Arcane Attraction

C H A P T E R 3 - Aurora.

                “Well? Are you going to tell me who she is, or do I need to find out by myself?”

Something unfamiliar stirred to life inside of me when I heard him speak, and when I looked up from my folded hands, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Marcel standing in the centre of the throne room—but I hadn’t been expecting him to look so dishevelled, as uncomposed, as he did now. It was a foreign sight, for he had always taken such pride in his appearance. But the brown blotch on his suit jacket told me that he would be far from pleased with his attire at the moment.

                “Marcel dear, you don’t look too well. Is there anything that I could get for you, or someone whom I could call—”

                “I didn’t ask you to call anyone for me. I asked you who she was. That’s all that you can tell me.”

He seemed to be coming closer towards me in the slowest of manners, the air around him crackling, buzzing from the charge of his emotions. It seemed like every step that he took was calculated, measured against its’ consequences. And—as they always seemed to be whenever he was in my presence—his hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of his slacks.

                “Well, I believe that she’s a human.”

                “And don’t you think that I know that?!”

His eyes finally snapped up and connected with mine, but oddly enough, I didn’t feel like he was challenging me. Yet, I found that I couldn’t move, couldn’t break eye contact, couldn’t do a single thing except for stare back at him. His words seemed to echo through the throne room, bouncing off of the walls and circling back to us. It was like a clap of thunder—one that signalled the calm before the storm.

The guards, having grown used to his behaviour and what was to follow, took a step forward, all of them moving as one. It was an action that tended to remind Marcel of where he was and who he was speaking to, reminding him of the limits that he was pushing.

                “You should be more careful with the way you address me, Marcel.”

                “Well, maybe you should—”

                “Marcel!”

I hated that I had to raise my voice to finally get him to snap out of the torrent of rage that he seemed to be slipping into, but luckily, I managed to cut him off before he could say something that he would have ended up regretting. It had taken so much of my self-control to keep my voice from shaking.

                “I’ll remind you again, to remember who you are, and who it is that you’re speaking to. Don’t say something that you’re going to regret.”

                “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth in check, as long as you answer me. I asked you a question, Aurora. And if I recall correctly, I asked it quite nicely.”

I had to resist the urge to let out a sigh, knowing that it would only end up infuriating him more—and I didn’t fancy having to deal with that.

                “Her name is Hera.”

For some reason, I found it extremely difficult to say those four simple words, for they caused my throat to tighten, to close up in a way that I hadn’t been expecting it to. And even though I hadn’t been lucky enough to see the room to which he had taken the girl, I just knew that he wouldn’t have left her there alone, which meant that the palace doctor must have been with her.

                “You can’t just tell me her name and expect me to be happy. Tell me more. Why is she here?”

                “She’s here as the replacement journalist—the one that we’ve been waiting for, for months. She’s said to be one of the best in her field. And now, here, she is the only one in her field.”

It was easy for me to notice the muscle that started to tick in his jaw, but that was only because I knew to look for it. His eyes had strayed from mine, and were now moving, running along the line of guards, who remained as vigilant as ever. They had all seen him come here too many times not to know what he was capable of.

                “If she was one of the best in her field, then why would the humans send her here? They tend to be quite selfish with the things that they value most.”

I lifted my shoulders and then dropped them down again, shrugging, despite the fact that I knew how much Marcel hated it, that he believed it to be unladylike. But for once he didn’t seem to be paying attention to that. Or he had magically been reminded of the fact that there had been a time when I hadn’t been a royal—not until I had met Ryder.

                “You should know by now that humans tend to lie, Marcel. But whether she’s important to them or not, does not matter to me. We’ve been struggling for long enough, and now the position is finally filled. She is who they sent, and for that I am grateful.”

My eyes followed him as he started to pace from one side of the room, to the other, his head shaking at whatever it was that was going through his mind. I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not it would be a good idea to ask him the one question that had been allowed to burn and engrave itself in my mind since I had observed his reaction, even though I was sure of the answer.

                “Enough of this. What does any of it matter, in the first place? Are you, the great Alpha Marcel, feeling guilty for injuring a human? Or is there another reason for your sudden show of interest?”

I almost stopped speaking when he stopped pacing, turning to me with a severe look of anger on his face. I found myself wondering, for the millionth time, what it had been that I had done to get him to despise me so much, to look at me with that hostility.

