Aiden’s POV
The sun was setting in faint, soft hues over the horizon, casting long shadows over Skylar’s garden. The fading light made the colors dimmer, the sky was heavier than usual. I sat under a tree, alone, lost in my thoughts, still feeling like a stranger within my own skin. I was near Skylar, my mate yet I felt hollow, like I was adrift, floating in a place I didn’t recognize, I recognized Skylar to be my mate but the emptiness I felt within me since the day I decided to follow her could not be comprehended. Her presence felt distant, as though I were standing in a foreign city, lost among faces that should have been familiar but weren’t.
Memories flitted through my mind, strange and elusive. Images of Skylar were clear, I knew that we’d been through so much. I could recall being bonded to her, yet somehow, I felt as if someone else was missing, as if part of me was struggling to break free, to remember.
Shenaya’s name floated to the surface of my thoughts, insistent, and with it came a nagging feeling. She claimed we shared memories, a life, but why was it so hard to remember? I shook my head, frustrated, the edges of those thoughts slipping away before I could grasp them.
Just then, Skylar’s soft voice pulled me back to the present.
“Aiden?” she called, her steps light as she approached and settled beside me.
“Hey.” I shifted, not sure what to say. The silence stretched between us, laden with the questions that had been eating at me for days.
Skylar’s gaze fell on her hands as she toyed with a loose thread on her shirt.
“I think you deserve to know why things don’t feel… right.”
I turned to face her, caught off guard by her sudden willingness to talk.
“What do you mean?”
She took a shaky breath.
“You feel empty around me because… this connection between us, it’s not what it seems.”
The words felt like a punch to the gut. My mind raced, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“What do you mean, Skylar?”
She looked away, her voice barely a whisper.
“There was a time I trapped your wolf, Aiden. I used magic to bind him to me because I… I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you.”
The world spun, and I gripped the grass beneath me to keep from falling over.
“You… trapped my wolf?”
Skylar nodded, tears glistening in her eyes.
“And those times, even though your wolf was ready to submit to me, your heart didn’t give me the chance to. You fought so hard against it, Aiden. Your heart wanted Shenaya… it always did, but I was your fated mate, and I was desperate.” Her voice cracked. “You can remember me because I am a part of your past, but Shenaya… she was your choice, your chosen mate. Your wolf bonded with hers, but now… he’s lost.”
Everything suddenly made sense, the hollow feeling, the disconnection. My memories of Skylar were like shadows compared to the flashes I’d started having of Shenaya’s face, her smile, and the warmth that felt like home.
“So that’s why I can’t remember Shenaya?” I asked, my voice laced with bitterness. “Because my wolf, the part of me that’s bonded to her, is gone?”
Skylar looked down, guilt heavy in her gaze.
“Yes. And without him, you’re a shadow of yourself, Aiden.”
I clenched my fists, anger boiling within me, but also a strange sense of relief.
“Then what do I do, Skylar? How do I fix this?”
Her eyes softened, and she reached out to touch my hand, though I pulled back.
“Shenaya will come for you,” she said quietly. “All you need to do is search within yourself, find that piece of your wolf still lingering, and wait for her. She’ll bring you back.”
The enormity of her words hit me, and I found myself numb with disbelief.
“So I just… wait?”
“There’s no other way. You have to find your wolf and hold on. He’s weak from being lost for so long, but once you connect with him, Shenaya will be able to reach you. She’s the only one who can bring you back.” She nodded.
I felt the weight of her words settle over me, a mixture of hope and dread simmering in my chest. I wanted this, I needed this. I couldn’t continue feeling so lost. My heart, and my wolf both were out there, somewhere and they belonged with Shenaya.
That same evening, we chose one of the rooms in Skylar’s house and arranged it to have a settled mind. She created a circle around me with salt and lit candles that gave me cold flashes and their lights painted the walls with images of horror. An odd vibration erupted in the atmosphere as she started singing, her voice was monotone. It was monotonous as well as unfamiliarly tantalizing as if it had lured me into hypnotism.
“Focus on My Voice Aiden,” she commanded, her husky voice tinged with that coldness that had settled into our relationship lately.
I shut my eyes as I listened to her words and felt that rumble in the air. A nauseating sensation swept over me. I sensed my consciousness gradually floating up and away from the room.
Then everything went quiet.
When I opened my eyes, I was in another place, not the room I moved to. I was a tiny speck of dust on the bottom of the desert, with the sky above me as far as the eye could see, and the mirage in the distance hazy in the heat. Under my feet, the ground was desert, sandy reddish in color as if it had no water for many years. The vastness of the plain went on endlessly in all directions interrupted only a lonely copse of a miserable shrub in the distance.
Purpose propelled me to move on. I knew that I had to look for my other half, my wolf that was nowhere to be seen. I tread softly, disturbing the sand only slightly as I headed towards the tree because that was the only way to distinguish this part of the desert from the other.
When I approached, I saw a figure chained and sitting with his head down under the tree. I still my breath as I finally spotted him clearly, he was me. Or rather, the part of me that had been missing in action for a long time.
He raised his gaze up as I walked towards him, and his eyes were incredibly, almost repulsively blue even in the worst kind of artificial lighting. One of the most hostile things a wolf can do is stare, and the creature staring back at me was no exception.
“Smoke?” I murmured to my wolf who was experiencing an incomprehensible mixture of feelings, relief, and anger accompanied by a guilty conscience. He nodded, and a small, tired smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
“You finally found me.”
I knelt beside him and touched the icy chains that shackled him with my hands were shaking violently. The metal was hot, it burned me when I touched it but I didn’t let go.
“I came to bring you back.”
Smoke looks down with a sad smile.
“It’s not that simple, Aiden. I’m bound by wolfsbane. I’m weak.”
“But we can break it together, You are a part of me that cannot be left behind, so I’m not getting out of here without you.’
“Alright. Let’s Try.”
I slowly sighed before tightening my grip on the chains around my wrists, It was so hot but I was smiling through the pain. Electricity coursed through us, and the sensing of a reconnection felt really like embers catching fire in the night. The chains started to glow, lines appeared on their surface, and, with one last push, they broke apart reducing into dust.
As soon as the chains snapped, an eerie feeling came upon me. There was a change as if something was drawing me away, I looked down and saw that I was now the one shackled. I was chained by the residual effects of the wolfsbane but smoke was now here to be found now.
“Smoke!” I called out with panic rising in my chest.
“I’m with you now, Aiden. I’ll guide you through this.” He spoke at the back of my mind. I get a nervous intake of breath now and shut my eyes waiting for his spirit to surface again. I could sense his strength, his stamina surging through me. I tried to break the chain free but I couldn’t. Now I have found smoke, all I have to do is wait for Shenaya to find me.
Time passed in a blur. I was barely conscious of my existence let alone what was going on around me, instead I was a confused mass of memories and feelings. And then, a sharp familiar voice called my name.
“Aiden.”
I opened my eyes knowing who she was and looked back at her. She had not changed a bit, her eyes were full of love, and her look gave me strength and stopped me in my tracks.
“Shenaya,” I whispered.