Word Count: 2662

~Aesira

Everin jerks back from me, eyes wide.

I reach for the fresh mark now imprinted in my skin, wincing at the tenderness. He did it. He really did it, and now, I've just killed him.

He coughs into his hand, grimacing. When he pulls the hand away, I see it...

Black blood.

He looks down in horror as the blood spills through his fingers. It drips from the corners of his mouth, trailing down his chin.

"What...is happening?" He grits out.

"No...I'm so sorry." I grab him, trying to shake him, trying to will the poison out of his body. "What have I done?"

This is a mistake. Why didn't I realise how ridiculous of an idea this was until it was too late? I can't live without him...

His eyes meet mine, realisation dawning across his face.

"You poisoned me," he whispers.

I'm shaking, distraught. I betrayed him, and yet in his last moments, he's not angry at me. He's just hurt, realising this has all been a lie.

A deep in terrible pain burrows into my stomach. It's so bad, I almost double over, hands clutching my ribs.

What is happening to me?

Leaning over, I cough black blood into the sand. My throat burns tightening, closing in.

Everin, whose skin has taken on an unnatural pallor, pulls me close to him, pain straining his expression. I can't tell if it's from his own agony, or because he's realised that whatever is happening to him is happening to me.

"Aesira...no..." He sounds like he is begging someone, some higher power to stop this from happening.

This can't be right. Father told me Everin would mark me and be poisoned, not that I would be poisoned too.

I slump over into the sand, losing all control over my body. Numbness is spreading through my limbs, creeping toward my major organs.

I'm dying. This is what I deserve.

Everin tries to pull me back up, but the poison has overcome him too. He collapses next to me, head tilted to face me.

He's the only thing I see as my world caves into darkness, every regret I've ever had chasing me into death.

+++

I don't expect to wake again, so doing so comes at a great effort.

At first, I'm confused, unable to grasp where I am and why my body feels so weak and unmoving.

I'm alive...I'm alive.

My eyes flutter open, burning from the sting of light streaming through the curtain.

I'm in my bedroom, in my bed. Maven sits in a chair across from me, knitting a pale blue scarf that has reached the floor, wool panels folding over each other.

It takes a few moments of laying still, looking around the room, to remember what happened.

Everin marked me, he died, and so did I...yet, I'm not dead. Is Everin?

Maven notices me peering around. She tosses her knitting down, shifting closer to my side.

"Aesira?" She breathes out in relief when I turn my head to face her. "Oh thank the goddess, you're okay."

"Maven..." Her name comes out hoarse and unused, my throat aching.

She smiles softly, brushing a gentle hand back through my hair.

"How are you feeling?"

I wince. "Water..."

"Of course, here." Maven grabs a glass from the bedside table, setting it in my hand as I try to sit up.

The water eases the dryness in my throat and mouth, but it hurts to swallow. I've clearly been only just clinging to life, which begs the question of how I survived a poison my father spent years developing.

"What happened?" I set the empty glass down, rubbing my raw eyes.

"Someone poisoned you and the Alpha's food in an assassination attempt," she tells me gravely. "But you're okay."

My brows rise. She doesn't know that I poisoned both myself and her Alpha? Everin definitely knows, and would have told her, unless...

"Is Everin okay?" I ask.

"Yes, he woke a few days ago." She cradles my hands, like she spent so much time not being able to, and wants to make the most of it. "He healed much faster."

I blow out a long breath, sinking deep into the pillows.

After spending so many months wanting him dead, contemplating how I could make that happen, knowing he survived my assassination attempt is the best news I've heard in a long time.

This pack still has their Alpha. Maven and Mason still have their employer, and I don't have to live with the shadow of regret for the rest of my life.

Any consequences I suffer as a result of him surviving are well deserved. I won't try run anymore.

"How long has it been?" I ask weakly.

"Two and a half weeks."

"What?" I sit up straighter, horrified.

I definitely feel like I've been unconscious for weeks, although the thought of that much time passing is unsettling. Especially when everyone else has been awake, getting closer to finding out what I've done.

