51. The Thing About Mates
51
THE THING ABOUT MATES
Oh, mouth of honey, with the thyme for fragrance,
Who, with heart in breast, could deny you love?
— SAMUEL FERGUSON, “DEAR DARK HEAD”
I surfed at dawn the next morning without even a single harbor seal to keep me company.
It was just as well. I’d spent most of the night brooding after leaving Jonathan. Those mournful green eyes had practically begged to follow me back to the cottage, but I had needed to bathe and think. In that order, alone. And apparently, until the sun was almost ready to rise.
Mates.
It sounded so…eternal. And at the same time, barbaric.
People didn’t mate. Animals did. Puffed-up pigeons who chased the females across Harvard Square or a pair of gray wolves, even if the alpha did have a wandering eye. And even then, it was for the exact thing I was explicitly not supposed to do for another four years at least, lest I throw my entire future away.
And yet…I couldn’t deny whatever this was. Something far beyond pheromones or personalities, something well outside the realm of the physical or even the mental world.
Something fated.
Something…magic.
And if it was the magic that required us to be together, how could that spell ruin itself?
How could I refuse?
Did I even want to?
The sun had fully risen and was breaking up the cloud cover by the time I was spraying down my board at the well beside the cottage, trying not to shiver.
The front gate creaked open, announcing Caitlin’s presence. No doubt she’d been waiting for me to finish my morning ritual before hightailing it here with her interrogation over what, exactly, had transpired last night.
“I’m in the back, Caitlin.” I set my board against the wall of the cottage, then reached back for the lanyard attached to my wetsuit zipper and yanked it down, bracing for the breeze on my bare skin.
“It’s not Caitlin.”
I turned to find Jonathan rounding the corner. The suit was gone, exchanged for more island-friendly jeans and a T-shirt. Still pressed and perfect, but more worn in. The charcoal-gray T-shirt put his broad shoulders on display, which looked like they did a lot more than lab work while he was gone.
I pressed my wetsuit to my bare chest and forced myself not to gawk. “What are you doing here?”
Those green eyes dilated slightly as he observed my bare arms and shoulders. Perfectly still, he resembled his shifter form more than ever, a big cat noting its prey. The predatory expression was one I hadn’t seen since Dublin, and it unnerved me as much as it made me want to pull off the rest of my clothes just to see what he would do. I had the distinct impression that if I ran inside, he would pounce before I took more than a few steps.
Even more irritatingly, I didn’t altogether hate the idea.
Then he blinked, and the predator disappeared. “Here.” He held out the towel I’d left on the front porch.
I wrapped it around my body. He looked to the ocean while I finished removing my wetsuit and hung it above the well, then followed me inside, avoiding the cracks in the old concrete steps.
“I’ll, um, just get dressed,” I said once we were safely inside. “Would you mind putting on the kettle? I’m freezing.”
Jonathan nodded as he looked around the cottage, gaze touching on the little things I’d done to make it my own—the stack of books on the side table, my favorite mug on the kitchen counter, the watercolor print by an Oregon artist hanging over the sofa.
After throwing on an old Reed T-shirt and a pair of jeans, I tied my still-wet hair into a knot on top of my head and returned to the living room, where Jonathan was crouched next to an old suitcase turntable and a stack of 45s. He flipped through the records, snorting at a few (I guessed were the Rudy Vallée albums), then selected one to play. As he stood back up, I recognized Benny Goodman and a very young Ella Fitzgerald.
I frowned. All the swing music in the world wasn’t going to lighten the mood.
“I, um…” I trailed off when he turned, the intensity in those eyes burning through his lashes.
What was I supposed to say here? Hey, Jonathan. Thanks for saving me from a million ghosts last night. So, I hear we’resoulmates. How are you feeling about that? Did you know? Also, didn’t you think you should tell me?
“Did you have a good trip?” I asked and immediately hated myself for it.
He arched one brow like he knew what I was thinking. “Not particularly.”
