Her Brother, Her Mate

Mitch POVContent from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.

I f****d up. I f****d everything up. I let my past influence my future and hurt my mate. I rejected her without truly contemplating the consequences until it was too late. She said she never wanted to see me again. She rejected me too. It’s too late. I f****d everything up, and it’s too late to fix it.

It took me nearly 24 hours to fully heal from the damage my brother did to my face. 24 hours of being in agony over my broken bond with my mate. The bond I broke. Now, I’m numb with the reality of the situation I put myself in. I can’t live without my mate. I couldn’t survive without Hadley. It will kill me if I try. I can’t spend the rest of my life watching my brother live a happy life with her, and I’m forever without the greatest gift I so stupidly threw away.

I love her. I love her so much. I have to fix this.

Groaning, I pull my sorry a*s out of bed, my muscles locked and aching from the spasms and exertion of the broken mate bond. Not just sore from the mate bond breaking, but the buzzing and flexing of the magic that now resides in me. The constant pulsing in my muscles makes them sore and throb with unfamiliar power.

There is something more there. Some undercurrent of energy beneath all my other senses, almost like the pull of the mate bond, only instead of pulling me to Hadley, I feel it connecting me to my brother. I can feel the energy flowing between us, flaring inside me, intensifying, then flowing back to him in an endless loop.

Laying dormant while my body healed and the agony wracked my heart and soul made the new energy of magic inside me settle awkwardly in my muscles. I flex my entire body, trying to rid it of the pins and needles sensation the settled magical power is giving me.

It’s just after sunset. I’ve been in bed for an entire day. I should feel hungry, thirsty, and so many other things, but all I feel is a heart-wrenching numbness as I mechanically move around my suite, pissing, showering, brushing my teeth, and getting dressed. I don’t bother looking in the mirror. I don’t want to see the bastard staring back at me.

I’m holding on to my numbness, because I know the second I give in to my agony again, my beast inside me will go postal. I will turn f*****g carnal with rage and I have no one to blame but myself. Well, I can think of one other person….

After getting dressed and downing a full glass of bourbon, I made my way down to the lobby, one goal in mind.

Stepping out into the balmy night air, I take a deep breath, steadying my nerves for what I’m about to do. I don’t wait for the valet to bring me my Tesla. I’ve been drinking, and my muscles are still buzzing and pulsing, which makes me feel like I would be a hazard behind the wheel right now.

A row of taxis is usually lined up down the street for club hoppers and bar patrons so they don’t drink and drink. It’s still early in the night, but to my luck, there are a few lined against the curb already.

I slipped into the one at the front of the line, giving him the address to Lady Delilah’s court. There is only one way to fix this. I need to be rid of Suzie for good. No remorse. No third, fourth chances. She needs to be cut out of my life, then I need to beg on my f*****g knees for Hadley to hear me out; for her to forgive me.

Delilah’s court comes alive this time of night. Civilized vampires do not need to hide from the sun, but they are more comfortable in the twilight, and that’s when Lady Delilah’s court is at its busiest.

I tossed a couple of twenties at the driver, nodded to the sires guarding the entrance to the court, and entered through the double doors. I’m a man on a mission. The receptionist, a different one, thank the goddess, calls back to see if Delilah is available to talk to me, then waves me on my way.

I was here just a few days ago with Matt, and everything seemed to be going well. I was excited about my future with my mate. Just two days later, everything was f****d.

I knocked on the door, waiting to hear Delilah’s usual greeting to come in. To my surprise, Carlos is the one who opens the door, just as surprised to see me as I am to see him.

“What are you doing here?” he asks. He had tears in his eyes.

Lady Delilah, with one of her female sires, is sitting at a table at the side of the room, papers neatly lying across from them. Delilah looks at me in question, tilts her head like she’s studying my aura, reading my thoughts, whatever vampire voodoo she does to assess a person, then understanding and sympathy settle on her regal features.

“I need to speak to the lady,” I told Carlos, “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

He nods, “Yeah. Sorry, I thought you were Trevor when her receptionist called and said a wolf was here to see her. He’s on his way to meet me here.”

“What’s going on?”

Carlos looks up at the ceiling, his glassy eyes spilling over before he shuts them tightly, cutting off the flow of tears. “It’s time. She’s too much of a risk to our kind. All of us. We are going over her last will and testament, then I’m fully releasing her to Lady Delilah’s justice.”

My eyes widened in surprise. I came here to ask Lady Delilah for that very thing, but I’m surprised her brother agreed to it. “Wha-….How….?” I have trouble forming words, asking why he’s doing this himself.

“She bit me,” Carlos told me, pulling at the sleeve of his dress shirt to show me the ugly bite mark, “She bit me, and consumed my b***d during the process, screaming like a mad woman. She will turn rogue now. Our lineage isn’t strong enough to fight off the infection for long. She lunged for Trevor and I blocked her. If I hadn’t, she would have poisoned my mate with her venom. When she bit into me instead, she latched on and drank my b***d. She ended her own life when she made that choice. I won’t have my sister hurt anyone else.”

I gripped his shoulder, “I’m sorry you had to let go of her like this.”

“Me too,” he took a shuddering breath.

Delilah was watching our conversation, wisdom and understanding in her youthful, but ancient eyes.

“While you wait for your mate, Carlos, allow me to escort Mitch to say his final goodbyes to your sister. He deserves closure as well. You have said your good-byes. Now it is his turn.”

Carlos nodded, wiping the tears from his eyes.

Lady Delilah has me follow her out of a door in the back of the room that leads down to the basement where she holds her prisoners. Her male sires are standing guard every few feet. This is where the worst of the worst of her kind are kept. I see a few cells besides Suzie’s are occupied by rogue vampires, and another that appears to have a siren, also known as a mermaid but in their land-dwelling form. Vampires and sirens are similar in the way they can manipulate emotions and their need to feed on vitality through b***d. They are fairies, but bound to the sea by an ancient curse. I wonder what the mermaid did to end up down here.

“She fed on a vampiric child at the cove the young people often visit.” Lady Delilah answers my unspoken question. “The child was only 15. She drained him to the point he almost died. Queen Aisling had the fae guards hand her over to me. We are awaiting the young boy’s parents to make a decision on what they wish to have done with her.

“You have seen what mercy given without repentance can turn into. When someone is inherently evil or their soul is corrupt, oftentimes they are too lost to save. Death can be a greater mercy than a second, or even third chance at life. It is no one’s fault but the person who made the bad choice. Every choice you make has a consequence, and beings like her oftentimes don’t understand that or know how to grow from the consequences of their actions.”

I know what she is indirectly trying to tell me. Suzie is inherently evil. To her core. There is no saving her now. She will have to face the consequences of her actions. She never grew or learned from them the last time. Now that she is infected and going rogue, there is no other path for her to take but death.

“Why did you allow me to stop you from killing her 7 years ago?” I asked.

“My child, I did that for your sake, not hers. I could see the demons plaguing you. If I killed her then, it would hurt you more than anyone else. You, young one, have grown and learned from your mistakes. Now, you will have to implement what you learned.”