Why hasn't Everin told Maven? What is he planning?

"The poison should have killed you, but we found a cure. It was difficult, but Mason hunted  until it could be found," Maven explains, adjusting the pillow behind my head. "He spent every day and most nights in the library."

My stomach twists. I don't deserve him.

"I should be dead." I look down at my hands, my fingers intertwined in hers. I'm struggling to comprehend that.

Did my father misunderstand the poison, or did he know all along that it would kill me too the moment Everin marked me? Am I that expendable to him?

"But you're not dead...Aesira, this is good," Maven insists.

The door to my bedroom opens, drawing our attention. Mason steps into the room, a touch of surprise on his face when he sees me.

"Can I speak to her, Mav?" He asks.

"Of course. I'll get the Alpha." She stands, giving my hand one final squeeze before she leaves the room.

Silence descends over the room for a moment. I expect Mason to rush to my side like Maven did, to be anxious to speak to me, to see how I am.

But he only stares me down with a hard set jaw, a coldness in his eyes.

"Mason—"

"You should know that I would have let you die, if you had been the poisoned," he snaps, striding closer. "But to save my Alpha, I had to save you."

"Wait, what?"

He's so furious, it makes me retreat deeper into the pillows. He knows.

He's not only angry at me because I tried to kill his Alpha. He's angry because we were friends, and I betrayed him. I made him unwittingly participate in an assassination plot.

"He marked you, and the poison in your blood almost killed him. Due to the mark, he bonded you to him, and you took on part of what put his body in jeopardy," he tells me harshly.

I frown, shaking my head. "I...this doesn't make any sense."

"What doesn't make sense is how you've lied to us all for months. You came here to kill him, faking a mate bond in order to have him mark you. He would have died, were you not true mates." Hurt flashes across his face.

I flinch. "Mate...we aren't mates."

Mason's fingers curl up into fists. He steps closer to my bedside, glaring down at me.

"When a male marks a female who is not his mate, a rudimentary bond is established. Once broken, significant pain is caused but other than that it has very few other elements," he explains. "A true mate bond is the purest link. You take on each other's pain, which is what occurred in this case. You took on Everin's pain, and it almost killed you. Had he died, you would have too."

I gape at him, mind working to understand what he's telling me.

Everin is my mate...I took on half the burden of the poison through the mate bond when he marked me, keeping him alive.

Somehow, finding out Everin is my mate is less surprising then realising the plot my father conjured was always going to end up this way, we just didn't know it.

"The poison was supposed to kill him," I whisper.

"It would have, had he not just marked his mate. Your bond strengthened him, but it was the cure I found that cleared the poison out and saved you both." He says it so bitterly, I wonder if he's regretting it now.

I curl my legs up to my chest, my head spinning.

I almost killed my mate. Someone I've already started having feelings for, who now will hate me as much as Mason clearly does.

"Fuck. This is bad."

"It is. You almost felled an Alpha. Do you know the punishment for that?" Mason angles his head, looking at me like he's revelling in the possibility of me suffering.

"I'll be put to death."

"He won't kill you," he huffs, shaking his head. "Even if the mate bond wouldn't kill him if he did."

I can't be so sure. Not after the betrayal I saw in his eyes when he realised I had poisoned him. I could see him regretting every moment he ever shared with me.

"The moment he marked me, I wanted to take it all back. I regretted it immediately," I exclaim earnestly.

Mason isn't moved. "Yet in all these months, you couldn't have changed your mind?"

I rub my arm, brow furrowed.

"I almost did, many times," I admit. "But I knew that once Everin found his true mate, I would be a prisoner here, if not somewhere else. I saw this as my only way out, and I stupidly took it. I hate that I did."

Maybe if I had talked to him, pled my case, he would have understood. Maybe he would have let me go, let me have the freedom I wanted.

Freedom that now tastes like ash on my tongue. I don't even want it anymore. I only want to make this right again.

"You lied to me. You betrayed me." Mason's voice breaks and he clears his throat.

