“Okay then. You get cleaned up, just because us siblings have conceded the biggest piece to you doesn’t mean Appa is aware of your prize.”
A panicked look erupts over Eddie’s face as he realizes his sister is right. “Shit! Right! See you at the table, love ya!”
He rushes past Amelia to the bathroom after planting a quick kiss on her cheek. Amelia laughs at the gesture, shaking her head, before going to join her parents in the dining room.
* * *
After manor staff clean up the plates from a successful lunch, the LaLune family relaxes in the living room with tea and a selection of Korean snacks Janice had imported from the human world. It always made the sibling’s mother reminisce of the life she once had. The familiar flavours always stirred gentle memories of the life she once lived.
“Darling, are you alright?” Christopher wipes away a single tear that has managed to fall from Janice’s eyes onto her cheek with a gentle brush of a calloused hand.
The four siblings turn from their snacks and conversation to look at their mother. Before they can echo their father’s concern, Janice holds up a hand and laughs to herself. “Yes, Yeo-bo, I’m fine. They’re happy tears. I was just thinking about the day we met in the park – another cold December morning like this one.”
She leans in and gives her husband a sweet kiss on his lips. Christopher’s face breaks into a warm smile and he kisses his wife heartily in return. TheLaLune siblings groan and roll their eyes at their parent’s P.D.A, earning all of them a glare from their mother that could stop the mightiest beast in its tracks. A deep chuckle comes from Christopher as he watches his children squirm under their mother’s gaze. “I never expected a business trip to the human world would end in me finding my fated mate, the other half of my soul that would finally make me whole. Fate is truly a funny and fickle thing.”
A fated mate pair is said to be filled with love and trust like no other bond could ever recreate. The souls of mates were drawn to one another, a yearning that tugged at their hearts.
Like how Christopher had found Janice, Amelia and Michael have both been fortunate enough to find their mates in recent years. About three years ago Amelia met a new accountant hired by the LaLune group, an arcanist woman by the name of Courtney James. Michael’s experience was slightly different than his older sister’s. He went to a tech expo last year, where he met Meghan Willow, a bear shifter who worked in I.T.
Eddie looks around the room at his family, at the joy, warmth and laughter they filled his life with, and can’t help as melancholy blooms in his chest. A shadowed bitterness curls in his gut. His eldest sister and brother had someone waiting at their homes for them. His mother and father had found each other despite being from separate worlds in the most literal sense. He hoped with all his heart Sarah would find her mate soon. They all deserved the happiness that came from finding their one true mate. Left apart from both beast and magic, Eddie knows he will never have a mate of his own.
A twist of jealousy, one he constantly forces down, brews in his heart. Though he shared in his family’s gift of strength and speed, a shifter he was not. No fur ever tore through his skin, no claws ever pushed from his fingers. There was no beast within looking for release. He wasn’t even blessed in druidic magics like some other shifters, his father and Amelia prime example of those who command both beast and earth. No, Eddie was just… Eddie.
Eddie’s father is powerful, a werewolf like the Lycan of legends, thatled tribes and armies, though he does not possess mantle of alpha. The community believed if anyone could give life to the Lycan–an alpha born of werewolf blood and mortal flesh–it would be Christopher LaLune and his human mate.
Three strong pups they had, but no Lycan. Then came Eddie, no wolf, practically no magic.
His family loves him but in their eyes he can see it. The shadow of pity that haunts his family’s loving gaze. Eddie resents himself for not even being a proper shifter, no matter how much assurance his family offered. He wishes he could be stronger, he wishes to be more, he wishes to be…
Whole.
Chapter 4
Eddie is packing up his luggage for the trip back to Solomon City when a knock comes at his door. On the other side is his father Christopher LaLune holding a flier in his hand.
“Eddie, sorry to interrupt, but I know you wanted to move out of your friends’ place and I happened upon this.” Christopher hands Eddie the flier who gives it a once over. It was indeed for a room for rent in Solomon city, an amazing location across from Wychwood Park. Eddie loved spending time there. It was as if an enchanted forest popped up in the heart of metropolitan Solomon.
He had been living with his high school friends Oswald Rivers and Bernard Woods. They used to play football together in high school and even continued for a couple of years together on the Solomon University team, The RuneKnights. Turns out they were a fated pair for years after they both turned eighteen in high school, but neither one wanted to admit their feelings for the other at risk it would ruin what they had. After six long, excruciating,years of pining, unsure feelings and denial of literal fate, Oswald and Bernard admitted they truly loved one another. It was torturous for everyone involved and they bought their friends so many drinks to thank them and apologize for the past six years.
While Eddie loves his friends, after years of repressed feelings, they became slightly…unbearable, Eddie would say. It’s hard to focus on the last year and a half of his masters in physical therapy when your apartment is filled with sounds of two muscle heads declaring their love for one another in the most graphic ways possible. Rabbits had nothing on those two. As much as Eddie might appreciate the look of strapping young men, he didn’t need the image of those two fucking permanently etched into his brain if he forgets to announce his arrival.
The touch of jealousy burning at the back of his mind certainly doesn’t help things.
“Thanks, Appa, I’ll look into it when I get back. I still have new years with the guys and some school work to finish before I worry about moving, so probably in the last week of break after the new year starts.”
Eddie takes another look at the flier and realizes the price of 500$ all included and the location, Alexandria heights. “Uh, Appa?” Eddie furrows his brow as he begins to doubt the legitimacy of the flier. “These sorta places easily charge at least four times this. And all included? You can just toss this, it’s an obvious scam.” He goes to hand the flier back to his father but is stopped when Christopher holds his hand up.
“I looked into it,” his father straightens his tie and rolls his shoulders back. “The Nocturne group owns the apartment in question. I reached out to Annabella and confirmed for myself before handing it off to you. I told her you enjoyed her gift by the way, she’s glad. Apparently, that elusive son of hers gains to inherit the apartment if he can live with two housemates till his graduation a year and a half from now. He goes to Solomon University too, you know. Law department, currently, I believe she said.”
Jackson Nocturne, Eddie is familiar with the elusive son in question. Rumors say that till he became an adult by elven standards he would avoid society events except those hosted in his ancestral home of Nocturne castle in the Winter realms. One hundred years Eddie believed was the age in question. Shifters lived longer than humans, even longer than those blessed with magic like arcanists, some even living as long as five hundred years, but that was nothing to a vampiric elf.
Eddie would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t mildly curious about the man. Twenty-five years and he hadn’t once come across him. Rumorspainted him in a mysterious light. A roguish handsomeness framed by a sharp jaw and illuminated by eyes the color of evergreens, the photos Eddie had seen proving the rumors true. They also described him as slightly promiscuous, something Eddie never found appeal in, but he wasn’t one to judge considering his own lack of long term relationship experience. Eddie had met his parents and even his grandmother Eloise before, but Jackson always seemed out of reach. The curiosity entices a sly grin to form at the corner of his lips.
“Thanks, Appa, I’ll definitely look into it. At the very least I should introduce myself to the only son of one of our family’s oldest friends.”
Eddie folds the paper and places it into his bag. He would send an email requesting a viewing be set up when he returned to Solomon City. Christopher pats his youngest son on the shoulder and turns to leave, “That’s a good lad. I know you’ll be on your best behavior, here’s hoping he’s on his. Feel free to let me know if Jackson acts like a little shit, I’m sure Bella will be more than happy to give him an earful.”
His father chuckles deeply as he closes the door to Eddie’s room, leaving his son to finish packing for his return. Eddie shakes his head and laughs lightly at his father’s antics. He steals another look at the folded flier, an odd feeling buzzing in his chest. This might be just what he’s been looking for.
