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My mother's hands glow and her eyes roll into the back of her head. “I have no idea,” she murmurs, and her aura burns brighter. Suddenly, our surroundings ripple, and we find ourselves watching Bain chase somebody through the forest, but it takes me a few moments to figure out what we are witnessing.
The next second, Bain reaches for them, managing to grab a handful of the boy’s hair and the back of his coat. The man groans when Bain is suddenly tackled, this time by a young woman. We appear to be outside a kingdom wall, huge towering stone walls reach for the treetops. The young man skids to a stop, and I hear him yell out to the young woman.
“Stellara, hurry!” The woman looks up at him and I turn to look at Kaif who steps forward, peering at the woman’s face. “I’ve seen her before,” the woman then spears Bain and he grabs the spear. The teenage girl looks familiar to me, but I can’t place her. The young man, however, I’ve never seen before.
“Hades’s daughter…” Kaif murmurs, looking at his brother.
“Why would she be here? Why were you chasing them?” Kaif turns, looking at his brother.
“Celeste, why else? She sent me after her,” Bain answers.
“Where’s the brother?” Kaif asks him and Bain shrugs. Not knowing the answer.
“I was sent after her. Celeste never mentioned her having a brother,” Bain answers.
“And the man?” Kaif asks him.
“No clue, I never saw them again after that. You made sure of that!” Bain snarls.
“For fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to say it, I never sold you out to Celeste!” Kaif growls.
“Then how did she find me here?!” Bain asks, gesturing at the scene unfolding around us. The young man and the girl run off, leaving Bain bleeding out. Incredibly, Bain pulls the spear out with a snarl and staggers to his feet. The man and woman disappear, yet Bain is still bleeding terribly, and he staggers to the castle, using it to hold himself up.
The fountain of past makes us watch the memories play out as he staggers, only to hear a voice holler in the distance. Bain looks around before he starts running, eventually he finds a hole in the wall where a part of the wall is broken, he scrambles over it and disappears into the thick vine gardens.
“And that's how I met Seline.”
ChapterSixty-Eight
“Who would have thought that that day forever altered the course of my existence,” Bain says, as we watch as he is forced to shift back.
“So this was after you became a Lycan? But before you met Seline?” I ask, and Bain nods.
“Yes,” he confirms, “I was there when the world first witnessed the birth of the Lycans, creatures who now walk the line between man and beast.”
“Before these events, I was but a mortal man, a warlock, but I was human,” Bain reveals, “living a life that knew neither the blessings nor the curses of immortality. Little did I know that my path would cross with that of Seline, a woman of grace and compassion, a Queen of a human kingdom, she gave me my humanity back.”
I watch the memory play out to see Bain clamber over the broken wall, falling among the rose bushes. He stares at the sky, looking as though he knows he is going to die. Night passes in this vision of memory, and the following morning I see Seline. A woman I've heard plenty about but never seen wanders into her garden, she is smelling roses when she gets the fright of her life when she finds the man naked laying in her garden.
“One day,” Bain continues, “As Seline strolled through her resplendent garden, her world collided with mine. I, a wounded and naked stranger, clambered over the stone fence, a trespasser in a kingdom of privilege. I thought she would scream and order her guards to kill me. Instead, she chucked her cloak over me and called for her guards to help haul me into the dungeons; they wanted to kill me, but she wouldn't allow it.”
His words hang in the air, heavy with anticipation as the memory unfolds. The unlikely bond that formed between a human queen and a savage Lycan.
“She came down every night, she would feed me and read to me. She didn't fear me, though she should have. Were I not injured I probably would have killed her, the first few days I wanted to, but the poison on the spear kept me from shifting,” Bain explains.
“Eventually, her scent became familiar, she was no longer something I identified as threat nor prey,” Bain continues.
“Seline's life and mine became intertwined in ways neither of us could have foreseen. She extended her compassion to me, her kindness, and showed me humanity was possible for a creature who'd forgotten the meaning of the word.”
“But I also knew I couldn't stay, that I had to go back to my coven,” Bain tells us. The memories unravel, time moving forward, and Bain travels for days back to his coven.
“And this is where my brother's betrayal comes into play,” Bain sneers, glaring at Kaif, who rolls his eyes.
“I thought you were dead! That is what Celeste told me,” Kaif explains, and I look at him.
“Yet when I returned, you still didn't stand down,” Bain growls.
“I loved her! And she loved me!” Kaif tells him. “You were never going to marry her, I wouldn't have allowed it!”
