The Heart of The Pack

chapter 15

Alexander Pov

I felt Ashley’s heart break the moment the moon goddess said our bond, was a mistake. And I’m sure Ashley felt mine crumble too, our completed mate bond with each other revealing our feelings. How can our bond be a mistake, we are all made for each other and Amara completes us. The moment our bonds were blocked, I no longer felt whole, it’s like a missing piece to the puzzle. If our bond was a mistake why does it feel this way, even touching her felt different. We still love her, even without the bond and we made sure she knew that before she left. Watching her walk away with the moon goddess was hard, my wolf and my instinct told me to run after her and bring her home. We finally fixed our relationship and were making our bond whole, then this happened. I held onto Ash as Amara vanished, I could feel her breaking through the bond. And when Amara was no longer here Ash collapsed crying, I had to carry her home. Forgetting about the party, it doesn’t matter anymore. We curl in bed together where Amara's scent lingers, Ash cries hysterically for hours and my silent tears fuel’s her. She can feel me break too, how do we go on without our mate.

As the sun rises we fall asleep and neither of us bother to get up for food all day. We just keep waking to cry and sleep again. The next morning is no different, except someone enters our apartment and makes noise in the kitchen. There’s a knock on our bedroom door, but neither of us say anything, the door opens and it’s mum. “I don’t want to see any naked butts, you guys need to eat.” When no one answers she opens her eyes, looking at us I see worry cross her face. I know Ash’s eyes are puffy from crying, almost an entire twenty four hours and my eyes are probably red. “what happened where’s a..” I hold my hand up and stop her, I know Amara's name will cause Ash to start crying again. I get up and lead mum out, shutting her in the room and walking to the couch. I turn the TV on so she doesn’t hear us talk, I don’t want to trigger her emotions.

“the moon goddess took Amara.” That’s all I say and mums eyes go wide with shock, then anger.

“Why on earth would she do that?” my mum yells. I explained everything the moon goddess said about our bonds and the deal Amara made. I explain the blocked bonds and what it felt like to hold her after that. I explained Amara's true mate and the choice she has to make. Mum is angry, livid actually and I can understand it, now the sadness is gone I feel angry and betrayed. The moon goddess should never have taken Amara but I understand why, but I wish I didn’t, I want to be mad my mate is gone. “she will come back, I know she will. She belongs here and we are her family now.”

“mum, he is her true mate. We can prey she will come back, but it’s not likely.” I say defeated.

“No don’t you dare give up on her, she is your mate and we will wait. I’m positive she has to come back, she’s meant to be here.” Mum says trying to scold and comfort me. The bedroom door opens and Ash takes some of the food mum made and comes to sit with me. The bond between us helping to ease each others pain, I hold her on my lap while she eats. It’s going to be hard for us without her, but we can’t wallow forever, we have a pack to run.

The next day I get up for training, I allowed myself to mourn my missing mate for one more day yesterday. But we need to keep running our pack, and Ash knows it. We haven’t spoken much, but we both feel each others constant pain.

Ashley pov

Sitting in my office I try to focus on work, but tears stream down my face constantly all day. No matter what work I do it’s laced with Amara, her arrangements she made with merchants and vendors. Her ideas for future projects and renovations, I miss her and I thought work would distract me. But it’s only making things worse, the only time I feel less pain is when Zan holds me. But we can’t do that all day, everyday or the pack will fall down around us. I can’t help but wonder about her mate, will he be better to her than us. The idea of her being near anyone hurts and I know zan feels it, the thought of another man touching her. He feels angry now, not sad and I don’t know how to help him with that. ‘Zan we need a project, something to focus on while ... maybe something for her. What do you think?” I mindlink.

‘yea , that’s probably a good idea. What if we made her a room in the apartment, fill it with something she likes.’ Zan responded.

‘a library!’ Ally shouts through the bond at us, it’s the first time she has spoken since Amara left. It doesn’t last long, as I feel her recede again to the back of my mind.

‘That’s actually a great idea, we could get some couches for her to lay on and big bookcases. Great thinking Ally’ Zan coos at my wolf, and she purrs at his praise.

‘ok I’ll make some calls, see when we can get things delivered.’ I cut the link and start getting to work, the new goal for Amara giving me purpose for the first time since she left. I managed to get the furniture being delivered mostly today and some tomorrow. And Mel said she would make calls about books from all different genres, we don’t really know what Amara likes. But Mel suggested leaving a few empty shelves for Amara to add her own.

With the first of the deliveries arriving, zan and I start stripping the spare room, that Amara slept in. We had to take out all the old furniture and hardware. We leave the main three walls bare but zan helps me hang a rainforest wall paper. It takes up the wall with all the doors attached surrounding them, and honestly it looks great. Zan sits in the middle of the room, putting a massive bookcase together. I make us coffee and it feels like we are finally making some progress in our emotions and the goal definitely deserves the praise for that.