Chapter 12 Ashur
Chapter Twelve
ASHUR
“Ashur!” The sound of my mate giggling my name had a large smile breaking onto my face, glad I’d gone with my instincts on this one.
My moon hadn’t chosen to put on a sweater, but I had decided she needed one anyway. Specifically, mine.
Now she was slipping her arms through my massive sweater, huffing and adjusting her hair.
I sat on the edge of the bed, pleased with seeing her in my clothes.
While she acted like she was upset, muttering and grumbling under her breath, I could tell from the smile playing on her lips that she didn’t really feel that way.
“Now I’m completely mismatched.” She stepped back, looking down at her leather ankle-boots, the bottoms of them bright pink, and her tight black pants.
I didn’t understand why my navy blue sweater didn’t match in her mind, but I also didn’t question it.
The woman was clearly some type of expert in clothing.
It was like she owned one of those human malls or department stores, all of it right at her finger tips.
The shoes had surprised me the most, by far.
I had thought they were joking about her hoarding them, but her shoes had a room all to themselves.
They lined shelf after shelf, each pair as perfectly unique as my mate.
Maybe I needed to get her a pair of shoes. I knew she liked the wolf necklace around her pretty throat, but maybe I could also get shoes…
“I think you look beautiful, my moon.”
Her grumbling cut off, and a slight pink hit her cheeks. “Alright, you’re forgiven for messing up my outfit then. That was super sweet.”
And here I hadn’t even thought she was truly mad at me. I was glad it was already fixed, though—I had no intention of fighting with this beautiful creature. She didn’t realize it yet, but I had dedicated the rest of my immortal existence to making her happy, no matter what I needed to do.
Right now, the thing that would make her happy was obvious—kill War.
The only aspect that concerned me was that if we killed him without first snapping his bonds to the humans, it could injure those involved, and that would not make my moon happy.
When I’d expressed my fears on the topic, her resolve to find the sis metas had only solidified.
“Just the truth.” I said, tugging her forward by the hips. “You sure you want to do this? I don’t remember the last time I interacted with the sis metas, and if they have been isolated for so long…I just worry they won’t react positively to unknown nightmares arriving.”
It also begged the question of how they had stayed isolated for so long. I had to assume that nightmares sought them out, and that they left sometimes looking for mates… Unless no one had children on the island because they didn’t want to risk outside exposure. I hadn’t accounted for that idea…
“Yes,” Arabella said, interrupting my string of thoughts. “I have a good feeling about this. There’s a reason my magic revealed such a hidden place to me.”
I nodded, and she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my lips. I was tempted to turn it into more than that, especially since I could scent that she and Amun had been in here and I craved to replace his magical signature with my own, but I restrained myself. I could tell she had a lot on her mind.
“What do you remember about sis metas?” she asked curiously, returning to the job of packing a small bag.
Damian had taken care of her clothes, but now she was packing an assortment of small pieces of technology—pieces that I didn’t recognize, even from my attempts to keep informed of the modern world from inside the Oceanic Forest.
“In their prime, they were a community spread wide and far,” I explained.
“Some had one mate, others had more. In fact, having more than one was much more common. It pushed nightmare society forward drastically, and the power balance allowed for everyone to live cohesively. Humans feared nightmares, but the most terrifying nightmares were mated to a sub-species of humans that weren’t scared of them and could carry their children to term.
“It didn’t become a problem until the sis metas began to showcase their ability to control nightmares when they acted out, stepping in when apocalyptic terrors tried to wreak havoc on large cities. They made a lot of enemies from that.”
“I imagine,” she murmured as she folded a few pieces of paper from her desk and placed them into the bag. “Is that why nightmares started to hunt them?”
“No; because they had so many high-power nightmares on their side, that wasn’t a particular issue,” I admitted. “The hunting began after they involved themselves in one of War’s wars.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Did they beat him?”
“They turned the tides for sure.” I chuckled softly. “He was enraged, and at first he only hunted the sis metas who’d been directly involved, but soon it turned to hunting all of them. Their mates were powerful, but a god terror…”
“Is a god terror,” she finished.
“Exactly.”
“What were you doing during all of this?”
“For a time, I was building up the land throughout Eastern Europe and Asia, and then I turned my attention here. I never interacted much with society; it’s a trait my siblings and I share.”
“Your siblings,” she began, moving back towards me, clearly finished packing. “Are they around?”
“They are, but they’re not currently sentient,” I explained.
“As creators of water and air, my brother and sister don’t feel the compelling urge to stay on solid ground like myself.
So they wander as they please until a whim hits them to change into a physical form, and then we will usually reunite.
It’s been around two hundred years since I last saw either of them, so when they do return I imagine I’ll have a lot to tell them. ”
“That’s not lonely?” she asked, her brows dipped in concern. “You don’t miss them?”
I tilted my head in thought. “No, not really, but we also haven’t ever been particularly close—it’s hard to be when you’ve been alive as long as we have. The nature of our existence is isolating, but you grow used to it and begin to even like it.”
A dark shadow crossed over her face. “These sis metas…what are their lifespans like? I know all of you will live for a really long time, and I didn’t think about it until recently, but what if I don’t? What if my lifespan is a normal human one?”
I could see her panicking at that idea, and while I planned to put her mind at ease, I couldn’t help but love the candid and blunt way she expressed her concerns.
“We can ask when we meet them.” I cupped her jaw.
“But my understanding is that when sis metas bond with their mates, the entire group gains the lifespan of whoever lives the longest in the bond. In this case, it would be immortality because of Saint and myself… Like I said, though, we can double check.”
Arabella blinked at me in surprise. “Wait, are you saying we’re immortal?”
