Arcane Attraction

C H A P T E R 4 - Marcel.

I didn’t care about the noise pollution that I would make, allowing the palace doors to bang shut behind me, finding it almost impossible to contain my growl of frustration as I descended the unnecessarily high steps that led to the entryway of the palace. I was struggling to understand why I was feeling this way, why it felt like I was filled to the brim with anger, yet, feeling like this was the happiest that I had ever been in my life. But if I had to make a wild guess, I would say that my assumption would be spot on.

The only reason why I would be feeling anything remotely similar to joy, would be because of my wolf. It would be his emotions that I was feeling, his joy, his sense of thrill towards the fact that after all these years, after almost giving up hope—he had found his mate. If only I hadn’t already accepted my fate, accepted that I would live my life alone…

Accepted that I would always feel this overpowering sense of anger…

The anger came from no one other than myself, but the problem was that I didn’t even know myself why I was angry. It could have been because of countless things, countless things that I didn’t even want to begin thinking about, but I knew that I would have to if I wanted to calm down.

I took deep breaths, forcing myself to walk slower as I made my way to the entrance to the palace grounds.

The initial cause for my anger was the fact that Aurora had had the nerve to accuse me of treason. I had never been more offended by her in my entire life. She had known me since I was a child, since before I could walk. She should have been able to know by now that I was a sucker for the rules—unlike her.

                “Alpha Marcel. Should I bring around the car for you?”

I turned sideways, looking at my Gamma, wondering where he had come from. I had almost forgotten that I hadn’t come here by myself.

                “Yes.”

                “Are we going back home, or will we be staying with another pack for the time being?”

                “You know that we never impose on anyone. We’re going home.”

It felt like it took forever for him to actually bring the car around from the back of the palace, where all vehicles were always located. I spent the time pacing from one place to the other, while slowly but surely making my way to the front gates.

I found myself getting lost in my thoughts, going from Auroras’ suspicion of treason to the mate whom I had just discovered. I couldn’t even bring myself to think of her name, to think of her as a living, breathing person. I should never have asked about her in the first place, because I was sure that if I hadn’t done it, then Aurora would never have asked me why it was so important.

And she would never have found out that I have a human for a mate.

My body stilled, the world around me seeming to fade as I just registered what it was that I had done.

I had just walked away from my mate, leaving her in the hands of a queen who had been incapable of taking care of herself. How was she to be taken care of in a nearly abandoned palace?

I growled, turning around and making my way right back to the front doors of the palace. I knew that it wouldn’t matter to my Gamma whether or not I was waiting for him, because I knew he would be waiting for me until I decided to come back out again.

My pack knew that I tended to have many unresolved conversations with the queen that I often went back to finish—went back to challenge her on what she said and what she believed.

What shocked me when I pushed open the palace doors, was that the throne was empty—something that didn’t frequently happen. One thing about Aurora, was that you would always know where to find her. With no heirs’ and no mate, she was always inside of the palace, always on the throne. If only she had been punctual enough to wear the acceptable attire for a queen too.

                “Where is she?”

I wasn’t surprised when no one answered me—it was no secret to me that the guards who served our beloved queen had no feelings of warmth towards me, and I couldn’t blame them, for I felt the exact same way.

I shook my head and took a wild guess, walking down the hallway that I had travelled down only moments before, doing my best not to break out in a sprint to get to the room that suddenly felt like it was so much farther away than it had been earlier.

Aurora, for all her flaws, was still just like anyone else. I guessed that the chances that she was curious to see who all the fuss had been about was pretty great, which meant that she had to be there. Where else would she have possibly gone?

Once I was outside the chambers, I reached out, my hand wrapping around the doorknob, before my body stilled, my ears adjusting so that I could hear the conversation that was taking place inside of the room.

                “…he’ll reject her. And nothing will change…”

I frowned upon hearing Auroras’ voice, and even more so when I registered what the context of her words had been.

                “The moon goddess wouldn’t have brought them together if the time wasn’t right.”

I shook my head, letting go of my hold on the doorknob and taking a step backwards, losing every ounce of courage that I had gathered, no longer feeling any desire to go anywhere near her—her being both Aurora and the girl, the girl who I would have to start viewing as my mate.

