The Lycan King's Fated Mate

Chapter 9 - Fate

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Three Months Later

Elderhaven

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Clio

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“You are not stalking Dame, are you?” Amara asks with a knowing smile and I sigh, placing the phone next to me, saying I’m not, even though I am. He took it hard when I told him I was leaving. When I got home that evening to make dinner for us, I walked into a surprise. Dame was home, and he had beaten me to my plan.

He made dinner for us and wanted to surprise me. There were roses, scented candles, the works. He said I had gone through so much in the past year and he wanted to celebrate my starting the new job and let me know how proud he was of me.

He even had this pig picture of my brother there because he said he knew he would have been there with us if he were alive. I cried so hard, not just because I was so touched by his gesture but because of what I was about to do. I even contemplated calling Amara and telling her I was no longer coming, but then I reminded myself that I needed to let Dame go, not just for me but for him. He didn’t deserve half of me. He was too good for that.

So I thanked him for the dinner and told him that there was something I needed to tell him. I broke the news to him and the devastation in his eyes broke me. He didn’t make it difficult though. He let me go, but not without telling me how much he loved me and how I took his heart with me.

Three days later, I made it to Elderhaven and I’ve only been here for three months, but the place has done wonders for me. I don’t know what it is about it, but the moment I set foot here, my spirit came alive. I can still feel the pain of losing so much, but it’s bearable. It’s like this place whispered life back into my soul. But with all that, the guilt of breaking Dame’s heart lingers. So, like a crazy stalker, I’m stalking him on the net.

I want to know how he’s doing but I can’t call him. This place is beautiful, but apparently, you can’t make international calls to some places from here. It’s the weirdest thing in the 20th century, but I suppose some things had to be sacrificed for the healing powers because it definitely has healing powers.

Amara laughed at me when I said that at work, she and I work together. She got me a job at the company where she works, and her fiancé is our boss.

“Ow! Ow! Let me go. Let go!” I’m snapped out of my reverie by her hand grabbing my swollen foot and I grab her hand, prying it off of me. What the hell? Is she trying to make my heart stop? She laughs, and I smack her arm before scooting up on the sofa and letting out a breath of relief that is short-lived as the pain intensifies.

She’s taking me to a party tonight, a staff annual party, but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing trying to go to a party when I should head to the hospital.

“I can’t go, Amara,” I defeatedly confess, looking at my throbbing ankle, and Amara says I'm going, getting up and heading out of the room. A moment later, she returns with her foot spa, and I frown, looking at the purple stuff in it.

“What’s this? I’m not letting you practice any more voodoo on me. I need a doctor,” I complain, narrowing my eyes at her as she places the foot spa in front of me before trying to grab my foot. “No, didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Shut up and give me the foot. You’re going to love me when I’m done,” she says, grabbing my foot despite my protest, and I scream in agony as she submerges it in the strange liquid. But soon a frown creases my face when the pain suddenly disappears the moment it sinks to the bottom.

“Do you feel that? I told you, I’ve got you,” she says as my eyes droop close, enjoying the relief from the pain. But her next words have them flying open again. She says I want to see him again.

“No, I don't."

“Yes, you do. You didn’t even ask who I'm talking about. You can’t lie to me,” she says, and despite trying to deny it, I blush ashamed. I just broke someone’s heart three months ago and told myself that I would never look at a man again, but here I am, feeling things I can’t even explain for a stranger I met once.

But I can’t explain it. The moment our eyes locked, something inside me shifted. Valerio Drakos is Christos Angelos, Amara’s fiancé’s younger brother, and he’s the reason for my anguish. I was busy drooling over him and not watching where I was going, and I slipped and fell, and now I can’t walk.

My ankle is swollen, and a few moments ago, it felt like it was on fire when I tried to move. I wanted to go to the doctor, but Amara said she could fix me, and because I’m a fool, I trusted that someone who’s not a qualified doctor and knows nothing about medicine could help me. But in my defense, she did help me with the terrible back pain I had been struggling with for months.

“Isn’t Valerio a girl’s name, anyway?” I ask, trying to distract her from giving me a knowing smile, but she doesn’t answer my question. Instead, she takes my hand.

“It’s okay to move on, Clio. You’ve been through a lot this past year. You deserve a break and to have someone love you,” she says, and I tell her I had that with Dame. But she retorts, saying she’s talking about someone whose feelings I reciprocate. It’s my turn to raise my brow at her. I don’t even know this Valerio guy. Just because I like him doesn’t mean he likes me back. I say that to her and the knowing smile returns to her face, like she actually knows something I don’t.

“What?”

“He likes you back,” she says, and I scoff at that, saying yeah, right.

“I’m happy you are here, and feeling better,” she adds a moment later, squeezing my hand and I tell her I’m happy to be here too. I missed her. I didn’t realize when I was busy with my life, but I did.

Amara and I met when we were just six years old and became best friends. But her family had to move ten years ago. A guy who lived three houses down from them broke into their home and was caught by Amara’s father. The guys escaped after trying to attack and harm Amara’s father and failing. After that, rumors about Amara’s family being beasts surfaced. They said they were ritualists who practiced witchcraft, and the entire community turned on them. I will never forgive the Smiths for starting the rumors.