I backed into the kitchen where the kettle was starting to boil over. “Tea?”
“Sure.”
I took a little too much time to find mugs and pour the hot water.
“Cass, won’t you look at me?—”
“You don’t have to do this,” I interrupted just as I set two cups and saucers on the counter with a clatter.
“Do what?”
“Act like everything is normal when it’s not. And that goes for making more lame excuses why we can’t, I don’t know, make out or sleep together or whatever it is we both clearly want.” I turned and held out his cup and saucer, tea bag floating atop the water.
Gingerly, he took it. “It’s not what you think.”
“I think you and Caomhán let the cat out of the bag by telling me that we’re ‘mates’ or whatever. I think that to you, it spells disaster. After you left last time, Robbie and Caitlin told me everything. About what children do. How it might compromise my manifestation. Ruin your…immortality.”
Jonathan’s eyes widened, and he scrunched his lips together, contemplating this revelation. “They weren’t supposed to tell you that.”
“Because of the whole weirdly social Darwinist position the fae community has adopted? Yeah, not sure I agree with that either. Regardless, Caitlin said it was necessary after she saw us together. Shockingly, she decided that appealing to my sense of reason was the best way to convince me to stay away from you.” I poured my own tea, then set the kettle back on the range with a bit too much force.
His jaw worried as he considered the situation. “I’m glad Caitlin told you,” he admitted, tapping a finger on his lips as he spoke. His normally unflappable eyes bore traces of uncertainty. “Do you mind, then?”
“Mind what? That we can’t sleep together or that in spite of that, I’m apparently promised to you for all time?”
I pulled some cream out of the refrigerator and topped my tea before passing it to him. He poured several ounces and pushed it back.
“I meant my—” He cleared his throat uncomfortably and pounded his chest with a flat palm before continuing. “My age.”
I stared. “You mean the fact that you are old enough to be my grandfather? That’s what you’re worried about? Seems the least our problems, all things considered.”
Jonathan glowered into his teacup. “That’s not exactly how I would phrase it, but yes. It’s a concern.”
I sighed. “Brigid help me. Listen, other than the fact that you chose Benny Goodman over the Duke Ellington records over there, I suppose I can live with the fact that you’re a centenarian.”
That full mouth quirked. “It’s not my fault I have excellent taste.”
“It’s also not your fault that you were probably present for the original recording.”
“I was maybe twenty when this was recorded and nowhere near the United States,” Jonathan sputtered, setting his cup down harshly enough that it rattled in the saucer and sent some of the light brown liquid over the sides.
I smiled into my own tea, but couldn’t keep my shoulders from shaking with silent laughter. I was still mad, but something about disarming him disarmed me too. “Jonathan?”
He glared. But I held his gaze, and the longer we watched each other, the more that scowl melted into something vulnerable. Something tender.
He really was worried. It was endearing. Annoyingly so.
I set my cup on the counter before edging closer to him. He smelled of freshly turned soil, the sweet, resinous scent of cedar and fir trees, of fresh water and wild berries—all distinctly foreign scents in a place where there were no trees. I took a deep breath, enjoying the scent before I realized he was barely breathing at all.
“You smell good,” he echoed my thoughts with closed eyes.
“Funny, I was just thinking the same of you. You smell like the forest.” I looked out the window. “This whole thing would be a lot better if you smelled like rotting fish or something equally horrible.”
He inhaled, nose hovering over the crown of my head. “You smell like lavender and sorrel and the sea, briny and fresh. Like you would taste very good.”
We stared at each other for several moments, breathing in the other’s scents.
“Just do it,” I whispered. “I won’t ask for more.”
It was a lie. I knew it, and he knew it. But that was what addicts did, right?
Jonathan’s gaze drifted to my mouth and fixed there like it was drawn by a chain.
Unconsciously, I tucked my lower lip between my teeth.
His pupils doubled in size.
“Fuck the rules,” he growled, then slipped a hand around my nape and pulled me to him with a groan.
