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“I’m sorry,” I begin, my voice shaky, and I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment as I attempt to calm myself. Once I feel more in control, I open my eyes and look between the two of them, my expression sombre. “It’s not safe here, especially for werewolves, and now all of my mates are here… and Scott.”
Those last two words hang awkwardly in the air between us, Joel wisely not commenting. Scott frowns and grumbles at the comment, yet he doesn’t voice his opinion. I understand why he feels that way though, and I agree it sounds odd to call him my friend. He’s not my mate, and to bundle him under that title with the others doesn’t feel right, yet calling him my friend seems wrong. The way he watches me isn’t how you’d look at a friend.
I still have to figure out that little conundrum. I’m drawn to him, and the fact that he’s here feels right, like he’s the final piece to the puzzle. However, my bond is quiet around him. With my other mates, as soon as our eyes locked, I instantly knew that they were mine. It’s different with Scott, and I don’t know why.
Thinking about our connection sparks a thought in my mind. Earlier, I noticed that my bonds felt stronger the moment I entered the room, but I was too overwhelmed by Joel’s presence to really pay attention. Now, I reach for my mates and find that I’m able to feel each one of them clearly.
When I stepped into the room, it was like slamming into a wall, the bonds hitting me so strongly it was like a physical blow. Since I’ve been here, feeling my mates has been somewhat of a rollercoaster of ups and downs. Madame Constance helped me release my magic, which meant I could feel my mates, but I was placed under a spell to stop them from finding me. This prevented me from going mad, however, I still felt empty without them. Now it’s all changed.
I can feel all of them, and even my unfinished bond with Atlas is stronger. What’s different? I’m sure magic must be involved, but I’m not going to complain as I finally feel more like myself with them here.
No one says anything, and I feel the need to clear the air. Swallowing the lump at the back of my throat, I glance between them. “How did you end up here?”
This is something that’s been bugging me since I realised they’d been captured. How did the witches track them down, and how did they know that Joel was my mate? The same goes for Scott. How did they know that he was important to me? I assume they have been tracking them and watching to see who’s been protecting my family. That floods me with fear, as it means they know how to find my family too. Were they taken as well? Am I going to walk into another room and find my father?
My mind is beginning to spiral again, and I feel myself being pulled into panic. Before I can get too caught up in these toxic thoughts, my mates instinctively reach out to me through the bond, soothing me in their own ways. Joel’s strong presence fills my body, strengthening me and allowing me to withstand anything, while Nicolai’s compassion comforts my frantic heart and soothes my fears. Atlas’s critical thinking helps to clear my mind and let me think clearly, and Syn’s possessive overprotective nature floods me, reassuring me that he won’t allow anyone to hurt me. I can now see why the goddess chose each of them for me.
Sighing, Scott’s eyes flick up to my mate, and he takes a step back, running his hands through his hair in frustration. “I was ambushed when I went into town. Someone jumped me while I was on my bike, and before I could even begin to shift, my body locked up. I blacked out then, and when I woke up, I was here.”
He barely moved away. In fact, if I reached out, my arm would still brush up against his, yet the distance between us suddenly feels very obvious with Joel pressed against my back. I should be paying attention to what he’s saying, and I am, but he’s giving away far more with what he’snotsaying. Reading body language is a skill that werewolves use often when communicating with each other, particularly in wolf form, and it’s something that I’ve become quite adept at. The self-deprecating smile he wears might be trying to make us think that he’s merely annoyed or frustrated that he got captured, but I can tell it goes deeper than that, the tension in his shoulders and jaw giving him away.
I say nothing as I try to gauge what is really causing these emotions, scanning his face as he refuses to meet my gaze. Joel takes the silence as his cue to speak, clearing his throat to catch my attention.
“I was doing a perimeter run, and I thought I heard someone calling for help,” he begins, his voice factual as he explains. “I went to investigate, and a wall of pain slammed into me. Despite fighting it, I passed out, and the rest is history.”
