Stefan’s POV
“Can we talk now?” I ask my mother, looking down at her as she leisurely sips a glass of wine. “You look rested enough.”
When I released her last night, she insisted that she wasn’t ready to talk until she cleaned up, fed, and rested well. It’s now almost evening on the next day and I’m finally able to get her. But I know she’s capable of dragging this thing into tomorrow just to spite me.
“Sit,” she instructs, indicating the armchair nearest to the couch she’s sitting on.
I’m not in the mood to sit around and chat with her, and I make that known right away. “Why is my wolf that way?”
She leans forward, two fingers holding her wine glass daintily. “Can you tell me exactly what ‘that way’ means? Any antics to narrate of?”
Hah! She’s dreaming if she thinks I’m about to list down all my weaknesses to her. She doesn’t need to know that.
“I’m the one asking the questions here,” I grit out.
She waves her hand in dismissal and straightens back up. “I’m sure I’ll find out with time.” Then she takes a sip of her wine, taking her sweet time. Just when I’m about to lose the little patient I have, she says, “One, he’s not your wolf.”
“What?”
She comes to her feet and paces, swirling her wine in the glass as she does. “I come from a long line of priestesses.”
My eyes narrow. “Priestesses?”
She catches my gaze and nods. “Yes. My family served the goddess for many centuries. Back when werewolves actually cared about their creator, you know. Everybody seems to have strayed with the modern world.”
Yeah, well, that would have to do with the continued obliteration of the werewolf species, which is what I’m trying to change here…
“You’re a priestess?” I ask, unable to keep the incredulous tone out of my voice. I don’t think I’ve seen my mother do a single religious thing in her life.
“I wasn’t gifted,” she replies. “Only one she-wolf in the family in every generation got the gift.”
As much as I’d like to learn more about her surprisingly interesting family history, I have a more pressing matter to attend to. “What does this have to do with me?”
“I had two miscarriages before I got pregnant with you. I couldn’t lose you too.” She finishes up her wine and refills the glass at the table. Sitting back down, she catches my gaze. “I had to save you, somehow.”
My jaw clenches, a sick feeling rising in my stomach. As if my body already knows what’s coming. “And how did you do that?”
“A little ritual here and there. And a spell. It was the first time the spirits ever communicated with me. There was a particular one… A werewolf prince from five hundred years ago. He had a score to settle, and he wanted a way to come back. His spirit had roamed the earth all those years, awaiting a host. My ritual brought him to me, and we made a deal. If I offered you as a host, you would survive.”
By now, my brows are furrowing as I study her, keeping up with her bizarre tale. What’s she even saying? A werewolf prince? Five hundred years ago?
She keeps on, as if unaware of the confusion on my face. “He was quite the ruler in his day. He had helped form the one and only collaboration to ever exist between humans and werewolves. It was an alliance against vampires. But once that scourge was gone, the humans turned on our species. They hunted us to near extinction and banished us to the jungles.”
I rub my fingers across my forehead. “Wait, you’re telling me there was a time humans and werewolves coexisted? A time humans knew of our existence?”
She nods. “Yes. And when they turned on us, we had to erase that history. Go back to being mythical.”
“And this werewolf prince…”
“Lost a lot in the process. He was headlining the entire alliance, and in the end, his entire pack was hunted down by humans.”
“So he’s back for revenge.”
She nods.
“In my body.”
She nods again.
I scoff and shoot to my feet. “Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Do I need to make you believe? You felt his presence. Is that not why you’re here looking for answers?”
Damn, she’s right. I gnaw on my lip and clench my fist. Of all the theories that bounced in my head all night and all day, anticipating her explanation, this never crossed my mind. And I have no fucking idea what to do now.
Having a hard-to-control beast is one thing. But a beast who isn’t even part of you? That’s an entirely other thing. One I’m not excited about. At all.
“He lives through you, and he gets what he wants through you. It’s only because of him that you were able to get where you are today.”
Right. Thanks for the vote of confidence, mother. “Was he blind?”