Need pulsed between us, harsh and unforgiving. It wasn’t a kiss so much as a theft, both of us taking what our bodies seemed to crave at all times. Mates or not, Caomhán was right. We really were just animals, with instincts that superseded logic.
And then, just as quickly, Jonathan ended the kiss and put three feet of space between us. Both of us sucked in harsh breaths and wiped our swollen mouths, as guilty and desperate as teenagers.
“You really need to learn when people are teasing you,” I said as if the intensity of the moment wasn’t still lingering in the air. “And for the record, I couldn’t care less if you were fifty or five hundred. Especially when you can kiss like that.”
The green in his eyes darkened substantially. “Don’t toy with me, Cassandra. That would be very dangerous for us both.”
I couldn’t say I cared.
Jonathan ran a hand through his hair as he drained his tea and pushed it toward me for more from the pot. “I chose this record because my mother used to play it for me when I was a child,” he said as I poured more hot water. “It’s one of the few memories of her I still have, sitting by the fireplace. She’d put a record on her phonograph and dance with guests of the inn. Sometimes she would take a lone traveler up to her room. Sometimes not.”
I blinked, unsure how to respond. He’d never shared anything like this before with me, and I didn’t want to scare him off, even though I was already full of questions.
“She was a siren,” I said, remembering the exchange with Aoife.
He nodded, cheeks pinked. “From a long line. My grandfather was a Venetian nobleman, a famous lover who seduced my grandmother, the seeress who owned the inn tucked into the mountains north of Venice.”
Something rang familiar about that story, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then my eyes shot open. “Your grandfather was Casanova ?”
I was rewarded with an eye roll. “By all accounts, he was far less impressive than his memoirs indicate.”
“Well, maybe we’re not mates, then. Maybe it’s just your superior genetics that makes me forgive you even when you breadcrumb me to death.”
Jonathan grunted but shook his head. “Believe me, I wish it were as simple as that.”
I turned. “What does it mean, exactly? Being my mate?”
He rubbed his forehead, which was heavily creased at this point, then looked up with that pained expression I was genuinely starting to hate. “It means you’ll never truly be rid of me, Cass, nor I you. It means we share a unique bond that is, yes, responsible for things like being able to See each other’s gifts or share our thoughts, but ultimately has nothing to do with how either of us consciously feels about one another. It means we’ve lost our choice.”
“But…you leave,” I said. “You’ve left before. For months at a time. In the spring. And then when you left me—left me here.” Odd. I could barely get that out. My voice quavered when I said it out loud, and the sudden tears pricking the back of my eyes felt as fresh as when he had left me at this cottage the first time.
“The more time we spend together, the stronger the bond grows,” Jonathan said. “We’d only just met when I left you in February, and even then, I nearly flew back to Boston at least once a week. These last six weeks…” He shook his head.“They’ve been fucking torture.”
I drummed my fingers on the counter, considering. “Why would it be worse for you than for me? I’m not saying the last six weeks were pleasant for me either—stop smiling, I can admit that you’re hot, and I thought about you a lot—but I wasn’t dying or anything.”
Jonathan’s face fell. “It’s because you’re not manifested. It will get worse. I’m so?—”
“If you apologize one more time for something you can’t control, I’m going to throw my tea in your face.” I huffed and decided to put the matter aside for the moment. “All right. What about your father? Did you find him while we were apart?” Just asking about the shadowed man gave me chills colder than any ocean. Almost as if I was calling him here.
Jonathan gave a heavy, defeated sigh. “I tracked him to Eastern Europe. He doesn’t leave much behind, but I know his scent better than most.”
He sniffed as if to demonstrate, and I wondered if, as a manifested shifter, he could smell my emotions as acutely as my cousins. I wasn’t sure what I thought of that.
“He passed through Albania first,” he said. “Croatia. Some of the other Balkans. I talked it through with Robbie last night, and we both agree, it doesn’t make sense, what he’s doing. Going to libraries, then visiting some of the old hypogea in the region. In and out of the ground like a gopher. I thought he was looking for someone, but…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I don’t know what he’s doing, haunting these old graves.”
