Fate Stained - Part Two
Chapter 4 - In Sickness And In Health

Norah walked me home to the pack house and Blake went back to the hall. She said she’d tell Jayce that I wasn’t feeling one hundred percent and that I was going to bed.

Neither of the girls asked why I’d thrown up, which I was grateful for. What was I to say? I feel sick because I just realised I raped my mate. Because that’s exactly what it was, wasn’t it? Rape.

“How are you feeling? I guess all that travelling through portals will give you a slight case of vertigo” Norah asked as we reached my room.

“I’m ok. It’s just stress. I’ll be fine after a good sleep, thanks for walking me back”

Norah gave me a small smile. She seemed flat. Norah was never flat, it wasn’t one of her settings. She looked down to the direction of our spare room and scratched her head.

“You seem…distracted. What’s up?”

Norah gave a small laugh and shook her head.

“Dude. My issues are a far cry from the issues of The Shifter Queen. I’m just feeling a bit weird, I don’t know how to explain it”

I raised my brow, waiting for Norah to elaborate. I kind of liked the distraction from my own worries for the minute.

She exhaled, shrugging her shoulders.

“I don’t know. This afternoon, I just felt like something shifted inside me, like I have some new purpose in life that I need to discover. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so focused on you and this mission to Hell for the last three years and now that it’s over…what am I supposed to do?”

“You can do whatever you want to do”

Norah laughed.

“Yeah. Good luck with King Dick Darius breathing down my backside, literally”

“He’s not your mate”

“No, but soon he will be my King. If he chooses me as his mate after his initiation, then that’s it. I’ve got this itch I need to scratch, I know there is more for me out there. I don’t want to be a Queen and I certainly don’t want to be with Darius. Sure, he’s easy on the eyes and rumour has it, he goes pretty well in the sack too - but there is more to life than a good fuck and an arse you can bounce a coin off”

“Norah. You are welcome here for as long as you want. Jayce and I won’t let Darius anywhere near you. You know that”

Norah smiled and leant forward, giving me a quick hug before she stood up straight again, a grimace on her face.

“Go brush your teeth Q, your breath smells like regurgitated cow”

……………….

A hot shower, freshly brushed teeth and a pair of my favourite silk pyjamas almost had me feeling like a whole new woman, that was until the memory of what I’d done to Jayce came flooding back to the forefront of my mind. Another wave of nausea hit me as quickly as the last and to avoid throwing up, I sat down on the floor next to the bed, head cradled between my knees.

“Quinn? Are you in here? Blake said you were unwell”

The sound of Jayce’s voice from the bedroom door both soothed and upset me. I struggled to raise my head, the slightest movement causing me to groan before placing my head back between my knees. I knew he couldn’t see me from where he stood, but between my groaning and his keen sense of smell, I didn’t doubt he knew exactly where I was.

“Quinn?”

Jayce’s heavy footsteps came closer and stopped next to the bed, followed by a sharp intake of breath.

“Fuck. What is it? What’s wrong?” He asked, concern etched in his voice as he knelt down next to me.

“I— I don’t deserve you”

Jayce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and sitting down so his back was up against the side of the bed just like mine. I didn’t deserve this man. Even after what I’d done, he still came up here to check on me. Would I have shown the same consideration if rolls were reversed?

“You need sleep Quinn. We can talk about this in the morning”

“I— I forced you to have— to have sex with me. I’m a fucking monster” my voice choked on the last word and Jayce’s body tensed next to mine.

“That’s what you’re upset about? Quinn, I was going to fuck you anyway, just maybe not that aggressively. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to hurt you because you’d hurt me. You didn’t force me to do anything. Let’s just drop it, ok?”

I lifted my head to look at Jayce and winced as the action caused my brain to throb.

“You look like shit— wait, what the fuck is that?”