“In theory. I think that’s how it works.”
I hadn’t realized the impact my words would have, but her squeal as she threw herself into my arms had me groaning. Clearly she was happy with the news, I should’ve known, because no one would ever want to die before one of their mates.
If true, it would also make me feel slightly better about her durability. Although, while her immortality would keep her safe from dying of old age, she could still be seriously injured.
“What did you tell her?” Saint demanded, strolling into the room.
Arabella got up and spun towards Saint, kissing him on the lips. “That whenever I complete all my bonds, everyone in it will gain the lifespan of whoever’s is the longest! Which is great because now I won’t die in like eighty something years, and it’s all because of you, Ashur, and Amun.”
Saint’s lips pressed up. “Funny you think I would let you die.” His gaze darted to mine. “That true for all sis metas?”
“I think we should ask when we go, but that’s my understanding.”
Arabella squeaked again, clapping her hands and going to the bathroom to grab something, Saint shook his head in amusement before nodding towards the door. “We’re good to go. We’ll leave from the underground garage and then take the jet.”
I unintentionally let out a frustrated noise. The jet. I hated that damn contraption. Saint obviously knew it as well, as he chuckled, grabbing the bag from Arabella as she came out of the bathroom and offered me her hand.
I took it without hesitation. I may hate the jet, but I would willingly travel with her anywhere.
My brows furrowed as I stared at the plate in front of Arabella.
The private flight steward had given us dinner about twenty minutes ago, and over the course of that time she had eaten maybe ten percent of it.
I was fighting the urge to grab her from across the table and pull her on my lap to feed her.
It was ridiculous, she was perfectly capable—
I picked up a biscuit from the center plate and placed it right in front of her. Blackwell and Damian, frustrated with the interruption of our conversation, both offered dissatisfied sounds that she ignored.
“Am I not eating fast enough?” she teased, taking a bite out of the biscuit and instantly calming me.
I didn’t even feel ridiculous about it either, because from across the way at another table of four, I could feel Razar, Zain, Cy, and Saint staring at her as well.
In fact, the only one who wasn’t was Amun, but that was because he’d fallen asleep, probably exhausted from the literal magical explosion they had caused.
I didn’t know how exactly to explain why I needed her to eat; it was just a base and primal need, one that wanted my mate taken care of as much as possible.
I didn’t mind admitting that, but there were other instinct-driven desires that had nothing to do with food that I was far less vocal about. At least around the others.
No, that provoked a much different image in my head, one that had me growing uncomfortably hard at the mere idea.
“Need you to eat more,” I grunted, keeping my response simple instead of allowing my brain to go down the route of imagining her bent over…
As if knowing, she flashed another smile and took another bite, turning the conversation back to travel plans.
While Arabella hadn’t planned out our travel, which I was gathering was the norm for her on the team since she handled logistics, Blackwell and Damian were catching her up.
We were only a few hours away from Cape Town, South Africa, and they were telling her about the boat they’d chartered to take us to the remote island where the sis metas lived.
Somehow I managed to stifle my groan. Much like being in the air in a metal contraption, traveling on water was not appealing to me. I had seen the way Arabella lit up in excitement, though, and at the end of the day, that was all I really needed—her happiness.
After watching her eat the rest of her plate, satisfied with the progress, I stood, excusing myself and walking towards the back of the jet so I could throw myself in one of the reclining seats to stretch out.
I had been in wolf form for so long that I often forgot what it was like to inhabit such a large human body.
Specifically, I’d forgotten how I never seemed to fit anywhere perfectly.
I would have thought that by now humans would have figured out that not everyone was built exactly the same, especially with nightmares walking around.
As I sat, my thoughts traveled to the last time I was away from the continental United States and how I’d craved returning. Maybe I knew I was supposed to be in the Oceanic Forest, that I needed to be there for when my mate came to find me.
The rocking of the boat was enough to make the strongest sailor sick to his stomach, and my grip on the railing was so tight I worried I’d break it.
The Atlantic Ocean was dangerous this time of year, and while we were traveling between Europe and North America, there weren’t nearly as many humans on this voyage as I would have assumed.
Which was good, because unless you had nightmare level strength to hold on, you would be overboard.
I considered siphoning some of my sister’s magic through our bond to lessen the storm, but I needed to preserve my energy. Traveling back home through the Americas was always complicated.
“Sir! You should be under deck!”
I turned to find a man that couldn’t be more than twenty looking panicked, probably because I didn’t look like I belonged up here. My human cover story probably had something to do with that.
“Let me help,” I said, figuring it was the best I could do. “I want to make sure we make it to the Americas.”
The boy stared at me, but then he shook his head and waved for me to follow.
Hours were spent navigating the turbulent seas, and only when the storm finally broke did we receive news that we hadn’t lost any sailors and that the passengers, while sick, were safe and sound.
I didn’t place nearly as much value in life, let alone human life, but the relief and excitement they felt was something I found myself enjoying.
Especially when they talked about the families they needed to get home to. I would never have that, but the sense of community was one I could appreciate in humans.
I never imagined meeting someone like Arabella. I’d assumed that I didn’t have a mate, despite instinctively knowing that I should. But none of my siblings had found mates, so I didn’t think I’d find mine either.
But now I had someone to come home to.
Someone who would worry about me, someone who cared about my well-being. The idea of someone like Arabella extending that to me, that sense of protectiveness, was so goddamn addictive. It made me want every ounce of her attention, even if it was selfish.
“About to land!” Arabella said as she sat next to me and took my hand. I’d told her I didn’t like when the plane landed, which was true…but more than anything I loved the sensation of her hand against mine.
I loved her…I just had to find a way to tell her that.