“Preparing for his own demise, let’s hope,” I remarked. “Maybe he’ll visit the mounds here. They’ll give him a taste of his own medicine.” I shuddered at the memory of last night.
Jonathan’s hand lifted like he wanted to pull me close at the thought. Then it dropped, and he went on.
“Whatever it was, I lost him after he crossed into the northern Alps, but I don’t think he found what he was looking for.” He looked meaningfully across the counter. “He has no idea about Sibyl yet, Cass. Your mother is just fine.”
It wasn’t what I really wanted to know, but good to know, I supposed.
There was a knock at the door, and Caitlin entered, rubbing her forehead. The look on her face when she caught us so close made us both spring back like guilty teenagers.
“Calm down,” she said. “It’s just me and my póit . My head feels like it’s about to burst, so we’ll take our lessons quietly this morning.”
“Tea?” I asked though I was feeling less than generous.
“Sure, I’ll take some, and then you can tell me what’s got your face soured like bad milk.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said as I poured out, then carried her cup and the pot of tea to the table, where she’d taken a seat.“Maybe it’s being the last one to know that Jonathan and I are supposedly mated for all time?”
For a moment, I thought Caitlin was going to drop the cup on the floor. Fingers trembling, she managed to lower her cup to her saucer, then buried her face in her hands.
Jonathan and I both took seats at the table, waiting for her response.
“You weren’t to know,” she said at last, speaking through her hands before dropping them to the table.
“According to you,” I said a little too sharply.
“According to anyone with any sense,” Caitlin retorted. “We explained this to you before. Fae aren’t supposed to know about the immortal choice until they’re fully manifested. Of course, they can’t know about the potential for fated mates as well.”
“Shifters would say otherwise,” I replied numbly as I traced a thick dent in Penny’s ancient table.
A vision of my grandmother in this very chair when she had endured a similar lecture from her own mother floated to the back of my mind.
I smiled and let her fade away.
“Shifters generally don’t have more sense than a pack of dogs when it comes to such things?—”
“Oh my gods, stop .” I slapped my hand flat on the table, causing everyone to jump.
“Cass,” Jonathan murmured but had the good sense to button his mouth when I shot him a glare.
Caitlin bristled over her tea, but to my surprise, she didn’t argue. In the last almost two months, I’d never heard her step down from a fight, but she was quiet now.
“I love you, Cait, but you have to stop that,” I said, more calmly now. “I’m so tired of hearing different fae condescend to each other. Seers think we’re better than everyone because we know their inner minds, ergo we are ‘the world’s conscience’ or some nonsense. And we’re not. You and I are no better ethically than anyone else in this room or island or anywhere else.”
She opened her mouth, again like she wanted to argue, but I went on.
“Sorcerers think the same because they can manipulate things they actually see. You all harp on the sirens for being too impetuous or the shifters for being too base, but the truth is, everyone has insight into what it means to be fae—don’t you see that? If I hadn’t met you, I’d never understand the history of my people. And if I’d never met Ciarán’s folk, I’d still be sitting at this table shouting at you because I can’t keep a damn memory at bay.”
Jonathan looked surprised. “What did they?—”
“Later,” I snapped. “It seems to me that the majority of our mishaps occur because people are keeping me in the dark, not the other way around.”
I looked at both of them. Caitlin’s face had folded into a picture of stubbornness, though Jonathan had the decency to look a little bit guilty.
“Caitlin,” I said. “Did you know from the beginning that Jonathan and I were…mates?”
I still tripped over the word. It didn’t sound real.
Her mouth opened and closed several times. She took a long sip of tea before expelling a great sigh. “I…suspected as much. Robbie confirmed it. He said he could See your energies blending together. Said Jonny’s was reaching for yours all the time.”
A faint flush appeared over Jonathan’s cheekbones.