                “I know it better than anyone when I say that the Moon Goddess makes mistakes. And this has to be one of them.”

                “You can’t do that, Your Majesty. You can’t compare everyone else’s experiences with your own, because every set of mates are different. They all face their own trials.”

In a spur of the moment action, I pushed open the door, stepping into the chambers as if I had every right to be there—and in some ways I did. What didn’t surprise me at all, was the fact that Aurora and her company stopped talking, turning to look at me with shocked expressions on their faces. I could have sworn that they looked like they had seen a ghost.

                “Alpha Marcel. This is quite the surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you back here so soon after your departure.”

It was no one other than Aurora who spoke, her eyes focusing on something behind me for no more than a moment before she returned to look at me, the expression on her face telling me that my return had been the last thing on her mind.

                “I don’t find that hard to believe, since you seemed to find it acceptable to discuss me and my intentions with my mate, with your doctor. I could hear you all the way down the corridor. I used to be under the impression that gossiping at court was frowned upon, but I must have been mistaken.”

She took offense immediately, her face contorting in an unagreeable manner, her eyebrows nearly meshing with one another.

                “You confuse yourself, Marcel. There is a rather obvious difference between gossiping and confiding. You should learn to tell the difference, for it may end up being the death of you. And if I may be so bold to say, eaves-dropping is also frowned upon at court.”

I didn’t reply to her immediately, knowing that she had been trying to get a reaction out of me—one that I wasn’t going to give her. It hadn’t surprised me in the slightest when she had denied my accusation, despite the fact that I had heard it all with my own ears.

Deciding to do what I had initially intended to do, I walked farther into the room, walking past Aurora and her fool of a doctor as if I hadn’t just walked in on a private conversation between the two of them. As they tended to be whenever I was at the palace, my hands were in my pockets, and I couldn’t be more thankful for it, as I was finding it rather difficult to resist the urge to reach out and touch her, to feel those electric like shocks spread through my body.

 I couldn’t help the disappointment that consumed me when I took in the sight of the blood on her face, realising that it still hadn’t been cleaned, hadn’t been wiped off. It had already started to dry, turning into a flaky layer of crust on her skin. Not only did it show how badly this so-called doctor had been treating her, but it also prevented me from being able to see her face, to see the features that I hadn’t yet seen.

                “Although I’m not actually surprised by it, I still feel the need to comment on it. Considering what I’ve seen so far, your skills as a doctor are far from immaculate. Your most fatal flaw would be the fact that you never made the effort to clean her face.”

                “I hate to hear you say such a thing, but I would like to point out that I had more pressing concerns than the blood streak.”

I shook my head, wondering what he would have done if she was still bleeding. Would he have left the blood to continue running down her face, or would he have realised that she is a human, that she doesn’t heal like we do?

                “And what would you have done if she was still bleeding? Actually, I don’t even want you to answer that. Your actions and treatment of her told me everything that I needed to know.”

My statement was greeted with silence, silence that I revelled in. I allowed myself to take the time, to make the effort to actually look at my mate, for more that just the few moments that it had taken for me to realise that she was more than just the average person who’s nose I would have broken. I took in every single thing, starting with her presence, and ending with her scent.

                “I’ll give you a week, Aurora. A week before I come back for her. One precious, little week. If by then, she does not know who she is to me and what will be expected of her, who she is to become, then I will leave without her. And after that, I won’t come back. Do I make myself clear?”

I knew that she had taken offense to what I had said when she let out a puff of air, her footsteps sounding rather loud as she walked up to me, closing the distance between the two of us. I guessed that by the way she was scowling at me, she was trying to come off as threatening, but she was failing miserably.

                “The last time that I made the effort to check, I was still Queen. And I doubt that that would have changed in the meantime. I don’t take orders. I give them.”

                “Being a Queen does not make you someone who anyone would take orders from. Being a leader is. But I’m not going to entertain this foolish conversation with you. I believe that I’ve made myself clear. One week, Aurora. Just one.”

And with those last words, I turned around, turned my back on my mate for the second time that day, and walked out the door.

The only difference was that this time, I was actually planning to come back…