Broken Mate, Fixed By Fate

05 - Elijah

“Jayden? What is it? What’s going on? I was just about to take a nap…is everything okay with Jack?”

Please…please tell me he’s okay!

Jayden’s eyes are stormy when he turns around to look at me in surprise… but they soften when they meet mine. He glances at Lila who has her hand covering her mouth, tears filling her eyes.

I try to focus on Jack’s brother. “Jayden?”

“I’m sorry, Maeve…I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else…You’re family to me… I’ve always thought of you as my big sister…You’re too good…” He shakes his head, as if overwhelmed. “Too good…”

“Jayden, please…you’re scaring me…is Jack..?”

Jayden frowns and looks down to his feet, but I can see him angrily clenching his fists.

“I’m sorry, Maeve. But it’s better if you forget about him. He doesn’t deserve you.” He snarls. “He came home this morning—”

Jack is back! I sigh with relief. He’s alive…he’s okay ... .whatever happened that upset Jayden, we can fix it. The important thing is that Jack is alive—

“—with a chosen mate. He had already marked her. I heard she is carrying his pup.”

It feels like someone backhanded me and I step back unsteadily, my ears ringing. “N-No…”

“I’m sorry—”

I shake my head, my mouth suddenly tasting so bitter I can’t bear to swallow, and the movement makes me dizzy that I sway on my feet and I try to grab onto something or someone but it feels like falling down the cliff and there is no one…and then blessedly, nothing but darkness.

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“That’s it, you’re leaving.”

I turn to look at my sister who is standing by the door, her hands on her hips and with a determined look on her face.

I say nothing even though I’m curious about what she means. However, I can only just stare at her at the moment and wait for her to explain.

Her expression softens. “I’m sending you away… to get better. Someplace new, somewhere without all kinds of reminders of that bastard who broke your heart.”

I know she’s waiting for me to react or respond to her tirade, or maybe ask her about where she’s sending me, but I just keep staring at her instead. My eyes are dry, I haven’t cried at all, not even after hearing about my mate’s betrayal.

To be honest, I have no idea what is happening to me. I want to cry, I really do because I’m thinking maybe if I do cry I will feel better, but I can’t seem to produce the energy, not even to shed a single tear. I just feel so damn tired.

So I stare. With empty eyes and even an emptier voicebox.

Aside from not being able to cry, I also haven’t spoken a word since I regained consciousness. My wolf has also been silent since that day. She seems to have burrowed herself deep inside my mind and I can’t hear her anymore. Perhaps she has died or was so heart-broken that she returned to the Moon Goddess. Maybe I’m just an ordinary human now.

What’s worse is that I can’t bring myself to care. Perhaps I blame her somehow... Which is unfair, I know, because she must be hurting just as much as I am, maybe more.

I wonder if something in my brain had simply snapped or if I’m really just broken somehow. I don’t think I hit my head—Lila said Jayden was able to catch me when I lost consciousness. But this must be some sort of mental issue because I can’t seem to force myself to speak at all.

Or maybe I just don’t want to. God knows I have nothing to say, I just feel so humiliated. And so damn stup*d. I trusted the mate bond so much that I became blind to all else. I trusted the man who I thought loved me as much as I loved him.

But those pains that I thought were consequences of me not eating and sleeping poorly—they were because he had been cheating on us. Yes, on us, because he didn’t just cheat on me, he betrayed himself too. He betrayed the future we were dreaming of—all our plans and the love I thought we shared…

But it was all in my head, I guess, because he didn’t really love me, did he? Otherwise, he would not have treated me so horribly. He wouldn’t have used me and betrayed me like that. No, you don’t do something like that to someone you love. Maybe I’m naive but I firmly believe you don’t do that to someone you love. Cheating is not an accident, it is a choice. And I believed in the mate bond so much that the idea of him cheating was inconceivable.

I realized too late that it was all calculated, it was why he didn’t want to mark me yet. He had always been ambitious and I actually admired that about him before, it meant progress…going further than the station fate has given us as ordinary wolf shifters. He wanted to be a warrior. To become rich and be part of the glittering world of elite warriors who actually breathe the same rarefied air as the lycan king and queen. He wanted to be someone. I just didn’t realize he was willing to sacrifice even me, his fated mate, to get there.