I nodded. “Fine. Now, I’d like to know exactly what exactly this means for us. And no one should hold back.”
Caitlin looked like she’d rather do anything else but talk.
“It’s a common enough myth,” Jonathan supplied. “Humans love to quote Plato.”
“Thanks. I did major in Classics, if you remember.” I half wanted to grab one of the heavily annotated textbooks I’d brought with me, now sitting on Penny’s old shelf. “So, there are two versions. Plato actually writes Aristophanes’ version of man as an androgynous, two-faced whole that’s split in half, each piece doomed to search the earth for its other. And then there’s the whole being that Zeus splits in half for fear of its power.”
Jonathan nodded. “It’s not just the Greeks, though. The Hindus had the twin flame, Rama and Sita.”
“The Celts have our own stories too,” Caitlin pointed out. “You’re the scholar, Cassandra. Surely you know of the anamchara .”
“That translates as ‘soul friend,’” I said. “And it originated with monks and ascetics who yearned for connection when they were isolated with just their texts. And applied to priests!”
“You think they just made it up, then?” Caitlin retorted. “That was our phrase, Cassie. A word for the story of fae lovers whose very magic was split in the beginning, yearning for its other half to complete the cycle. Of course the Church stole it.”
I frowned. “Magic?”
“Another myth,” Jonathan, looking tired. “Rachel could give you the best version. As the story goes, fae became fae when the gods dropped the stars from the sky. But a few of the largest stars were deemed too powerful, and so Dagda split them apart. If you believe the story, then the fae carrying that incomplete magic in their souls must find their mates to find their zenith.”
“Hogwash,” Caitlin spit out. “No one needs a mate to manifest, as you, Jon, demonstrate just fine. It’s romantic bosh, probably created by a shifter or siren so they can justify riding whoever they want in the name of searching for their ‘mate.’”
“Cait,” I snapped. “Stop.”
She wisely obeyed.
I had pressed my hand flat on the table while they spoke, and as if in answer, another vision sprang to life—another of a young Penny, but this time fighting with a brooding man who looked like Caomhán, but with much longer black hair. Even in a vision, the connection seemed thick enough to grab.
“I hate you!” Penny screamed in Irish.
“Well, I hate you right right back!” he thundered. “But I love you too, Penny O’Brien. And I need more than I need the air I breathe, so you might as well get used to it!”
And then she was in his arms, and neither of them spoke at all.
I released the vision by tucking my hand into my lap, then turned to look at Jonathan. “I don’t love you.”
He blinked. “Um, that’s all right. I don’t love you either. We’ve only known each other a matter of months, and most of that was spent apart.”
I nodded. “Okay, so we are both capable of basic reason and communication and agree that love is impossible after such a short period of time."
Was it my imagination, or did he look like he wanted to argue with me?
“If I’m being perfectly honest,” I rattled on, “I don’t even know if I like you some of the time. You are very frustrating.”
As if he expected as much, Jonathan shrugged. “The feeling is more than mutual. But as I said, love and mating aren’t the same thing.”
Caitlin snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.” She turned to me. “There have been plenty of mates who couldn’t stand each other, I can promise you that.”
“Like Penny and Ciarán,” Jonathan supplied, earning another sharp glance from Caitlin. “I know you didn’t want to believe they were mates, Cait, but it’s the truth. When Ciarán was around, Penny’s energy nearly disappeared into his.”
“That’s what Robbie was talking about at the party,” I murmured to myself.
Caitlin looked irritated. “That man and his mouth.”
“Don’t blame Rob,” Jonathan said. “He was likely just speculating after too many pints. You know how he gets.”
“Then why did Penny leave Ciarán?” I wanted to know.
Caitlin sighed. “She didn’t. Ciarán left first, the cur. Supposedly, he went to find a safe place for them to hide when it was clear the island wasn’t safe anymore. And he never returned. So she went looking.”
“And did she find him?” I had to ask.
When they turned on me, Caitlin’s gray eyes were as vacant as an overcast sky. “She did not. Unless you know something.”
