Heiress or Mate?

Chapter 1 - Curse

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One year earlier

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Veil

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I awaken to movement in the bed before feeling myself placed on the mattress, and I open my eyes to find Andreas getting off the bed. I catch hold of his arm, causing him to look back at me, smiling.

“Is it morning already?” I ask, even though I can clearly see that it is, wishing I could turn back the sun and curl up in his arms again, and he says yes, leaning toward me and pecking me on the lips. I never want him to leave in the morning, no matter how many nights in a row we spend together. It's never enough. I let him go and sit upright before leaning on the headboard, still holding his gaze while my smile broadens.

“Go back to sleep; it’s still early for you,” he softly says, getting up and walking to the bathroom, but I don’t want to sleep anymore without him. My parents are going away next weekend, and I wish I could fast-forward to when they leave already. I’m not even waiting for them to exit the gate before sending Lugos to pick up my man, so we can have the whole place to ourselves and not hide from anyone since my siblings are also going away.

He comes out of the bathroom with a wet face while fixing his hair before putting on his clothes. “You are still up,” he says, winking at me, seeing me drool, and I blush, my eyes trailing down to his mouth-watering abs. Damn, he’s hot.

He walks over to the bed when he’s done getting dressed, and we connect our lips in a feverish kiss before he hugs me goodbye.

“Is your schedule full today?" I ask cause I know he's never available on Thursdays.

“Why?"

“I’m going shopping today, and I might pass through my dad’s office,” I mutter, pulling up the sheets as I lean back against the headboard again, and he gives me a knowing smile, fixing his shirt.

“What?” I act clueless, shrugging my shoulders, and his smile broadens while his eyes sparkle with mischief. “I’ll be visiting my father, not you. I only wanted to know if you might be free,” I add, failing to hold back my own mischievous smile, hopeful, and he nods.

“I'll make time for you,” he whispers, leaning toward me and connecting our lips again. My arms go around his neck, and I deepen the kiss, happy, and he grunts against my lips, wrapping his arms around my waist. Andreas is never available on Thursdays, and he was away for two weeks and is going away again this weekend. So I want to spend some more time together; I miss him.

“See you later,” he whispers against my lips, and I respond with a soft “later” as he lets me go and grabs his car keys. After opening the back sliding door, he checks to see if the coast is clear and walks out once satisfied. I sigh, staring at the door with complaints-filled eyes, listening to his footsteps walk away. I hate that he has to sneak out. I’m nineteen, but we fight every time I bring it up, and I hate fighting with him.

Andreas is eleven years older than me and fears my parents will never approve of us. So, we are keeping our relationship a secret. I love him, and he loves me, and it would break me if my parents didn’t want to give him a chance. I’m not a child anymore and have a right to see whoever I want, regardless of age, but Andreas isn’t as confident as I am, no matter how much I try to assure him, so we have kept our relationship under wraps for two years now. We sneak around behind my parents’ backs, and if I never insisted, we’d still be sneaking around behind the staff’s back as well. The only person who knew about our relationship was the chief maid of the house, Eureka. But that's because she's his cousin. I got her a job here five years ago after I ran into Andreas and her at the mall, shopping for baby clothes. He explained who she was, and I asked my mother to give her a job after hearing her story.

Andreas saved my dad’s life nine years ago, and when speaking to him, my dad discovered he had just moved to town and was unemployed. He also found out he was running away from people who wanted to hurt him. So he helped him get new documents and start over.

He gave him a job in his company, and he’s been part of the family ever since. My family trusts him, and that’s what scares him most. He thinks my father would feel betrayed by our relationship and wouldn't accept it, but I think he’s wrong. Trusting him is precisely what would make dad accept him. He regards him as family, which would work in his favor, but he doesn't see it that way. I’ve begged him to at least let me tell my mother and promised I wouldn't let her tell dad, but he refuses to and gets mad when I don't drop the topic, which frustrates me so much.

We have big plans for the future. He says he wants to marry me, and I don’t know how that will work if he can’t find the courage to tell my family about us. When I say that, he gets madder and says I'm being selfish, so I've left things up to him now and let him decide what's next.

I need to pee, so I sprint to the bathroom and decide to take my shot while at it. It’s almost six, anyway. I open the bathroom cabinet and take it out before grabbing the syringe from the top drawer and filling it up. I sigh, my heart sinking very low as the needle pierces my skin.

I don’t flinch anymore; I don't even know if I feel pain. Just as I finish, I hear my alarm go off, and I quickly pack the stuff away and head out of the bathroom after washing my face and brushing my teeth. But just then, the alarm is turned off, and I walk out to find Eureka, the house help open my blinds. She knows what time I want them opened.

She nods, and I smile; she knows to be seen, not heard. I get dressed and walk to the window when she's done, and I smile, closing my eyes before taking a deep breath of contentment, feeling the sun's rays on my face. But the feeling doesn’t last long, recalling Alec’s question. Alec is my younger brother. People think we are twins since we are about the same age, and sometimes, he thinks we are the same age.

