She was so small compared to me, half my height, her body lithe yet curvy. She seemed fragile, delicate.
Tiny.
I had to curl my claws into the trunk of the tree once more, forcing myself to stay hidden, to not go to her and take her to the ground to claim her like the animal I was. Christ, I wanted to sink my canines into her pretty neck good and hard so every Lycan would know she was mine.
I wanted them to gaze at the slender column of her throat and see how fiercely I marked her, laid claim to her.
But I didn’t go to her. I just watched.
She walked the trail of the woods, her brows pulled low as if in deep concentration. I wondered what she thought about. I wondered if her subconscious remembered me from last night, maybe feeling as though she had an intense dream but unable to pull up the details.
And then she sensed me. I heard the way her heart started beating faster. I could smell the perspiration start to line her perfect flesh. All those reactions were so strong it was as if they were happening to me, our Link so intense there was no denying what she was to me. What I was to her.
I could’ve stayed right in the entrance of the forest—staring at where she resided, hoping to see her again—all fucking day. And I would have if I didn’t have to go back to the manor and check on Luca. I had to make sure he was well.
I have to tell him about my mate.
I wanted to tell my brother that I found her. I wanted to let him know there was hope, that he was next. I wanted my brother to know that after all these long centuries, his mate was, in fact, out there. Waiting for him.
I hoped he felt relief, maybe a semblance of calmness that he couldn’t give up... that he shouldn’t.
I focused on my female once more, my entire life revolving around her now.
I knew what my mate looked like. Knew her scent. It was now forever ingrained in me, both of us linked in that inescapable, undeniable, and unbreakable way. There was no place in the world she could go that I wouldn’t find her. There was no place she could run that I wouldn’t give chase. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back from claiming her much longer.
I just hoped before the full moon rose she would be ready to give herself to me completely.
Because I didn’t think I could control myself where she was concerned.
9
Mikalina
I stayed inside the rest of the day, not because I was afraid, but because I felt… off. Different even.
It was so strange to explain or even try to describe to someone. I was still me, still felt like I was the same person, but it was almost as if a switch had been turned on, one I had no idea about, didn’t even know existed.
I swore everything was crisper, clearer. The smells of the flowers in the garden, the scent of my tea, the warmth from the steam rising up from the mug.
I swore I could hear the kids playing outside as if I stood right beside them. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, maybe just my nerves, a very overactive imagination.
I tried to busy myself by calling my mother. She hadn’t answered, and a part of me had been relieved. That couldn’t be normal or even healthy—to not want to converse with your parents, knowing there really was no connection there, no solid foundation.
Weariness settled in my bones, and I rubbed my eyes, feeling tired all of a sudden.
For the last hour, I’d been looking over my finances, seeing how much I had saved versus how long I could realistically stay here.
Enough, but not for me to make this my home.
I didn’t want to be broke by the time I went back to the States, and at that moment when I thought about actually going home—or what I’d always considered home but maybe never felt like that—left a sour taste in my mouth, a knot in the pit of my stomach.
Home was where your heart was… or something like that.
I could’ve told myself that I was looking over my finances and all of that because I needed to just go, to understand I could still be independent when I went back to America. But the truth was deep down I knew I was looking over everything, because I didn’t want to go.
“I’m losing my damn mind," I said to no one, alone in this little kitchen, feeling isolated, although I really wasn’t.
10
Luca
I listened to my brother’s retreating footsteps and took note he moved slow but steady.
He wanted me to call him back, to open my emotions as he just had.
To give him hope that I wasn’t truly gone and mad.
I wasn’t going to reassure him though. I couldn’t.
He found his mate, and I was happy he would no longer suffer the same lonely fate we had all these centuries. But jealousy reared its ugly head at hearing he was now completely whole, even if he hadn’t claimed her yet.
He found his mate, and that’s all that mattered.
I felt fucking sick and angry at myself for feeling anything but joy and happiness for him.
I knew Ren had told me in hopes of giving me a renewed sense of purpose. I knew that without a doubt. I felt it in the way he spoke, the inclination of his words. I refused to open the door for him, but even still, his muffled words had been as if he was standing right before me, baring his soul.
I sat on the edge of the bare mattress that sat flush with the cold, stone floor, my knees bent, my feet planted firmly on the unforgiving rock.
Dragging a hand through my hair, my mind whirled with the pain, discord, and loneliness that some of the supernatural succumbed to when they didn’t have their other halves. Their mates.
A mind slowly declining, wasting away as thoughts and images of that unnamed soul that was meant for you and you alone.
Lycans with their Linked Mates.
Vampires with their Coveted Ones.
Demons with their Blood Females.
And an array of other supernatural creatures I heard lost their fucking minds because they hadn’t been mated.
We were strong beings... the strongest to walk the earth. Yet in this regard—to that one female—we were utterly weak.
Reality twisted as I sat in this… hole at the pit of the castle. My home forevermore. A place to stay away from others so I didn’t inflict my sickness on them. This may not be a virus one could catch, but it sure as hell felt like one, spreading outward, a parasite to claim a host.
Leaving was an option, allowing my brother to be with his female in our ancestral home, away from the darkened likes of me.
Ending my suffering was also an option, although my belly clenched and churned at that thought.
For even through my hopelessness, a sliver of possibility that she was still out there—my beautiful, perfect mate—waiting for me, had me hanging on.
For what if I left this world, taking matters into my own hands, but she still walked the earth? I couldn’t leave her if the possibility was still there.
Screams erupted in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, roaring out, the pain unimaginable. My mind slowly slipped away day by day until I was more beast than man.
I roared again, swiped at the mattress, stuffing and feathers exploding upward from my violence. I destroyed the room, the anger in me—my beast rising up—so monumental it consumed me.
And this was all because I didn’t have the one meant to be mine.