“Good morning, Siel. I’m glad you made it. Aaron wasn’t able to follow you both, I hope?” Alexia welcomed them as they entered the front door.
“No, he’s too broken up over failing his mate. According to V, it seemed Aaron had a nightmare where he said he saw what happened to Di years ago.” “W-what?” Alexia blurted out in surprise. “That means that they have a rare kind of bond.
Something so strong that they can share energies, skills, memories, and even their future.
We’ve had studies about these kinds of wolves, but none have been willing to come forward and admit to having this.”
“Well, only if his dream is legit then probably…” Ma’Heron snidely remarked from the lounge seat of the safe house’s average-sized living room.
“Well, based on the story he told me a while back, his dream is spot on. At least the parts where I was there,” V interjected as he took a seat beside his Gamma.
“Wait, what time did he have the nightmare?”
“About an hour or so ago, Alex. Why?”
Alexia and Ma’Heron stared at each other, both wordlessly concluding the fact that Di and A had the nightmare around the same time. V and Siel immediately picked up on the couple’s signature communication style.
“So their bond IS a rare kind?”
“Whose bond? What kind?” another female voice quipped.
All four looked towards the open door of one of the safe house’s bedrooms. There stood Di, holding onto the doorframe with a puzzled expression on her face.
“Di! OH MY GOSH! Thank God you’re ok!”
Diwa was so out of herself that she only recognized her friend the minute Siel hugged her.
“Siel? I’m sorry… I’m just so out of it, I didn’t realize you were here.”
“It’s ok. What matters is that I’m with you now, and you’re still alright. You are, aren’t you?” “I don’t know… I’m so confused…” Di then looked at Ma’Heron, who was now standing a few feet behind Siel.
Siel realized what Di was saying with her eyes, “Look, why don’t we talk inside the room about that? Like just the two of us. Maybe it would make it easier for you to get yourself together.
What do you say?”
V, Alexia, and Ma’Heron watched Di nodding her head, and the two unmarked ladies entered the room. They all hear the click of the lock.
“I think they forgot that we can still hear them out here with our enhanced hearing since that’s not a fully soundproofed room, Alpha,” M pointed out.
“Well, this gives us more reason to look for our own place to talk, Ma’Heron. You promised me before you left the Packhouse that you’d explain all of this to me if we ever met again before the end of your suspension. So now, I’m holding you to that.”
Ma’Heron sighed deeply, his lips twisting. “Alright, V. We can take one of the meeting rooms upstairs. Alexia, will you stay watch over the house? If you see something wrong or anything questionable, don’t be brave. Let us know at once.”
* * *
Something’s wrong… I don’t know what, but I feel it….
Aaron didn’t know how, but he found himself behind a large group of people. All were strangers to him, silently staring forward. He soon found himself trying to make his way to the front of the throng, following their gazes.
Aaron now heard a voice. It was becoming louder while he approached the middle of the mob. When he finally reached the front of the quiet crowd, he saw the speaker, and his blood ran cold…
Kaiden was standing on a low stage, and on his right side was a dead body. To Aaron’s horror, he realized the corpse looked exactly like him.
To his rival’s left, there stood a lady in a long-hooded sundress. The soft white chiffon of her clothing was dancing in the wind. Aaron couldn’t see her face… But her body looked very familiar.
Then a thick strand of long, wavy, red hair flowed from under her hood, and Aaron felt his stomach knot. He moved to another part of the circular audience area, and his worse suspicions were confirmed.
There was Diwa, chained between two metallic posts.
Her legs and arms were stretched to their limit by the chains, and a ball gag was placed over her mouth. She also had a purplish blackeye, big enough that he could see it from a distance. Aaron tried to get to her, but the people around him started to crowd him, and to his horror, he couldn’t get past them.
Suddenly Diwa looked at him with pleading eyes.
“Hold on, Diwa! I’ll rescue you,” yelled Aaron as he tried harder to get past the many people surrounding him, to no avail.
Meanwhile, Kaiden moved towards Di and started to touch her breasts. Finally, he rips her dress from her neck down to her torso exposing her body completely, without any thought of the hundreds of viewers watching them onstage.
“NO! LET HER GO, YOU ASSHOLE! LEAVE MY MATE ALONE!” Aaron angrily shouted at
Kaiden as he kept fighting the people who were keeping him from getting to his beloved mate.
Kai then turned, his grin both lewd and challenging, “Don’t be ridiculous, Aaron! This is MY mate, not yours. You’ve never been able to take care of her. You weren’t there for her so many years ago, and you’re not here for her now. You even slept with every female in the pack while I kept myself only for her.”
Just then, Aaron looked around him, and he felt scared and shocked at the same time…
The ones closest to him, holding him back from Diwa were all females familiar to him. All of them he had bedded and had romantic relationships with. Behind them, were men then turning into their werewolf forms, their claws, and fangs obviously eager to dismember him.
As he continued to fight through this strange and silent congregation, he looked back at Kaiden and felt his blood curl…
The maniac was now grinding his body against Diwa’s. Aaron can clearly see the bastard’s bulge growing bigger by the minute, tenting his torn dirty pants.
“Give up Aaron! She’s mine, and you lost her! HAHAHAHAHA!!!”
You lost her you lost her you lost her you lost her
Aaron kept hearing Kaiden’s laughter along with his last three words.
“NOOOO!!! She’s MINE! And I’m HERS! LET HER GOOO!!!”
Then just after he saw Kai pulling down his pants so he could enter her, he woke up!
“What the fuck… What have I done… Diwa…” he groaned while panting heavily, sweat covering his whole body.
* * *
Diwa started talking the minute the door was locked, so Siel had to lead her back to the bed where they could both sit down.
“He left me all alone, Siel! When he got mad at me back at the Silver Floor, he didn’t want to be with me anymore and just let me leave. How can we be mates if he’s going to be like that? I mean, I feel like I should just leave him! If he really loved me, he wouldn’t have let me go off on my own, right? I really don’t know what to think anymore.”
Siel let her distraught friend just talk and cry her emotions out before saying anything. It was easier to talk to her after she released everything first. As Di’s tears subsided, that’s when she took a chance…
“Di, remember when you talked about what a mate is back at the Packhouse dining area? You said you had given up on finding a mate because you’ve left wolf life behind, right? Yet here you have found yours, and he’s not just any wolf. He’s a Beta and a childhood friend who you wanted to be with all the time. And he was able to bring you back to the pack and to your family, too despite your terrible past.”
Di stared at Siel in surprise. “H-how did you know about us… I mean our friendship… him and
me…”
“V told me everything while he was driving us here. I find it a wonderful story, Di. And after five years of seeing you trying to date different guys and how they all failed in the end, I really believe that you and Aaron finding each other is not an accident, nor a coincidence.”
Di couldn’t think of a comeback for that. She knew she had changed a lot in the very short time she and Aaron were together. Her fear of intimacy, passion, and even getting down and dirty with a man have all disappeared almost instantaneously. Diwa was a little unsure of meeting Aaron after so many years when he texted her a few weeks before to interview her about Siel, but the minute they saw each other… It was over. There was no one else for her.
“I also found something a human would consider equivalent to your “mate bond,” by the way. They call it “The Center,” a point of balance in your life that allows you to find your strength, courage, and potential with each other’s help. And it can also apply to friendships, close family members, but most of all, the one who’s meant for you alone. You and I have shared it for years, but with V, it just happened so fast. And looking at you and Aaron, I can tell that you’re really each other’s center.”
“You really think so, Siel?”
“What I think doesn’t really matter, Diwa. The question is, what do you think?”