I shook for only a moment before I felt fabric be draped across my skin. Then, a warm hand on my shoulder. I closed my eyes for the hundredth time that night and fell into a sleep that only seemed inevitable.
When I woke up, I heard the familiar beeping that I associated with the infirmary. I shifted slightly and felt my bones crack and pop… but nothing hurt. My eyes slowly opened as I took into account my body.
My arms were still there. My legs were still there. I could wiggle my toes. Somehow, I was alive.
What a relief, the voice in the back of my head said. But this time, she sounded different. I sat up in the bed I was in. Hello? I called into the back of my head. I could’ve sworn I heard a wolfish laugh.
Hello! The voice said again. I felt my eyes bulge. I felt a tail swish around in the back of my mind. What the fuck was happening?
You’ve awakened me, the voice said. I am here now. Fully.
I blinked. But you were here before? I said. How – I – I am you. I’ve always been you, the voice said. The tail in my mind swished again. But now I am who you’ve always wanted us to be. The wolf you were meant to be.
I blinked again. A low chuckle sounded from my right. I twisted in my bed to face the person it came from. Valentin smiled brightly at me. “I feel like you’re always in that seat,” I mused out loud.
“I feel like you’re always getting hurt,” Valentin threw back. He stood and sighed. “How do you feel?”
How did I feel?
“Alive,” I said. “Normal. But also, not? I wish I could explain it.”
“No need,” Valentin said. “I had the same feeling when my wolf awakened.”
“Yeah probably when you were like eight or something,” I snorted.
“My wolf didn’t wake until I was eighteen,” Valentin shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was how it usually was before we broke out of the vampire’s grasp.”
“Oh,” I said. “Maybe my wolf didn’t get the memo.”
I heard, my wolf said. I just ignored. How are you so sassy already?
I’m you, she snorted. You were sassy before you got me.
Valentin chuckled and brought my out of my thoughts. I glanced at him. He was smiling slightly out of the corner of his mouth. “What?” I asked.
“Do you want to see?”
I furrowed my brows. “See what?”
“Your eyes,” he continued, offering my a hand. I tentatively took it to stand up. I expected some of the crazy sparks that had happened before, but felt nothing. Maybe with the awakening – and snapping – of my bond with Thorne, whatever was going on with Valentin had slipped away. I filed it away in the back of my mind to ask Victoria if bonds could disappear. Slowly, I let me feet touch the ground in the infirmary. Everything felt so much more. The grooves and the slants of the floor were so much more prominent now. I felt every dip under my toes. It was insane. My jaw fell slightly slack. I looked up at Valentin.
“Easy now,” he cautioned, hand still holding on to mine. “Everything will feel much more intense now.”
I nodded slightly before setting my second foot on the ground. Valentin led me across the room to a mirror. What I saw, made my hands fly to my mouth in shock.
I had expected my eyes to turn gold when my wolf was awakened. However, there, in front of me, situated where my old hazel eyes were was a pair of stunning, green-gold eyes.
Thorne
Thorne Blythwitch had dreamed about his mate since he was a young boy. It was hard not to when his live had been so miserable as a boy. A mother dead when he was eleven and a father who couldn’t give two shits about him. Flash forward and he was then sixteen, with no parents at all and nowhere to go.
In the times between when he was eleven and when Queen Victoria took him in at sixteen, Thorne thought a lot about his dream life. His mother and father, welcoming him into their arms. A mate by his side, preferably the one he was fated to. It was his dream. So why had he rejected Zora when she was presented to him?
Why had he cut the bond he’d been begging for his whole life. He was replaying the moment in his head. The words he’d said. I reject the bond.
“Idiot,” he cursed under his breath. He had been sitting outside the Auditorium for a better part of an hour after Zora shifted. He wanted to stab needles in his eyes and rewind it all back. But he couldn’t. For multiple reasons.
Firstly, a broken bond was unrepairable. Thorne couldn’t go back to Zora. Even if he tried to make her his chosen mate, the magik of the fated mate bond was gone.
Secondly, he was betrothed to the Princess. He couldn’t have beytrayed Victoria like that. She did so much for him, dragged him out of the hellhole he was in. The prospect of the Princess was greater than Thorne’s own personal want for happiness. He couldn’t let Victoria down.
But, what would it like to be happy?
“Fucking idiot,” Thorne swore under his breath again. He ran his hand through his hair, yanking it out of the braid he’d woven into the top. “Yo!” a voice called out. Thorne lifted his head towards the sound. He saw a shadowy figure in a Kelly-green suit trudging through the woods behind the auditorium. He narrowed his eyes slightly and used his wolf sight to hone in on the man. He slumped down when he realized who it was.
“I’m not in the mood,” Thorne snapped. “Fuck off, Kairos.”
Kairos raised his hands in defense. “Easy killer,” he snorted. “I was sent to check on you.”
“I’m fine,” Thorne rubbed at his eyes. “Now can you please leave?”
Kairos said nothing. He sat down next to Thorne on the bench. Thorne lifted his head to glare at his friend. Kairos kept his face schooled and gaze towards the ground. He fished through his pockets and procured a cigarette. He shoved it in his mouth then snapped his fingers and the end of the cigarette lit up.
“You shouldn’t use magiks for something so trivial,” Thorne scolded in a know-it-all way.
“And you shouldn’t break a mate bond,” Kairos mumbled around the cigarette. He pulled on it then blew it out of his shoulder. He shrugged.
“But here we are,”
“You know why I did it,” Thorne said softly.
“I don’t actually,” Kairos leaned back on the log. “So, if you’d care to enlighten me.”
Thorne dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Victoria has done everything for me,” he dropped his hands into his lap and glanced at his friend. “Everything, Kairos. When my father died in combat, she was the first one to offer to take me in. She got me into Alpha Academy, despite the fact I am not a High Alpha or even from the families of Knights. She did it all. I cannot let her down by not allowing the Princess a chance at my hand.”
Kairos nodded slowly, reveling in the silence. He took another drag of his cigarette before holding it in his lungs and speaking. “She could take my hand, you know,”
Thorne sailed his fist into Kairos’s shoulder, causing Kairos to choke on the smoke in his lungs. Then, he burst into laughter. He punched Thorne back. Thorne sat on the log and dropped his head into his hands again.
“Not fucking helping,” Thorne spat.
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