Chapter 4 Bryden
brYDEN
The temperature had dropped after nightfall.
Instead of the agony from the past few days, I was pain-free, and it was as though I was floating above my body. Was I already dead?
I peered over the river and beyond to the mountains. Were they the ones where Emerson hid with his mate? If we could see one another just once, I’d tell him I had a mate. And said mate was weaving between the trees toward me with something in his hands.
He was coming for me because he loved me, and I adored him, though I didn’t know his name or also whether he was a shifter or not. Perhaps he was a bear like me? Or a wolf? Or he could be human. That would bring challenges, but we’d work through them.
I tried to wave to him, but he wasn’t looking upward at me floating above him but rather at my body beside the river.
He couldn’t hear me either when I shouted.
I should go back down there and we could chat, but when I did my best to swoop down, nothing happened.
I stayed aloft, and my beast was annoyed, saying he wasn’t supposed to be airborne.
“I’m here. You’re going to be fine.”
My mate was talking. Was he with the goddess too? We’d be together for eternity.
But my mate put a hand on me and it was so real. The warmth of his palm and his breath that smelled of something sweet. His skin was so pale and yet he appeared healthy.
I found myself falling, and I cringed as I prepared to hit the ground.
But instead of slamming onto the forest floor, I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t lying near the creek but was propped up against the same tree where I’d been after the beta attacked me.
And a man, the one from my imagination, was kneeling in front of me.
“You need a doctor and antibiotics.” He brought a water bottle to my lips and urged me to drink. “But I have something that will cure the infection so manmade medicine might not be necessary.”
Despite my injuries, my sense of smell was intact. It was almost the only part of me that was unaffected by my loss of blood and infection.
Mate.
My beast’s voice was weak, but I heard him, and I allowed the man’s aroma to swirl around me. If I’d been well, it would have teased and taunted me, but now it wrapped itself around my body and kissed my skin.
He was my mate and he was a shifter. But what kind? I couldn’t pick up on it through his scent.
“I have to shift.”
He removed his clothes, but my eyes were half closed and my head slumped to the side. I pried my eyes open and blinked, dazed that my mate’s skin had been transformed from pale to dazzling. What was he?
He shifted and four long legs appeared and a mane. My mate was a horse.
No. Look.
I was looking as best I could even though I needed something to prop my eyes open. And I was burning up with fever. My body was on fire and my parched throat needed water. My neck didn’t have the strength to keep my head upright.
He’s got a horn.
My frazzled brain pictured a musical instrument that my mate was going to put to his lips. Was he going to toot it?
I heaved up my bowed head. The “horse” had a horn on his forehead or muzzle or snout or whatever horses had. The tip was pointing upward, and it sparkled in the sun.
Gods, he was a unicorn. My mate, the mythical beast. I understood dragon and unicorn shifters existed, but I’d never encountered one.
The unicorn lowered himself to the ground. He folded his front legs before sinking onto his haunches. I wondered if he was going to have a conversation, but I was past talking, and if he didn’t give me more water, I’d be unconscious.
The tip of his horn came dangerously close to my calf and ankle, but I couldn’t move. The horn touched my skin, and there was a sparkling followed by a flash and sharpness, as if I was getting an injection. I experienced a sensation of something flowing into my veins and speeding through my body.
My body cooled a little, though I was still feverish, and the redness around the open wounds faded. I closed my eyes and allowed him to do whatever he was doing.
There was a rustle, and when I glanced up, he was in human form and pulling on his pants. He offered me more water, and I gulped it down, swallowing a couple pills he gave me.
“How are you feeling?”
I hadn’t imagined a unicorn’s voice before, but if I had, this was exactly how it would be. It was light and it sounded as though it was frolicking with the wind.
“Not as bad as before.” I was surprised I could speak, but my bear also had more energy, though neither of us could manage a shift.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
I wasn’t in the mood to give him my life history but said I was rogue and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“I need to move you somewhere safer, just for the night.” He told me he couldn’t take me home with him.
I got that. No one wanted to be associated with a rogue.
But there was a cave not far from here where he’d played as a kid.
It’d be better than being outside, especially as it looked like rain.
He shuddered when he mentioned the rain, but I ignored it.
“And I’ll smother the surrounding area with another scent to cover yours so no one else will attack you.”
He picked me up, and I flopped against him as he strode through the trees.
His heartbeat was like no other, and it was more of a tinkling or pattering than a thump.
And when he put me down on the ground, I was on a blanket.
It scented of him, though it wasn’t fresh.
After opening my eyes, there was a light coming from the right, but above me was dark.
It wasn’t intimating, but accompanied by my mate’s scent, it was comforting.
He tucked something under my head and examined my wounds.
“You still need more antibiotics, but you’re no longer in immediate danger.” He felt my forehead. “And your fever is mild.”
I blinked as the last rays of the sun penetrated the cave.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Roland.” He pulled out a candy bar from his pocket. “This is all I have, but I’ll bring more food in the morning, Bryden.”
I must have introduced myself because he called me by my name.
“Do you know who I am?”
“You’re a unicorn shifter and I’m a bear.”
Roland brought his water bottle to my lips, and I drank, though water dribbled over my chin.
“Mmmm, but I’m more than that.”
Oh, was he the Alpha? Was I destined to be the Alpha Omega? But I was rogue, so he’d have to keep me hidden, though as Alpha, he could remove my rogue designation.
“You didn’t sense anything when I came near?”
He was talking about us being mates, and he was attempting to get me to acknowledge it.
“You’re my fated mate.”
He sighed. Not in a sad kinda way but as if a hurdle had been removed.
“Yeah. Weird way for us to meet.”
He didn’t go into the logistics of mating with a rogue shifter, and I needed to sleep.
“I have to go because I’m expected back and someone will come looking for me if I don’t.”
He stroked my cheek, and I leaned into his touch.
“But I promise I’ll be back tomorrow as soon as it’s light.”
As my fated mate, he wouldn’t be able to stay away unless someone restrained him, but there was truth in his voice, and I didn’t doubt he’d return.
Roland placed his lips on my brow, and I trembled. They didn’t appear to contain the power of his horn. I wasn’t magically healed, but as my mate, that connection between us was as powerful as any modern medicine or shifter magic.
“Sleep well and restore your strength.”
He moved to the entrance of the cave and the remaining light silhouetted his body. And with one final wave, he was gone.