Lakota It has been almost five years since Jace rejected me, and like every year I feel discomfort the closer I get to my birthday. On the morning of my nineteenth birthday I woke up screaming in a sweat, and Lance was there in seconds to hold me, to calm me down. After a few minutes I was able to answer his questions, and I told him I had a nightmare; I never had one before. This one was terrifying, a combination of the rejection and Jake dying. I kept hearing Jace as he said I would never be happy, that I would always remain alone and without a family of my own. I wrote it off as a coincidence, but when the nightmare returned on the morning of my twentieth birthday I feared it might return a year later, and it did return. I only seem to have this nightmare on my birthday; every other night I don't dream, or it is of Jake telling me that he loves me. Lance spent the night with me last year, both of us hoping the nightmare would stay away. How wrong we were in thinking that; it came at me even worse, and I couldn't even tell Lance what it had been about. Shivers run down my spine just thinking about the nightmare. I slowly open my eyes as I smell Jace's scent, and somewhere in the background I can hear whimpers, but I can't tell who is making the sounds. Jace tells me to look at him, and I obey without hesitation, looking into his eyes as his face hovers over me. "Did you really think I would ever allow you to be happy again?" He growls at me, and I know he can see the confusion in my eyes. "You will never have a family of your own, you will never be rid of me, Lakota. You will always be mine." He growls, just before he moves away from me. I follow his movements with my eyes, and my eyes widen as I see him stalking towards Jake; he crouches down in front of him before he looks at me over his shoulder. "It looks like your second chance Mate won't be around for long, and I will make sure your lovesick Beta will never be able to act on his feelings for you." He says. I start screaming as I see Lance lying next to Jake, but no sound escapes my lips, and I watch as both Jake and Lance take their last breath. My voice returns the moment they take their last breath, and that is when I wake up. Lance still doesn't know that he became a part of my nightmare, and I am not sure if I will ever be ready to tell him. Not because I am afraid Jace might have been right to think that Lance had feelings for me at one point, but because I don't want him to feel guilty. I walk into my office to have some time for myself before I have to go to the diner; we are expecting Council-member Boaz with two Lycans that are hoping to get a chance to settle down here, and I need to get rid of these negative thoughts. My eyes get drawn to Jake's journals, and I feel that it is time to start reading them; it is time to find out who my Mate was. I had placed Jake's journals on the bookshelf behind my desk, to have him close to me, and today I would find out who my Mate was. The oldest journal is written by a male named August, and he started writing his journal for his kittens. "What the Fuck," Lotus yells in my head, and I read the sentence again to make sure I read it correctly; yep, he wrote down the word kittens. He had found his Mate a few months earlier, and she was halfway through her pregnancy. He had been hoping for a litter with a maximum of three kittens, but his Mate decided to give him a litter of six kittens, and I wonder if they would have to share one Mate. I start up my laptop to see if I can find any information on feline pregnancies, and I find out with a full litter they are usually all individuals; a litter of two or three are most likely multiples. Meaning that August's first litter would each get their own Mate, and I am glad that Wolves usually only have one Pup. I read through August's life with his Mate, and it is a life filled with many kittens, a lot of love, some tears and heartbreak along the way. August lived to be two hundred and three years old before he joined his Mate in death; she had died three years after giving birth for the fifth time and had left August behind to raise sixteen kittens. Most of them had been adults by the time their Mom died, but they all lived near one another, and it was for his own kittens and their kittens that he kept living for as long as he did. They lived in the mountains far away from Wolf and Lycan Packs; they hid themselves in caves during the war with Humans. August handed the journal over to his youngest Daughter on his deathbed, and she kept writing in the journal until it was full. I grab the next journal and continue to read about Shasta's life. I am so engrossed in the journal I don't notice that Lance peeks inside and closes the door again without saying a word. I still haven't found a mention of what kind of shifters they are, but I don't care. In Shasta's life I finally find the answer