tries to help force me to shift.

~“I can’t, my wolf is gone,”~ is the last thing I’m able to say through the mind-link before the world around me goes dark.

And I’m out like a light.