Jayce’s hand reached forward and he popped the top three buttons of my pyjama top with a flick of his fingers. His thumb ran down the length of the scar between my breasts. I closed my eyes, by whole body shuddering at his touch even though I knew there was nothing sexual about it.

“Where did you get this? Why are you scarred?”

Jayce ignored my physical response to his touch, which hurt me slightly as he usually loved the way my body would instinctively react to him.

“Flynn. I, I had to prove I was really who I said I was. This was the only way. Like I said, a lot happened in Hell. Some of the things I saw…”

The image of Delilah in her crib came to mind and the memory of how tempting it had been to just pick her up and remain in that illusion forever. Part of me still hurt that I hadn’t held her. What I wouldn’t give to hold my baby girl again.

Then there was the image of my parent’s mangled and bloodied bodies, murdered at the hands of Clayton, the haunting look on Marcus’s face as his decapitated head stared blankly into the abyss.

Suddenly, another wave of nausea hit me and this time I couldn’t push it back down. Thankfully though, Jayce was quick to react and grabbed me, lifting me from the floor and carrying me to the bathroom. He placed me at the toilet just in time for me to empty the remainder of my stomach, all whilst he held my hair back from my face.

I wasn’t sure how long I stayed there for, but I do know that Jayce stayed by my side the whole time. Then, once my stomach had nothing else to expel and the dry heaving had finally subsided, Jayce picked me up and carried me to our bed. The softness of the sheets felt like heaven on my tired and broken body. Jayce reached over, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear before he went to move away.

“Where are you going?” I whispered, hardly enough energy to get the words out.

“I’m just going to clean up. Go to sleep Quinn. I’ll be back shortly”

My heavy lids covered my eyes and I vaguely remember nodding my head in response as sleep took over and darkness flooded my senses.

………………..

The morning came and went, not even the sunshine flooding through the window stirred me. It wasn’t until nearly lunchtime that I wearily opened my eyes and stretched my body out within the sheets - the sheets that were, apart from where I lay, otherwise undisturbed. Jayce hadn’t slept here.

I sat up and looked next to the bed. On the bedside table sat a glass of water, two paracetamol and a note.

‘I didn’t want to disturb you. I’ll be at Cameron’s until after lunch. Take these tablets and take it easy. Jayce’

I winced slightly at his sign off. No ‘I love you’ or anything, just his name. I deserved that. I deserved sleeping alone in this large bed and I deserved to wake up in an empty house…

“Yo! Queenie! Get your arse out of bed, I’ve made lunch!” Norah’s voice boomed from outside the bedroom door.

Not so empty house.

I winched again and quickly downed the paracetamol and water. The woman was loud, my head was sore. It wasn’t a good combination.

“Coming” I muttered back, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

………………..

Norah was a good girl, she’d cooked me a hearty lunch and even though the thought of eating made my stomach churn, I still devoured everything on my plate.

Conversation wasn’t lacking either. Norah told me about what had gone down between her and Darius and how Jayce had stepped up and kicked him out of Fern Creek.

I loved that side of him. There was a time when Jayce struggled to replace the line between himself and his wolf, especially when it came to me, but he’d grown so much since then. Hearing how he’d shut down Darius’s behaviour just showed how much he’d grown, he was the Alpha a pack like Fern Creek needed and deserved.

Then it was my turn to share. I completely unloaded on Norah, to the point I thought once I started talking that I wouldn’t be able to stop. I told her about everything from my encounter with Hades disguised as Kyan to the experiences in my Hell Hall, to replaceing Kyan, to replaceing my brother - and everything in between.

Not long after I’d started talking I felt a familiar chill run over my body and I knew Jayce was nearby. He was here, listening to my story, so I made sure I didn’t leave a single detail out. It was a story that I didn’t overly want to repeat and I also didn’t want to hide anything from him, regardless of how painful some of it might have been to hear.

“Fuck. Q, that’s some heavy, heavy shit. No wonder you’re all out of sorts. I don’t know what to say”

I sighed. I didn’t really know what to say either.

