MATE OF YOURS

Damon growls dropping his folded arms as he glares at me as if I was the cause. "I'm going to make it regret ever even looking at you." He promises and I feel my chest tighten slightly.

"We don't know if i-"

"Nothing else would leave prints that big." Damon continues cutting dad off. "I'll have my fun with that son of a b*tch when I find it."

I bite my tongue to stop the chance of me exclaiming my protests knowing that would only take me down a long, narrow path. Instead, I reply with the quickest reason my mind could come up with.

"I got distracted and wandered off." I explain, forcing myself to calm my heart. "I went into its territory I guess, and disturbed its hunting. It was just defense but it didn't kill me; it could've if it wanted to."

"Doesn't change the fact that it hurt you." Aiden says coldly. His eyes didn't light up with a fiery gaze like they usually did when he was mad. In fact, they were just cold.

Desperate to change the subject, I return my attention to Peter, sad and warmed by the fact that he was breaking down so openly in response to my suffering.

"Peter." I say making him stiffen. I pat the side of the bed with a small smile. "I have something to show you."

When he doesn't move, Julian nudges him forth gently and he sits on the spot timidly. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hand while sniffing in attempt to silence himself.

I grab my phone which was laying at the side of my bed. Finding the best picture of the bunnies I'd taken, I place the phone in his hand and watch with delight as his face lights up.

His tears immediately stopped as his eyes filled with awe, a small scream escaping his lips. We all chuckled slightly as his hand hovered over his mouth shakily. Those blue orbs were shining with joy and pure excitement as they quickly grew larger.

"B-B-Bunnies." He says a couple octaves higher than his usually wispy voice. "T-There are more?" He asks, zooming in on the picture.

"So many." I confirm smiling broadly at him as he spared me a glance. The tears return but I smile knowing it was because he was happy.

He looks at me and then back to the phone, alternating between the two for a few moments before jumping straight into my arms.

"I love y-you Feli." He whispers while squeezing the air out my lungs. "T-Thank you."

"No problem. I took more pictures for you too." I inform him and I swear his head was about to explode from how he shook in my hold. He pulls back before looking to the phone again.

He opens his mouth but only a small squeak mixed with what sounded like a whimper came out. I smiled at his happiness before comforting my other siblings the best ways I knew how.

I may have been hurt but I was still the eldest. I wouldn't let them mope around in guilt, sadness or any other negative emotion that I could deal with.

I'd talked to them enough that Hagen and Josey were back to laughing like themselves. Damon was no longer spouting threats every other second and Peter had, thankfully, stopped crying.

"Okay, let's give him some space so he can rest." Dad says when my responses became slower and my yawns more frequent. They all break off into a new chain of opposition at this. "You'll talk to him later." He promises while shoving them out until it was only my parents and I.

They both turn to me simultaneously, expressions mirrored causing me to hold my breath in fear.

"What's wrong?" I ask, my mind convinced they knew all about my mate.

"Feli, are you really okay?" Julian asks showing the distress he was hiding previously.

"I promise I am." I reply and I meant it. I was fine and I would be even better once I saw my mate again.

"I thought we'd lost you when you didn't come back." He confesses, his eyes glossing over as Aiden pulls him to his chest.

"Dad," I start but no words follow as he looks to me with a shaky smile.

"But you're okay. You're here and you're okay." He says more to himself than to me.

"You do know that this means you can't go back out there again. Not by yourself at least, and not for a long time." Aiden informs me with a tone that I knew better than to challenge.

"I know." I reply, letting myself sink further into the bed.

"Just get some rest." Julian says gently, his hand now in my hair. He strokes through my hair like he used to do when I'd wake up screaming as a kid. He kept doing it until my eyelids got heavy, raising the comforter a little higher up my chest before kissing my temple. "We love you Feli. So so much."

"I love you too dad." I whisper sleepily. My eyes close just after and I succumb to the exhaustion-driven slumber that awaited me.

***

I'd been home for two days now and I was on the verge of going crazy. I loved my family- I really really did, but I hadn't had a moment to breathe since the healing centre.

I knew they just were worried and wanted to make sure I was absolutely okay. But I wanted to see my mate and that was impossible with the way they followed me moreso than my very own shadow.

"Feli, are you okay?"

I stop twirling the food around my fork to look at the owner of the voice. I shouldn't be that surprised by now at all the eyes I found peering at me.

"Yea-" I stop myself short before a light bulb dings in my head. "No actually. I'm not feeling too good."

The alarm that spreads across there faces makes me almost feel guilty, but Goddess damnit I needed to see him.

"I'm going to go see aunt Katty." I announce before they could reply. Dad begins to get up to follow me but I quickly shove him back down. "You know how she hates people in her house."

"Be right back when you're done and if you need anything at all, just call us." Dad says firmly and I smile while nodding.

I don't even bother hanging around, I'm out the door in under five seconds and I run.

My wounds had healed completely by now, the small gathering of lines on my shoulder being the only remaining evidence of the deep claw mark that laid there before.

My legs take me straight to Aunt Katty's house and I almost break the door with the force I bombard it with.

"It's too f*cking early for this." Uncle Apollos groans as he stands before the door.

"Sorry." I say quickly.

"I'll deal with him." Aunt Katty says appearing next to him looking equally as tired, but I wasn't too surprised. The family was known for their unusual sleeping tendencies. It was a though they hibernated all the time.

I follow her into the house as she leads me to the kitchen, kindly setting a glass of water in front of me before gulping down one of her own.

"I need to see him." I announce firmly. Her eyes soften from their harsh stance to look to me.

"I know." She says resting her glass down. "But Feli, are you sure you can trust him not to hurt you again?"

"He won't." I say defensively. "He wouldn't hurt me."

"Feli … he already did." She says gently and I feel my eyes glow with the intent to cause some damage.

"But he didn't know that I was his mate." I explain when she sends me a doubtful look. "He was sorry after."

"He didn't say sorry." She jokes.

"He can't talk and you know that." I say almost poutingly.

"He must've been a feral child." She whispers to herself and I raise a curious eyebrow but she brushes me off. "I'm going to send you directly to your mate- a few steps away if anything. I'll be sure to tell your parents some bullshit, but you got two hours maximum."

"How will you find him?"

"The pain you were feeling without him, it's almost like an antenna or cable line for me. I can see the two points it's radiating from and the pain you're both signally." She explains and I feel my chest tighten slightly.

"He's in pain too?"

"Your parents never told you about this?" She questions in confusion. I shake my head no and she mutters something about incompetence. "It's called Mate Awareness. It only happens between every pair of mates in about one million. It's very rare and isn't common knowledge to many people."

"How do you know about it?"

"Well when your parents found out they were mates, as you know, it wasn't all smiles and rainbows." She muses and I nod. "The minute a barrier was between them, they'd suffer the same pain you do. It only goes away when you're in your mates company.

It forced Aiden and Julian to be together in the beginning, and your dad happens to think that if they didn't have that ,they would've never made it this far."

"So why do I have it?" I ask after a moment.

"My theory is that your little Goddess gives it to mates who she knows will be separated due to outside forces or even themselves. I think she puts the pain to force them together." She says with a small smile.

"So like a way to keep us together when the world won't let us?" I ask and she nods slowly. I play with the idea for a minute or two before smiling up to her. She smiles back to me, ruffling my hair like a kid before clapping her hands together.

"Now, how about we get you to that mate of yours."