Chapter 154

Justin’s POV

I was going to find Russo, a mate who would allow him to continue his species as well. It didn't seem fair as the last lycan should have the opportunity to give my wife lycan pups and continue our legacy as a species, and this poor man was doomed to watch his species die out when he went. He was young, my age. He had plenty of time. All we had to do was find him someone who was compatible, who could bear fae children for him. In fact . . .

“What?” Russo asked, staring at my face.

He could see that I had an idea.

“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head. “I just figured out what Helen's next project is going to be. I know what I can put her to work on that will be helpful. It will make the lives of people that we care about better, and it will definitely keep her out of harm's way.”

He gave me a light pat on the shoulder. “There, see, things are already looking better. Now, if you keep on this path, I think both you and Helen will find it much easier to reconcile properly with one another. In fact, you might even come out the other side being better friends than you ever were.”

“I should be friends with my mate?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes at me. “Of course, you should be friends with your mate. What did you think this was” Just sex?”

“Well, yes.”

He snorted. “No wonder they keep trying to insult you by calling her your bed slave. Even if she's getting pleasure from it, if you think the whole point of having a mate is just to have sex with her, then you guys are missing out on the other half of what you could be to one another.”

Russo and I kept up our conversation all the way back to the village. When we arrived at my house, it was startlingly devoid of Helen’s scent. Had she taken more of the poison and suppressed her wolf, or was she truly not here?

I hadn't really believed that she would wander off and not be at home. Her place was here. But as I looked through the house, it was clear that she had made good on her threat to go find a place of her own. There wasn't a trace of her or any of her things in the house.

Hurt and rejection panged through my chest, clenching my heart and squeezing my ribs. At that sign of weakness, the takeover of my lycan was almost instantaneous. He shifted me without permission, and I went tearing through the house, using his enhanced senses to try and sniff out my wayward mate.

Russo went running after me, yelling, “Justin, calm down and fight the lycan.”

I snarled and swiped a painting off the way.

He flinched but kept after me. “He's the other half of you. You do not have to relinquish control to him.”

From inside the lycan, I tried to calm myself down. Helen had said that this was what she was going to do. Her absence wasn't a surprise.

Russo had helped me see why space between us would probably be a good thing for the two of us. If she did have space away from me, we could heal the ills between us. Her leaving wasn't an insult. Helen hadn't rejected me. I could still feel the mate bond.

I had to be calm. I forced my lycan to take several deep, long breaths, focusing on nothing but the feeling of air traveling into my lungs and back out through my nose. If I couldn't get my lycan to switch back with me, at least I could get him to calm down a little.

My lycan stopped running recklessly down the halls, and I could feel him wrestling with me, demanding control over my body, our body. But I didn't want to give it to him. This time I was going to make progress with Helen. I was going to fix things between us.

This made me mad at my lycan. “Don't you understand, you stupid beast? I'm trying to make things better.”

He drew back, unaccustomed to me being angry with him. The surprise made his rampage falter. So far, we'd only destroyed a lamp, the picture, and a table.

“That's right,” I said in a soothing voice, trying to calm my lycan down further so that I could shift us back. “It's okay to feel hurt by what Helen did to us. But you're hurting more by not being with her.”

He snarled in response to me.

“You can't fool me,” I said. “You and I are one. I know what you're feeling the same way that you know what I'm feeling, and you are feeling hurt by the fact that our mate isn't around. And you're angry with her when she is here. That can't work because then we'll always feel hurt, and I don't want to always feel hurt.”

He snarled, pulling our lips back from his teeth.

“Let me fix this,” I told him in a commanding voice.

With one last snarl, he reversed the transformation, and I shifted back into a human form. He’d shredded through the outfit that I was wearing, so I went straight to the closet and pulled out fresh clothes, panting with the effort of having controlled my lycan. The other feeling surging through me was raw satisfaction.

I’d managed to talk my lycan down without Helen and without destroying everything. Father always said I’d burn down the world if I was free in my lycan form. Just one more lie, evidently. Learning to control my lycan probably should have been learned when I was a small child.

Father never bothered to get me to try. He just told me it was hopeless and chained me up. But now I had to wonder if we’d worked to calm the beast when I was small if everything would be different with my lycan now. After all, Lycans once had a whole society, and with the evidence coming to light, I was sure father was wrong about their disappearance, too. Lycans hadn’t argued their way into extinction. We’d tangled with a Huntsman.

“Russo,” I said to him, “go find where Helen is living now. I need to visit my mate. I need to see where she's at so that I can be sure that she's safe.”

He gave me a quick bow and left the room in a bit of a hurry. By the time he came back, I was fully under control, and I had my lycan curled up inside me, still snarling quietly at me. But at least he wasn't on a rampage anymore.

Russo gave me a smile. “Randy's gotten her all settled. If you'd like, we can go visit your mate. This would probably be an excellent time to introduce her to the idea of having a task.”

“Advice,” I demanded, “so I don't screw this up.”

“I'm glad you trust me with this. I only have both your and the luna’s best interests at heart. No matter how annoyed you are that she isn't staying with you, make sure that you don't attack her for the decision to live wherever she's at. Just pay her a small compliment on the house that she's chosen and then get straight to business if you can't think of anything else nice to say.”

His wings fluttered softly behind him. “At least giving her a job will make both of you feel better. She'll be doing what you asked of her, and she'll feel like she's contributing in a productive manner. So there should be no hard feelings on either side if you stick to that subject.”

I nodded my head. “All right, fae,” I said. “Show me where my wayward wife is living, so we can get to work fixing everything that’s crumbling around us.”