“What about your skeletons? How many do you have?” I ask her.
“Mine haunt me every day, Marabella, Katherine, Josiah, they all haunt me. But you haunt me the most because I have seen your future, and you were so close to having it all. So close to something great, just like Josiah, but he chose wrong, and he didn’t realize it until it was too late,” she sighs, looking down at me.
“And why is that? Why do I haunt you, Seline?” I challenge.
“Because you’re so close, I thought when I paired you with Maddox, paired Mateo with Maddox, it’d end the same, but you’ve proven to be quite surprising, and Ezra’s love for him outweighs the bindings of his curse and yours. Call it your bone,” she says dismissively.
“My bone, you tossed me a bone? You make no sense,” I object.
“Everything will make sense, child, it always does. And to any curse or blessing, there is a loophole. A way out, a way to even the playing field.”
“Yeah, you want to show me the way? A step-by-step user manual or a damn map pointing me in the right direction! Or are you just going to dribble this nonsense?” I demand, and she laughs.
“Kora is many moons old, she has been with each of you from the start, for the first time in generations, I see hope in her. She believes in you, believes that she will be set free, but ultimately it is up to you.”
“Kora?” I ask, and she nods.
“Yes, she has been here all along, denying what she always wanted for the sacrifice of her human counterpart. I create the bonds, but it’s up to the human to keep them or throw them away. Mateo, the poor dear boy, has been through so much. He has loved Ezra since he was fourteen, the bond forged when he was eighteen. His love for Ezra twisted fate and changed the course of things, and he has lived in silence since you came along.” I go to ask what she means when she continues.
“I can tamper with fate, but ultimately, it’s the chosen mate that is stronger. Why do you think we give them a choice to reject their mates? Choice, a choice outweighs everything. Choice can alter the path of destiny.”
“I don’t understand, Ezra is my mate, so how can Mateo have three?” I ask, remembering his lost mate.
“Mateo is bisexual, he always had two. Werewolves are two halves of a whole, the human counterpart, and a counterpart of something much older. So mates are destined with that in mind, Mateo is bisexual, which makes Ares is bisexual too. I can give mates, design the path for them to meet, but it’s not just the wolf, but the human counterpart that decides whether they keep them.” her words confuse me, yet don’t for some reason.
I always believed that our paths are destined, but is she saying we could deviate away from fate by choice?
“See, that’s where the loophole comes in, Ezra was always destined to be Mateo’s. Ezra was also destined to be yours, you are the catalyst that brings them together. Ezra couldn’t love Mateo without you, and couldn’t have him until he realized loving you allows him to be able to return Mateo’s love.”
“You make no sense, Mateo was destined to be with another,” I point out, and she shakes her head.
“Yes, in a sense, I like to fiddle with fate, but she was never going to last. I tossed her in to give Ezra a push toward Mateo, only then did Ezra realize he could put his beliefs aside and love him too. That poor girl was a lost soul, fate had other plans for her, and I knew Mateo would choose you over her.”
“How could you be so certain he would?”
“Because Mateo chose you the moment he laid eyes on you, he just didn’t know it, he knew you were Ezra’s by your scent, he knew the very first day he met you, which at first upset him.”
Seline’s words make me think back to the day I met him at the storage locker. Mateo seemed angry with me, which had startled me at first. He kept glaring at me, even commenting about my scent, then it was as if his anger with me disappeared altogether.
“He was jealous until he met you and really got to know you, forging the bond. How else would he be able to kill his destiny if not for a chosen mate? How else could he override that of his wolf’s instincts? He chose you, Kat, he chose you above her because his forged bond was stronger than that of fate, that is the gift of choice,” she says before pausing.
So was I always the second choice to Mateo? I wondered.
“Don’t doubt his love for you, Kat. He chose you first, chose you over her, and didn’t think twice about it. Kora needs Ares just as much as she needs Maddox. The question is when it comes time to choose, who will you sacrifice?”
“Neither,” I tell her, and she smiles.
“Let’s hope that is true.” She flicks her wrist, and my surroundings disintegrate around me, warping and twisting, making me look around frantically when I find myself in the backyard of the packhouse. “Is this the future you envisioned?” She asks.
I feel confused until I see myself walk out the back of the packhouse, two small children following behind me as they skip along. A girl and a boy.
“Twins one for each mate, one cursed with death, the other blessed with life,” Seline observes, and I watch as they play before I spot movement above from the window. Ezra peers down at them, with a troubled look on his face as he watches them play, making me tear my eyes away and back to the children. The girl has dark flowing hair to her waist and resembles Ezra. However, the boy looks like Mateo, with the same facial features, just softer, and younger.
Looking at myself, I watch them, though the light is gone, and I look hollow as I force a smile on my face. I rub my mark on my neck, although it looks different. It is black and stains my skin. I turn back to study Ezra in the window, he is now watching the other me, though his eyes are dark, clouded with something before he turns his back and walks away.