My mother and Amara’s mother were best friends, and my mother tried to tell everyone that they were good people and that the rumors were false, but no one listened. The Smiths were ashamed that their son broke into someone’s home and tried to steal and hurt someone and they made up the baseless rumors, using their status as community leaders to turn everyone against Amara’s family rather than apologize for their son's actions.

No matter how Amara’s parents tried to tell everyone that Mason was lying, no one believed them. Instead of dying down, the rumors spread like wildfire. People were coming up with ridiculous theories, and Amara's family started fearing for their lives after receiving death threats.

That led to them moving across the world, and I was devastated; I lost my best friend. We tried to keep in touch, but it didn’t prove easy because of how far apart we were. Over time, we moved on with our lives and drifted apart. We are all grown now and so many things have changed, but our love for each other has remained because the past three months were just like old times.

She was saddened to hear about my mother’s death and how it occurred. I told her about the beast and, unlike everyone else I have ever told, she believed me. Just like Lio, my mother was also attacked by a beast while returning from a night shift. She had called my brother and me to come help her with stuff she had brought home from work. Lio was not home. He was out studying with a classmate, so I went alone to meet her.

There was a little hill from my house to the bus stop where their transport dropped them and I heard a scream just as I came up the little hill. I remember seeing glowing eyes as she screamed at me to run back to the house. The beast was hunched over. It looked like something that was half human, half beast. I couldn’t even run. I collapsed right there out of fear and when I woke up, I was told my mother was gone.

I tried to tell everyone what I saw, but no one believed me. The Smiths, who said Amara’s family were beasts, were gone. They had relocated after trying to convince everyone that my family were also beasts because we were friends with Amara’s family.

I hated the Smiths but after what happened to my mother, I believed them. I didn’t believe that Amara’s family were beasts, but I believed they did see a beast and just mistook it for Amara’s father. Maybe it was lurking close by, and Mason got confused because he was running from Amara’s father.

“Valerio is not a girl’s name,” she says, replying to my earlier question, not knowing that I just asked to divert her attention from me. She says the name Valerio was taken from a son of a king. I nod. I’m not big on mythology, so I take her word for it.

“How does it feel now?” She asks, patting my foot dry, and I gasp, looking at my no longer swollen foot. How is this even possible?

“How did you do that?” I ask, still staring at it, astounded, and she says maybe she’ll tell me one day, winking at me as she stands upright.

“Thank you. I can’t believe the swelling has gone down,” I add, carefully getting to my feet, and she assures me it’s healed as I reluctantly step on it. It doesn’t hurt at all; it's as good as new. I pull her into a hug, thanking her again, and she says we must get ready for the party since it’s already getting late.

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Amara

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“Are you okay?” Clio asks, catching me watching her and I realize my worry is showing and quickly fix my face, telling her I’m okay. “Shouldn’t you be going to get ready too?” she asks, and I head to my room with the best smile I can muster and she returns it.

When she got here, I was over the moon, especially seeing that this place made her feel better. She was smiling, and it warmed my heart to see her smiling. But now all that’s changed and I wish I had never brought her here. A few days ago, Clio met Valerio, and Valerio's Lycan identified her as their mate.

I was ecstatic when I saw Valerio just standing there like he was glued to his feet while his aura went wild before he regained composure and played it off like it was nothing.

But later, after everything settled down, I remembered what it meant, and I was terrified. I still am. Humans don’t know about our existence, but they feel the bond when mated to us. They don’t understand it. They think they are lusting over the person, not knowing it’s deeper than that.

But that’s not what scared me. Valerio has a chosen mate, Athena, which means he has to reject Clio. When wolves reject other wolves, they experience soul-wrecking heartbreak, but they eventually heal, and if fortunate, they are granted second-chance mates. But that’s not the case for humans.

Humans are weak, and the rejection collapses their minds, and they go crazy until they eventually die. They are seldom mated to wolves, and the wolf council presides over their rejection, unlike wolf-to-wolf rejections. It’s against our laws to reject one’s human mate without informing the wolf council and stating their reasons for the rejection. They try to protect the humans since the rejection is as good as fatal to them, and you are punished if found guilty of breaking that rule.

But in Valerio’s case, it would not be the same. He doesn’t abide by wolf laws. He’s above that, and his mate’s fate was predetermined a long time ago by the same council, so Clio has no protection from them.

Right now we are getting ready to go to the party Christos is hosting, and he doesn’t agree with me bringing Clio to the party, but I have to do something. I must try to get Clio and Valerio together. I can’t just let my best friend go crazy. I brought her here. If I hadn’t, chances are she wouldn’t have met Valerio and activated the bond. Athena and Valerio would have gotten married in ten months, and when he marked Athena, the bond between him and Clio would have been severed.

But now I’ve brought her here. I will not sit back and do nothing. I know Athena rejected her mate already, but maybe Valerio won’t have the heart to. Plus, Christos once told me that Valerio regretted agreeing to his union with Athena. I spent last night praying the entire night, hoping that the regret consumes him tonight, and he surrenders to the bond. Clio’s already lost so much. A fate of misery and death can’t be her reward.