Laurel

2:12 Brydel

"I fucking hate the plains, and I fucking hate not being able to just jump to where I want to be. Why the fuck is the magic in this pace so fucked up lately?" Cole spent most of every single day complaining. After a week of cutting a brutal pace with insufficient rest time, and waking hours filled with Cole's whinging and literal whipping I was sick and tired of everything. Except the smell of Laurel that we followed as it grew stronger to my senses.

She and her companion were traveling swiftly considering she was supposed to be a human. We were traveling almost twice as quickly as Cole pushed us forward, eager to get his hands on his prize again. I shuddered when I thought of his disgusting demon hands all over my Mate. My Mate, who I had waited over two hundred years to find. At least he was only whining about the journey right now, it was getting more difficult to control my wolf when Cole regaled our group with stories of his conquests with Laurel, and what he planned to do with her when he had her again.

My wolf had been miserable since I gave our life away to save Passion, sitting silent in the back of my mind, avoiding me and what I had done to us. Ever since we scented Laurel, he had come back to life, and he was strong and eager to be set free. Unfortunately, thanks to the burning collar around my throat I couldn't even shift at will, I had to be given permission first. It was shameful.

"Sir, before I was summoned to join this hunting party there was a lot of chatter in the right circles that something big was happening here, that Titania had summoned all Fae back to this Realm and locked the gates to outsiders. Perhaps it is all tied together. The lock down, the magic disturbances, the..." she gestured vaguely all around us indicating the strangeness we could all feel. Valentina was using her soothing voice, like she was talking to an irate child she needed to calm down from a tantrum. She was very good at manipulating Cole and his manic moods, I wasn't sure exactly what she could do, she made my skin crawl when I got near her. A Vampire, unaffected by the suns, with access to magic forbidden to beings of death. She was so far the most terrifying creature I had come across.

"Wolf boy, shift and go scout ahead, we should be able to find another one of their camps soon enough." Cole snapped at me, he treated me almost the same as he treated the hell hounds who were running ahead and around us in a protective circle as they tracked.

"Yes sir." I happily shifted to my wolf form, welcoming the pain, knowing my wolf would get to run. Letting him take some control, stretch out his legs before taking off at a powerful run after our neck finished healing from the collar. If I focused my mind on the scents in the tall grasses and following Laurel's scent I almost felt free. Until the collar shifted and burned my flesh anew. Everytime I tasted freedom, the collar burned me, reminding me that I was enslaved.

After putting a good distance between myself and Cole and Valentina, I found the next camp where Laurel and her companion had stayed. The remnants of a small campfire still evident in the grass, I could hear the tinkling sound of a small stream nearby, and saw that the campsite was on the leeside of a small hill. Whomever her companion was, he was great at picking campsites. I sighed, he was doing a pretty great job of keeping Laurel safe, I was jealous.

Not as jealous as I was when I sniffed more carefully around the campsite, I could faintly smell sex, the scent of Laurel's arousal affected me greatly, then I noticed the tinge of magic tied to the sex smells. I investigated closer and couldn't help the mournful howl that burst from my throat towards the sky. She had claimed him as a mate. My mate had taken another mate.

I could feel my heart breaking, worse than when Passion had left me for her doctor. Crediting him with saving her life instead of me. Laurel was my mate, the Unicorn and Gotha had assured me, and that she was the only key to me ever being free again. How could she take another.

"She's not far you know" a somewhat familiar voice said behind me.

I turned to see who managed to sneak up on me without me being alerted, ashamed that my feelings had clouded my sense of self preservation so badly and saw Gotha again, still barefoot and still looking like she wind had blown her here on a tornado. I shifted back to human to speak with her.

"She took a mate. I'll be enslaved forever." I couldn't hide the despair in my voice.

"She took one, but she'll take more. She has a lot of love to give." Gotha was sat on a large rock, as she took a large bite from a large crisp red apple, shrugging as she looked at me.

Hope blossomed in my chest again,"She can still free me?"

"Indeed sweet child. Without her mates she wouldn't be able to help you at all, she isn't strong enough yet on her own."

"I will have to share her though." Wolves did not take multiple mates, we were known to be devoted to our one soulmate with our entire being. I wasn't sure if I could share, could I?

"Share and be free, or be alone and enslaved, the choice is yours, no one will make it for you." I nodded, understanding the path I would walk going forward.

"You should get back to Cole, he heard that howl you let out, he is going to be wondering what happened."

I looked back at where I had come from, Cole and Valentina not even specks on the horizon from where I was now. When I turned back, Gotha was gone and I was alone again.

Taking her last bit of advice, I began to run back to Cole to report what I had found. I moved a little slower than I had on my way out, as I was in no rush to see Cole again. Especially not with the news I was bringing back to him.

I told him I had howled when I found the campsite, to mark the distance for him and Valentina, praying he wasn't able to sense the lie. When he asked if I had found anything interesting I decided to be honest and tell him I smelled as though Laurel and her companion had fucked, and that I thought she may have marked him as a mate. If I thought Cole was angry and swearing a lot before, it was nothing compared to the tantrum he threw now.

Valentina and I sat back and let him work through his feelings like the spoiled toddler he was. It was embarrassing to see a demon acting so base, so unintelligent, so unworthy to have ever touched my mate.

Gotha said we were close behind her now, soon I would get to see her, and then she would save me. I just had to figure out how I was going to get myself away from Cole long enough to break the collar, while keeping Laurel safe, and getting her mate to go along with everything.

And for my second trick ladies and gentlemen I will blow up the moon with a pea shooter. I couldn't help the doomed feeling that washed over me.