Owned by Luna Voss
4
Melyta
I’m half-asleep for a few minutes before my brain fully wakes up. It’s a nice feeling. Warm. Comfortable. Safe. Why don’t I usually feel this good in the morning? Shit, am I late for work?
My eyes flash open, and my sense of comfort vanishes as I realize that I’m not in my bedroom. What? Where the hell am I?
And then it all comes flooding back. Catering that event for the Vostra. Going into heat right there in front of everyone.
That man. That Vostra gangster who I let... who I let...
I put my hand to my neck, and immediately wince in pain. The skin is still sore.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
Blood rushes to my face, and if I were standing, I know my knees would be wobbly.
I let him mark me.
I close my eyes and focus on my breathing, feeling myself start to hyperventilate. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
My whole life, I’ve wanted to save myself for my Fated Mate. Now I’ve thrown the whole thing away on this scumbag criminal. And I don’t even know his fucking name.
Shit. Where is he?
I’m naked, lying on my side, with nothing but a wall in front of me. Slowly, trying desperately not to make a sound, I turn over.
He’s there. Right next me, fast asleep, his muscular shoulder only inches from where I’m lying on the bed. He’s shirtless now, and I can’t help but marvel at his impressively built upper body. He has a Vostra symbol tattooed over his heart, and it rises and falls slowly as he breathes.
For a moment, I feel a weird rush of affection. He looks so sweet. Peaceful, even. Happy. So different from the darkness that shrouded him the night before.
Is that because of me? Is he happy because he went to bed thinking he met his Fated Mate?
Unfortunately for him, I’m not going to stick around and find out. Because as much as I love the idea of spending the rest of my life with some random no-name gangster I met a day ago, I’m not actually past the point of no return.
Not yet.
Doing everything I can to quiet my breathing, I creep out of the bed, inch by stressful inch. I keep my eyes on his face, alert for any sign of movement.
The moment my feet hit the floor, I start scanning for my clothes. I can’t find my panties anywhere, but that doesn’t matter. I fasten my bra as fast as I can and slip on my dress. Still watching the sleeping vostrat, I open the door and step out to the hallway.
To my relief, the hall is empty. I make a beeline for the kitchen, grab my purse, and then exit out to the street. I don’t stop walking until I’m five blocks away.
“Jen, I need you to bring me my jacket. The denim one, or something with a high collar. I’m on 44th street.”
I hear relief in my friend’s voice on the other end of the communicator. “Thank fuck, Mel, you had me worried sick when you didn’t come home last night. What happened? Are you okay?”
“I will be. Just get over here. Please.”
“Okay, leaving now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes if I can catch the next bus.”
I return my communicator to my purse and continue pacing up and down the sidewalk. There’s nothing actually preventing me from catching a bus to downtown by myself, or even just walking, but I can’t. Not with this mark on my neck. The idea of anyone seeing it on me makes me want to curl into a little ball and sob. This isn’t me.
Finally, the bus arrives. I skulk around the bus stop, avoiding people, looking for Jenyta.
There. I wave to her and she jogs over to me, holding a jacket that I recognize as hers.
“There you are, Mel. I couldn’t find—”
She breaks off as her gaze lands on my neck. Her eyes widen with understanding, and my cheeks burn to see the look of concern on her face. She doesn’t even need to say anything, just wraps her arms around me. I squeeze her tightly, holding back tears.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispers. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get this sorted out.”
Jenyta goes into the drug store with me after we get off the bus together. She’s a good friend like that. I’m wearing her jacket now, the collar pulled up high over my neck, but even so, I feel conspicuous. Like everyone around me somehow knows.
I can’t even look at the pharmacist, a tiny human man, as he hands me the box of pills.
“One dose as soon as you can, another tonight, and then one pill each morning for the next week,” he tells me. His tone is kind, but all I want to do is melt through the floor. “It’s important that you take the first dose within a day of when you received the mark. If you’re outside that time window, the success rate decreases significantly.”
I mumble a thank you, and Jen leads me out of the store. I take the first pill right there on the street.
“There,” says my friend, trying to make her tone upbeat. “You already took the first dose. A week from now, it’ll be like it never happened.”
* * *
Barion
She must have been a dream.
I can still smell her as I turn over in bed and see that the space next to me is empty. But somehow, I knew that before I even looked. Of course she’s gone. Things like this don’t happen to me. Nothing good ever lasts.
Oh well. At least we had a good time. Maybe I’ll run into her again someday.
But then I remember plunging my fangs into her neck and tattooing her with my pigment, and my heart skips a beat. I didn’t just sleep with her last night. I claimed her. Marked her skin and made her mine.
This waitress isn’t just some random woman to me. She’s my mate. My other half. Someone special I need to cherish and protect and discipline.
Savage triumph surges through me, only to be replaced by sadness and loss as I remember that she’s gone.
I have to find her.
Pulling on my shirt, I step out to the hall. No one is there. Most of the other guests have probably left, or are sleeping in with their mates.
Where is she?
I just about bump into Korva on my way back to the dining room.
“Korva. That woman. The waitress. Where did she go?”
My lieutenant raises his eyebrows. “I was wondering where you disappeared to last night. So much for not wanting to get your cock wet. What changed?”
“I met her,” I growl. “She must have left the conference center. Where did she go?”
Korva shakes his head. “Buddy, I don’t even know who you’re talking about. You said she was a waitress? You might want to ask one of the staff.”
Before he’s even done talking, I’m jogging back to the kitchen.