I shook my head. “So far as I know, she was alone until she died.”
“It’s amazing she managed that,” Jonathan said quietly.
“Sure, it is,” Caitlin agreed. “Some will follow the other into death rather than be alone.”
Jonathan’s eyes met mine, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Just the idea of being apart from Jonathan for that long made me want to crawl out of my skin, and it didn’t take touch to know he felt the same.
I considered the last thoughts that echoed from Penny’s mind. She had wiped her memories of nearly everyone she loved at that point, all for our protection. But her mate’s name still came to her with an unwavering belief that they would be reunited at last.
Caitlin watched both of us curiously, and I felt a slight pressure near my right temple. I dipped a finger into my tea.
Not now, please , I thought. I’ll share later .
The pressure ceased.
It was too much to process. The regression of last night, the news of my apparent “mate,” how I was supposed to manage that on top of my training…
And then, of course, there was the fact of Jonathan here. Now.
Given this news, I wasn’t even going to pretend to try to stay away from him. I wasn’t convinced it was even necessary, given Caomhán’s opinions. It certainly wasn’t possible in the long term.
I just wanted time to figure things out.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Jonathan pushed up from the table, making the chair leg screech on the floor. “I’m only back for the week to…check in. This time.”
It was an innocuous statement, but when his eyes found mine, his meaning was clear: he couldn’t stay away from me any more than I could stop thinking of him. Both of us were stuck in a position where being around either was both dangerous and confounding, but being apart grew increasingly painful. He would leave for as long as we could bear and return for as little time as possible to prevent the worst from happening and save both our futures.
I hated the plan. But I could think of no viable alternatives.
“I’m sure Robbie would be happy for your help in the north field today,” Caitlin put in. “We’ve training. Today we’ll be going to the shipwreck and mine for memories. Perhaps to the burial mounds too. I hear there was quite an ordeal there last night.”
I absolutely refused to meet her eye.
Jonathan nodded. “I’ll leave you to it. Cass, I’ll see you at dinner?” His voice was as deep and serious as ever, but hope threaded through it.
I couldn’t quite say no. Nor did I really want to, as confusing as that was. “Yep.”
“We’ll go out with you on our way to the ship,” Caitlin said.
The three of us exited the cottage to the jeering cry of crows overhead. A flock wheeled in the sky.
“Omens,” Caitlin remarked. “Do you know the poem, Cassie?”
“One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a funeral, four for birth.’” I laughed. “Gran used to recite it to me. So what happens when there are ten?”
Caitlin smiled. “I suppose we should just assume it will be a very good day.”
The flock dipped and dived in the summer wind with the glee of a child on a roller coaster. With a final gust, they veered to the right and began a swift descent to the cottage roof. It was only then I realized they weren’t all crows.
One lark continued to fly above the house, circling low around the walls a few times and finally coasting through the air to the field where we stood. Caitlin’s expression tightened, and Jonathan stiffened beside me.
“Damn,” he said, in a voice so low it sounded more like a hush of the wind than a man’s voice.
But I still heard him.
The little bird looped to the ground just outside the gate of the garden. I blinked, and a small, slight man with a beakish nose and the kind of mouth that always seems to be pointed down at the sides had appeared, his beady eyes peering imperiously from under a thatch of graying hair that stood up in a crest just over his forehead.
“Don’t say anything,” Jonathan murmured.
“But—”
“Cassandra, hush ,” Caitlin snapped just before the man crossed the gated threshold and entered the yard.
“I come with a message from the High Council of the Assembly of the Magi,” he declared in a high English voice. “For one Cassandra Whelan. I request entrance to this household to deliver a message.”
“Not a word,” Jonathan whispered fiercely as he took a step just ahead of me.
I couldn’t if I wanted. The messenger’s self-introduction rang like an alarm bell that wouldn’t stop. It was the one thing we had been trying to avoid over the last several months, the thing we had been trying to avoid for another year, at least.
The Council had found me after all.