"Mason, I am so sorry—"

"Maven doesn't know. I figure she doesn't need to hear it yet." A muscle in his jaw ticks. "You may recover, then you need to go. I don't care where, but you need to never be found. Everin doesn't not need a traitor by his side."

"He won't let me go. Not if he truly is my mate."

"I don't care. Fake your death if you must. I'll even help you," he insists.

I stare at him, feeling my heart breaking into a million pieces.

He hates me that much. He can barely even look at me. Yet he'd put that to the side to get me out of here, away from him and Everin.

"Mason..."

"You have a week," he states, turning away from me.

I watch him walk to the door, wishing there could be something to say to make it right, to make him see how regretful I am. He's one of the only friends I've ever had, the knowing I've lost him...it's too much to bear.

He leaves the room and I slip under the covers, wrapping them over my head.

I'm not sure how long I cry for. Until I'm wrung out, until I'm so exhausted, I pass out.

It's dark when I wake. A cold breeze drifts through the open window, tickling my skin, grounding me.

I gasp, sitting up when I realise Everin is standing in the doorway, watching me.

"Are you okay?" I ask, brushing my hair behind my ears.

"After you poisoned me? Yes, I'm fine." He pushes off where he was leaning against the doorframe, wandering closer.

The crippling relief of seeing him alive, and not noticeably ill, ebbs all the energy out of my body. The only evidence he was ever poisoned is the dark shadows beneath his eyes and the slight amount of weight he's clearly lost.

"Everin..."

"There's no need to defend yourself. I know you were sent here to kill me, and I allowed my guard to lower. It's my fault." He stops a few feet away from the bed, folding his arms across his chest.

"Your fault? How could any of this possibly be your fault?"

He swallows. It looks like an effort for him.

"I just want to know, why now? Why, after all this time, chose now?"

My throat tightens as a fresh wave of guilt rolls over me. He loved me, and I took advantage of that.

"It was supposed to happen the night of our wedding, but you didn't go for it. I tried several times after that, but again, you weren't interested," I explain softly. "I knew the only way to get you to do it was if I pretended we were mates."

He draws in a shuddering breath. "But why now?"

"It scared me, thinking about my fate after everything that happened with Lincoln. I hate myself for letting him go, for what happened with Lennox...all of it. I figured I had nothing left, that when you found your mate, I'd be sent away and waste away in the countryside with nothing." I brush away a tear as it slips from my eyes. "I thought this was how I could earn my freedom, escape from both you and my father and go to a pack far away."

He shakes his head at me slowly.

"So you tried to kill me?"

"I was upset, after Lincoln, and I was angry at myself for what I was feeling," I insist. "I knew I was falling in love with you, and watching you find your mate elsewhere would have killed me. So I made the selfish decision to push for what my father sent me here to do."

He looks away from me, jaw tight.

"Everin, the moment you touched me and thought I was your mate, I regretted my decision. I hated how you looked at me...I didn't think I deserved that, and I didn't, I never have." I silently curse myself for how many tears are streaming down my cheeks. "But I couldn't go back. I had to go through with it or risk you killing me or locking me away out of anger."

Again, he doesn't respond.

"You must know, the moment you marked me, I regretted it. When I felt my life slipping away, I wanted to go. I deserve as much."

It feels good to tell the truth, for once. Finally, there are no secrets between us.

Finally, he looks at me again. I stay silent, letting him assess me at his own pace.

"You're my mate," he murmurs.

"I know."

I can't really believe it. This incredible, powerful male is who I am destined to love. And now, I've screwed everything up so badly, I can't imagine him ever reciprocating my feelings again.

"I'm in love with you. I have been, for some time," he tells me gently. "I have no idea what to do now."

"I deserve to be punished. I deserve to go to prison, to be executed, even," I say in one breath, guilt practically erupting out of my throat.

"There will be none of that," he states firmly. "I need time to think. Just know I'm not going to hurt you."

"I know..." I really do.

I watch him go, my heart heavy. I don't know how I'm going to make this up to him.

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~Midika 💜🐈‍⬛