Three: Oliver

Oliver’s P.O.V.

The sun beating down on my furry body as water lapped at my legs had me stirring with a groan of pain. Every part of my body was hurting, and flashes of being attacked flittered through my mind. Leave it to rogues to not be able to even kill someone properly.

But they did. I knew they did.

I was wildly aware that my soul had left my body. What I couldn’t understand was why it was back. The Goddess had been a hair’s breadth away, ready to guide me onward. The sweet taste of the afterlife to feast with my fallen brothers…with my mother, was within reach and then it was torn from me.

Then she sent me away, banished me from her world, back to the Earth to suffer the pain of mortality.

I felt my wolf stir within my mind, clearly not appreciating my dramatics as he came to. I lifted my head, the dry sand from the ground beneath me coated my tongue, and I let out a wolfish cough to clear my throat.

My legs wobbled as I pulled my body upright, my left hind leg remaining limp. While I still had blood rushing in my head, blocking out most sound, I could still smell the world around me, letting me know that I was not alone.

I wanted to give up, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to. My wolf had returned to me, seeming significantly better than the heartbroken pup he was acting before, and my body would begin healing as soon as I regained some strength. But, if I stayed where I was while I waited for that to happen, I was sure to have another run in with the creatures of the forest.

Only this time, I wasn’t ready to fight them. A dark tickle in my mind motivated me to move forward as I imagined stumbling across the rogues who had killed me and ripping their beating hearts from their body. They had made a mistake in choosing me.

I had been brought back to life by the Goddess for a reason, and I sure as Hell wasn’t going to let them get away to hurt other innocent beings.

My body moved forward on its own, too weak to hold my leg up and the continue pain of the limp limb brushing against the ground had me stumbling with a whimper.

There was no telling how long I was struggling across the sand covered edges of the gorge before the walls disappeared, and I was able to move north, away from the flowing water and rocky surroundings. My wolf was pulling me forward, guiding me as I drug myself obediently. If he said help was close, I just needed to listen to his instinct.

Then again that's what had guided me before... the pull that had brought me to my unfaithful mate and led me to this mess to begin with.

The sweet smell of orange and vanilla gently caressed my face, and I paused to inhale the aroma on the breeze. When the wind died down, I turned toward the direction it came from and continued on.

Childish giggling echoed through the forest, making my wolf stir and the pressure on my chest lessened. It was a welcomed sound. The buzzing in my head began to clear, as if the young girl’s laughter had washed my mind free of the trauma I had just endured.

My body, not so much.

A branch jutting from the ground sent me sprawling forward through the tree-line, the bottom of my chin smashing against the ground as a whimper ripped from my chest. My eyes closed as my breath caught, and I refused to move while the tremors of agony rushed through my body. Divinity be damned, it was a cruel joke to bring me back to the living in the same damaged body I had left it in.

“Mommy, look!” The young girl called out as I tried and failed to open my eyes. The sweet scent of orange and vanilla reminded me of the treats my mother would make me as a child, and the fleeting thought that maybe this was the afterlife and that my mother was here after all, skittered through my mind.

“Maddie! No!” A melodic voice cried out in panic. Footsteps rushed toward me, stopping several feet away. “Go inside, right now!”

My head slid across the ground as I turned in the direction of the noise, my neck stretched as far as I could to get closer to the source of the scent.

“But, Mom! He needs our help!”

My eyes fluttered, squeezing closed tight before I used my last bit of energy to force them open. The harsh light of the afternoon made me wince, but my gaze was locked on the beauty standing before me. She stood tall, defensively in front of her pup as she kept her eyes trained on me.

Her curly brown hair was pulled high up in a ponytail, exposing bruising on her collar bone and a scar that glinted in the sunlight, noticeable in my intensified vision.

“I don’t think there is anything we can do for him, Maddie. He’s a wild animal. The greatest mercy we can show him is to end his suffering.” She explained, her hand moving around to her back. “Go inside, Maddie. Don’t make me tell you again. Go read your book.”

“No!” The little girl screamed, her foot stomping into the ground. Her pale green eyes staring into my own as if she were able to read my thoughts and heard my plea for help. “You can’t! He needs us!”

“Maddie, now!” The woman yelled as she turned her head for a small moment and targeted her glare on the child.

Maddie held her stare before giving in and turning back to look at me. With a soft whisper her eyes lined with tears, “He needs us, mommy.”

As she turned and walked back toward the small house, the ache in my chest returned, and I let out a loud whimper, begging for her to come back. When she refused to look back over her shoulder, my eyes blinked closed again as pain radiated like a knife being plunged through my chest.

I silently cursed the Goddess, angered by the cruel joke she was playing on me. After experiencing the pain of my mate marking another, I was thrown from a cliff after being beaten, only to be brought back to life and stuck in this broken body. Yet, She wasn’t done making a mockery of me, as if punishing me for sins in my past life.

I had prayed to Her and worshipped Her my entire life, for this pain? It didn’t seem real that She would do this to me when I had done nothing to warrant it in this life. What was the point of punishing someone for a previous sin they didn’t even remember committing?

Now, I lay here in front of a mate who doesn’t know what I am to her. She doesn’t know how much I would love and care for her and her pup, and she wants to end my suffering and send me back to the land of the dead.

But that was what gave me hope. The Goddess had given me a second chance to live, a chance to try. She had given me them.

They were mine.

The woman and her child, I was bound to them in the most divine way possible. Something that I had never seen happen before. A second chance mate.

“I’m so sorry,” My mate whispered. I opened my eyes, watching as she pulled a gun from her waistband and pointed it in my direction. The deadly glint of metal made my breath shudder, and I gazed back to the beauty holding the means of my ultimate demise.

If I was going to leave this Earth for the second time, I wanted her to be the last thing I saw.

Her pale green eyes bore into mine, and even though she was about to put an end to my suffering, I couldn’t help but admire just how breathtaking they were.

“Please don’t look at me like that,” She said softly, her voice cracking as her outstretched hand shook with the weapon aimed at my head.

I bit back my whimper of pain, not wanting to encourage her to pull the trigger. ‘Please don’t do this, my mate.’ I thought to myself as movement behind her made me look past her, the whimper I had been holding back ripped free at the sight of Maddie looking through the window with tears streaming down her round cheeks.

My gaze looked quickly from the child back to her mother before holding the stare of the miniature version of my mate as she lifted her hand and placed it to the glass separating us.

“Fuck!” The woman yelled, grabbing my attention. Her head was turned as she followed my stare to her daughter, the gun dropping back down next to her thigh. “If you so much as look at her aggressively, I will put a bullet in your head.” She threatened, tucking her gun back into her jeans. I did my best to convey my appreciation through my eyes, but she was too distracted to notice as she ran to the house, returning only a moment later with a blanket.

I eyed her warily, craving her touch but terrified of the pain it would cause. “I need to get this under you so I can bring you closer to the house. I swear, if you bite me… This is fucking crazy.” She muttered as she placed the blanket next to me, careful upon her approach as if I would turn and attack at any moment.

Seeing her fear, I slowly moved, sliding my body over onto the fabric with a whimper and uneven panting from the exertion.

“You understood me? You’re not a wild beast at all. You’re a pet aren’t you?” She asked, and I let out a ‘humpf’ of annoyance at being referred to as such, rolling my eyes behind my closed lids. “Okay then, that’ll make this easier. Let’s get you up to the house.”