We Failed

We Failed
Oakley

Crisp morning air carries the scent of lavender and rosemary. I tuck my sheets in tight, carefully laying out the quilt I just finished and then fluffing my pillows. 

It’s a familiar morning routine that now feels totally foreign. I used to be able to skip over the squeaky floorboards, having memorized which ones make the most noise, but now it’s unfamiliar, like I’ve forgotten the very layout of my room. 

I gather my sweat-soaked sheets from the floor and walk into the hallway to toss them down the laundry chute, where busy hands that don’t belong to me will clean them within the hour, and once the sun sets and the laundry is gathered from the line, they’ll be left in front of my bedroom door to repeat the process.

Four nights of nightmares. Four nights of thrashing and waking up in a cold sweat. Four nights of echoing pain radiating from the void in my chest where the mate bond used to be.

Four nights of fresh scars that continue to carve my skin raw. 

So, I wear long sleeves. No one knows. No one, including and especially my parents, have said a thing since I returned, battle worn and half lucid. I’m sure they were filled in on it by the royal family. They were not prepared for this. 

They were preparing for a union that will never happen. 

A steady stream of heavily sweetened tea is all that’s keeping me upright, and no one fights me about it. Not yet. 

Grandma Freya is the only person who has dared share space with me since I returned. She’s never been one to walk on eggshells, and she also doesn’t believe in idle hands. 

Just as I’m wrapping myself in my favorite quilted robe, she walks into my room without knocking, carrying a basket of yarn on her hip and a teapot in the other hand. 

She doesn’t say a word, and neither do I. She settles into the rocking chair by the window while I sit on my bed. She pours the tea, and I drink it. We knit, even though my scarred hands are still stiff. 

Today–my third full day home after being dragged through hell and spit out again–her hands make quick work of the collars of the two sweaters I’ve been knitting while I work on a third. 

“You’ve chosen lovely colors,” she says, and they are the first words I’ve processed since Ian pressed his lips to my forehead and told me he was sorry. 

I believed him. 

I still do. 

I forgive him, if I must. 

For now, grief and heartache have a firm grip on my senses. 

“Thank you, Grandma,” I manage to whisper, but my throat is hoarse from lack of use. 

A commotion sounds downstairs, but we both ignore it. A few seconds later, one of my little cousins knocks on my bedroom door before letting himself in, breathless from the climb to the fourth floor, and tells Grandma, “We have guests.”

“Right on time. Take this kettle downstairs, Lonny. We’ll need more tea.” She rises, leaving her knitting behind, and closes the door behind her. 

I let out my breath in a whoosh and turn my attention back to the third sweater. I keep messing up. My fingers feel clumsy and unfocused. 

I’ll never finish it. I guess it doesn’t matter if I do, seeing as I’ll never see its intended owner again. 

Another knock on my door alerts me to a great presence behind the worn wood, but before I can rise, the door opens wide. 

Naomi has to duck through the doorway on her way into my sacred safe place. I assume her bedroom in Moonrise is glorious, probably painted with real gold. She glances around before leaning on the door to shut it, taking in my squeaky, worn floorboards and mismatched curtains. Her eyes meet mine but have no warmth, which, at least, I expect. 

I did not expect this visit, however. 

“Well, I see you’re somewhat recovered. I’m here to check on your scars.”

“You’ll be sorely disappointed to know it’s still happening.” I ignore the urge to bow in her presence and pick up my knitting needles again. 

“Still? But you’re no longer his mate. You should be free of whatever is forcing this transformation.” While her words feign confusion, she doesn’t look the least bit surprised.

“Well, that’s what we all believed, isn’t it?” My arm aches. Constantly. My fingers feel like they’ll fall off at any given second, but I keep knitting. I won’t stop until I can’t any longer. “What happens to me now? I suppose you’ve spent your time back in civilization making some sort of plan to recover Ian when his training with Fraser is over, whatever that looks like.” The bite in my voice isn’t something I’m familiar with. 

She sizes me up with a glare. “You’re obviously in pain.”

“Of course I am.”

“Do you blame me for how things ended?” She steps toward my bed. “I can assure you, I am doing everything I can to not only bring Ian back but to also ensure you’re taken care of.”

“I don’t need taking care of,” I argue. 

“Bullshit. Do you really think the royal family is going to let something like this slide? You were an innocent victim, a bystander.”

“I was his mate,” I whisper painfully, meeting her gaze. Her eyes are the same color as one of the sweaters I made over the past few days. I’m not even sure why I felt called to do it, but it seemed like I needed something tangible to remind me that this actually happened and that I’m not crazy and actively losing my mind. 

“Precisely.” She drops onto the end of the bed but doesn’t reach for me. “You weren’t going to be abandoned by us just because Ian had to stay behind.”

“I left him there,” I gut out, the dam of emotion I’ve been holding back for days threatening to release. “I left him there. I didn’t fight hard enough. I didn’t try to convince him that rejecting me wouldn’t work.”

“But it did work. He can’t hurt you now. His beast has no ties to you.”

“I’m dying.” 

Naomi startles, utterly confused. The words sink between us for several aching seconds before she clears her throat and says, “I’ve heard rejection can be excruciating, yes.”

