A Howling Heart
Chapter twenty-four

Esai crosses the room, rapidly blinking as if in a trance. He reaches out for my mother.

She screams, yanking me back against the wall, but just as I expect Esai to make contact with us both, Matias steps in front of him and effortlessly throws him back a few feet. Esai slams into the wall and slumps to the floor on his butt. His breathing mirrors all of our heavy breathing.

Matias growls at Esai. "Esai, that is enough."

Esai narrows his eyes at his nephew as if Matias is a child he'll need to reprimand - one who doesn't deserve the respect he stakes claim to by commanding his uncle. "She's mine," Esai growls in return, and that's when I finally decide enough is enough.

I make eye contact with my mother and whisper to her quickly, "Let's go."

Clasping hands, we move as silently as we can around Matias, who stares his uncle down. The front door seems miles away, but I don't care. I no longer want to be in the middle of their chaos. Esai was too fast. Matias almost didn't get there in time, and who knows what would've become of us.

That's because Esai's strength is not what Matias portrayed. I don't know if it's because my mother moved back in town, and they are both kind of getting weird bursts of energy, but his agility just now was the agility of a man in his prime, not on his deathbed.

"Fae! Anima Mea, stay with me," he calls after me. His footsteps follow hastily behind us.

"I can't, Matias!" I call over my shoulder.

He rejects that with a deep sigh. "Yes, Yes, you can. I will take you to the woods. Where you belong, you will stare with me and the pack."

"No!" I whip around to face him, releasing my mother's hand so I can step forward and press my hands against Matias's chest to push him away. He captures my hands and doesn't budge when I shove. Curse him for being so strong.

The corner of his mouth twitches upward as he tries to suppress his smirk.

"I need to be with my mother."

His thumbs stroke the back of my hands. He leans down and presses a tender kiss on my forehead. "You know what happens when we are apart."

The cold, creeping feeling of that pain I felt when we were apart moves over my skin until I shiver violently.

He doesn't have to spell it out for me. The pain has left a mental scar within me that can't be healed. At the mention of it, my breathing hitches in my throat from fear.

Matias releases one of my hands to cup my chin. "Stop running from destiny, Anima Mea." Lowering his head with an eager gaze, his tongue wets his bottom lip just before he's about to press them to mine.

My mother yanks me backward. "Fae, you are to never come back here! Keep away from my daughter!"

I can't fight her. Esai's blood moves through her, so her pull is stronger than I've encountered. "We never should've come here. It was an absolute mistake risking our lives, your life. I'm sick of hearing about doggy destiny. I-" "Mom, if you know everything, then you must know what fate you're giving me by your demands. You aren't going to allow me to make my own decision? What if I don't want a violent, sickly ending?"

She shakes her head, releases my shirt, and yanks the front door open. "You will not be destined to a life of servitude and misery."

I frown. "Misery?" If anything, I have found more comfort than misery in Matias's presence.

Mom waves her hands dismissively. "Not while there is breath in my body."

"But what about the curse?" I cross my arms, refusing to leave.

"What about it?" She nods to the jeep out front. "Let's go, Fae." "Mom?"

Groaning, she arches a stern brow. "Follow me, now!"

I huff, following her while glaring at her back. I love her, but it seems unfair to automatically decide to strap me with the curse's punishment.

She stops when she gets near Matias's jeep, whipping around with wide arms. Rain sprinkles down on us.

"I don't know what you want me to say. No curse is worse than the pain you will endure if you submit." Her voice cracks, and she lets her arms drop down on her sides. "The loss you will endure. It's torture."

She clutches her chest as if she's trying to claw away at her own pain, but it's encapsulated inside of her heart where it slowly eats away at her.

"What are you talking about? How come you never told me about these things? Huh? What is Esai talking about?" Tears sting my eyes, threatening to rain down my face and reveal how truly affected all of this makes me. Some days, it feels like it is so hard to bear.

I understand her wanting to protect me, but I am at the age where protecting me only makes me more vulnerable to destruction.

I deserve to be treated like an adult.

She nibbles on her bottom lip, avoiding eye contact with me.

I step forward, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. "Mom! Tell me!"

If she doesn't have the decency to at least tell me the full truth then I can't look her in the eye anymore.

"Okay!" She grabs my hands and gently prys them from her shoulder. "I didn't tell you because I was protecting you, and if that makes you hate me, well then that is a consequence I have to deal with because right now, I will not have this discussion. You will trust me because I am your mother."

Mom raises her brows expectantly at me. "I really don't want you coming back here. Promise me, Fae!"

The hysteria returns. That crazed look in her eyes startles me, so I say anything I know will calm her down and get her far away from the screaming banshee she was inside the house, even if it breaks my destined mate's heart at the moment. "I- I promise!"