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He found his mate, and that’s all that mattered.
I felt fucking sick and angry at myself for feeling anything but joy and happiness for him.
I knew Ren had told me in hopes of giving me a renewed sense of purpose. I knew that without a doubt. I felt it in the way he spoke, the inclination of his words. I refused to open the door for him, but even still, his muffled words had been as if he was standing right before me, baring his soul.
I sat on the edge of the bare mattress that sat flush with the cold, stone floor, my knees bent, my feet planted firmly on the unforgiving rock.
Dragging a hand through my hair, my mind whirled with the pain, discord, and loneliness that some of the supernatural succumbed to when they didn’t have their other halves. Their mates.
A mind slowly declining, wasting away as thoughts and images of that unnamed soul that was meant for you and you alone.
Lycans with their Linked Mates.
Vampires with their Coveted Ones.
Demons with their Blood Females.
And an array of other supernatural creatures I heard lost their fucking minds because they hadn’t been mated.
We were strong beings... the strongest to walk the earth. Yet in this regard—to that one female—we were utterly weak.
Reality twisted as I sat in this… hole at the pit of the castle. My home forevermore. A place to stay away from others so I didn’t inflict my sickness on them. This may not be a virus one could catch, but it sure as hell felt like one, spreading outward, a parasite to claim a host.
Leaving was an option, allowing my brother to be with his female in our ancestral home, away from the darkened likes of me.
Ending my suffering was also an option, although my belly clenched and churned at that thought.
For even through my hopelessness, a sliver of possibility that she was still out there—my beautiful, perfect mate—waiting for me, had me hanging on.
For what if I left this world, taking matters into my own hands, but she still walked the earth? I couldn’t leave her if the possibility was still there.
Screams erupted in my head, and I squeezed my eyes shut, roaring out, the pain unimaginable. My mind slowly slipped away day by day until I was more beast than man.
I roared again, swiped at the mattress, stuffing and feathers exploding upward from my violence. I destroyed the room, the anger in me—my beast rising up—so monumental it consumed me.
And this was all because I didn’t have the one meant to be mine.
It was easier to lose your mind than think there really was no hope.
11
Mikalina
I’d gotten the call from Andrei just an hour before, Mini knocking on my front door and gesturing for me to follow her. There, she pointed to a yellow, ancient-looking corded phone attached to the wall, the receiver hanging against the wall, the coiled cord stretched taut.
Andrei hadn’t been able to make it out of the city to see Mini and do her weekly shopping, so he asked me if I’d mind. He’d been so apologetic, as if asking had put this massive burden on me.
I assured him it wasn’t, that I was actually glad to have a task to do. Although I didn’t tell him it was to keep my mind off everything else.
It had only been twenty-four hours since the forest incident—which hadn’t really been an incident at all, to be honest. Me freaking out over absolutely nothing didn’t make a scene out of some horror movie.
So here I was, a few bills of cash Mini had given me tucked into my wallet, and a shopping list as long as my arm in my pocket. Andrei told me the large grocery shop was in the next town over—which he said the footpath was the fastest route, even if I’d taken a car. Which I didn’t have, so this was my only option.
Back in the forest I went.
And as I stood by the entrance, hearing the birds overhead, feeling the breeze along my skin, smelling the wilderness and all the glorious scents of nature, I felt this strange eagerness consume me.
Taking a deep breath, then exhaling slowly, I just told myself to act like the adult I was and push whatever weird feelings I’d been having away.
