MY MATE

RHETT

I I sat still in the dark chamber beneath the stronghold, where the damp stone walls seemed to press in from every side. Shadows clung to the corners like watchful ghosts. The air felt thick—heavy with old magic and older memories. A low fire crackled near the hearth, spitting sparks, but it gave no warmth. Only light. Faint. Flickering. Like the last heartbeat of a dying star.

My cloak hung heavy on my shoulders. Wet from the rain. Or maybe sweat. I didn’t move. I didn’t shiver. I just breathed. The silence pressed against my ears until I could hear every inhale, every exhale. Even that felt too loud.

Then it came—that sound.

The door creaked, long and slow, like it didn’t want to be opened.

Footsteps followed, soft against the stone floor. Not hurried. Not loud. Each step was calculated. Careful. It wasn’t one of my warriors. Their boots thudded with confidence or dragged with fatigue. This… this was different.

Then I caught her scent—sweet, floral, delicate like crushed lilies in morning dew. Too clean. Too pure. It didn’t belong here. Not in this fortress soaked in blood and regret. Not among us.

I didn’t speak.

She came closer. I felt her presence before I saw her—a ripple in the air. The faint sound of cloth brushing cloth. Then I felt her. Pressed against my side. Soft curves met sharp edges. Her hands, warm and smooth, trailed down my chest and over my arms like she had the right.

She whispered something, lips barely touching my skin, but I didn’t hear the words. I didn’t care. Her touch wasn’t real. Not to me. Not anymore.

Because I couldn’t feel anything… except the cold.

It didn’t just touch my skin. It crawled in slowly, day after day, until it settled deep in my chest like a parasite. I carried it everywhere. Slept with it. Breathed it in. The kind of cold that no fire could burn away. The kind that wrapped around my ribs and coiled tight, like chains made of ice.

It began the night of the raid. The night everything I knew died screaming.

I remembered the smell first—smoke, thick and bitter, choking the stars out of the sky. Then came the screams. My pack fought. Some ran. Some begged. Others burned before they even had the chance. I buried half of them with my bare hands. The other half, I never saw again. Exiled. Lost. Gone like wind in a storm.

After that, something inside me died. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was hope. Maybe it was everything. Whatever it was, it left my bones hollow.

But I still let her touch me.

Not because I wanted her to. Not because she stirred something in me. She didn’t.

I let her touch me because I forgot how to say no. Because silence felt easier than explaining the truth. Because I didn’t know what to do with my hands anymore unless they were breaking or bleeding or burying the dead. Because sometimes the body moved even when the soul didn’t.

For a second, my body reacted. It betrayed me.

The heat flared—brief and wild. My muscles tensed. My breath caught. The ghost of something human flickered inside me.

Then it shattered.

Like thin glass under a boot heel. Sharp. Sudden. Empty.

Because she came.

Not the woman in my bed. The one who haunted everything.

Her image struck like lightning, sudden and unforgiving. It lit up the inside of my skull. Her silver hair shimmered like moonlight cutting across still water. Her eyes—gods, those eyes—they held the weight of every sorrow I tried to forget. They stared straight through me. She didn’t speak, but her silence screamed.

She reached for me.

Her hand trembled, fingers outstretched like she was trying to pull me back. Or maybe drag me under.

That invisible thread between us tightened. Not a bond. A curse. A noose made of memory.

I couldn’t breathe.

I tore myself out of the woman’s arms like she burned me. My chest rose and fell in heavy bursts. Every breath scraped against the cold.

“Leave,” I growled. My voice cracked with more than anger. Grief, shame, fury—it all bled into the sound.

She gasped behind me. I didn’t turn. I didn’t give her a name. I didn’t owe her that.

Her footsteps stumbled back. The door slammed shut behind her like a final goodbye, but I didn’t flinch. It might as well have slammed inside a different world.

My hand curled into a fist and struck the table beside me. Wood cracked under my knuckles. The grain split wide, old veins giving way to rage. The table collapsed, crashing to the floor with a deafening snap.

The sound echoed through the room.

Broken. Final.

Just like me.

My wolf stirred inside me. It didn’t rage. It didn’t snarl.

It howled.

Not for lust. Not for pride. Not even for vengeance.

It howled for her.

The door burst open again. This time, it didn’t creak or hesitate. It flew open, fast and loud, slamming against the wall.

“Rhett!” Kai’s voice cut through the fog like a blade. Sharp. Familiar. Real.

I heard the frantic beat of his boots as he ran across the floor. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t lift my head.

“What happened?!” he asked, breathless.

I didn’t answer.

What could I say?

She wasn’t here.

But I felt her.

And that hurt more than anything.

I was already on my knees, hands digging into the floor, chest rising and falling too fast, too erratically. The cold wasn’t just in my bones anymore—it was everywhere. It gripped me, clawed at me from the inside out. I felt… raw. Like someone had peeled the skin off my soul and left me exposed to the world.

Shaking. Trembling from something deeper than fear.

“I felt her,” I choked out, voice strained and thick with emotion I couldn’t keep in. “I… I felt my mate.”

Kai froze in his tracks, his eyes flickering between me and the shattered remnants of the table. He didn’t need to ask again, but he did anyway.

“You’re sure?” His voice was quieter than I’d ever heard it, careful, like a man walking across a thin ice bridge.

“She was there,” I whispered, my words cracking under the weight of them. “Not in flesh. Not in body. But in spirit. It was like… her soul brushed against mine. Her presence. It was—” I struggled to find the words, but they felt like they didn’t exist in any language I knew. “It was real, Kai. I know it.”

My fingers tangled in my hair, tugging at it as if that might pull me out of the nightmare I was drowning in. Sweat trailed down my temples, slipping into my eyes. My blood felt like fire and ice at once, burning through my veins and freezing my heart. Every thought felt scrambled, twisted. But I knew it—knew it in the marrow of my bones—that was her. After all these years.

“It was her, Kai. After everything. I know it.”

He knelt beside me, his presence steady, solid against the storm inside me. His hand found my shoulder, firm and grounding. It helped, but only just.

“What did you see?” His voice was soft, but I could hear the worry threading through it.

“Not much,” I said, each word heavy in the silence that hung around us. “Her hair... silver. Bright. Like starlight. And her eyes...” I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing hard. “They looked right through me. Like she was seeing past everything I’ve become. And they were… sad. So damn sad. Like she carried the weight of the world in them.”

Kai stayed silent, letting my words hang between us, the air thick with everything unsaid.

Then it hit me—the fear, creeping in like a shadow, dark and cold.

“What if she’s like Lyra?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. It cracked, the words like shards of glass in my throat. “What if she sees me—sees what I’ve done, what I’ve become—and she turns away?”

For a moment, the room was quiet, the only sound the heavy beating of my heart in my chest. Then Kai moved, his hand squeezing my shoulder in a way that felt like a promise.

He didn’t hesitate. “Then she never deserved you.”

A bitter laugh spilled from my lips, raw and ugly. It wasn’t even a laugh. More like a jagged breath that had nowhere to go. “Easy for you to say.”

“No,” he said, his voice steady, unyielding. “It’s not. But I know this—you’ve bled for this pack. You’ve suffered in silence for too long. If she’s your mate, she’ll see that. And if she turns away?”

His grip tightened, reassuring in a way that made my chest ache.

“Then you keep walking.”

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

Because deep down, buried under the fear and the rage and the cold, I knew it wasn’t that simple. Something had changed. Something had been set into motion. The bond between us—the one that I’d buried and pushed down for so long—had finally awakened. And now, nothing would ever be the same again.

Not for me. Not for her.

Not for us.