I roll up my sleeve and show her my skin. She blinks, then briefly meets my gaze before looking back down at the scars, which are now bright red instead of smooth silver and festering. 

“I can fetch you a healing draft.”

“Do you really think I haven’t tried? I’m contemplating cutting my arm off at the elbow, Naomi, but it’s deeper than that. It didn’t work. Maybe Ian is better. Maybe he can gather himself to the point he can come home eventually, but something is wrong with me.” A tear I didn’t anticipate falls from my lashes, wetting my cheek. “It was for nothing. I could be there with him right now. I could have had another… what, a week? Another week with him before whatever this curse is takes both of us, but instead, he sent me away, and I let him. I agreed to the rejection. It’s my fault.”

“I’m going to take you to Moonrise now,” she says, standing. “So we can sort this out and get you help.”

I shove my sleeve down and shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“So you’re going to sit here and let this consume you?”

“Fraser made it clear this was a possibility. He made it clear to all of us that this could happen!”

“There are more than curses,” she argues, “much more. This is fae magic, and there’s very little we know about it still. But we have incredible healers in Moonrise.”

“I do not want help. I’m past it.”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about! You’re a shifter from the Deadlands. I’m a highly trained witch. I can help you!”

I rise on unsteady legs. “I went against the Goddess that last night, Naomi, when Ian nearly killed you and your cousins, and I led him into the woods. I saw him in his true form, the fae form that’s going to strip him of the Ian we all know and love. I agreed to the rejection because he was convinced it was the only way to keep me safe. And we… He wanted to…”

“You what?” she hisses, narrowing her eyes. “What, exactly, did you do?”

“We… slept together. Then again, the night before he was forced to reject me.”

She scoffs. “Oh, like that’s bad?”

I step into her space, feeling a wash of confidence so strong it has my tongue moving before my fevered brain has a chance to catch up with the words now spilling from my lips. “He made me his wife. We handfasted.”

Her eyes widen. “You’re his wife?”

“He was still there, the real Ian. The one I know and love. The man who would have paid my bride price. That’s who I kissed. That’s who I gave myself to in body and name, and maybe you don’t understand it and can’t fathom why this is so important to me, but you’re right. I’m a shifter from the Deadlands. I’m a daughter of the tribes. That was sacred, and I took it, selfishly, knowing there was no future for us anymore. When he rejected me, it felt like I was dying. It still does. But I will gladly die here, in this bed, knowing he has a fucking chance at coming home.”

“You’re acting insane. You have to let me help you. If you’re truly this ill, it needs to be dealt with. My Aunt Marianna went through something similar. Actually, that’s it.” She whirls, giving me her back. “Goddess, how could I have not noticed it? This is a binding curse.” She pivots to face me, her eyes wild with excitement. “This is just a binding spell. Who knows if anyone back then tried dark magic like that? I can fix this. Blake can help if it’s just a binding spell.”

“Just?” I laugh, but it's bitter and wet. “It’s over, Naomi. There’s five days until the full moon.”

“That’s five days to fix this!”

“There is no fixing this. I feel that in my soul, Naomi. My wolf is gone. This magic? This curse? Whatever you think it is, it took my wolf. That’s it. It took my mate. It took whatever future I had laid out before me.”

“There’s still time!”

“You’re not hearing me!” I shout, well aware of the shuffling taking place beyond my bedroom door. I don’t even care that my family is eavesdropping at this point. Let them. “Regardless of what happens to me, it’s over. I was rejected by my mate. I handfasted with a man who can’t actually marry me under the covenants of my mother’s tribe because he is not here. He’s gone, and he’s not coming back because we failed. The rejection didn’t work,” I hiss, tears blurring my vision. “I am no longer eligible, Naomi. My life going forward, if I survive this, and the full moon doesn’t strip me to the bone, is a life spent alone.”

“That is asinine and backward,” she snaps. 

“And if,” I snarl, my entire chest trembling, “I am pregnant….”

Naomi’s hard expression shatters in an instant. She searches my eyes, panics, and whispers my name, but I’m beyond hearing it. 

“If I’m pregnant,” I continue, feeling oddly calm all of the sudden, “what then? I raise the heir to the Deadlands alone? Or if I die, the child loses both parents? What have we done?”

“My family would not allow you to do this on your own. You would have our full support behind you.”

“I didn’t want this,” I whisper. “I wanted him. I wanted a life with him. I didn’t want to do this on my own. I don’t want to die alone.”

“You won’t.”

“Look at me, Naomi.” I tug the collar of my nightgown down to show her the dark, black and green swirls spreading like veins under my skin. “It’s too late. It’s too late to stop this. This curse was for both of us, Ian and his mate. I am his mate. It’s too late for all of us. We failed.”

Naomi takes several breaths but shakes her head. “There is still time.”

“For him,” I say, and turn from her to sit back on my bed and pick up my knitting. “But I’m tired.”

“I’m not letting you just give up.”

“It’s not your decision to make.”

“You’re a stubborn bitch, Oakley!”

I meet her eyes to ask if she’s gone insane. I wonder if I’m insane, fighting with a royal like this, but I don’t have a chance to ponder it for very long. 

She closes her fingers into fists and looks at me for a long, long time, like she’s looking through me, debating her next words very, very carefully. “What if I took you back?”

“To where?”

“To Fraser.”