Chapter Twelve: Hidden Pain

Fen woke on a bed of soft grass, a crackling fire burning not three paces from him, with a bubbling skin of soup perched over the flames. He had no idea where he was, nor how he arrived on this grassy knoll, only that his mate was not insight. The absence of Dylin worried the Omega, his mind spinning to what had passed in his last moments of consciousness.

Dylin was preparing to fight that creature…

Fen's heart beat faster, as he scanned his surroundings, his palms growing damp with sweat. He was over fifty leagues from the city of Pollux, now firmly ensconced in the Hill Country. How on earth did Dylin get him here? How long had he slept, as his mate ran for his life?

Fen carefully stood, his head spinning in a nauseating way, and he tried breathing through his nose, to calm the tilting world. The surrounding country was pleasantly cool, filled with lush grass and wildflowers. However, Fen couldn't shake the worry over his mate from the dark corners of his mind.

He sighed, as Dylin seemed nowhere in sight, and settled down on the grass, stirring the cooking meat and herbs. It was a scarce meal, and what the Omega wouldn't give for some of those crusty loaves of bread from the marketplace in Pollux. Even a simple potato, to break up their carnivorous diet of the past month and a half.

Soon enough, a strong, familiar scent was carried his way by the gentle breeze, a scent strongly of Dylin, and a deep, bone breaking, gut twisting fear. The kind of fear that was not of any normal cause. Fen looked up as his mate trudged into view, his hands raw, and dark hollows around his eyes. He said not sword as he sat down to skin the two plump rodents he had caught, his posture poised to flee at any moment.

Fen had thought this type of fear was just an old Omega's tale, that no one could truly have this type of reaction to stressors. He'd been wrong.

Fen settled down next to his mate, slowly stopping his Alpha's shaking hands before he hurt himself. "Love?" He kept his voice gentle, soft as he wiped the blood from the scarred skin of his hands, feeling the calluses from Dylin's life under his fingertips. "Love, what happened?"

"I couldn't let them kill you, Fen." Dylin's voice cracked, as he leaned into the hand Fennis was slowly carding through his hair. "They would… You wouldn't have lived." A tear fell from his mate's eye as Fen kissed his brow, soothing him with his love. "Humans whipped me, for trying to save her," Dylin rasped. "I would have been killed if the bastard had died."

"Dylin, I don't understand." Fen's heart throbbed as his mate pulled him into his arms, burying his face in his scent gland, and trembling violently. He felt his tears dampen the coarse material of his tunic, and simply held onto Dylin. He would explain. In time.

After a few moments that seemed like decades, Dylin pulled away, leaning his forehead on Fen's, his bright green eyes dim with sorrow.

"I was young, and foolish." Dylin closed his eyes, a tear falling as he spoke. "A human guard in Providence was…. He was using a pup, just a tiny pup, as target practice." Fen wiped away the streams of water from his mate's face, though the flowing tears would not abate. "She was four, maybe five years old, her body stuck full of arrows like a porcupine." Dylin's breath caught, as he shook his head, a tear drop flying from his face. "I attacked the soldier, trying to save her. I… I wasn't in time."

Fen cradled his mate to his chest, burying his face in Dylin's shaggy golden hair. He mourned the small child, the victim of human hatred, and the death of his mate's innocence. He knew that Dylin was the most family oriented Alpha he'd met, and the trauma of seeing a child killed like that left deep scars on his mate's soul.

"I'm so sorry," Fen whispered, holding onto Dylin like he was holding the fragments of his soul together. "That's why we're doing this Dylin. So no more pups fall to Morningstar's hatred."

"Especially not ours," Dylin murmured against Fen's chest, his fingers pressing into his back. "I don't want our litter to live in a world that contains that evil." Dylin slowly stopped shaking, as Fen's gentle reassurances brought him back from the black caverns of his mind, and they lay in the soft grass after dinner, Dylin's body curved around Fen's back, his hand playing with the cord around his waist.

"Dylin, whatever comes our way," Fen whispered into the darkening night, "Whatever happens, I will always love you."

"As I will always love you, my Omega."

Dylin's words did little to soothe the anguish in Fen's heart as he contemplated the upcoming trials, and the odds that lay stacked against them like Ters' building blocks from that lone family dinner, what seemed like centuries ago. He held onto their memories of happiness, and the fragile sense of normalcy they shared, before the Quest came upon them like a storm.

He would hold onto that image, of the life they once had, and would have again, as the days bled into each other on the hilly fields and prairies, not letting the endless journey dissuade him from the prize at the finish.

A life with Dylin, without the looming threat of Alistair Morningstar.

A life of happiness.