Alec and I are ten months apart. Last night, while we were having dinner, my parents were talking about next weekend's weather since they are going away. And he asked if winter wasn’t always my favorite season, reminding me how I used to like the winter storms, and my eyes started tearing up.

To him, it was curiosity, but to me, it was a stab. He was correct: I used to despise summer; winter was my favorite season, but all of that changed after my eighteenth birthday.

The thoughts cause my hand to fly to my chest, feeling the familiar ache in my heart, recalling that dreadful day. I raise my shirt and stare at the vein where I inject myself with the serum, and I feel a lump in my throat I haven't felt in a long time. I used to cry in the beginning, but not anymore. I was burning with anger, but now, I have accepted my fate. All that's left now is the ache in my chest that's become part of who I am. I don't think I would recognize myself without it.

I opened my mouth to reply to my brother, not even sure what I was going to say since the question caught me off guard, but mother jumped in and distracted him with something else.

She always does that; she’s always afraid I’ll screw up and ruin our lives, even though I’ve held on to the gut-wrenching secret for almost three years now without ever slipping up.

Three years ago, my whole world came crumbling down. I discovered everything I knew about myself was a lie, and nothing was ever the same again. My birthday falls in winter, and winter was my favorite season of the year. It rains a lot here during the season. Storms rule, and it would always be stormy on my birthday. Thunder would rumble while lightning lit up the skies, and some people would cower, but I was never shaken. It was weird, but I felt oddly comforted by them. I felt safe as if they were assuring me and recharging me. But since that fateful night—the night that shattered my soul—I've hated storms and the season that comes with them.

When I close my eyes, I can still feel the icy wind on my face, and if I keep them closed long enough, heart-crippling fear starts to creep up my spine.

The skies were gray, but as usual, it didn't bother me as I sprang out of bed with an extra spring in my step. Unlike my previous birthdays, I was finally going to be eighteen. I was going to be a free woman, and I couldn't help but burst with happiness even though something was amiss.

In the days leading up to my birthday, I noticed something odd with my mother. She was acting very strange after I found her praying while a crying mess twice. I tried to find out what was wrong but couldn't. She said it was nothing serious, but I soon noticed how clingy she had suddenly become. She always wanted to know where I was and what I was doing or planning to do all the time. It was like she was afraid someone would steal me, and it worsened as my birthday got closer.

I spoke to dad about it, and we thought maybe it was because I was about to turn eighteen, and she was scared she would lose me. Andreas also said the same after I spoke to him about it, and I thought they were right. I was worried about her, but I was still excited about gaining my independence and looking forward to celebrating it, too.

I was going to confess my feelings to Andreas because it was evident we liked each other, but because I was not legal, he couldn't act on his feelings. But little did I know what was coming with that independence.

My parents threw me a big party, but my mother got weirder as the hours crept up to midnight. She asked to spend the first few hours of my eighteenth year together, alone in my father’s yacht. It was weird; even my dad didn’t understand it, but I agreed because she promised we would rejoin the party soon, and I wanted to speak to her and assure her she would never lose me.

I was looking forward to being free, but I was never going anywhere. Leaving my parents would mean being out there in the world by myself, and I wasn't ready for that. What would I do?

We left as it neared midnight, but instead of going to the yacht, we went to a house I had never been in before. There was no one in sight when we got there, and she said there was something she wanted to show me and led me to a room. There was nothing but a bed inside the room, and I didn't miss the smell of herbs thick in the air.

Mom asked me to sit down before telling me she had something to tell me, tearing up. She said she should have told me a long time ago but couldn’t because she didn’t know how to. My heartbeat accelerated, taking in her state. I knew whatever she had to tell me was not good, but still, I never expected what would come next.

After asking me to sit on the bed, she left the room, saying she had to get something first. I was scared, but I trusted her. She is my mother, so I walked over to the bed and sat while she headed towards the door, but my heart nearly stopped when she closed the door behind her.

Steel reinforcements came out of nowhere, and before I could comprehend what was happening, the small room had transformed into something worse than a prison cell. I screamed, calling out to her, terrified and shocked, while trying to pull the door, now covered in steel, open, but I couldn’t. I jammed myself against the bars, noticing a huge mirror that covered half the room while my heart raced like it was going to fall out of my chest.

A part of me started questioning if the events were really taking place. My mother couldn't lock me away because she was scared of losing me, could she? I started asking myself if she had found out about Andreas and was angry. A million things were going through my mind, and nothing made sense. But just then, I felt it; I felt a current flowing through me before my body started heating up to a point where it felt as though my blood was boiling.

It felt like molten lava was coursing through my veins and the pain knocked me off my feet. I could feel my bones melting before feeling them shifting, and I let out the loudest scream, clutching my head that felt like it was about to burst into flames.

Snapping and cracking sounds filled the room and blood spewed out of my mouth as my organs felt as though they were being crushed. I was sure I was dying as I tried to crawl up the door, the pain turning me inside out before I collapsed on my face and darkness took over.

