POV: Gasper
Over an hour later, she passed out again. Gasper brought up food and left it before entering the other room to regain energy. He could still feel her on his body, and her brain waves hummed in his mind as she fell asleep.
How the hell was he going to explain this to her?
Show her?
Azreal offered.
Just turn into a wolf in the house and be like, surprise?
You didn't have any ideas.
Azreal got angry with him. Gasper would give him that one. He had shot down his wolf's idea with nothing to offer in return.
Azreal, chill. I'm sorry.
The door opened downstairs. It was his youngest sister. He didn't need to go down to see. Her scent carried in the air up to him.
Dolly was nineteen and had been through her heat every year since she was fourteen. As Gasper had said, this was very early but common among strong alpha pups. It didn't happen to Sydney, who was the second youngest. She and Dolly were a year apart, but Dolly had her heat and wolf first. Sydney didn't wait until she was mated either, experiencing her first heat at seventeen. Gasper believed Dolly would be mated to an alpha or someone very strong, but she hadn't found him yet.
Sydney had mated to the beta of a neighboring pack, which Gasper was happy about. They never got along, and she disagreed with how he ruled. Having her in Dark Moon would only cause conflict. Plus, she and her mate, Tom, were happy with a pup already. One couldn't ask for anything else. It was truly a less stressful life than his own.
The youngest of the family was his brother Jamie. He was a mess of a wolf and had found his mate in the pack on his seventeenth birthday. Inez, one of their lower-ranking wolves, was pregnant with triplets, so he was preoccupied with that most of the time. His being an alpha and her being an omega was a very precarious situation. When he was too far from her, the pups would drain her physically, so he rarely left her alone for more than half a day. In theory, he should have been Gasper's beta, but he had passed it on to Victor. Victor was the better choice, but had Jamie wanted it, it was his right.
Sometimes, Gasper thought Victor might be Dolly's mate. Since Victor wouldn't be able to find his mate until Gasper and his mate had a pup, they wouldn't know for certain. But neither of them had any interest in each other. Neither love nor hate existed between them. Victor was another brother to her, not mate material. Even if you couldn't scent your mate yet, you were often instantly attracted to them. Unless it was a first meeting, you usually weren't completely surprised by who it was.
Besides, Dolly always seemed more interested in Victor's brother, Reed, who Gasper was happy was not her mate. That guy had been nothing but a thorn in his side for years, and he was delighted to give him a territory to lead. As much as Victor missed his brother, Gasper knew he was happy about it too. Reed was hard to keep track of and always into something he shouldn't be. Gasper often joked he should be the alpha king of the were-underground, where all the shady business deals happened. The place you went to buy drugs, find a prostitute, or hire a hitman.
Anyway, Gasper thought it could happen because of their genetics. Both were strong and from alpha parents. Genetics wasn't everything, though. Alphas sometimes mated with omegas or even humans. His brother was evidence of that. The reasons became clear later on, but it wasn't always the most obvious person you were mated with, so it was best not to date anyone seriously until you found your mate. Loving someone who wasn't your mate could get ugly. It also messed with the Moon Goddess's plan. Gasper had seen some brutal rejections happen because of non-mate love. It almost always ended in regret, regardless of whether the fated or chosen mate was the one rejected.
Victor was lucky enough, though, that Xander didn't mind him being with she-wolves or humans as long as they weren't part of the pack, and it was never the same one twice. So Victor would visit his brother's territory or go into the city to find his conquests. Gasper had to, until now, live vicariously through him. He was sure Victor would be excited that he finally found Sookie. One step closer to Victor's own mate. However, Xander was not optimistic on the issue. There was something he wasn't telling Victor about his mate. Or at least there was something neither of them shared with Gasper. Which could mean she was already dead.
Gasper hoped that wasn't it. Having experienced the mate bond for only a day, he wanted that for Victor. He knew the other she-wolves were a drug to Victor. None of them mattered. Victor deserved someone who mattered to him. Someone who made him happy.
Dolly calling his name brought Gasper out of his thoughts.
"Up here," he said, but she was already almost upstairs.
"Mom sent me to check on you. I brought some food and stuff." She always had this sweet smile, but pure chaos lived beneath it. His little sister would have been the world's best spy or assassin if she wanted to be. You would never suspect her to be strong, but she was.
"Thank you." He nodded at her.
"You look tired." She teased.
"It's not funny, Dolly."
"I know. I'm sorry. It sounds like an impossible situation." For a second, she reached to touch him but then pulled back. Sookie would lose her mind if she smelled anyone else on him, even his sister. She didn't know he had a sister, let alone what she smelled like. Even if she did, it wouldn't matter. It would upset her regardless. Right now, Gasper belonged to Sookie, and she was not up for sharing in any capacity.
"I've spent the last two days raping my mate. So, yes. It's an impossible situation."
"Don't think that. Once she understands, she will know it was only to help her." She waved her hand like this was common knowledge and he was worrying too much.
"You would get it. You know what can happen, and you know you are a wolf. You know this is normal. She doesn't even know she can shift or what heat is. She slapped me when I tried to tell her she was in heat."
Dolly laughed hysterically.
"IT'S NOT FUNNY!"
