The Broken Mate

I shook her hand.

"And the unfriendly, loud one is my mate, Elowen," she frowned at her partner.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Maya," I said, and Arden eyed me up and down. She must have reached the conclusion that I wasn't a threat as she shook my hand with a tight grip.

"Elowen," she replied as a mischievous smile suddenly grazed her lips, "You smell like Harlan," she announced, and Selene covered her mouth in realization. "Did you sleep with him?"

"What? No! I.."

Elowen burst out laughing, forgetting to let go of my hand as she cackled.

"I know, I'm sorry, just kidding with ya'," she replied as she patted me on the back so hard I think my lung collapsed.

She didn't seem to notice, not even when Selene rushed to my aid.

"If you had, I could tell," she warned.

Selene drew circles on my back as I felt the air come into my lungs again.

"Please ignore her antics," Arden said apologetically as she looked towards her mate. "You are not giving a good first impression, my love."

Elowen gave her mate a soft, apologetic smile and they shared a soft kiss. It was so sweet I couldn't help but smile.

"The meeting is soon," Selene announced. "We'll be waiting for you," she said with a kind smile.

---

I hadn't had time to buy a lot of casual clothes, so I made my way into Damien's study wearing work clothes. I supposed it would be fine. This was a meeting after all, right?

I went down those stairs, the same ones that the man had thrown me off of. The thought of that day still made me sick. A lot of things still made me sick.

I knocked on the door, pretty sure I had gotten the room wrong, the house was gigantic. But I could smell all of them on the other side of the door. I could also hear them talking.

"I can't believe you woke her up," Callum's voice sounded amused.

"I can't believe you are running around with vampires," Elowen responded.

"Come in!" Selene said, and I opened the door to find them all sitting in a sitting area. All wearing casual clothes. Okay, so not a formal type of meeting then.

"Jesus, what are you wearing?" Elowen, who was sitting next to her mate, said.

I looked down at my long black pencil skirt and white button-up.

"Ellie!" Arden exclaimed as she shook her head disapprovingly. "You look great, Maya."

"I love your heels," Selene smiled, and Harlan snorted when he saw me.

"Meeting the Queen of England, are you?" Harlan spoke, and I scowled at him.

"Hey, at least you came. That's what matters," Damien said. He was sitting behind a huge desk.

I examined the room. It was filled with a thousand different books. There was a sitting area and a chimney as well. A house so big must have been really cold without so many of them.

"I apologize, I didn't know what the dress code was." I sat in the only place there was room, next to Harlan.

Selene sat on the other side of her husband's desk, her legs dangling.

"Don't worry. You could show up in whatever you want and they would still tease you," Blaze said from his spot on an individual chair. "Don't do that, guys," he said very seriously.

"That is how we show our love," Callum chimed in. "And having you criticize us for something like that is like having Elowen telling us to be kind," he said with a smile.

"It would be very hypocritical," Elowen added, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"It's okay, Blaze, really," I said, but he didn't look too convinced.

"But.."

"She said she's okay with it, Blaze. She's a big girl; she can handle it," Harlan said, and they stared at each other for a minute before Blaze stood down.

"Are you two done?" Selene asked, and they turned to look at her. "I love you all, but please be a bit more serious. We have called you here for an important matter."

"Sorry, Luna," Elowen said, showing a very different side of herself. The jokester, unfiltered person she was disappeared, and all I could see in front of me was the seriousness of a true general.

"It's okay," Damien finally spoke. He looked pale and had dark bags under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well, we could all tell.

"As you all know very well, we've had a few rebel attacks, the first one collecting the life of a human and turning her against not only her will but the sacred rules of our pack."

The silence around the room was tense, heavy. It carried something I could not distinguish.

Harlan looked very angry at that, and so did Blaze for some reason.

"That is why you're here," Damien announced. "The right to revenge is yours. We will all stand behind you."

Selene cringed as if she knew what was coming next, and Damien eyed her protectively.

"But first, you need to remember."

"Wait, so she doesn't remember?" Elowen asked, and I nodded.

"It is a normal response to trauma too intense for the brain to handle," I explained. "I suspect it is dissociative amnesia."

"And how do you treat it?" Arden asked.

"Well, sometimes the memories come back on their own. Sometimes we can recover them through therapy," I answered.

"But wouldn't it be accompanied by flashbacks or nightmares?" Callum asked.

"Not necessarily, though I do find it odd I have flashbacks from other incidents but not that one," I sighed. "I still can't even remember why I came all the way to Miracle."

"We may have gotten some answers on that," Harlan said. "I have reasons to suspect the man who turned you was their leader... The problem is we don't know how he looks or what his name is. He's a total ghost."

I could tell this really bothered Harlan, so I bumped my shoulder with his and smiled at him. He looked at me and relaxed a little.

"I know this must be hard for you, and we weren't going to ask you this but... I'm desperate," Damien stated. "We have exhausted our resources. We need to solve this rebel problem soon, or the other packs under our care could try to stage a coup."

He got up and walked over to me. "I need your help."

"I could use magic to make your memories surface, but it would be a painful and hard process," Callum explained. "On the other hand I.."

"Are you crazy? Are you seriously asking her to relive everything she went through?" Blaze asked, outraged.