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Blair
Elias Sherwood was my mate.
As hard as I tried to process that little fact, I just couldn’t seem to. It felt like the field around me was spinning. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my emotions or if it was because of the physical effects of our souls binding together.
“Will you try harder after you get some food in your stomach?” I heard Camryn say exasperatedly from somewhere behind me.
I glanced over my shoulder to find her and Ace walking over to the area where Elias and I had set out all the food.
Great. This was just freaking fantastic. Somehow, I had to put on a smile and pretend like everything was okay right now when my entire world had just been my flipped upside down for the second time in less than forty-eight hours.
As much as I wanted to tell her about what had just happened, I couldn’t. Because telling Camryn about what was going on would’ve meant telling her everything – something that I still wasn’t ready to do quite yet.
“Yeah, I promise I will go into Inspector Gadget mode just as soon as I’m no longer starving,” Ace assured her.
“Inspector Gadget? Because that sounds completely convincing,” Camryn mumbled. As they approached us, my best friend’s eyes landed on mine. “Blair? What’s wrong? You look like you’re sick or something.”
“Actually, I think I might be coming down with something,” I lied. If I gave her that as an excuse, then maybe she at least wouldn’t question me further about why I was acting weird.
“Well, it’s probably this hoodie you’ve been wearing for the past few days,” she replied, motioning to the black sweatshirt I still had on. “It’s so hot out, and it’s not even noon yet. You’re probably overheating. Maybe you should take it off.”
“I’m fine,” I replied, shrinking away from her and wrapping my arms around myself protectively. This hoodie needed to stay on or Camryn would see the bite mark. She would be able to put two and two together and figure out what had happened.
“If you insist,” Camryn replied with a shrug, but she was giving me a funny look. Turning to Elias, she said, “Ace needs to eat.”
I glanced over at Elias, who had gone completely silent ever since we had kissed. I was pretty sure that, like me, he was having a difficult time processing that we were mates.
Of course, that only made me feel inferior. It made me wonder one thing.
Was Elias upset that I was his mate? Had he been hoping for a better mate than me?
“Okay. Well, we have some hot dogs, burgers, and chicken in the cooler that we can cook over the fire. There’s some bread, muffins, fruit. Take your pick,” Elias told her.
Ace headed over to the cooler and pulled out a pack of burgers. “The Grill Master at your service. Who wants one?”
“I’ll have one,” Camryn said.
“Yeah, I could probably eat something, too,” Elias agreed.
“Blair?” Ace glanced over at me.
“I’m fine,” I replied, even though the truth was that my stomach was aching with hunger.
“Are you sure?” Ace eyed me curiously. “It’s been hours since any of us have eaten.”
“I had a candy bar that we picked up while grocery shopping,” I lied.
Elias glanced over at me curiously and I shot him a look that said, “You better keep your mouth shut.”
Fortunately, he seemed to take the hint. He didn’t say anything to call me out in front of the others.
“And you didn’t bring us any?” Ace asked.
“Maybe you should have volunteered to go grocery shopping with us so you could pick one out for yourself,” Elias said pointedly.
I realized then what he was doing. He was helping me lie. He’d made it sound like I had legitimately had a candy bar so that they wouldn’t question me.
It seemed like the type of thing your mate would do for you.
“So, I guess you haven’t had any luck finding what we’re looking for?” Elias asked Camryn and Ace.
“Nope, no luck,” Ace replied as he put the burgers in a frying pan and held it over the open fire. “But after I’m refueled, I am going to find this thing.”
“I highly doubt that you are going to be the one to find it,” Camryn muttered under her breath.
“You sound so certain about that, but why?” Ace asked.
“I’m not sure if you even have the attention span to find it,” she replied.
“Who says anything about needing an attention span? There’s only one thing I need and that’s motivation,” Ace replied. “And believe me when I say that I am motivated to get my brother back.”
“I’m motivated to find Jax, too,” a voice said from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to find Bash and Zoe walking towards us.
“You don’t even like Jax,” Camryn said pointedly.
“Nonsense. Jax and I might not always see eye to eye on things, but I do love my brother. Besides, who am I supposed to argue with all the time if he’s not around anymore?” Bash asked. He paused for a moment and then added, “And even though you and I haven’t always gotten along, the truth is that I’d miss you if you were gone, Camryn.”
“Me, too,” Zoe said quietly, a sad look in her eyes. I noticed that they were red and puffy – as though she had been crying. She was probably emotional about the fact that we could lose Camryn if we didn’t win this game.
Don’t get me wrong. I was emotional about it, too. In fact, I wasn’t sure what I would do if something happened to Camryn. It was just that I had been trying really hard not to think about the worst-case scenario. The more I thought about it, the more real it would become. And I didn’t want it to be real. I didn’t want it to be a possibility at all.
All I really wanted was for all of us to walk out of Devil’s Falls alive, but I wasn’t entirely sure that would happen.
“Yeah, well, we all need to try harder,” Elias said then. “Once we’ve all had something to eat, we need to scour these woods, not leaving even a single leaf unturned. We can’t stop until we find something that will help us get Jax back.”
“And that is exactly what I have planned,” Ace said as he flipped a couple of burgers onto buns. “No one believes me, but I am going to find this gold thing.”
“Well, we’ll see what happens,” Elias said. Then he turned to me. “You really should eat something, Blair. You’re going to need the energy to get through today.”
“Fine. I’ll have a burger, I guess,” I replied with an eye roll.
“Good.” Elias’s lips tilted into a slight smile then. He was clearly pleased that I was giving in.
There he was, acting like a mate again.
I wasn’t sure why I was so thrown off that he was my mate. It was like I had this weird, sinking feeling when I found out that he was, and it didn’t even make sense because I actually liked Elias. Actually, I was pretty sure that I more than liked him. I had fallen head over heels for him. I wasn’t sure if we knew each other well enough for me to actually love him, but it almost felt like I did.
So, why did it bother me that he was my mate?
I realized then that it wasn’t that he was my mate that bothered me. It was the fact that I had a mate at all. It changed everything. I could no longer pick a date for the Homecoming Dance or for prom. From now on – and for the rest of my life – my date was already chosen for me. Elias had been chosen for me. And as much as I wanted him, that wasn’t really how I had wanted things to go.
I wanted Elias to be with me because he wanted to, not because fate was forcing us to be together.
It was then that it occurred to me that the biggest mistake I had ever made in my life was kissing Elias and forcing this upon both of us.
All of this was my fault.