Gasper roared at her, and she stopped abruptly. He let his voice slip into its alpha tone. The tone forced other wolves to submit. Using it on anyone outside of disputes or interrogation was generally considered bad form. There were only a few times he had slipped up on that.
"Shit, sorry."
"It's fine. That was on me. It was just funny to think of you getting slapped by some she-wolf."
"She's unusually strong," Gasper explained. "She might have lived among humans, but she is far from as weak as one."
"Huh."
He closed his eyes to trap the tears that were forming there.
"Tell me the good things," Dolly said hurriedly to change the subject. "Is she pretty?"
"She's my mate. There is no one more beautiful to me."
What a dumb question.
"That's it?" She looked disappointed.
"Her eyes are green and icy. I can't get them out of my head."
"What does she smell like?" Her curiosity was getting the better of her. But that was Dolly. Zero boundaries.
"Key lime pie on the beach." It was oddly specific, but scents were like that. Only he could smell his mate that way. Everyone else would smell something different on her.
"Guess there's a reason it's your favorite dessert. And you do go to the beach to eat it a lot."
Gasper laughed a little at that. He had part of the beach on the territory kept private for himself and his immediate family. It was one of the few places he could go for privacy outside his room. The sand under his feet around the lake and the roaring of the waterfalls brought him a sense of peace like nothing else did.
He felt her jolt awake in pain again. This girl was going to kill him if she didn't come out of this soon.
"I have to..."
Then he heard her screaming through the mind-link and didn't finish the thought. He assumed Dolly left, but he didn't register her reaction to his sudden exit.
Gasper collected her from the bed and gently dropped her back into the pool. He climbed in after her, wrapping his arms around her. That whimper was becoming like a song you hated but couldn't get out of your head. He found himself humming along with the tune.
"Shh," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I was gone too long."
"Make it stop." She begged.
"It will stop. I promise." He used one hand to keep pouring cold water over her head. "And next time, it'll be easier."
"Katherine wants a baby. She said we have to, or it won't stop."
"Can I talk to her, Sookie?"
The golden eyes were back as soon as the question was finished, and Katherine was smiling seductively through Sookie's body.
"Stop taunting her," Gasper said. "We can get to all that, but not until Sookie and I know each other better."
"She deserves this. Suppressing me all this time. I'm glad someone finally set her straight." Katherine crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.
Gasper gripped her tighter and purposefully turned his alpha tone on this time.
"I don't care who you are. I will suppress you myself if you keep hurting my mate."
"You can't separate us, and you know it. If you hurt me, you hurt her. Suppressing me forever is impossible. Azreal won't allow it. He just found me again. It'll be tough for him to let me go."
Gasper heard Azreal in his mind.
She's a little crazy. She has been locked up in a prison, alone for a long time.
Keep your bitch in line.
Then Katherine was gone. Sookie was back and crying in his arms.
"Everything hurts." She choked on the words. "But when you are here, it's like sparks fly off of you. Almost tickles before it burns."
"Yes, it's nice, isn't it?" Touching her was surreal.
"I think I've dreamed of you." She looked embarrassed at the admission.
"I've dreamed of you every night since I can remember. I just never got to see your face before."
"I'll miss you."
Sookie didn't wait for him to say anything before drowning his words with her lips on his.
"I'm never letting you go," he said between kisses, and he meant it. There was no world in which he was going to let her go. She belonged to him. From now until the day he died, she was his.
"At some point, this ends, though. Right? I need to get home. Can you take me home? I'll put Katherine in the back of my mind, and it'll stop."
She tried to escape the pool, but he pulled her back.
"I can't take you home yet, but maybe soon. We can talk about it."
She didn't answer. She rested her head on his chest and fell asleep.
Gasper held her there, feeling the rhythm of her breathing sync with his own. The mate bond hummed between them, a living thing that wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He had never felt anything like this before. This completeness. This terrifying, overwhelming sense of rightness.
But underneath it all was fear.
Fear that when the heat finally broke, when Sookie's mind was fully her own again, she would look at him with horror. That she would see what he had done, what circumstances had forced them into, and she would hate him for it. That she would reject him, and he would spend the rest of his life as half a person, never whole again.
She won't reject us, Azreal whispered, but even his wolf's confidence was shaken.
You don't know that.
I know Katherine. She loves us. She always has. And Sookie will too, once she understands.
I hope you're right.
Because if Azreal was wrong, if Sookie walked away from him when this was over, Gasper wasn't sure he would survive it. The mate bond was already too deep, too strong. Losing her now would destroy him more completely than any challenge ever could.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head, breathing in that key lime and coconut scent that was uniquely hers.
"Don't leave me, darling," he whispered into her hair. "Please don't leave me."
But she was already asleep, and his plea went unanswered.
Outside the safe house, warriors patrolled the perimeter. His father was coordinating the search for whoever had drugged her. His mother was cooking enough food to feed an army. His sister had brought supplies and comfort. The pack was doing what packs did best: protecting their own.
But inside this room, it was just the two of them. Alpha and Luna. Mate and mate. Two broken souls trying to become whole.
Gasper closed his eyes and let himself drift, still holding Sookie close. He would face whatever came next. The explanations. The revelations. The possibility of rejection. He would face it all because she was worth it.
She was worth everything.