why Hidden Mountain Pack took chosen Mates; a lot of the members were mated to Mountain Lions, and they didn't want to have offspring that could be a kitten instead of a Pup.I place the journal down to let my mind settle from what I read, "Our Mate was a Mountain Lion," Lotus smiles at me, and I know I would have loved him just as much as I would have loved a Wolf Mate or a Lycan Mate; to us it wouldn't have made a difference. The Goddess paired us for a reason, and who are we to doubt her. I pick up the journal again to continue reading about Shasta's life; she got rejected by the Pack's Gamma and was gifted a second chance Mate. A Mountain Lion like herself, and they had nine kittens before she died; she handed her journal and those of her Father over to her youngest Son, Jake. Lotus and I ask one another the same question at the same time, "Our Jake?" I find out that Jake lived in these mountains, just like a big part of his family, and I recognize one of the places he describes in his journal. It is a stream Quinn and I found about three years ago when we decided we needed a more detailed map of the area. He writes about Hidden Mountain Pack and how they slowly died, one after the other. He writes about his oldest brother being mated to the Alpha's Daughter and how they tried to hide it from everyone, but they were caught. Both of them were killed immediately, and the Alpha announced the new Pack-rules within seconds; Jake had witnessed it all. Apparently those Pack-rules were not as old as I had expected if it is my Jake that wrote this down, unless he was a lot older than I would have suspected. He writes about finding his Mate and the kittens they had during their lives together, but none of his kittens kept living in this mountain range. On his deathbed he hands his journal over to his Sister's youngest kitten, and I know that this is my Jake he mentions. Jake writes about his travels as he visits his family that is scattered all over the mountains in the country, and I enjoy every visit he writes down. Jake writes about returning home decades after the last Alpha died and the remaining Pack-members had moved away. He writes about watching the buildings collapse, about nature taking back control of the territory, and every other page he draws how a part of the territory looks from his spot on the mountain.As I turn the next page I see that the handwriting is strange, and it only takes me a few words to understand why; he wrote this down after he had been attacked by three Rogues. My name is Jake, and these journals contain the stories of my family. We are Mountain Lions, and we have lived here for generations. I am the last one of my family that still lives here; the rest of them moved away or died somewhere down the line. I never had the pleasure of meeting my Mate, but I never gave up hope on finding her until right now. I will never be able to hold her, to look into her eyes and tell her that I love her, or to hold our first Son or Daughter. I know she will find a Mate without knowing that she was meant to be mine, and I am fine with that thought, because all I want is for my Mate to be happy. If by some miracle I find her before I take my last breath, I want her to know that I want her to find happiness and to have the family we are not able to have. I love you, my Mate. I feel two arms wrap around me and I smell my Dad's scent calming me, wrapping me in a blanket of comfort as I quietly sob. It takes me a while to stop crying, but I am finally able to point at the last entry in the journal, and I know that Dad is reading Jake's last words. Dad lifts me in his arms and sits down with me on one of the couches, just holding me. "Is it time to head to the diner?" I ask him, and he actually chuckles. "Lance asked me to accompany him when he found you reading the journals. We both agreed it was time for you to find out more about Jake; I hadn't expected to find out he was a Mountain Lion. I wonder what they are like when it comes to fighting, if they could adapt to Pack life as we know it. Dang, I keep coming up with questions I would have liked to ask him," Dad mumbles as he squeezes me tighter into his chest. "He wants you to be happy, Lakota. I think it is time to let go of Jake, and maybe the Goddess will grant you another Mate." I am not sure if she would, but I know I have some closure now, and I will always have the journals to remind me of the second chance Mate I never got to know. Jake and his family will become a part of this Pack, because I want Mylana to teach our Pups that we are not the only shifters around. "Lance still at the Pack-house with our guests?" I ask Dad as I grab the journals from my desk to place them back on the bookshelf. "Yes, and Mylana already introduced herself to them. They are all telling the truth; she said it is safe to inform them and to make them full Pack-members," Dad replies.