Lila told me she heard the she-wolf he brought home and marked as his chosen mate is a daughter of a decorated warrior. She has the right connections, the access to the right doors that will open worlds Jack dreams to enter.

I cannot do that for him. At least not yet. I’m not even sure I ever could, even if I’m talented and hardworking enough to hope.

He chose the apparently easier and quicker route. For his sake, I hope he doesn’t regret it because I sure as hell am not going to be waiting for him to find out.

“One of mother’s old friends, Maria… she now works as a caretaker of a villa that belongs to the lycan king and queen. You probably don’t remember her. Maria is human but she married a shifter. She’s my godmother. Anyway, she said the king and queen rarely stay in that villa these days and she did have the permission to invite you over to stay for a few weeks. Maybe it will help, you know. A change of scenery, a change of faces you see everyday. Fresh air, good country food…I’m sure it will be nothing but beneficial. You might get a little bored since it’s in the middle of nowhere, but then again… you just stare at nothing in this dark room of yours so… I figured…” She shrugs and takes a deep breath. “I’ll have Joanna come here later to help you prepare your stuff. I will accompany you to the train station early tomorrow morning and Maria will be waiting for you on her side. If you have anything against this decision, speak now, otherwise, I’m getting you out of here.”

I continue to stare.

She sighs. “All right. You better be awake and ready tomorrow morning at five thirty. Your train leaves at six thirty and Luna Marie has been kind enough to drive us to the station, you don’t want to keep her waiting.”

The next morning, Lila finds me already dressed and ready to go. She nods in approval and in just a few minutes, Luna Marie arrives in her car, smiling at me. But I look away as if burned, for I can’t stand the pity in her gaze. She and Lila chat in low voices while I sit on the backseat, staring unseeingly outside.

Lila hands me my ticket and hugs me tightly when it’s time for me to take the train. “Please get better. I can’t bear to see you like this anymore. You’ve wasted enough time loving someone so unworthy. Don’t let him control your life anymore.”

Even Luna Marie embraces me and holds my face with both hands. “I will be eagerly waiting for your return. Once you get yourself back together, I will sponsor you myself to study fashion in an international school. I should have done it sooner but…I was only able to talk to my mate about it these days.” She shakes her head and smiles again. “It’s something to look forward to, anyway, right? The important thing is that you go and heal first. And remember that the whole pack is behind you. We’re all going to chip in.”

I should be thrilled. Excited. I should feel touched and grateful. Instead it only makes me feel worse. Like I’m a charity case that everyone has been talking about as the latest victim of a broken heart. Will the humiliation never end? The bitterness is overflowing in my mouth that I’m almost happy I can’t speak, or else I might say something I will regret.

So as always, I stare blankly at them and turn to go when the conductors call for the passengers to take their seats.

The train ride is long and blessedly the seats beside me are empty. When I reach the station where I’m supposed to get off, I find Maria already there waiting and she beams happily as soon as she sees me.

“Oh, look at you! You’re so beautiful, just like my Lila! You look just like her! I’d recognise you anywhere!”

I try to smile but nothing happens, my face muscles won’t react. However, it doesn’t matter that I can’t speak, Maria cheerfully carries on the conversation for the both of us as we walk to the parking lot for her car. It could be that Lila has already warned her about my condition, but I’m starting to think she is always like this regardless.

She helps me with my few bags and I just let her, they’re not really heavy anyway.

To my surprise, there is someone in the car waiting for us.

“Oh, there you are. The train came just in time. Maeve, this is my son, Elijah. He’s on vacation for a few weeks and has chosen to spend it with his old momma. Isn’t that nice?”

I glance at the tall man sitting on the driver’s seat. He says nothing and stares at me through the rearview mirror, which makes me feel rather awkward because I can feel him observing me with intense eyes.

I look away. Maybe if I ignore him, he’ll lose interest.

However, when I meet his eyes in the rear-view mirror again, he smiles. And the heart I thought is no longer responsive, thuds painfully once more.