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Chapter Thirteen
Oz
The wolf relented to me after a cold night under a tree when a cave couldn’t be found. The sharp, icy winds pushed up his fur and bit at the tender skin beneath.
He was tired, and our mouth ached from carrying the backpack between my teeth. More than a dozen times, he had complained that the bag was too heavy—too many books—too many things.
Stupid human, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and half of the weight of the world in his pack.
My wolf could do a lot of things, but making a fire wasn’t one of them.
It felt silly to make a fire under a lone tree that, judging by the bare branches and lack of greenery, had seen better days. I bet it wished I would end the job and light it on fire while I was at it.
I spent half the night filling in the details of the last few days in my journal. Words of hope and determination blotted the blank pages but the truth was, I was losing hope by the second. The Cursor became weaker by the day. Its once-glimmering brightness dimmed against the light of the full moon and crushed my heart into pieces, seeing the barely blinking balls of fire go weak.
I charted the directions, giving myself a guess at where they would lead to just in case the stars waned before my journey was complete. The journey, of course, would only be complete once I found her.
My mind filled with the negatives as I stared at the constellation, begging it mentally not to leave until I had found her. She could be taken already. There were so many packs and tribes that chose to go against Fate and Destiny and give in to impatience for a mate. There were some who actually arranged matings based on social status or hierarchies, not even giving males or females a choice in their mate, fated or not.
Or…there was the alternative which my mind mulled over even though I knew better.
That my mate was dead.
Logic told me that the Cursor wouldn’t have shown itself to me if she was dead. Fate wasn’t that cruel.
Still, my mind went to the darkest places while roaming in the realm of the unknown.
I stuck my pen back into the small pocket of my pack while sitting back against the pitiful excuse for a tree behind me.
“Jimmy, do you have a fortune-telling gift? Is she out there waiting for me, or does she not even know a soul mate exists?” This rock was such a disappointment. No social skills. No fortune-telling abilities? Nothing. He just sat there, being my listener.
At least he was listening. No one else was.
I wondered how my parents were getting on without me. Not that I was irreplaceable, or that they were incompetent, but losing a hand around the pack was a big deal when members were getting more sparse by the generation.
Clutching Jimmy in my palm for moral support, I drifted in and out of sleep. I couldn’t take the chance of fully going to sleep, since I wasn’t in a cave like before. I was out there, against the only tree I could see for miles, and had a fire going. Clearly, I was fond of making a target of myself.
When dawn came, I got up and like muscle memory, went through the motions of huffing out the fire completely after getting to my feet. I stretched my arms to the sky and silently prayed for the stars not to abandon me. I’d gone over and over my maps and knew that I hadn’t gone in the wrong direction, but not finding her after weeks of travel had me second-guessing myself, the stars, creations, and even the Earth I stood on.
“Come on, Jimmy. Let’s go find her. She’s got to be here. I’m not letting anything stop me, especially my own negative notions.”
Ten steps in, I groaned out loud. My feet hurt already. When I was on pack lands, I very rarely wore shoes. I loved the feel of the dirt and the random patch of cool grass or weeds under my feet. It made me feel closer to the Earth and therefore to myself. But out here, among the shards and discards of what once was what they called society, I couldn’t take the chance of leaving my feet bare. It would be a tragedy to get this far and die on the trail to her by an infection from a stray piece of metal or a rusty screw. What a waste.
I stopped in my tracks, thinking about my family and my pack. They were one and the same. It would be so easy to turn around now. To go back to my little cabin—to my books—to my homemade beeswax candles and guaranteed warm hearth. It would be so easy—so damned comfortable and routine.
But no one ever reached their destiny by sitting still.
A guttural call came from my chest as my wolf stepped into my consciousness and reaffirmed my decision. I turned around and lifted my chin to the stars, stopping to close my eyes and take a deep breath. This was my fate. I’d been waiting my whole life to embrace it.
To be honest, I’d been waiting all my life to embrace her. I didn’t even know how I would act once I’d seen her.
I’d probably be awestruck and shocked and speechless. Maybe she would laugh at me. Maybe she wouldn’t.
I had to move forward. There was no other choice. I wouldn’t settle for mediocrity, not for a second, no matter how comfortable my past life was.
It was in the past, and she was my future.
“Jimmy, let me tell you about the time I knocked myself out by the riverbed.”
For the rest of the day, poor Jimmy had to listen to my tales of my childhood. It felt good to reminisce and laugh at my childhood adventures.
And I knew there would be even more laughter as I shared them with my mate—eventually.
