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“Something from Lord Lincoln’s personal lab maybe?” Graham asks.
My surprised expression turns into anger. I’m appalled at the insinuation. I pull my hands away from my mother’s and hiss, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been clean for a while now.”
“Maybe your weakness is a side-effect then,” Gavin suggests, absentmindedly scratching his chin in thought. “Like a withdrawal.”
“I’ve been through withdrawal and it’s nothing like that,” Garren says, talking about me as if I’m not in the room. “I’ve done plenty of shit, but my wolf was always able to keep me on my feet.”
“Most of the time,” Alyssa comments, exchanging a small smile with her husband.
I groan in frustration and shake my head. “It’s nothing like that,” I insist. “I feel as if my heart has been ripped apart. A part of me is missing, and I don’t know how to reach it. It’s a horrible and empty feeling.”
I don’t miss the looks exchanged between Garren and Alyssa, and Gavin and Leia. They’re having some silent, wordless communication with their partners.
They know something, my wolf says, catching onto it as well.
“What’s happening to me?” I ask, pushing down an angry growl that threatens to bubble up in my throat.
“It can’t be,” Gavin says out loud as if replying to something Leia said to him.
“We don’t have enough information about it to be sure either way,” Leia insists. “While it’s a unique phenomenon, it doesn’t mean it only affects the wolves.”
“But there are no reported cases,” Gavin argues, glancing at Garren and Alyssa as if asking them for help.
“Maybe because we don’t know of the wolves actively hanging out with the humans,” Alyssa adds, seemingly taking Leia’s side. “Much less with the witches.”
Garren pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his index finger and murmurs, “Oh, God, please tell me this isn’t true.”
“What?” I yell, desperately needing to get some questions answered. “What’s not true? What’s happening to me?”
Leia takes a step toward me, but Gavin grabs her arm, pulling her back as if afraid I might hurt her. Leia glances at her husband. “It’s okay,” she assures him.
Gavin reluctantly lets her go, but his body is tense and his eyes alert. He narrows his eyes at me in a silent warning. Garren gets up and offers Leia his chair. She sits down, her blue eyes shining with unparalleled sympathy.
“This is something completely new to us, too, and if we’re right, your case is unprecedented,” Leia starts, glancing over her shoulder at Gavin, Garren, and Alyssa who all give her their own version of an encouraging nod or smile. “The feeling that you described is how we feel when we’re away from our mates.”
“Please, stop speaking in riddles,” I beg, my eyes desperately searching hers for answers. “What are you saying?”
“We’re not sure about this,” she warns, then sighs before continuing, “But we believe that somehow, you and Helia are fated mates.”
My father punches the wall, his fists making a hole straight through it. My mother covers her mouth when she begins to cry, and Graham pulls her into a hug. Alyssa takes Garren’s hand in hers as he closes his eyes and takes deep breaths. Gavin sets his own hand on his wife’s shoulder. They’re the only two who look at me with sympathy in their eyes.
Our mate? my wolf whimpers, aching coloring his tone.
It would explain a lot, I reply, thinking of the way I feel when I’m with her, and of how I can’t get enough of her.
How do we know for sure? he asks, not daring to let himself believe just yet.
We have to find her first, I tell him, a wave of determination washing over me.
I slightly lift my chin, allowing my family to see the steel and power in my expression. Now that this piece has fallen into place, I’m starting to decipher the rest.
“I think I saw her,” I tell them, sounding more coherent than I had throughout the whole day. Once I start speaking, the words come rushing out of me, my mind connecting them by itself as I ride the flow. “I thought it was some weird dream, but if this thing with us being mates is true, then it could be that she somehow established a telepathic link between us.”
“Impossible. This doesn’t exist,” my father argues, shutting it down. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“With all due respect, Father, but you haven’t heard of a lot of things, so kindly shut up and listen,” I growl at the person who used to be my king and my tormentor both wrapped into one. I hold his eyes in a challenge, willing to try to fight him if he keeps me away from Helia for another second.
“Let him speak,” Gavin says with the tone of an alpha. He was king-material long before he married Leia. Despite being the fourth in line to inherit a throne, he was always by far the most obvious choice to lead the family. Fortunately, Garren got his shit together just in time to give us a fighting chance.
