A Luna's Broken Heart

Chapter 9: A Story

-Selene-

“My story starts about three years ago,” she said, her green eyes having a hard time meeting mine. “I met my true mate at nineteen. I was so head of heels and praised myself for being so lucky. I already told you he came from a higher status than me, and I was so surprised when we were paired. I promised myself to live up to him and make sure I didn’t drag him down, and when he didn’t reject me, I was determined to not break that promise, but then a year passed, and something changed. He came up with strange excuses as to why he was gone so much and why he came home smelling like another female. I tried to ignore it at first, thinking I was just imagining it, but he got short-tempered with me and he acted just so strange. He wasn’t the sweet mate I had met a year ago. Eventually, I learned the truth, he was seeing someone else, a female of a higher status and much richer than me. She was the perfect match for him, was all I could think, but still, I didn’t reject him. I was so desperate to keep him … pathetic I know.”

I shook my head. Valerio and I might not have been true mates, but I had done what I could to hold on to him. Unfortunately, I hadn’t done it for selfless reasons like Cecilia had. I was just too scared to fail.

“It’s not,” I said, getting a small smile from her.

“Anyway, one day he came home and ended things. He told me I was an anchor around his ankle, pulling him down and he was tired of it. He wanted more. More than I could give him. I begged him and pleaded with him not to leave me, but he didn’t listen. He just rejected me and left, without saying anything else … it broke me into a thousand pieces. I felt so alone. I only had a few friends back then, and I lost them all, because they couldn’t understand my pain and I couldn’t let go of it. I even sometimes went to see him. When it got dark, I would go find him and see him with that other female … it hurt so much, even when I was standing in front of the mirror, just seeing that pale mark on my shoulder, it hurt. My heart broke over and over, and I didn’t believe it would ever stop.”

“You didn’t believe someone else would want you?” I asked.

Cecilia looked at me for a few seconds before she slowly shook her head.

“I didn’t want someone else. Why would I, someone who had done everything she could to please someone and still got rejected, wait for someone else to “save” me from the pain and then maybe go through it all again. No, I wanted myself back. I wanted my life back.”

“But the only way to do that was to get the mark replaced, right?” I asked.

“How about, instead of replacing it, you remove it?”

I drew back a little in shock. What was she saying?

“That’s not possible.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“No," I said.

“So, this isn’t possible?” she asked.

She once again pulled down the neckline in her t-shirt and revealed her shoulder, where there was no mark anymore, but maybe there never was, I wondered. It just couldn’t be true, she somehow removed it. That wasn’t possible, everyone knew that.

“You don’t believe I ever got marked, do you?”

I looked away, feeling ashamed for not believing her, but it just … it was too unbelievable, and I didn’t want to get disappointed.

“That’s okay. I know how it sounds. I didn’t believe it either at first," she said.

“I’m sorry for doubting you.”

“Don’t be sorry! Don’t ever be sorry. You give your power away when you are.”

I turned and looked at her confused. Gave my power away?

“You’re strong. I can see it," she said.

“You’re mistaken, I’m not ...”

“I wouldn’t tell you this if I didn’t believe you could handle it. Not everyone should try and seek them out.”

“Who are “they”? Who is it that helped you?” I asked.

Cecilia took a deep breath, before taking my hand and squeezing it. I looked at her curiously. It was hard to understand all of this. Who were these people she claimed had helped her? And how did they help her?

“When I decided I didn’t want to wait for someone to “save” me, I started to look for another solution. I read hundreds of articles, went to strange websites that also claimed vampires were real, I read thousands of books both in the humans’ libraries and the hidden ones for wolves. I chatted with weird believers that said they could help me, if I “gave” myself to them, if you know what I mean, and then … one day … after searching for a year, I found something. It was a very old book that spoke of female Spirituals.”

“Wait, as in spiritual wolves?” I asked.

“You heard of them?”

“My mother, before she died, told me a story about these powerful females that had some kind of direct link to the Goddess in some way, but that was a story. They don’t exist.”

“But they do. They still do, but they aren’t easy to find. It took me months of research and study of old scribbles to find them, and when I did … it was the most unbelievable thing meeting these females. I asked them to help me free myself of my old mate, and they did … I no longer feel any sort of connection or pain. I’m free. I’m like I was before I met him!" she said happily.

She was crazy, I thought, as I looked at Cecilia, whose eyes were shining full of happiness. It was just not real. She must have hit her head or something or maybe she was telling this story trying to cover up her own trauma, of what had happened to her. I pulled my hand back and shook my head.

“Spirituals aren’t real. There are no female wolves out there that can talk directly to the Goddess or free someone from a mate link. It’s just not real,” I said and got up from her bed. “I can’t believe I actually thought you could help me.”

I tiredly rubbed my eyes, before looking back at Cecilia. What had I thought? She had been through something traumatic, of course she would come up with a story like this. Her mate had probably been very abusive or maybe even dead. She was trying to cover up her past with a wild and nonreal story to help her deal with things. That was the only explanation.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “They are real.”

“Cecilia …”

But before I could say anything else, Cecilia went down on the floor and searched under her bed. She pulled out a brown worn-down bag and opened the top. She reached inside and pulled out a very old book with a blue-grey cover and a big ruby in the middle. It had weird and strange white figures on the cover as well, stretching and reaching out for you. Almost trying to coax you to open the book.

“Here,” she said. “I had someone go to my old home to get some of my things.”

I slowly reached out and took the book from her. It was heavy but felt almost alive. It was as if the book had an energy around it. I looked at Cecilia who was staring at the book in my hands.

“Read it. Just read all of it and then decide if you want to believe me. All of the information, even the ones I dug up, is in there … should you decide to want to claim back yourself.”

I was certain she was crazy or traumatized, but if she wanted me to read an old book just to prove that to her, then what the hell, it was just a book. I nodded gratefully at her, before lowering the book and walking out of her room.

I didn’t look back as I walked to my office and put the book down on my desk. I placed myself in my black office chair, and sighed. I rubbed my forehead, trying to relieve my pounding headache that had suddenly decided to come. What had I been thinking? What had I hoped for? It was so stupid! Yet for some reason my eyes sought the book. I could just say I had read it, but for some reason I didn’t want to. My hands reached out for it and pulled it in front of me. I slowly ran a finger down the cover, for a second I was sure I saw the white figures move under my touch, but I knew it was probably just the headache playing tricks on me. I grabbed the cover and opened the book. I gasped.

On the first page was what I could only believe was a drawing of the Goddess, but you weren’t allowed to draw her, and certainly not draw her a face … but here she was looking as godlike as she was. She had white-silver hair, a long light blue dress and silver eyes, almost like … Octavia’s, just even more silver. They were serious, deep and drew me in. I could almost not take my eyes off her, but then I read the other page, where some words had been written in the old language of the wolves. I couldn’t read it. No one could anymore, but under it, Cecilia had had it translated. It read:

The Book of Spirituals, the Goddess’s Favored Females.