Her Fire

11 - Lost

David's POV

"Keep it together. Just wait until she's gone. Please… Let us have even a little shred of dignity…"

His mate. The one person who can make everything better. The only one who may be able to heal all that is broken in him… she doesn’t want anything to do with him.

Her words ring in his head, a devastating blow. ‘…I will not accept another fated mate. I refuse to…’

Unwanted simply because of the mate bond. She had decided long before meeting them, he could hear the conviction in her tone. Deirdre is calm, firm and eager to move on.

Someone else fvcked up and yet he and his wolf are the ones that will be punished for the crime.

"She’s rejecting us…” The pain in Flint’s thoughts is palpable, a sudden rogue wave that threatens to drown him. “Unloved… even by the one Mother Moon made for us…”“She doesn’t know us… maybe we just need her to give us a chance…”“Fool…You’ve always been a fool.” His wolf growls before withdrawing and curling up in a corner to lick his wounds, but David knows better.

Like a tsunami, he’s merely falling back… only to do more damage later.

He really needs to get away from Deirdre now.

He blabbers on about something inconsequential about the lupines and then he turns to go.

“Wait! We have to talk about breaking the bond first—”

He closes his eyes, clenching his teeth as he tries to block her words. “Please…let me prepare my wolf first. He is… we are, the both of us, already broken… Give me a little time to make sure we’ll be alright…when the deed is done.”

He walks away, faster this time but still not running, even though he wanted so badly to. It wouldn’t do… to look like he’s trying to escape or appear so eager to go as far away from her as possible. She might suspect that something is wrong and be curious enough to follow him.

No, she mustn’t be allowed to do that.

“Davide, Deirdre is calling me! What am I supposed to tell her?” Matt mind-links him, sounding a little panicked.

“I don’t care. I need… I’m sorry… not now, Matt… Flint is…” He blocks his cousin, unable to bear the tension any longer. He staggers before stumbling down the inclined path and falling face first on the ground.

“Fvck..” He spits out a mix of blood and dirt, groaning as he feels his broken lip. “Calm down, Flint, please… let’s… let’s talk about this…”

His wolf says nothing but growls like a wounded animal.

“It’s okay… we’ll be alright…” He murmurs, setting aside his own pain to try and help his wolf. “You heard her… It’s not our fault this time… She has issues with the mate bond, not with us… No, listen to me!” He raises his voice when Flint growls again. “We can still fix this!”

“How!? She wants nothing to do with us! She won’t even give us a chance…” Flint mutters bitterly. “Condemned to a life of solitude! Forever drifting and never anchored home.”

David rubs his face with both hands, trying to clear his head. “That’s why we’re going to make her! We’ll make her give us a chance, by all means necessary! No more running away and hiding this time, not if we want to make it work! Help me out here, I can’t do it without you!”

“What if it still doesn’t work?”

“I refuse to think about that. This is our fated mate. The moon goddess chose her because she’s perfect for us. It won’t be like what we had before. This time it has to work, we will do everything… anything to make sure she won’t reject us. Are you with me?”

His wolf is quiet for a while. “She doesn’t have a wolf…”

David sighs. “And we won’t take that against her, will we? Mayhap Mother Moon will have pity on us and grant her a wolf too. Deirdre was a former deity, reborn and given another chance. I’m willing to bet the whole villa that she is being… monitored or something, by whoever is out there. If we somehow win her over… who knows what kind of miracle could happen? Don’t you think it’s something worth giving it a shot?”

Flint doesn’t answer, but he seems to calm down, at least, so David waits to let his words sink in… He doesn’t want to overwhelm his wolf too much either. He waits a few minutes, just sitting there on the ground, careful not to think of anything else, so he simply lies on his back and stares at the clouds.

“David?” Flint calls.

“Hmm…?”

“Do you think she’s worth it?”

David considers it for a few minutes, knowing his answer is very important to his wolf.

“I’d like to think so.” He answers carefully. “I mean… a former deity… If what she said is true, and I don’t think she’d lie about something like that… Can you imagine how powerful she was? And Mother Moon chose us to be her fated mate. That has got to mean something, right? We’re not weak at all, just because we haven’t merged, and this is proof of that. Even though she’s human now, we have been chosen to be the one who heals her, since her former mate seems to have done an awful job before. We can make it better. We can restore her faith in the mate bond!” He says excitedly, hoping against all odds.

Flint is silent again.

“Are you just making sh!t up as you go?” his wolf asks, amusement seeping into his voice.

David can’t help grinning. “Is it that obvious?”

“I just know you better than you think I do. I can feel your pain too and yet you focused on mine. I’m so sorry for losing it. I’ll try not to be too inconsiderate next time.”

David groans. “Please, let there be no next time…”

“I won’t make promises I can’t keep.” Flint chuckles and David sighs with relief.

“Are you ready to face her again?”

Flint shakes his head. “Absolutely terrified. She’s…something else.”

David stands up, licking his lip and is pleased to find it already healed.

“Well, what did you expect from a fire goddess? Of course sparks would be flying all around.”

“What if she gets angry and burns us?” Flint asks, with a little uncertainty.

“Occupational hazard. We can only give her space until she calms down, I guess. We’ll learn to love her right, in time.”

David starts walking towards Matt’s office, where he is guessing he can find Deirdre.

He opens the mind link again and is about to talk to Matt when he feels his cousin’s distress.

Delving deeper into his cousin’s consciousness, something he can do without the other person knowing, he tries to understand what is happening. He almost never does it because it’s obviously an invasion of privacy, but he worries since Matt is currently with Deirdre. Curious, even Flint listens in as well.

They both instantly regret it, as eavesdropping is never a good idea.

“Oh no… she’s determined to reject him! There’s no changing her mind…”

Taken by surprise and suddenly at his most vulnerable, having just had a confirmation that there's nothing they can try that will change her mind, David loses his control over his wolf.

Reeling from the pain and hopelessness, he steps back and lets his wolf free to shift, feeling utterly lost and for the first time ever, he doesn’t feel like he wants to be found.

Flint lets out a mourning howl that can be heard all throughout the valley.