“So, all the helping me? Training me?” I snapped. “Is for what? Funsesies?”
“Funsesies? Zora, no,” Valentin shook his head again. “You’re my best friend’s daughter. My queen’s daughter. I care for you and want you to succeed.” He locked eyes with me and shook his head again. “But I am not the one who you will marry. Nor should I be.”
I bit down on my lip, hard, to keep the tears from welling in my eyes. For the first time since someone told me I had to get married, I finally felt hopeful. Valentin was kind, gentle and helpful. He was nothing like the others. But he didn’t want me. The rejection felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head.
Once again, I felt hopeless.
I dropped my head to the floor and wrapped my arms around me. Valentin’s hand twitched slightly, as if meant to touch me. But he let it fall back to his side instead of reaching out, “I’m sorry,” he said softly. He walked passed me and up the stairs of the admissions building. My head was going a mile a minute. His touches, his voice. The way we’d just felt in the gym. The gym.
All the various signs that Valentin had told me about fated mates. The electricity, the overconsuming lust. The thrumming in the back of my head. It was perfectly in time with my own heartbeat. It couldn’t have been possible but now I knew, that it very much was.
I whipped around. “Wait!” I shouted up the stairs. Valentin stopped and glanced over his shoulder at me. I made sure to lock my eyes with him. I gestured to the gym with my hand.
“So, that,” I said, voice shaking. “Meant nothing to you? Meant nothing to either of us?” Valentin looked away from me. He licked the front of his teeth before he shook his head. “You didn’t hear,” I continued, still shaky. “Your heartbeat moving in time with mine?”
Valentin snapped his gaze back to mine. His pupils had dilated, swelling with something as he looked at me. His bottom lip twitched once before he looked back down at the floor again.
“Get to class, Miss Smith,” he whispered before he turned on his heel and walked away from me. Then, I was alone once again.
The shock was still running through my bloodstream as the door to the admissions door slammed shut. I couldn’t believe what I had heard. The first person I’d made a genuine connection with, someone who I actually wanted to marry, didn’t want it.
I couldn’t believe he ignored all the signs. The signs he told me about. Maybe he lied, my inner voice said. Maybe he actually isn’t as sincere as you thought.
But then, I thought of the way he stopped the Hunt. The way he kept the wolves at bay as I recovered. The way he tended to my wounds. The way his hands felt on my sides.
No, no, no! Hot, angry tears threatened to come out of my eyes. I blinked them away then did the only thing I knew that could take my mind off it. I ran.
I took off towards the forest, heat in my lungs and brain and let the tears slide across my cheeks. It was early enough before classes that not many students were on campus. Those who were, seemed to ignore me. So I pushed and pushed.
I broke into the forest at a sprint then slowly down to more of a run. I dodged some of the trees and broke onto a path. My chest was heaving from the exercise but, somehow, I still felt okay. I pushed my pace harder and tried to ignore the thought of white-gold eyes in my head. Unfortunately, they crept back in. Something about this seemed like such a betrayal. I’d only know this man for a week yet I’d come to trust him. Sure, there was the faint lingering feeling of attraction but most of it was admiration. Valentin was a strong warrior. He defeated the vampires with my mother. And yet he couldn’t see me as his bride? Even as something more platonic? Though nothing seemed platonic about fated mates. My mind drifted to Bella and her outburst with him the other morning. She’d been asking him to choose. Was she asking between me and her? Maybe Bella was his chosen mate and that’s why she hated me. I’d burst into the school, caused a ruckus and then stolen her man.
Well, not stolen, my inner voice said. He doesn’t want you, remember?
I hate when she got bitter like this. I grunted and pushed my pace harder. My inner voice slid to the back of my mind. The anger she created spurred horrid images of me tearing Bella apart. I gasped at the violence of it all and stopped short. I collapsed against a tree and slumped down to the floor. My heart was beating erratically, enough that I pressed my hand to my chest. I let my eyes close as my head tipped back to hit the tree behind me. It only took my heart beat a moment to return. I was about to get up, surprised at the energy I had, and run back to my dorm when the leaves started bristling in front of me. I slowly stood, hands out. Who knew what kind of creatures were in these woods.
Then, of course, a pair of beady gold eyes and cropped black hair came into my vision. I swore under my breath.
“Why is it always fucking you?” I spat.
Maximus scowled at me. “Maybe if you stop being a fucking idiot, I would stop chasing you!”