* * *
Melyta
As soon as I’m home, I crash down on my bed and bury my face in my pillow. It’s such a relief to be back in my apartment. I feel safe here. All I need to do is take my pills on schedule, and by the end of the week, the mark on my neck will fade.
“Hey, Mel, I have to get to my shift. You going to be okay here?”
I look up and see my friend standing in the doorway of my room. I nod. “Jenyta, thank you so much for—”
She shakes her head. “Forget about it. It’s what friends are for. Let me know if you need anything from the store on my way home, okay? I know the next week might be a little rough, based on what I’ve heard. But you’ve got this.”
Jenyta leaves, and I fall back into the covers again. All I want to do is sleep and sleep and not wake up until I’m normal.
I’m startled awake by the timer I set as a reminder to take my evening dose. It’s dark out, and Jenyta still isn’t home. As I’m swallowing the pill with a glass of water, I notice that I feel different. Irritable. Horny.
Like I’m going into heat again.
I whip out the little box from the pharmacy and start to read the fine print, an ugly hollow feeling growing in my stomach. And sure enough:
“This medication may cause heat-like symptoms for the duration of the prescribed course.”
Well, fuck. I thought the tiny silver lining around this might be that least I could skip my heat this time. But apparently, I get to go through the same basic thing on this drug.
Great.
By the time Jenyta gets home around midnight, I feel exactly like I’m in heat. The beacon on my forehead keeps flashing random colors, and fucking hell I need a knot inside me just as bad as I did last night. The fact that I’m in my apartment this time, and not in a room full of gangsters, is the only thing I have to cling to.
“How’s it going?” my friend asks kindly through the closed door of my room. “I picked up some snacks for you, just in case.”
“It’s exactly like being in heat again,” I whimper back, humping my pillow pointlessly, pathetically, on the verge of tears. “I’m going to need to call out of work this week.”
“I’ll cover your shifts,” Jenyta says immediately. “Don’t worry. You’re going to get through this.”
* * *
Barion
Melyta. Her name is Melyta. Melyta Bartryz. And she lives on Kagnoy Street.
The entire past week, ever since I met her, ever since I marked her, I’ve been obsessed. Korva is the only one who knows. And to his credit, he’s kept the teasing to an absolute minimum. Which is good, because this isn’t fucking funny to me.
I’ve lost my mate.
I know she stopped coming in to work. Her supervisor told me that, nervous as he was to be answering questions from a vostrat. Supposedly she’s sick or something. This whole week, I’ve been driving up and down her street every chance I’ve had, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but nothing. For six entire days, nothing.
I don’t know what to do. She lives on the edge of our territory, not even in a Vostra neighborhood, but I don’t know what difference that makes. She left me. She took my mark, and then she left me. She didn’t want my mark.
She didn’t want me.
Maybe that’s why I’m not telling anyone. The shame of being rejected by my Fated Mate is too much to bear. Better to hide it, to forget.
And yet I can’t.
On the seventh day, I’m sitting in my car across the street from her apartment when the door to the building opens. I look up automatically, not expecting anything at this point. It’s never her.
Except this time, it is. I recognize her face immediately, even in the darkness and from across the street. I could never miss those features. She’s walking with a friend, another young Voorian woman, and they seem to be laughing about something.
My heart leaps. And then I realize I don’t even know what to do. What, do I just walk up to her like, “Hey, remember me?” She chose to leave me, after all. It wasn’t an accident. My position within the Dultaz Family may give me a lot of power in this city, but I can’t make her want me.
Did she ever want me?Maybe she was just in heat, and got caught up in the moment. Maybe, unlike me, she woke up and was filled with regret.
As my mate and her friend walk down the street right in front of my car, my eyes flit to the place on her neck where I remember leaving my mark. I just want to see it again, to make sure the whole thing wasn’t some kind of cruel dream.
Huh?
My mark is gone from her neck. I can see it as clearly as I can see anything. It should be there, but it just… isn’t.
Immediately, I feel like I’ve been thrown out of a spaceship without a suit. My shoulders slump. She didn’t just leave me, she removed my mark entirely. The ultimate rejection. She must have gone straight to the pharmacy as soon as she woke up.
I spend what must be at least 10 minutes staring numbly at the street in front of me, trying to find my center. A week ago, I didn’t even know this woman. Now the fact that she doesn’t want my mark is absolutely crushing. Fuck. I know we didn’t know each other well, but just… fuck. I honestly never saw this coming. In my world, couples come together like this all the time. It’s just how relationships happen. I guess I’m so used to the very traditional Vostra culture that I forget what it’s like for people on the outside. Maybe Melyta isn’t ready to mate for life. Maybe she wants to take suppressants, so she can get a job off this piece-of-shit, middle-of-nowhere subject planet. Hell, for all I know, maybe the woman she just walked by with is her girlfriend.
I don’t know Melyta at all. And she doesn’t want to know me.
And now, with my mark gone from her neck, there isn’t anything linking us together.
A younger version of myself might have punched a fist through my dashboard, maybe even gotten fucked-up drunk and looked for some trouble. But I’m not like that anymore. I can’t be. I have too much responsibility. Too many people counting on me.
And so, with a heavy sigh, I bury my pain and start to drive home. With any luck, I’ll never see Melyta again. And then we can both pretend this whole thing never happened. It hurts, but I know how to handle pain. Pain fades with time.
I’ve had to forget things before. People, places, things that I’ve done. Things I didn’t want to remember.
Now I need to forget Melyta.