I woke up to the most beautiful voice I've ever heard, humming me awake. She told me her name was Storm, and she was my wolf. I was confused as I opened my eyes to look at her. But even in that confusion, I could feel my breathing was different — my heartbeat was different. Something else was flowing through my veins—something I couldn’t explain but felt powerful. My blurry vision cleared, but I shut my eyes again, the lights blinding. Storm spoke again, assuring me it was okay, and I slowly opened my eyes, noticing it wasn't just my vision that was enhanced but everything. My hearing and other senses were, too, and I could clearly feel the power flowing through me. I expected to see her in front of me, but there was no one, making me more confused.

I opened my mouth to ask where she was, but my heart stopped, seeing what stood before me when I looked across the room. It wasn’t a woman as I had expected; it wasn’t a person, but a beast, and it was staring at me.

I froze for a moment before taking slow steps backward, and that’s when I realized the horror. I was not in the room with the beast. I was the beast.

The voice spoke again, saying we were beautiful, and this time, I could clearly hear where it was coming from. It was inside my head. Just then, I caught a familiar scent and turned toward the door to find my mother looking at me through an opening. Tears were running down her face, and the look in her eyes told me she knew.

Something inside me snapped, and I lost it, or the beast did; I couldn’t tell. I started tearing down the place, trying to get to her, but the steel bars wouldn't budge. I don't know how long I was at it before feeling multiple stings on me and realizing she had shot the beast with tranquilizers.

It collapsed to the ground, and our lights went out. When I woke up, I was human again, but I was restrained to the bed. My mother was sitting next to me, still crying. She told me the man I knew as my father was not my father but Alec and Emma’s father. She told me who and what my father was—what I was. I cried in that room for days before I finally asked her to kill me. She refused and kept me locked up for days, convincing me to live before I finally gave in.

I would wake in the middle of the night and cry, asking God, why? Why it had to be me? Why couldn’t I be normal like Alec and Emma? Why couldn't their father be my father?

My mother tried to enlighten me about the beasts, but I didn't want to know anything about them. I hated what I was; I hated my mother and couldn’t look at my siblings or father. I still hate what I am, but I don't hate my mother anymore.

Andreas was there for me even though he didn't know what was happening. He was the only person I would let around me. The pain was better when he held me. So, he would sneak into my room and spend almost every night with me. He’d stay awake all night worried and begging me to tell him what was wrong, and I was dying to, especially since I couldn’t stand the sight of my mother, but I couldn’t.

I hated my mother for doing this to me. I blamed her for giving me the curse, but I still depended on her to control it. I still needed her to keep me from getting my whole family killed.

She told me beast hunters would come for me if word of what I was got out. She said I’d get my whole family killed. But how can I hide what I am forever? What happens if I run out of this serum one day? What will happen to me then?

How would I keep the beast from taking over? I feel like I will lose my mind when the questions start pouring in, and I want to damn it all and tell someone. But then I remember how even the man who raised me doesn’t know. I remember how she even kept it from the love of her life, and I refrain.

I hated my mother for almost two years. I couldn’t even look at her, but I later realized I was wrong. I spent countless hours staring at myself in the mirror, analyzing every inch of my body. I looked for anything that stood out and gave away what I was, but I couldn’t find anything. I was perfectly human to the human eye. Only I knew what I felt. So how was my mother supposed to know? How could she possibly have known he wasn’t human? I realized then that I was wrong for blaming her and that my hatred and anger were misplaced. The one who deserved it was the beast who did this to her, who gave her a curse and then left her to fend for herself.

My mother and my late aunt made a serum that drained the beast of its strength, forcing it to sleep. My late aunt was the only one who shared my mother's secret, and she took it to her grave. I was sad to hear how she and her children died. There was a break-in, and her husband, Uncle Gunner, wasn’t home.

Mom said it was a burglary gone wrong, but I always felt like it was something more, seeing how they don’t have a relationship with her husband, who’s still alive. I've only met him once when we were on holiday and bumped into him. My mother looked very uncomfortable and even sent us away.

It’s like they blame him for my aunt's death; sometimes, I even sense hatred toward him. But I left it alone since my aunt is already dead, and it doesn’t matter anymore.

Mom had the serum with her the night I shifted. She was ready to give it to me since she knew the beast would awaken. She also could have given it to me before the time and made sure it remained asleep, but she wanted me to see it. She wanted me to know it was real, or I would have never believed it, and she knew that. So every morning, I take my dose of poison, knowing what lies beneath this fragile human skin, and the beast has remained dormant since that night.

My favorite cousin is here. He arrived late last night, and I can't wait to see him. My dad has a painting job that he needs done, and my cousin's friend is a painter, so he got the gig for his friend.

We eat breakfast early in this house, so I head down after ensuring I’m decent, and I hear their voices in the dining area.

“She finally joins us,” my cousin says, getting up, a big grin making its way onto his face as I get ready to run to him. But the smile falters when I gasp, clutching my stomach.

“What's wrong?" he asks, walking over to me while my heartbeat accelerates as a surge of heat traveling through my body at lightning speed knocks the air out of my lungs.

“Veil?” I hear my mother's voice while the stranger gets to his feet, his expression no doubt mirroring mine as our eyes remain glued together.

“I-" I try to speak, still unable to look away, but the words die in my throat as the blood-curdling word resonates in my head.

“Mate."

“No.”