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“I’m not done yet,” I said, flipping the pages wildly to find another spell I’d marked as interesting. There was something about the way Sela had kept staring daggers at Lyka…
Ah! Here it is!The spell that could help a shifter find their fated mate. “I need to do something else. Just do exactly what you did before.”
Fenris nodded, resuming his silence as I scanned the handwriting quickly, not wanting to lose anything. I took a breath and dove back into the swamp, this time calling a bit more on the moon’s power. I could feel my body start to ache again as I searched for a thread, a thin line coming from his…there!
I touched it, and Lyka reacted violently. I stumbled backward, falling on my rear from the force with which he’d rejected me from his mind.
“Celeste!” Fenris exclaimed, reaching for me immediately.
I stared up at him, unable to believe what I’d just uncovered. If Sela was Lyka’s mate, that line would’ve been severed when he’d ripped her to shreds.
“Fenris,” I said, breathless with my discovery, “Lyka’s fated mate is still out there somewhere.”
Chapter25
Fenris
Fenris’s Private Villa
Isla Lobo, Panama
“What?” I paused helping Celeste back to her feet, staring at her as I tried to wrap my mind around what she’d just said. “No, that isn’t possible. I watched him rip his mate to shreds. She is dead.”
“His fated mate is out there,” Celeste repeated, sounding more confident. “I’m certain.”
I shook my head, offering her my hand as she hoisted herself off the floor. “A shifter only has one fated mate,” I argued. “That is why the loss of a mate is so devastating. You can never replace that bond.”
Celeste shrugged, brushing her shorts and legs off. “Then this Sela person wasn’t his true fated mate,” she replied, reaching for the grimoire I was still holding. “That’s possible, isn’t it? They didn’t seem to like each other, much less share any sort of deep bond.”
My frown deepened. Ihadheard, on rare occasions, of mates rejecting one another, but that was exceedingly rare. “Perhaps,” I said, unable to say for certain. Celeste was the one who’d peered inside Lyka’s mind, after all. “But from what I remember, they did everything together. They didn’t seem to be in strife.”
“Hm,” Celeste said. “Well, I only saw a few memories. It’s possible I was just seeing the worst ones because those are the most painful for him. They were sticking out.” She looked thoughtful. “Would you mind telling me about Sela and Lyka?”
I tried to remember. “They met a little less than a century after the full solar eclipse. Sela wasn’t from the Celestial Pack. That meant they’d never be able to complete the ritual, and she’d only live a mortal lifetime, so they did everything together. Sometimes, I felt a bit pushed out of Lyka’s life, but I didn’t hold it against him. I knew he’d have less than a century with Sela while we’d have forever. He wanted to spend as much time with his mate while he could.”
“Where did they meet?” Celeste asked. “Was their first meeting like Cody and Morgan’s earlier?”
I frowned. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. Lyka’s behavior was starting to shift a little, and he was already becoming more antisocial—one of the first signs that the curse was taking him. One day, he simply came back to our home with this young woman. Who was I to argue?”
Should I have, though?At the time, I hadn’t known anyone else in the Celestial Pack who’d found their mate. Naively, perhaps, I had hoped meeting Sela would slow my brother’s descent into madness—but it’d done quite the opposite.
“His feral behavior got worse after that,” I said, looking back toward the door. “He became more unpredictable. His disappearances lasted longer, but Sela always disappeared with him. I really hoped that finding her would help him, but the knowledge that she’d die a mortal death must’ve weighed heavily on him. It was almost like he was practicing…shit.”
“What?” Celeste asked, moving closer. She held her book against her chest. “What was he practicing?”
I scowled fiercely. “Thatis what happens when witches start practicing dark magic and get addicted to its thrill,” I hissed. “Someone must have been using dark magicon him. When Sabine was trying to kill him, she yelled something about Lyka stealing her sister. It made no sense, but—”
“Sela must have been Sabine’s sister,” Celeste finished for me, her eyes growing wide. “Sela was…what? Using him? Manipulating him?” Her face fell, and she looked back to the door. “No wonder he went mad.”
“Indeed.” Fury and sadness warred within my chest. I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed the presence of witchcraft, insidious and sneaky as it was.
Celeste looked back at me. “If we find this person before the eclipse—Lyka’s actual fated mate, I mean—would he be able to recover? Would they be able to help him heal?”
“I…” I hadn’t thought of that. “I admit I’ve never heard of a situation where someone posed as a shifter’s fated mate. But I don’t think finding his true fated mate could hurt, as long as we protect them from him if he responds poorly.”
“Of course,” Celeste said, nodding. “We wouldn’t let them get hurt.”
I felt a swell of hope for Lyka. Perhaps not all was lost and he wouldn’t be destined to an eternity of madness, where the only way out was either slowly finding his way back, like on Isla Caida before Sabine’s intervention, or being put down like a rabid dog.
