Aaron
One Week Later
Time doesn’t mean shit anymore. I’ve been staring at the same lesson plan for thirty minutes, the words blurring together into nonsense. The classroom is empty. The last student left ten minutes ago, but I haven’t moved.
The mate bond is eating me alive from the inside out.
A constant pull toward Mara that I can’t answer. Last night I woke up with every object in my suite floating off the ground. I couldn’t bring them down for almost an hour.
I’m falling apart at the fucking seams.
I look down at my hands. They’re trembling. I press them flat against the desk, trying to steady them, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works. The only thing that would help is the one thing I can’t have. Mara in my arms, her scent filling my lungs, her tail brushing against my skin.
Is she feeling it too? The pull? The physical ache of being separated? I’ve tried to reach her every day this week. The Lion Shifter Wing might as well be a fortress. Meekah standing guard like some massive, smug soldier, Mara’s brothers flanking him with their claws out and their tails lashing.
I tried using a portal yesterday. Headmistress Ebony caught me halfway through the spell and shut it down.
“You will respect her boundaries, Mr. Blackwood,” she’d said, her voice cold. “Or you will find yourself suspended from this Academy.”
Exhaustion weighs on me. I haven’t slept more than two hours at a stretch since Mara left. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face. The hurt in her eyes when she realized what I’d done. The way her tail had gone limp behind her.
The whole Academy feels different now. Students who used to greet me in the halls now look away when I pass. Colleagues who once stopped to chat now find urgent reasons to be elsewhere. Even Seth has been avoiding me, though that changed today.
Everyone is afraid of me.
I can’t scent emotions the way shifters can, but I don’t need to. It’s in the way they hold themselves, the way their eyes dart away, the hushed conversations that stop when I enter a room. They know a piece of me broke when Mara left. They can see the cracks spreading.
I pick up a pen, twirl it between my fingers. Blue-gold sparks dance along the metal. I drop it with a curse.
“Damn, man. You look like you’re about to crack.”
I lift my head. Seth is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, watching me with that half-concerned, half-wary expression he’s been wearing all week. I didn’t even hear him come in.
“Do I?” My voice sounds off to my own ears.
Seth pushes off the doorframe and walks into the classroom, stopping a few feet from my desk. His eyes are soft, sympathetic in a way I’m not used to seeing from my little brother.
“Look,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I really hate seeing you like this.”
I look away, unable to hold his gaze.
“You should talk to Mom,” Seth continues. “She’s worried about you. We all are.”
I don’t respond. What would I even say? That I fucked up so monumentally that I might never recover from it? That I did the one thing guaranteed to make my mate walk away?
Seth sighs, waits another moment, then turns and leaves.
“I can help you.”
I haven’t heard it in a year, not since that night by the lake. I close my eyes, willing it away.
“You have the worst fucking timing.”
“You cannot strip a lioness of her primal nature.”
I try to focus on anything else. Anything but the voice haunting me.
“And you took something from her that is part of her identity,” he continues, undeterred.
“The lioness is a mother, a nurturer, a protector. She is fierce and territorial and loyal to her pride above all else. She’s spent her whole life learning from her human mother, from the other lionesses in her pride.
She knew who she wanted to be in your mate bond before you even knew her name. ”
Everything inside me snaps. I stand up so fast my chair topples backward, crashing to the floor. I scan the room, searching for any reflective surface where he might be hiding.
“I haven’t heard from you for a year,” I snarl, stalking around the classroom. “I thought you were dead.”
“And how did that make you feel?” Eric’s voice seems to follow me, shifting from one corner of the room to another.
I say nothing, my hands clenching into fists at my sides.
I stop at one of the student desks, placing my hands flat against the surface, trying to ground myself.
“So let me get this straight,” I say through clenched teeth. “You’ve been missing for a whole year, just watching me. Waiting for me to fuck up so you’d have a reason to speak to me again.”
“I thought you would want space with your lioness,” Eric replies. “She is a very complex woman. I left you alone so you could learn her.”
“And you can leave me alone now.”
“What you’ve done here,” he says, his voice taking on a lecturing tone that makes me want to set something on fire, “it’s going to require you to demonstrate dominance. Her father will never accept you now unless you challenge his lion’s pride.”