“Like you give a shit what happened to me!” I threw back at him. “Unfortunately, I seem to care,” Maximus bit out from gritted teeth. He walked over a fallen log into the clearing where I was standing. “I watched whatever happened with you and Professor Lunerly. You confronted him, didn’t you?”
“That’s none of your business,” I hissed. Technically I had, but not in the way Maximus expected me to.
“You know, he had a fated mate before,” Maximus said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Zahara. She was the Queen’s sister. She wound up being killed in the Uprising.”
I whipped around to look at him. My mom’s sister? I never even knew my mother had a sister. I scowled at him. “The books say you can’t have two fated mates,” I snapped back.
“Two living fated mated,” Maximus took a step towards me. “Clearly, Lunerly’s been slacking on his teaching.”
“Like you’d do any better,” I retorted. “You’d throw me off a cliff and tell me it’s training.”
“It would be,” Maximus said, entire unphased. I let out an exasperated noise and threw my hands up. I started to walk away when Maximus spoke again.
“Zahara was the Queen’s younger sister,” he said. “She was the beta of the Luna pack at the time. She was revered for how quick, gutless and strong she was. She also had a wicked sense of humor. Her death was the reason that the Queen wound up awakening her powers. She was so distressed with her sisters death, that it sparked something in her.” He looked up at me.
“It’s how she defeated the vampires.”
My heart sunk for both Victoria and Valentin. No wonder he was so tied around my mother’s finger. They’d both lost something that meant more to them than words, a sibling and a lover. I processed it for a second, ignoring how Maximus took a step closer to me. I startled as I realized how close he was and skittered backwards. My back brushed into the tree I was sitting at the foot of.
“Lunerly’s judgement is clouded,” Maximus said, taking another step towards me. “He’s not going to be fully there when he trains you. Let me train you. I can help.”
I snorted. “You’re going to train me to take down Kairos? Yeah fucking right. You don’t give a shit about me.”
“I don’t?” Maximus took another step towards me. He reached a hand out and let it sit against the bark of the tree, right next to my head. His eyes lowered towards me. “Then why do I keep helping you?”
I frowned. He had a point. He took another step towards me. Both hands braced my head. My heart thudded in my chest. He could kill me like this. I had no doubts he wouldn’t try. I jutted my chin up to look him in the eyes.
His gold ones scanned my hazel, looking for something. He cocked his head to the side slightly. “You know,” he whispered. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re fated to be with me.”
My heart thudded in my chest. Did he know who I truly was? Was he telling me that through dark eyes and a locked jaw. I had to come up with something and fast. I shoved his chest. Then, I panicked when I remembered what usually happened when I touched him.
But there was no electricity this time. Even more surprising, my shove managed to push Maximus away from me and the tree. He looked at me with wide eyes, full of the same surprise I was feeling. He rubbed at his chest. “Don’t mess around with me,” I said, softly. “Your jokes aren’t funny.”
“They’re supposed to be,” Maximus said. He still was rubbing at his chest. It was if he was trying to convince himself that he was joking. We both knew that he was somewhat serious.
I started towards the exit of the forest. I half expected Maximus to chase me. But he stood there, hand still on his chest, staring off absently. I took that as my chance to take off. I left him I the forest as I continued my run. The whole time I ran back to campus, I couldn’t help but think about how complicated this mate stuff was. I decided then that I didn’t care about it. I couldn’t care about it. I had far bigger pressing issues. Like Kairos trying to kill me for one.
I didn’t have time to fall for any man, let alone wonder if one of them was falling for me. I kept my head down the entire rest of my run back to my dorm. I tried to flush away the images of all the golden eyes I’d seen locked on my today.
I managed a quick shower and core workout before I went to Basics. Because I hadn’t passed the run, most of my training was focused on speed and endurance. Everyone else was focused on strength and sparring but Coach kept me on the track, running laps and trying to slim down my pace.
At the end of the class, I didn’t feel as exhausted as I thought I would’ve been, given the immense amount of training I had done that morning. But I sure as shit was hungry. I walked to the cafeteria myself as Loren had a second-year class after Basics that I wasn’t able to attend.
I kept my head down in the cafeteria and sat as far away from Kairos and his henchmen as possible. I did see them looking across their table at me a few times, but I quickly averted my gaze.
As I was returning my tray, I felt a light hand on my shoulder. I whipped around, dropping into the stance Valentin had taught me. The woman standing in front of me held her hands up.
“Woah, woah!” she said. “I come in peace, promise.”
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