                “I imagined you to be brighter than this, Aurora. But I’ll spell it out for you, since that seems to be what you want. She’s my mate. But you shouldn’t concern yourself with it because I’ll reject her as soon as she’s in a stable condition. There’s no place for a human in my pack.”

My heart started to beat wildly against my ribcage as I registered what it was that he was saying. It felt like I was frozen in place, suspended in time. I had absolutely no idea what to do, or what to say, no idea how I was supposed to change his mind.

                “So, you’re going to reject her just because she’s a human?”

Admittedly it had been a futile attempt to draw out our conversation, to keep him here for a fraction longer as I tried to figure out what I could say to him. Something stirred within my gut that told me that this was a turning point. What happened now could change everything.

If he walked out of those doors believing that the girl was nothing more than a disposable journalist.

                “What else do you expect me to do? She won’t fir in here, and you know that just as well as I do. My decision is final—and I’d appreciate it if you stay our of my business.”

He didn’t bother waiting for me to say anything to him, or to even acknowledge what he had said, before he made his way out of the throne room—in a much calmer and more cautious manner than he had been attempting to do earlier.

I kept my eyes on him until he had disappeared completely out of view, before I jumped up, stretching my stance as I hurriedly made my way to the corridor down which he had carried her limp body.

My footsteps sounded loud, bouncing off of the walls in the same manner that it had always done during these last few years—it was something that tended to happen in an empty place.

And this was an empty palace.

I would have been lost if it hadn’t been for the droplets of blood that decorated the floor, leading the way to the chambers in which the girl undoubtedly found herself. I knew that the cleaners would have the time of their lives complaining about this mess.

I had to admit that I found it difficult to believe that all of this blood had managed to spurt out of a single persons’ nose—or perhaps I was only thinking these thoughts because I had never seen a human be handled roughly enough for their nose to start bleeding. The concept of healing at such a slowed rate seemed so foreign to me.

I couldn’t deny that I admired humans, for their will to survive seemed even stronger than ours. They injured themselves day after day, despite being aware of the fact that they didn’t heal as fast as we did. What baffled me even more, was that it wasn’t often that they found themselves dying at the expense of those injuries.

I pushed the door open without making the effort to knock—a horrid habit that I had developed once I had grown accustomed to the fact that the palace was empty of residents, except for myself. Up until now, there hadn’t been a reason for me to knock.

My eyes instantly focused on the pack doctor, who was leaning over the girls’ unconscious body, and I tilted my head slightly so that I would be able to see what he was doing and found that he was holding her eye open while he shone the light of a small flashlight into it. I waited until he was done, waited until he turned to me, the look on his face telling me that he already knew as much as I did.

                “I have to say, that I was quite surprised to see him treat her with such caution—actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him treat anyone with kindness, let alone help them the way that he helped her.”

I nodded my head, taking a cautious step farther into the room, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the girls’ face, but there wasn’t much that I could make out from this distance, other than the porcelain-like tint to her skin, which seemed to contrast so darkly with the red of the blood that was smeared across her face.

                “I doubt that we would have ever gotten to witness it if she wasn’t his mate. It’s quite strange, isn’t it? That she would have walked up to the door at that exact moment in time.”

                “I thought that she might be, but I didn’t have any way of confirming it. He’s never helped anyone before, so it’s natural that she’s not just anyone to him. I think that she was at the right place at the right time—you should know by now that the Moon Goddess works in the strangest of ways. They would have found one another eventually.”

Once more, I could do nothing other than to nod, forcing myself to take another step closer. It felt like I needed to see her—like there was this magnetic pull that surrounded her, one that I couldn’t quite explain. And I wasn’t even going to try and do so either. But I wouldn’t discount the fact that I felt drawn to her. It was like she had this light that surrounded her, it was like nothing I had ever seen before.

                “I won’t disagree with you there. But unfortunately, I don’t think that it makes any difference that they’ve found one another.”

                “What makes you say such a thing? Finding your mate tends to change everything, my Queen. You of all people, should know that.”

I smiled—a rather sad looking thing, one that I knew the ever faithful palace doctor would be able to see right through. He had known me as long as anyone else at court, and after the years of counselling that I had spent with him, he had turned into somewhat of a confidant.

                “From what Marcel just told me, he has no desire to stay with her, purely to blame on the fact that she’s a human. He’ll reject her. And nothing will change…”