I move around the classroom, checking every surface that might hold a reflection. The windows. The glass case of magical artifacts. The small mirror by the door.
Finally, I catch sight of him in the polished surface of a brass telescope on the shelf.
“Looks like we’re back to the same ol’ shit,” I mutter. “Bye, Eric.”
“Wait!” His voice is urgent now. “There’s something you should know—“
I flick my fingers, blue-gold light flashing from my palm, and his reflection vanishes. The spell is so easy now, like breathing.
I groan, running a hand over my face. I can’t keep doing this on my own. I’ve been trying to figure this out alone for a week, and look where it’s gotten me. Nowhere. I need help.
I walk back around the desk and open a portal with a flick of my wrist. The blue-gold light swirls into existence, and through it, I can see my mother and Jacob’s cabin. They’re in the living room. My mother is pacing, hands on her hips, while Jacob sits on the edge of the sofa, watching her.
“—don’t care what Headmistress Ebony said,” my mother is saying, her voice thick with frustration. “He’s my son. If he’s falling apart, I need to—“
Jacob looks up, catching sight of me through the portal. His face breaks into a grin.
My mother turns, her frown softening when she sees me. I step through the portal and close it behind me with a snap of my fingers.
“We heard about what happened,” she says, her voice gentle. “We were just deciding if we were going to visit you or not.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Really, Ma?”
“Hello, son,” Jacob says, but I don’t greet him back. I walk over to the sofa and sink down onto it, burying my face in my hands.
“Ahhh, this fucking mate bond,” I groan. “She wanted to torture me. Well, it’s working. It’s working well.”
My mother walks over, placing her hands on her hips as she looks down at me. “What happened?”
I look up at her, exhaustion pulling at every muscle in my body. “Ma, I’m here for help, not judgment.”
She glares at me. “Baby, I’m not trying to judge you. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on so I know how to help you.”
I drop my gaze, staring at the floor between my feet. Jacob approaches, standing beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her hands fall from her hips.
I lift my face, looking at both of them. The words stick in my throat, humiliation burning through me. But I’ve run out of options.
“I shielded myself,” I finally say, the words falling flat.
“Shielded yourself from what?” My mother’s brow furrows. “What could—“ She stops, looking at Jacob, pieces clicking together in her head. Her face curls up, the anger rising on it in slow motion.
Here it comes. The judgment.
“Are you stupid, boy?” she snaps. “Why would you shield yourself from your mate?”
I stand up from the sofa, getting defensive. “You shielded yourself from Jacob!” I point at her, anger rising to match hers.
“Boy, that was because I had to! I thought I was going to die.” She steps closer, her eyes flashing. “Are you in some kind of danger I don’t know about? What would make you do something so stupid?”
I groan, throwing my hands up in exasperation. “I thought it would make her happy! She said she didn’t want a baby on the community lands.”
Jacob clears his throat. “Levi has mentioned to me twice that he’s waiting for you to approve the floor plans. You haven’t responded in six months.”
“Six months?” My mother’s voice rises in disbelief, her hands going back to her hips.
“Ma, please—“ I start, but she cuts me off.
“Don’t ‘Ma, please’ me, Aaron. Six months?”
“I got caught up,” I admit, but even as the words leave my mouth, I realize how weak they sound. I cringe, lowering my head in shame. “There’s something else.”
Jacob coughs, a grin at the corners of his mouth. My mother looks between us. “What’s going on?”
I lift my head, clearing my throat nervously. “There’s some... odd side effect from my spell.”
Jacob snorts, his eyes crinkling. “I’ll leave you two to discuss it. I’ll go find Levi.”
My mother looks at him with a glare, and I quickly chime in. “Hell no, you are not leaving me alone with my mother. She’s too judgmental right now.”
“And you have half a damn brain,” she snaps, “the other half of it sits...” She stops, realization dawning on her face. She looks to Jacob with an ‘O’ face, and a look passes between them.
Jacob snorts again, shaking his head.
“What?” I look between them. “What am I missing here? Is this normal?”
My mother turns to me, her anger softening into exasperation. “Every spell you cast for personal gain has a price. You interfered with the mate bond by doing that.”
“But how?” I ask. “There’s birth control in Wintermoon now, and—“
“But it doesn’t always work,” she cuts me off.
