Chapter 42 — Fagua

I felt something familiar, the same feeling I had when I first mated with Winter. A feeling of exhaustion, as if every last piece of energy had been taken from me. I couldn't control these gnawing feelings that were constricting my thoughts. I sucked in a breath of air and I felt as if I was slowly waking from a dream. My body felt cold and numb.

I tried to open my eyes—it was as if I'd lost all sense of time—but it felt as if I’d been in a coma. One that I was desperately trying to awake from. Though I couldn't see properly, I knew that I was alone.

Husk had brought me to the hotel and left me. I wondered for a split second if I was in the casino.

Nope, the room was rustic and antique. A wooden table, red carpet, and deep red matching curtains hung from silver rings over the floor-to-ceiling windows. Nothing about this room was familiar. I tried to sit up, to get a better view so I could draw the curtains and take in my surroundings, but I felt so weak. I realized that mating with Husk wasn't like it was with Sky or Winter. It was so much more intense. When I was with Husk, each one of his thrusts felt as though he burrowed into more than just my body. He'd burrowed into the real me—right down to my core. Sexually, Husk and I fit on a level completely different than anyone else before. Yet, in every other way, we were like oil and water.

I wondered if maybe we'd gotten it all wrong, and panic started to enter my mind. Maybe mating with Husk wasn't the solution to all our problems but the beginning of the end.

My throat was dry and my head was pounding as I tried even harder to focus and open my eyes. I closed them and tried to control my breathing because I was so nervous.

I took deep breaths, and with each inhale and exhale I tried to focus on sitting up in the bed. Getting out and walking felt too much for me, I would take it in baby steps.

I felt different somehow, like a snake that had shed its skin and a new body and mind had developed as a result of it. I shifted my hand to the side and then lifted it up in the air slowly and with control. It must have just lifted only a couple of inches from the bed. In unison, my phone, which was on the side table, started to move up too. I couldn't see properly with only the dim light filtering in from the curtain not being closed properly, so I focused on the lamp.

As I closed my eyes, I focused on it and turned it on with my mind.

A smile broke across my face.

I tried to repeat what I'd, but this time with my force and with my eyes wide open.

"No," I whispered to myself.

It couldn't be.

As though nothing had changed, the side table didn't move. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. I could easily shift the table to the side of the room before, without a second thought, but now it was so damn hard.

Too fucking hard.

"No!" I cried as I sunk into the bed. I covered my face in defeat, frustrated about the whole trail of events. Maybe a shower would give me the energy that I needed to complete a simple task. A few days ago, I couldn't move anything, and now I'd done it, but not like before.

My stomach rumbled, letting me know that it was time to eat. I wasn't in the mood for a big breakfast; maybe some toast and eggs would quench my hunger and give me the strength I needed to fully regain my powers.

I shifted out of the bed and went into the bathroom. The more I moved, the more I started to feel like my former self. I headed to the shower, and as I turned on the cold water, my body began to feel hot, as if it were on fire. I didn't understand why, but I only put on the cold water, wondering if the change to my body from having powers to not, had caused it to act strange.

As I stripped off my clothes and then stepped into the shower, memories of the early hours of the morning and last night with Husk entered my mind. His power and strength as he imprinted on me. It had scared and excited me at the same time. As if I was his world, and his acts toward me in the past, weren't a true reflection of how he felt about me.

I'd been completely wrong about him. I'd thought of him as nothing but a brute and unable to care or even think about anyone else but himself and his brothers.

He'd proven to me in a touch that he was capable of love, and I had to open my heart to him. But that wasn't something I could do overnight.

With Winter, I'd done it so easily, and with Sky it had taken a little time. I'd thought it had been impossible with Husk, but now he'd shown that it was possible. We just had to take our time to get to the stage where we were completely connected with each other.

My stomach rumbled again, letting me know that I desired more than just a small breakfast. So, I cast out thoughts of Husk and the memories of him imprinting on me.

After I finished washing and rinsing, I turned off the shower. I patted myself dry and took out the dress I'd brought with me. I had no change of clothes, and my irritation that Husk would just dump me here and go wherever he went, irked me. It reminded me of how he locked me up in the penthouse when we first met. I used the hotel dryer to dry my hair, half of me hoping that Husk would return before I finished with breakfast and our relationship would be better since we were intimate.

Half an hour later, my hair was done and I was dressed.

The key was on the side table with my phone, so I took both of them, slipped on my shoes, and headed out. I hesitated, wondering if I should leave Husk a note. I decided against it. I would send him a message, and maybe, just maybe, he would join me if he hadn't eaten already.

I was a bit annoyed as I left the room. It was so selfish of him to go out without telling me where he was going or offering to take me with him. After such a magical night, why would he not send a message or even leave a note to tell me he was going out? Winter wouldn't do that. No way. He would always tell me when he was leaving and even offer for me to go with him. And Sky would have stayed here until I woke up.

I had to stop comparing him to his brothers, but there were little things like that that annoyed me.

I put on a false smile as I headed down to the restaurant to have breakfast. Other wolves mingled with their mates, smiling, some of them even holding hands. I even saw a same-sex mated pair cuddled together in a booth near the windows. It confirmed what I'd already suspected—not all wolves were brutes. Some of them could be affectionate; it was just my third mate who didn't know how to be.

