HIS Young Mate: "Sequel to Her Young Mate"

Part Forty One: I am Here

As I sit on the edge of the cliff and look down at the ocean I'm reminded of the last time I was here. The last time I was here I wasn't sure how I got here and I was afraid. I'm still afraid, but in a whole different way, and I'm fully aware how I got here. I ran. I ran and ran until I couldn't anymore, and I found myself here. The anger and the rage and the red that had once washed over me when I felt this way had receded enough that I hadn't experienced that. I'm pretty sure it's because I ranked up, and for now that desire for power and control had been pacified. Part of me isn't sure, though. Part of me wonders if it's because I just feel so damn empty. So hollow it hurts. So devoid of the ability to think or process what happened that I'm just shut down like an old factory with all the lights and machinery off. There's remnants of things laying around, but nothing of use. Everything else is left the way it was, but no one is coming to put any of it to work. I'm just here. On this ledge, and I don't know how to step away from it. In fact I almost want to succumb to it.

It's as if the dark ledge is luring me towards it. Like a warm hug waiting to be met by my embrace. It's singing a siren song that gets louder and louder when I start to think about what happened earlier today. Night is surely going to fall soon, I can feel it, but I can't convince myself to look up and check how soon. I can't convince myself to open my emotions up to see if anyone is even bothering to come for me. I feel utterly alone... until I don't.

I don't move in defense or fear, as I normally might, when I sense someone behind me. I know it's no one from the pack, as they don't smell at all like them or feel like them. They do have a sense of familiarity, but that confuses me all the more. I hesitate to look back, not in fear, but because my emotions are absolutely dull.

There are times when you know someone is watching you- you just do. Since my senses have heightened I can also smell them, but that doesn't account for that eerie feeling you still get. I sense the person staring, as if I know their motives I can feel them watching me and waiting. I don't really feel like giving them the satisfaction of acknowledging them. I have no will in me to bother. After a long drawn out moment, where I basically ignore them, and I just continue to feel the void in my body, the void begins to fill with a quiet panic- not a fear- but just an urgency to get it over with and look. It's triggered by the warmth and rage that the feeling of turning rogue brings me. It's almost night, I know- or I hope- that someone in the pack will come look for me when we shift. So I can't be this way when we do, because then the feeling I've been trying to hide will be fully exposed to anyone in the pack who may head my way. The sun is setting, and a fog is starting to creep up from the cliffs edge, and it only adds to my fear of who- or what- may be watching me.

Almost as if the person knows what I'm thinking I hear a rustling, when I turn to look I barely catch a glimpse of him along the trees edge.

It's a man. A large man with a tan complexion, and longer dark hair. He hesitates for only a moment, and that's the only look at his face I get, before his face returns to the direction of the rest of his body and he speeds off. His eyes were a dark brown, there was a scar across his brow, and another from his ear to just before the corner of his mouth. It was so deep that it would make you wonder if it went all the way through the other side when it was fresh. He was older than most of our pack, maybe late thirties.

There's something unsettling about him, and it causes me to freeze. I want to run, or turn, or attack. Instead I just stare as he walks away. A fear sets in that I may have attracted rogues to the area from going rogue myself. Danny once told me that they can sense each other, almost like a pack can, but not to come together, but to find other wolves to attack. I feel like I should turn and make the call, but for some reason I just can't get myself to do it, and any feeling of threat is gone. Now I'm just left again with my empty feelings, my need to feel anything right now, because I just feel cold and alone as I stare back over the ledge.

The worst part of all of this is that the one person I need most is the one person I really ran from. He knows my ultimate betrayal to him, the secret I kept from him that I should have told him the day he proposed. It's neither of our faults that we rushed in so quickly, but now I see it had detrimental consequences. I've thrown my ring at his feet, I've broken his heart, and I don't know how to mend... us. He's my husband, though, and I wish nothing more than to have him wrap me in his arms and forgive me. Tell me it'll all be okay, that he forgives me for what I've done and what I've left unsaid. I just want him, here.

"I am here Lavender..."

The last time I was on this cliff and heard his voice it made me jump, brought me back to reality. Here and now it falls over me like a warm blanket and I begin to weep from the relief it brings me. He was here, which means he isn't abandoning me. He isn't brushing me off or leaving me. I had thought I destroyed everything when we fought, but I'm no longer thinking that. I'm so relieved that my body shakes, and I realize I've been tense for so long that I'm in pain. I can't look at him, I'm too ashamed, and so I cover my eyes and just collapse into myself and hold tightly onto my body. He tentatively steps forward and I shake my head and begin to rock.

"Lavender, I'm gonna get you off of that ledge." He says firmly, not a waver in his voice completely certain. I nod, because I don't feel like I can do it myself. He plants his feet securely beside me and lifts me up without even so much as a tremble, and it makes me feel safe instantly. He walks me away from the ledge, and squeezes me to his chest. I can't stop crying, and he doesn't make me. I feel so exposed to him, he knows everything I've been keeping from him now, the silent battle I've been fighting, and it's both relieving and so utterly painful that I'm not sure I can take it. I no longer have that secret held tightly to my chest, sitting there between us when I embrace him, it's gone... and I can almost physically feel that it is. He rubs my back, and puts his chin on top of my head. I put my arms around his neck and pull myself closer to him, feeling that distance that my secret used to keep disappear between us. "Lavender, I love you. More than you could ever know. Nothing that happened changed that. Nothing you said. No secrets kept," he pulls away and looks at me with his warm brown eyes, so sincere and gentle even in his strength, "I'm going to keep loving you. I'm going to keep loving you and loving you, unless you tell me to stop."

I nod. I want to apologize for all that I've done, all the buttons pushed, but I can't find the words.

"I'm sorry Wildflower, I'm so fucking sorry. I was such an asshole- I'm sorry. We're going to figure this out, right? Because you're my wife..."

I nod quickly, urgently, my whole world depends on us figuring this out. My heart is begging for this to work, my wolf howling, my mind reaching for every bit of us to piece back together.

"I have no idea what I'm fucking doing, or why, I'm just- I don't know Durst- so lost.... Can- can I have my ring back?" I choke out. I want to wear it, "I never should have taken it off," I say with fresh tears. It was so hard to keep it tied around my neck all of that time- I can't believe I just tossed it in anger. When wearing it made me so proud, and feel so strong. The part of my soul that made us mates was crying out for him, for the comfort he always brought me, the idea that he could leave me back made me feel shattered. When I let that thought or image of him leaving me creep in the darkness wanted to take over.

He sets me down and takes my ring from his pocket, and puts it back on my finger. I start to cry again and he grabs me up without hesitation, lifting me from my feet. "I'm here, I'm here," he says, and I kiss him in response, our bodies melting together as we seek out each other as if we aren't sure the other is real. I need to feel that he's here with me, that he won't leave. I want more, so much more, but we both stop when we hear Daniel's call. Our eyes shoot up to the moonlit sky. It's time to run. It's our first night as Beta's, and I have to make things right- I have to show I can do this, and I need him to come with me. I need him more than I ever have, and when he looks back at me I know he is there for me, and always will be.