“Do you actually mind giving me some…privacy?” I indicated to the front door and Norah thankfully picked up what I was putting down, I had a feeling she also knew Jayce had been listening in the whole time.

“Of course. I might go sus out that Warlock brother of yours. If his stories are anywhere near as entertaining as yours then I’m in for a treat”

The bear jumped up from the table and disappeared out the front door.

“How much did you hear?” I asked.

After a few seconds Jayce emerged from the back of the house, he hesitated momentarily before taking a seat across from me at the table.

“All of it”

“I’m sorry”

“Are you?”

Jayce’s answer caught me off guard and I looked up from my plate, my eyes immediately getting lost in his dark pools of brown.

“Yes” I answered sincerely, “I know some of that wouldn’t have been easy to hear”

Jayce sighed, leaning forward so his thick forearms rested on the table.

“Quinn. It was all difficult to hear. I’m sorry that you had to experience all of that. I should have been there with you, you shouldn’t have been alone”

I wasn’t alone.

“You couldn’t be there. It’s ok. I’ll be ok” I paused for a moment, part of me wanted to ask a pressing question but the other part was too scared of the possible answer.

I exhaled slowly. I wanted to reach across the table and take Jayce’s hands in my own but the fear of rejection was enough for me to keep my hands firmly clasped in my lap.

“Jayce, will we be ok?”

There. You said it!

Jayce’s eyes remained locked with mine. No matter how much I tried though, I couldn’t for the life of me, figure out what he was thinking. Finally, after what felt like minutes of silence, Jayce’s jaw twitched and he opened his mouth to speak.

“I don’t think I can answer that right now”

Ouch.

My eyes left Jayce’s instantly and dropped down to my hands in my lap. I didn’t know what answer I was expecting. I knew he wasn’t going to turn around and say ‘of course we’ll be fine, don’t be silly!’, but his attempt at a diplomatic answer still hurt me more than I wished to admit.

“Quinn. The love I have for you is immeasurable. Even after everything you have done, my level of love hasn’t wavered in the slightest…and that terrifies me”

I looked back up to Jayce, the pain in his voice making it extremely hard for me not to reach across the table. He looked lost, tired.

“I am the Alpha of a wolf pack, I have a great responsibility to everyone here, they trust me and rely on me to always do what is in their best interest. But then there is you - you make me question how suitable I am to be an Alpha because I know that if it came down to it, if I had to choose between you or them…I would choose you. I would always choose you—”

I opened my mouth to speak but Jayce held up his hand to silence me.

“—but you didn’t choose me”

As he spoke the last words Jayce closed his eyes, like saying them out loud caused him physical pain. This time I didn’t hold back, I reached across the table and wrapped my hands over Jayce’s. He didn’t move away, which was positive, but he also didn’t move to hold mine back.

“Jayce. I would never put you in the position where you had to choose between me or our pack. I love these people, I am their Luna! All of this is hard and new for me too. I don’t know what to do, I love you more than I can even get my head around but there is a part of me that belongs to Kyan, that is not something I can just ignore”

“I know”

What?

“You know?”

“I know he is your mate and I know what that means, but it doesn’t mean I like or accept it. Quinn, I can’t share you with another man, it would destroy me. I can’t be the Alpha this pack needs if my heart is in tatters and I’m constantly thinking about you in his bed and you looking into his eyes the way you look into mine. It fucking kills me that you have with him what you have with me!”

Jayce’s head dropped forward, his body slumping over the table in defeat and his forehead resting on our hands. I swallowed back a sob as I watched the powerful, strong, brute of a man in front of me, literally fold over and give up.

This was my fault. I’d done this to him but my sadness soon turned into anger as my mind focused on steering the blame elsewhere. This wasn’t just my fault. The gods had fated me with two mates and if I, along with Jayce and Kyan, we’re going to suffer because of it - then I bloody well wanted an answer as to why.