Tilting my head back, I look up at my alpha mate. His expression is emotionless, and although I see some anger flash in his eyes, I can feel that he’s satisfied he was brought back to me, even if it means his pack has been left behind. This thought reminds me that they were not the only two who were taken.
Oh boy, how am I going to explain this one? I think ruefully. So much has happened since I last saw them. Stepping out of Joel’s protective hold, I take his hand in mine, squeezing it reassuringly when he growls, his inner wolf struggling to let me go after being parted for so long. However, I need a bit of space if I’m to fill them in. Taking a deep breath, I prepare myself for the onslaught of questions that I know is about to follow.
“Nicolai and Syn are here.”
The look of surprised confusion on their faces is almost comical. Whatever they thought I was going to say, they clearly weren’t expecting this.
“What?” Scott finally blurts, a myriad of emotions crossing his face. “Laelia…” Trailing off, he glances at Joel as though seeking permission—no, not permission, assurance. It makes me nervous, especially when he turns his gaze back to me, and it’s full of sorrow. “Nicolai died.”
He breaks it to me gently, his voice soft and full of compassion. Nicolai is alive. I’ve seen him, I can feel him, and I know the story, yet hearing Scott say those words brings up the pain and grief I felt when I thought I’d lost him forever.
“No, he’s alive.” The statement is said a little more forcefully than necessary, and I see that both of them think I’m in denial, so I push on before they can try and convince me otherwise. “He was dying, but the witches took him and did… something to him. The goddess brought him back, and he was reborn.”
I refuse to think about exactly what was done to Nicolai, a full body shudder passing through me, so I hurry through the explanation. “It’s a long story, but he had to give up his wolf to return. Oh, he’s also my mate.”
There is a heavy silence as the two of them take in what I said. It’s a lot to process, and I’ve practically thrown the information at them, so I can’t blame them for needing a moment to think through it all, especially when it sounds like something from a movie. They are experiencing a snapshot of what I went through when I learned all this, the mixture of turbulent emotions swinging between horror, anger, and joy like waves in a storm. Giving them that time to sort through how they feel, I look between the two of them, feeling a little guilty that I didn’t break the news to them more easily.
Joel seems to come to a realisation first, frowning deeply as he swings his head around to focus on me. “Wait, are you saying that he’s a human now?”
Out of everything that I just told him, this seems to be the part that shocks him the most. However, as blood drains from Scott’s face, leaving him pale and shaken, I look at this from their perspectives.
Taking away a werewolf’s ability to shift is to take away an intrinsic part of them, and it’s probably considered a fate worse than death by many. They can’t simply stop being a werewolf. You don’t tend to see old werewolves, not because they don’t live that long, but because many of them disappear into the woods and are never seen again once they become too old to shift. It’s different for me, because I don’t become my wolf as one soul with two forms. Star is her own magical being and manifests beside me, having her own personality while still carrying part of my soul. Even so, if I was never able to feel her inside me again, I think it would break me.
“I don’t think he’ll ever be fully human, but he’s no longer able to shift,” I answer carefully. They seem to be taking the news harder than I expected, and I’m not sure how they are going to react around him when we’re all brought together again. “He was given the choice to pass on or return without his wolf,” I continue, hoping that the explanation might help them to process this better. “When I saw him for the first time after he was reborn, the mate bond kicked in between us.”
“You have another mate.” Scott chuckles quietly. “I’m not that surprised about the bond to be honest. I don’t know him that well, but the way that boy looked at you…” Scott shakes his head with a small smile, as though it was clear to everyone that something was going to happen between us.
Joel moves his weight from foot to foot, and I don’t think he realises he’s doing it, but he shifts closer to me in the process. “You said that Syn is here too? He was taken?”
Snorting, I rub my hand across my forehead to ease the tension there. Syn is a whole other issue that I need to explain. “No. Somehow, he managed to work past the magic and track me down.”
This doesn’t seem to shock them, or at least not outwardly. Maybe if they learned of this before I dropped the Nicolai bombshell it would have, but now they are desensitised.