There was a buffet on display, and I started to fill my plate after giving my room number. I put Husk to the back of my mind, as I focused on devouring the scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, and hash browns that I'd piled on my plate in a little mountain. I'd thought I was just a bit peckish, but I was far from it.

I sat in the corner and adjusted my pink summer dress, to make myself feel more at ease. My phone rested to the side of my plate. I began to eat, and it was as if the phone was possessing me, as the more I ate, the more my hunger increased.

Each bite melted in my mouth, making me crave more. Until I decided that I needed a little pepper, and saw the pepper shaker on the other side of the table. My mind told me to bring it to me. And then like that, it was in my hand, confirming what I'd already suspected. That mating had returned my powers, and I just needed to eat to get my energy back. As my once full plate became empty, no more was I annoyed about Husk. I was just thinking about what to eat next.

****

I'd overeaten, and there was still no sign of Husk. I even sent him a message, which he read but then failed to reply to. I was bored and unclear what to do next, so I headed to the lobby. The view from there was spectacular, as I could get a glimpse of the wolves as they played and ran wild in the wilderness.

I thought that would be Husk and me today, but instead he'd done a disappearing act. I decided to call Rebecca. But when her voicemail came on, I didn't leave a message. I frowned at the phone, wanting to talk to another woman and not one of my mates. I bit my lip, thinking of Mayia. Maybe she understood what was going on because I sure as hell was confused.

"Hey, Mayia," I said, relieved that she picked up the call. It was daylight, and vampires tended to sleep at this hour. I tried to erase the fact that she was half-vampire out of my head at times, seeing as they had such a bad reputation.

"Fagua." She sighed. "I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. What's going on?"

"I'm bored," I admitted, thinking that I wouldn't hide anything from her.

She chuckled, as if she knew what was going on inside my head.

"Well, I gathered that from the fact you called. You obviously aren't imprinting with Husk or you wouldn't have called me."

"Don't say that. You're always in my thoughts."

"So you would be mating with him and then say, oh yeah, let me just make a quick call to Mayia. Husk, pull out for a second will you."

We both roared with laughter, and I drew the attention of others walking through the lobby. I quickly put my hand over my mouth, trying to contain my laughter and not wanting any more attention.

"You have a point. You're so bad."

"So what gives. Where's Husk?"

I shrugged and pouted, hating to admit the truth.

"Dunno. I woke up and he was gone. Now it's getting close to three and I still don't know where he is."

"Well, you tried calling him, right?"

I hated the idea of her asking me such an obvious question, but it was the first thing that always sprung to people's minds.

They often wondered if the other person had tried to make contact.

"Yeah, and he never picked up or replied to my message. So what am I supposed to do?"

"Maybe he's running around in the wilderness and can't get to the phone."

She was thinking the same thing as I was, which didn't give me any comfort. Especially after I saw he read my message and it had been a long time since I woke up. He could have had time for a quick reply if he'd been able to open the text and read it.

"That is exactly what I thought, and it just pissed me off even further." I shifted to the side of the lobby, which was silly because I was in a place surrounded by wolves and most of them could hear me from a mile away. I didn't care, though because I wanted to feel some kind of privacy, even if I was kidding myself.

"We're supposed to be here together and he just leaves me. No note. Nothing. Winter would never do that. Nor Sky. Husk is just—"

"Different?"

"Yeah. I know that he's different, not like his brothers at all. Not the least bit, and…"

"And he's different. That's the point of having three mates. They're different in every way. Now, what is it that you liked about him? The mating must have been good because usually you want him as far away from you as possible, so something's changed." I heard her smile on the other side of the phone. And I wished she were here so that she could hug me and tell me that all this craziness was in my mind and I shouldn't be so uptight, even though it was so hard.

"Look, it sounds like the pressure is getting to you. No one mates just to save wolves and all their kind. I think that's why you're letting your feelings take over and it's causing this confusion."

I shook my head in disagreement. Earlier in the shower, I had hope that last night meant something to him like it had me. But then he hadn’t shown back up or called or texted. Like he was avoiding me and his rejection hurt. Like it had just been sex for him.

"It's the pressure to be with a wolf that you want nothing from. It's one thing to mate and have that click, and it's another to force it. This all feels forced with him. We had an incredible night, but that was it. I mean, I can't just push away all the differences between us when there are so many things I don't like about him. I could list them all, but there's not enough hours in the day."

Before she had a chance to reply, a shadow in front of me blocked out the light.

"Fagua!" Husk grunted, and without saying another word, he was out of my sight.

"Shit, he heard all that, didn't he?" Mayia asked. "You need to go and sort it out with him. Tell him what you said before he heard what he heard so that there's some mutual understanding between the two of you."

I took a deep breath, knowing that I had to talk to Husk, but I wasn't in the mood. Let him think what he wanted to think. He left me all morning without a word. What did he expect?

Me to chase after him because he did the right thing?

No.

I would let him know that I had feelings too, and that his actions had consequences, whether he liked it or not.