“Almost never works, for the most part. You don’t stop making babies until Mother Fate decides.
” She sighs, shaking her head. “And that’s different.
You’re mixing science with magic. You took away Mara’s natural order.
Did you not think you wouldn’t have to pay for that? ”
“Did she know?” Jacob asks quietly.
I shake my head. “She does now.”
My mother sighs, her shoulders slumping. “Well, this all makes perfect sense now.”
“How do I make it stop?” I ask, desperation creeping into my voice. “I’ve lifted the shield.”
Jacob snorts again, then scratches his head. “Well, your mother was in a feral state for a while with me. She didn’t calm down until after Seth was born, and that’s when we knew the effects of the spell had fully lifted.”
My mother turns to him, smirking. “What Jacob is trying to say is that we experienced a similar side-effect from my spell.” She and Jacob trade a look—slow and private—and that’s all it takes for me to put together exactly what kind of side-effect she means.
I start coughing, gagging at the mental image. “I did not want to know the fucking details, Ma!”
Jacob laughs.
“You’ll have to let it run its course,” my mother explains, more serious now. “That’s the law of magic. You can’t just make everything go away with the snap of your fingers. There’s always a cost when personal gain is involved.”
“Well, I’m going to get my mate back. I’m not going to sit here and wait for this to pass.”
Jacob holds up his hand. “What were the terms?”
I look at him, confused. “Huh?”
“Mara,” he says. “The lioness would have given you terms.”
“She wants cubs,” I tell him, the words heavy in my mouth. “How am I supposed to put a baby in her if she won’t talk to me?”
“And...?” Jacob prompts.
I groan, feeling my failure pressing down on me. “She wants a home to raise them in.”
I look to my mother, pointing at her. “But I’ve been stalling too because of you. And Tiana.”
“Now hold the hell on, Aaron,” she snaps. “How is your stupidity my fault?”
“You won’t even warm up to her.”
She scoffs. “Oh please. Now you’re being ridiculous.”
“Am I, Mom?” I step closer, my voice rising.
“You and Tiana are making her feel uncomfortable. And you expect her to just move into the pack and put up with both of your bad attitudes?” I shake my head.
“I’m not putting up with another Nia and Olivia situation.
My woman comes first. Until you and my sister figure out how to properly accept her, she’s not moving here. ”
My mother puts her hands on her hips, but the guilt is in her eyes. Jacob notices it too, from the way he’s looking at her.
“Well then,” she mutters, “it looks like you’ve got a long wait ahead of you.”
“Angie,” Jacob says, a warning in his tone.
“I’m not going to let him sit and blame me for this,” she snaps.
“I’m not blaming you, Ma,” I argue, but the words fall flat, even to me.
I shake my head, stepping back. “Forget it. It was a mistake coming here for help. I’ll find someone else.”
“Wait, son.” Jacob moves forward, putting a hand to my chest when I try to walk around him.
“Do this in proper order and she’ll come back.
Trust me on this.” His eyes hold mine. “We’ll go to Levi and see if we can speed up construction on your cabin.
Once she sees a proper home waiting for her, she’ll be on the porch without asking.
She can feel the pull of the mate bond as much as you do.
But the lioness is very stubborn. She will not yield until her demands are met. ”
I look to my mother, then back to Jacob. “Thanks, Jacob. I’ll figure it out on my own.”
I open a portal, blue-gold light swirling into existence. On the other side, I can see the territory line of Solaris Pride, the guards standing alert at their posts.
“Wait a damn minute, where are you going?” my mother demands.
I look back at them, my decision already made. “To Solaris Pride. I’m getting my mate back. Even if it means I have to fight her father again.”
“Oh shit,” my mother mutters.
Jacob groans, rubbing a hand over his face.
I step through the portal, the cool air of the forest hitting my face. Behind me, I hear my mother grab Jacob’s hand.
“We can’t just let him go through with this,” she says. “Come on, you’re alpha.”
Jacob groans again as she pulls him through the portal after me.
I walk straight to the territory line, magic pulsing from my fingertips. The guards stiffen, their tails rising in alarm as I approach.
“I’m here to collect my mate,” I announce, my voice carrying through the clearing. “By any means necessary. So go get your alpha. Or I’ll do it myself.”