“He didn’t mention that.”
Of course.
I pace, letting everything she just said sink in. But she isn’t done yet.
“Now you understand why you can’t take a human, or any feeble she-wolf, as a mate. He’ll never accept her.”
I wonder what she would say if I told her that the first time her five-hundred-year-old prince talked to me, it was to make it clear that Mari–Gwen–was the one he chose.
My eyes narrow as I focus on her. “What did you do with the girl?”
“It really isn’t her, is it?” she questions back. “I thought Thomas was lying. Looks like he wasn’t.”
“Where did he take her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mother…”
“If I knew where she was, she wouldn’t be alive.”
At least she is not hiding her motives. But I don’t believe she doesn’t know. Thomas must have told her which pack he sold her to. So she killed him so I could never find out from him.
“What does it matter to you, anyway? I hear you’ve bonded with your new mate. It’s useless looking for her now, isn’t it?”
Before she can start getting into my head, I turn away and stride for the exit. Right now, my mind is preoccupied with the new knowledge I have about myself.
***
“Care to share?”
I slide the half-empty bottle towards Levi as he plants his ass on the stool next to mine. “Help yourself.”
“I mean whatever is on your mind.”
Oh.
I bring the bottle back to me and pour myself another glass, then put it aside. “Nothing much,” I tell him.
Unless you’re counting the five-hundred-year-old vengeful werewolf prince who takes up half of my existence.
“You know you shouldn’t drink much, in case your beast gets ideas.”
“Fuck him,” I say, tipping my glass back and swallowing the amber liquor in one go. Fuck, that feels amazing. You know what, maybe if I’m drunk enough, the asshole inside my head, inside my body, will not be able to make use of me.
“Want to talk about it?” Levi offers.
Where would I even begin? That story from my mother was the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever heard. And while a part of me wants to insist she was bullshitting me, there’s another part that knows she wasn’t.
I reach out and grasp Levi’s shoulder. “It’s nothing, mate. I’m all good.”
The worried expression on his face doesn’t let up. “She didn’t reject you, did she?”
“What? Mari?” I chuckle and shake my head. “No, we are good.”
Do I look that miserable?
“Hanna took her shopping today.”
I nod, pouring another glass. “Yeah. I asked her to.”
“She seems to be taking it well. She finally remember you?”
My eyes draw to my best friend for a second. Should I tell him? Because if I don’t tell him, who can I? Besides, it’s not like Mari asked me to keep it a secret.
“She wasn’t lying,” I tell him. “When she said she didn’t know me.”
“No?”
“She isn’t her… She is not the one I was looking for.”
Levi’s smooth brow creases. “What do you mean?”
“Her real name is Gwen, and the one I was looking for was her twin sister. They are identical, and she ended up using her name, somehow.”
“That’s weird,” he says, fingers massaging his left eyebrow. “But you two bonded.”
“Yep.”
“So does this mean your original fated mate is dead?”
That’s one possibility. But the other one? The one I’m not ready to share with Levi yet?
Maybe she isn’t dead. Maybe Gwen just so happens to be the beast’s choice. Fuck, does that even make sense? That me and… he have different mates. I must be going crazy.
Is he always there when I’m with her? When I was mating her, was that me, or him responding to her like that?
But she would have noticed his eyes–my eyes, dammit–if that were the case, right? Besides, this body, the human body, that’s all me. He might pull whatever shit he does when his wolf takes over my body, but when I’m in this form, I’m in total control.
So no, that theory doesn’t add up.
Maybe Mari–the original Mar–is indeed dead. Or maybe what I felt back then wasn’t the mate pull. But then again, I didn’t feel anything when I met Gwen for the first time.
None of this makes sense.
I grip the glass of whiskey in my hand and slide off the stool. “Maybe,” I reply to him. Taking the bottle with me, I gesture towards the staircase. “I think I’ll call it a night.”
Levi slides off his stool too and nods. He still looks concerned. “See you in the morning.”