Page 7 of Moth to Her Flame

She’s my mate.

The thoughts chase each other through my fading consciousness like moths around a flame. The last thing I see before the darkness takes me are my wings, their light guttering like a candle in a storm.

The texts never mentioned this part either. How it would feel to find your other half, only to have them reject your very existence.

There wasn’t a word about how it would feel to fall in every possible way at once.

Chapter Six

Riven

Static electricity crackles against my face, pulling me from the darkness. The sensation intensifies until I have to open my eyes, only to find Volt looming over me, his massive, winged form blocking out the morning sun.

“Three hours.” His voice rumbles like distant thunder. “I’ve been flying search patterns for three hours while Dante and Cliff comb the ground. You know how many favors I had to call in from the local ravens to find you?”

Trying to sit up proves to be a mistake. My wings feel like they’re made of concrete, and the world spins lazily around me.

“There’s this thing called a phone,” Volt continues, electricity sparking between his golden feathers. “Wonderful invention. Would have taken you two seconds to tell us you decided to take a dirt nap in the middle of nowhere.”

“Sorry.” The word comes out rough, my throat dry as sandpaper. “Didn’t exactly plan this.”

“Obviously.” He crouches down, his usual sardonic expression shifting to something more serious. “Want to tell me why you look like death warmed over? And why I found you face-down in a clearing instead of skulking around your radio girl’s cabin?”

The image of her ordering me off her porch hits like a physical blow. Memories of her touch bombard me. Of the spark of the mating bond. Of her fear. Of her rejection.

“She’s my mate.” The words taste like ashes. “My fated mate. And she wants nothing to do with me.”

The crackling electricity around Volt goes dead.

“What?” His enormous form stills as he pierces me with his gaze.

“My wings…” Swallowing hard, I force myself to continue. “They lit up when we touched. Like the old texts described. But she—”

“Rejected you?” The electricity returns with a vengeance, sparking such vibrant blue it makes my antennae tingle. “And you just… what? Decided to crash in the woods and give up?”

“What else could I do? She made it clear—”

“Clear?” Thunder rumbles overhead, matching Volt’s rising agitation. “You know what’s clear? That you’re being an idiot. Did you even tell her what this means? What happens if—”

“She wouldn’t listen!” The effort of raising my voice leaves me dizzy. “She thinks I’m a monster.”

“Then wemakeher listen.” Volt’s wings spread, magnificent and threatening. “Because right now you look like three miles of bad road and I’m not watching you fade away because your mate’s having a perfectly reasonable freak-out about discovering that cryptids exist.”

“No.” I try to stand, but my shaky legs have other ideas so I sit here kneeling and craning my neck at my big Thunderbird friend. “You’ll just scare her more.”

“Good.” He moves faster than something his size should be able to, scooping me up like I weigh nothing. “Maybe being scared will make her pay attention.”

“Volt—” Despite my fatigue, I put as much warning as possible into my voice.

“Nope.” His wings beat, lifting us both effortlessly. “We’re doing this. Because if you think I’m explaining to Dante and Cliff that I let you die of mate-sickness because I respected your right to be righteous and stupid, you clearly hit your head harder than I thought.”

“She has a gun,” I manage weakly as we gain altitude.

“Kid.” The fond exasperation in his voice is almost worse than the anger. “I eat lightning for breakfast. A few bullets aren’t going to ruin my morning.”

The ground falls away beneath us as he banks toward her cabin. Each wingbeat carries us closer, and I can feel my body responding to the decreasing distance even as my mind screams in protest.

“This is a terrible idea.”

---