Chapter 7

Damian

Present day

"She keeps me at a distance but hasn't rejected me. All my hope lies in this." ~ Damian

"What are you doing here?" Emjay inquires when she sees me with the group going to visit her former herd.

I stifle the smile her presence always elicits. "I'm going. Deal with it."

I expected an argument, but she just rolls her eyes and climbs into the van we rented for the journey.

The van is old but reliable, with worn seats and a faint smell of pine from the air freshener. The engine hums to life as Jayce starts it, and we pull out of the parking lot. The scenery changes from marsh wasteland to an interstate bustling with cars, heading to work. The sun filters through the trees, casting shadows on the road. The tension in the van is palpable, each of us lost in our thoughts about the journey ahead.

She walked into Twins and my heart beat again. The mates' call is strong. Tick-tock plays on repeat like bad tinnitus. Only two things can make it stop. Consummation or her rejection.

Her lack of rejection gives me faith. I'll listen to the annoying sound for as long as it takes.

Emjay's life has been a series of betrayals and hardships. Growing up in a herd that treated her like a slave, she learned early on to rely on herself. The memories of her mother's death, her father's cruelty, and the constant fear of being hunted by her own people have left deep scars. Yet, she remains strong, a survivor who has built walls around her heart to protect herself.

After we sat in Nikolaos' office and she told us her story, she asked me to give her time. I took that as a promise. A promise I won't let go of.

After the battle where I killed her captor and the others, I'd assumed we'd talk about Helios' blessing—nope.

I hang on to his words with confidence that she will run into my open arms one day.

I'll give her time, but I won't let her face her people without me. She's been alone all of her life and doesn't know how to accept support. Too bad. I'll always have her back.

My past is marked by loss and regret. Losing Emjay once was a blow I've never fully recovered from. The mates' call burdening my shoulders is a constant reminder of what I lost—a ticking clock that echoes my loneliness. None of my relationships filled the void left by Emjay. Now that she's back, I'm determined not to lose her again.

Peter rubs his chest, putting a smile on my face. It can only mean one thing. It surprises me he hasn't raced ahead of us. Only Anjal didn't drop everything to answer Priscilla's call, either.

Jayce hits a pothole, sending many of us slightly into the air.

Our destination—Cleveland, Georgia. Hopefully, the sign Emjay noted during her escape remains. It's the only clue we have for locating the herd.

Willow and her husband are with us, if we need help.

Of course, if we get lost, we could just turn it over to Peter to lead us on the last leg of the journey.

I rest my head against the window and close my lids for the long ride ahead. My thoughts take me back to my talk with Emjay after she told her daughters her story.

"Do you have a place to stay for the night?" I asked her while rubbing my beard with my hand, trying to mask the nervous energy coursing through me.

"I'm not staying with you," she snapped back, her words more defensive than I cared for, a wall instantly rising between us.

"How about a walk? Can we do that?" I offered, hoping to ease the tension and create a space where we could both breathe.

She nodded, and we stepped outside of Twins. The air cools our skin. It's a two-mile walk to the pier that leads to our labyrinth, and I turned us in that direction. She needed to at least know how to find it. I didn't trust her to follow the ticking in her heart if she needed me.

"I can't do the mate thing right now," she muttered under her breath about ten minutes into the silence, her tone tinged with frustration.

"I'm not asking you to," I replied calmly, wanting to reassure her but unsure of how to bridge the gap between us.

She stopped and looked at me, her vision searching mine. "What are you asking? What do you expect?"

I rubbed my chin again, a nervous habit I can't seem to shake. "Emjay, I've survived for over thirty years believing you'd died. I never imagined or dreamed of finding you. Death seemed certain, and I had no other reason to believe anything else. Yet you walked into my life tonight. I won't survive losing you again, but I'm a patient man. We'll take care of the other priorities in your heart before we even consider us."

She turned her head away from me, hiding the tears pooling in her sockets. Her silence spoke volumes.

"How long have you known Priscilla and Shay?" she asked.

"Just a few months," I replied.

"Are they happy?" she asked. Her words soft.

"Priscilla, yes. Shay, it's hard to say. She invited us over one night as a buffer between her and Jayce. She's leery and scared at times. It's hard to hide the fear when I can smell it on her, but I don't know what she's afraid of."

"I smelled it too. Is Jayce a good man?"

"Anjal, Jayce, Nikolaos, and I were born the same year. Our patérs called our bulls on the same day. They are more than cousins to me—they're brothers. Jayce would walk through glass before hurting her."

Emjay only nodded, returning to her silence. The quiet added to the longing in my chest. After I couldn't take it anymore, I confessed, "I've given my heart away twice, to two different heifers who both chewed it up and spit it out."

She stopped walking and turned to me with her arms crossed. "Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?"

Her defenses infuriated me. "Not at all." I hold back the bite in my tone, despite how she's made me feel. "I get that there's no comparing my pain to your pain. I only know the little about your past that you shared back there, and it doesn't compare to mine. I've never been alone. My parents are loving and kind. I have the support and strength of a big family, I have my cousins, and I've shared my life twice. I've never doubted a day in my life that I'm loved and valued. I can't imagine what it's like to spend nearly sixty years with none of those things."

"What's your point? I don't need you or anyone else feeling sorry for me."

I scratched my cheek before brushing the hair on my face downward with my fingers. If anger is all she knows, maybe anger is what she needs. "Too bad, Emjay. You're my mate. The pain I feel for you that I didn't get to you in time won't go away because you don't need me to feel sorry for you. Your hurts are my hurts. Like it or not. Keep me at a distance for as long as you need to wallow in your torment, but know this—you are no longer alone. And you never will be again. I will spend the rest of our lives removing the sting of your past. You will know that you are treasured, valuable, and worthy of love. This I will prove to you, no matter how many times you push me away. I'm very persuasive, and I will succeed in shattering the walls you've rightly erected.

"I thought you were dead. My dreams ended with that belief, only to have them restored when you walked back into my life as if raised from the dead. I know the severing of our souls hurt you as much as it hurt me, and I will not walk away from what the Fates have restored. You are worth the fight. We are worth fighting for. The monsters you've known all your life won a battle, but they will not win the war for our destiny. You possess a strength I'll never understand, having made it this far. I don't have to know you well to know you don't want what your mitéra and the others did to you—to us—to be how your story ends."

She stared into my eyes briefly, the intensity of her gaze piercing through the barriers we'd both erected. "Did you tell these heifers about me?"

I shook my head. "They weren't worth it. I loved them, but not enough to share all of myself with them."

I forced myself to keep my arms at my sides when a lone tear slipped past her defenses. We continued our journey again in silence. I stopped when we neared the pier.

"Emjay, I know you can find me anywhere, but I still wanted to show you the entrance to our labyrinth. Whether you accept it today or years from now, it's your home. It's where you belong—when you're ready."

Hours later, Emjay tells Jayce to park. The van stops and I'm pulled from my memories. "We go the rest of the way on foot."