“I kept my daughter with me, yet she longed to be free. Lycans started dying off completely. This realm was becoming overthrown with them until I remembered love saved Koraline and Bain. After a while, I convinced the goddess of love, Venus, to help me create mates. She thought it was a great idea, forcing their humanity, but that didn’t work either. The Lycans nearly died out, and I was stuck with all these Lycan souls. So I changed the idea again, I mated them to humans, creating vessels, so when the Lycan died off, and a child was born with Lycan DNA, I placed one of the Lycan souls into that child’s vessel, making them a werewolf, giving the human form an alter ego, and by doing that the Lycan’s have lived on through their human counterparts,” she explains.
“It gave them back their humanity by having a human vessel. My daughter wanted to be free, she couldn’t understand what she meant to me. She didn’t understand that I was her mother, as she was a wolf. She longed to find her mate. Koraline was blessed by Celeste when she was returned to me, but she was never whole. She always longed to be free, even when alive.” Seline glances at the fountains. She tilts her head to the side, her eyes fall on me again.
“So when Marabella cursed me out, I saw it as an opportunity, and I merged my daughter with Marabella, taking Marabella’s original wolf and replacing it with Koraline, giving her what she wanted. I just didn’t realize the consequences of it. I thought she would be set free, not passed down through generations. My daughter is Kora. She needed her mates to set her free. She just wanted to be loved completely, and she got that when you set her free. You freed my daughter Katya, you sacrificed your life for your packs, so I brought you back. You were the first person who gave me hope of reuniting with her.”
“Wait, Kora is Koraline?” I ask her, and she nods.
“Yes, Kora is my daughter and the blessed white wolf. I cursed my daughter when I cursed your family, and this is when I took mate bonds seriously.” Seline waves me toward the fountain, and I get up, looking into it.
“When a werewolf child is conceived, you will feel it. All wolves are Lycan reincarnation that needs a vessel, recycled, keeping the bloodlines alive. Some want to go back, some choose to remain here, and this side is the Lycans wishing to go back. This fountain is the fountain of life. When a Lycan chooses to go back, I place them in the fountain, waiting for an available vessel. While in the fountain, everything they know and love is erased, and they are reborn. When a child is conceived,” she waves her hand through the water, colors ghostly but colored float amongst the water.
“You match a wolf to the personality that you think the human vessel needs. See here, this human vessel is light blue. What does that tell you?” Seline asks.
“You can touch it,” Seline says, and I gently run my fingers through the water and gasp.
“You can feel their personalities,” I gasp, and Seline smiles.
“She is quiet and shy,” I tell Seline.
“So you give her the opposite wolf, a wolf that will bring her out of her shell. It’s not just about mating them, it’s also about finding the right human vessel. See, the wolf isn’t mated to the other wolf, they are mated to the human counterpart, so when Kora awakens within your daughter; Maddox won’t recognize Kora as his mate, he will recognize his daughter, the same as Kora. It’s confusing, but mate bonds are formed between human and wolf, not because of the wolves themselves, just the wolf’s sense when they find their human soul to bond to,” Seline explains. I nod, thinking I understand. When I scan the wolves, looking for a wolf for the girl, I touch an orange-hued wolf. It is lively but kind.
“That’s good, now bring them together and bleed them into one another,” I do as she says, feeling them merge and the rest of the blobs disappear, leaving the two I merged.
“Now call on the unmated,” she says, washing her hands through the water. Merged souls come to the surface, and I instantly spot one that stands out like a tingling sensation.
“Now guide them together. Sometimes they will take control themselves but rarely, so part the others away,” I do, leaving only green and yellow-hued auras. The orange moves toward them and stops before absorbing into the one I believe is correct.
“You just created a mate bond and a vessel bond,” Seline says, and I smile.
“When you said Marabella and her mate forged a bond, is that what you meant? When you tried to pair them, they drifted and merged independently?”
“Yes, I tried to put Marabella with Jonah. They were a good match, I could feel it, yet with the other dark aura I had, he never found a mate, but he floated around. The moment I brought you back, it forced them together. For hours, I tried to separate them. I couldn’t keep them apart. I tried guiding them to others, but nothing worked.”
“So if you didn’t mate her to Jonah, who did you mate Jonah to?”
“I didn’t. I gave him his wolf, but I left him as a wildcard. He was suited to Marabella, but I couldn’t bond them,” Seline tells me.
“So she could take him as her chosen mate,” I finish for her.
“Always a loophole; remember that, Kat,” Seline says.
Mateo
“What are you doing?” Ezra asks me as I dig through the cushions on the couch.
I tilt my head to look at him and grin at his confused facial expression. “Looking for Kat’s phone; we have been looking all day,” I tell him.
He furrows his brows. “The kids?”
“In bed,” I tell him as I place the cushions back on the couch and check they don’t look out of place. Can’t leave the place looking like an entire construction team had tried to remodel the furniture, can I?
Ezra clears his throat and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “And Kat?”
“With Seline again. I’m worried about how much time she spends in that realm. Something’s off with their sudden need to spend every waking moment together,” I tell Ezra.
Every time Kat comes back, she is more stressed than she usually is. As if the world’s weight is forced on her shoulders for her to carry alone. I suppose, in a sense, it is.
Ezra remains quiet, obviously stuck in his own head. I know he worries too, so I try to distract him. “Just help me find it,” I tell him.
I want to help Kat however I can. Even if it’s just silly as helping find her phone. At this point, I am ready to do anything, just to take a bit of that weight off her shoulders.
“Or we could sneak up to the room while the kids are sleeping,” Ezra tells me as he walks closer and stops behind me. His arms wrap around my waist, pulling me back against him. He presses his pelvis into my ass.
“No, you know how left out she feels,” I tell him as I shake my head.