Chapter 3

LUCAS

Walking through the foyer, I hear a blood-curdling scream and the clattering of plates against a hard surface. As I pace towards the dark room at the distant end of the long hallway on the left, the noises of someone angrily throwing things against the wall get discernible and louder. Feeling uneasy, I rush to the door at the end of the hallway and open it up an inch to peer inside, and what I see makes my heart sink. My eyes start to prickle with unshed emotions. Tears form in the back of my eyes as I watch him limp across the room, and our helper, Ms Ortiz, stands in the corner, unfazed with shaky hands. She gazes at him patiently, waiting for him to settle on his bed and not make more noise.

Without exchanging a word with either of them, I close the door and suck in a deep breath.

His meltdowns are a dirty little secret we are hiding in this family. We hide things from each other and ourselves. That's what we learnt to do as kids, and naturally, we inherited those traits from our Father and Mother, and now we are all alike, like an unending cycle of trauma, distrust, and broken promises.

The atmosphere inside the house feels like a held breath, so I walk to the staircase and head towards the den, where everything else is painless to ignore and my feelings easier to bury in the dark corners of my mind.

Settling into my armchair, I go through a series of documents on my laptop, and as I'm jotting down a few things on my online writing document, someone knocks on the door and steps into the room without waiting for an answer.

It's Mother.

She stands opposite my desk.

"I have news for you." She announces. "It's important."

I don't look up from the screen of my computer and gesture to her to say her piece and leave.

"Can't you be bothered to even look at me when I'm about to tell you something that will entirely change your life?"

"What is it?" I coax out a simple sentence. "Let me guess. Father and you are fighting again, and you want to leave him." Putting my lips into a thin line, I continue. "If that's the case, then leave him. I am not holding you back from taking charge of your future."

Fixing her hair, she changes the tone of her voice when she speaks.

"It's not that." Then she waits for me to stare at her, but when I don't, she blurts it out. "It's about your mate. Your true mate in this lifetime. Someone you're supposed to marry."

"Didn't I tell you not to waste my time, Mother?"

"Your mate has been betrothed to you by a centuries-old treaty with an old rival pack. It's time you leave to see her and claim her as your own mate before you lose sight of her forever." She scoffs. "My sources say she's seeing another man and is supposed to move to another city soon."

Without looking up, I make another rebuttal.

"And who is that source of yours?"

"Her mother."

"So you're telling me that you have kept in touch with the Luna of a rival pack? You did that?" I smile. "Hmm. Colour me surprised by your efforts, Mother."

"It wasn't like what it is now back in my time when I led the pack. We held onto peace because we wanted it and knew our place. It was nothing like it is now back in the old days."

Chuckling, I finally look up.

"You want me to believe that my mate has been betrothed to me centuries ago?"

Mother nods at me.

"It's true." She appears grave as the darkness under her sunken eyelids appears even darker. "This union was blessed by the holy moon goddess, Selene, and it's a tradition that has been followed for the past four centuries by all the legitimate bloodlines of the true werewolf packs in our city. The marriage pact was originally made by our ancestors as a solution to overcome the unceasing problem of attacking and killing the other werewolves of rival packs in the neighbourhood. They said they did it to keep the peace and salvage any fights around the shared settlement since they couldn't think of a better way to bring two rival packs together. And everyone followed it even when we broke into separate settlements and had boundaries around our said territories. We kept marrying each other over the shared bloodlines, and a mate was automatically chosen for the person before they were even born." She sucks through her teeth. "If you don't remember, let me tell you that your favourite great-grandaunt was the daughter of another bloodthirsty rival pack, and she had to keep the tradition and choose a mate within our pack. Your great-granduncle kept the tradition despite his personal ambitions. While he took upon the role of alpha of our pack, he didn't want to mate with her as he despised her family. Let alone welcome her into our family or community. But with time, things changed." Mother stares at me with a steely glance that I can see pop up from the corner of my eye. "The marriage is supposed to happen after skipping every two descendants. It just happens that it's your turn to keep the tradition so we can all live in peace. And harmony is ensured on our territory and theirs."

Laughing, I go back to my document at hand.

"That's not happening."

"Won't you even meet her?" Mother crosses her arms across her chest. "Aren't you even curious about who she is and the fact that she is your chosen mate?"

"No."

"What kind of a son are you, Lucas? Don't you care about family traditions? I'm trying to talk to you about something significant, and you're not even paying attention to me." My mother huffs loudly. A pained expression takes over her face. "Do you not care about what I have to say?"

Her words make me look up from the papers and gaze into her eyes. I watch her green eyes flicker with something unknown to me.

"No, I don't care about what you have to say. Now, can you leave and close the door behind you when you go? I would really appreciate it. Thank you."

Mom stares at me for another moment or two, and when I don't budge and give her the attention she deserves, she quietly leaves the room.

She doesn't close the door behind her.