Chapter 3: I Have Four Mates

Chapter 3: I Have Four Mates

Kora pov 

“What the hell?” I slapped my hand over my mouth, eyes wide like saucers when I realised what else was happening right now.

The calendar on my bed table was still in my hand and the date on it left me utterly confused. I could never forget it because it was the best and worst day of my life. Kai discovered me as his mate, the day of his lie.

But what had me also shaken with surprise was the fact that I had just heard my own voice for the first time since Galen’s poisons destroyed it.

I slowly removed the hand covering my mouth and tried it again. “K—Kora,” I said in a shaky voice, gasping as I realized that it was as real as a beating heart.

I could speak, but what the hell was happening right now?

The cliff flashed in my head again, but it didn’t surprise me. I remembered clearly where I had just been and what had just transpired. My sisters plotted to kill me with the Beta of the pack. 

Jada bashed my head with a large stone and pushed me off a cliff to my death. I shivered while remembering the hate that had been in her eyes. It was unmistakable.

I shot up from my bed, and the sheets pooled at my feet, making me realize that I was naked. The mirror beside my bed drew my attention and I stood before it, touching the ends of my hair.

“They tried to kill me when I had done nothing wrong to them,” I told myself, still stroking my hair. “My sisters and Kai saw me as something weak. Something they could step on and get away with.”

I would make all of them pay dearly.

And there was no better person to start with than whom I had in mind. 

I got ready for the annual Mating Ball, which was today. Back then, this day had begun with me in a terrible mood because my wolf was dormant yet for another year and I would miss the mating season again. 

I didn’t wear the same dress I had worn. I opted for a black dress with an open back and a fish tail end. My breasts flashed a bit at the sides because of the deep opening that stopped right above my ass.

I knew Jada’s handwriting. So, before leaving my bedroom, I wrote a sweet letter in her name. 

“Did you hear?” someone hooked their arm around mine giddy as I crossed the threshold of my room, hair flowing over my back. 

I eyed the woman next to me strangely. In this version of my life, I didn’t know who she was.

“About?” I played along, still moving elegantly to the ballroom, highly expectant of meeting my sisters.

She slapped my arm and I stopped to face her with an angry pout, but she didn’t even notice that she had annoyed me, going ahead with her rambling.

“The Lycan King of the Seventh Moon pack is going to be here today. Alpha Galen invited him as a suitor for Princess Ramona, hopefully this season won’t pass her by. We’ve heard rumours that he is ruthless and hot—“

I had been about to ask her of her name when another voice beat me to it.

“Vanessa!” It was an older woman, wearing a servant’s dress. She snapped again, “Leave the princess alone. Those tables aren’t going to wait themselves! The party is about to start!”

I squinted after the maids who rushed off together afterwards. None of this was looking like my life. I didn’t have any friends before, and the Lycan King didn’t attend the Mating Ball I remembered. 

After a slight tilt of my head in confusion, I continued walking to the ballroom, making only a quick stop to slip the note I wrote in my sister’s handwriting underneath a door. 

The annual party was almost in full swing when I entered it. I saw my sisters first, all seated in a line by the Alpha’s side. There was no seat for me—at least, one thing had begun to look similar to what I remembered.

Jada sneered at me from across the room. She hated me most amongst all three of them, but not as much as her father did. 

I took a glass of wine and darted to towards the Alpha’s mistress, Mai, bumping into her immediately and spilling my wine all over her clothes.

“Oh, goddess, I’m so sorry.”

“Watch your where you are going, Kora!” She smacked my face and I just smiled at her, happy about the pain.

Mai felt disgusted by her wet clothes and ran out of the room to change like I secretly wanted her to. Then, I downed what was left in the glass, smirking after the rim left my mouth. 

“You’re now blind?” Felicity scoffed as I approached their high table, bowing before the Alpha first.

“No, sister. It was an accident—“

“I doubt, Kora.” Jada grimaced, “If I were Mai, I would have done worse than just smack your face. You’re so lucky the Moon Goddess declared you as her special wolf.”

I frowned inwardly. Serena’s special wolf? Uh, when did that happen?

Felicity mocked me with her laugh, “I bet you would have lived a more miserable life if the Moon Goddess hadn’t done that.”

Uh, I was not following any longer. They were saying things I couldn’t understand. Was that why I still had my voice now? Galen’s poison couldn’t harm me in this second life because I was specially protected by Serena? Could the goddess have changed my life and sent me back because she had pity on me? 

I shook my head mentally because it didn’t make sense. What was so special about me that she would go out of her way to help me avenge my death?

“Why are you here?” the Alpha finally paid heed to me and asked. “It’s not like you would find your fated mate in a million years.”

I remembered he had said those words to me in my first life. A smile spread across my face instantly. 

“I wanted to let you know that I saw something you might find interesting.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me, Kora. What are you talking about?”

“If you go to your mistress’s room now, you’d find out the secret she has hidden from you all these years.”

He stared into my soul for a moment before rising from his throne and surprising his daughters. Ramona glared at me as she called after her father. But I stayed back in the ballroom, watching the pieces of my plan fall into perfect place.

An hour later, Kai Stallard, beta of the pack, was being dragged into the room stark naked. He was thrown at my feet, where I still stood next to the high table. The Alpha must have caught him in his mistress’s room.

“I’m innocent and I can explain!” Kai begged, wrapping his arms around himself, eyes looking up to me on impulse.

I touched a hand to my heart because I knew he was. Because of my note, he was just at the right place at the wrong time and now Galen had gotten the wrong idea.

“How dare the both of you mock me on a day like this?” he screamed at both of them, who were kneeling now.

Mai cried out. “Please, Galen. I’m innocent. I had just come to get a change of clothes when I found him on my bed, tangled in the sheets—“

“Whore!” Galen slapped her twice and blood dripped down her cheeks, it was like art.

I had never liked Mai, but I had only just accused her earlier than fate would. In a few months, she would still have been caught cheating and then Galen would have her head. 

Ramona glared at me like she knew I had a hand in this. Felicity just appeared pale while Jada’s heart was being ripped out of her. Of course, she and Kai had just begun their affair around this time, even though they weren’t mates.

I smiled sweetly at my older sisters and said, “What would people say about you, Alpha Galen? Your beta and your mistress? Right under your nose? To not have noticed their affair will be a sign that you are weak—“

“Shut your mouth, Kora! Jada growled, swiping off her tears.

But Galen considered my words despite his hate for me. “Take both of them to the dungeons. I want my beta and Mai executed in three days,” the Alpha walked back to his throne as Jada crumbled to the floor, a crying mess.

“No, father!” She screamed. “Please! Do not harm Kai. I love him!”

Suddenly, drums sounded in the pack house, cutting her off. It was the sound that signalled the arrival of someone important. I recalled what the friendly maid had said earlier. The Lycan King was here to attend the Ball for my father’s sake.

Galen’s guards quickly cleared out the scene and the party returned to what it had been before. Pack wolves tried to act natural, even Jada who was still mourning her lover.

Ramona was already arranging her boobs and collar to be perfect for him. She wanted him to like her and agree to mate with her. 

But since Kai was off my list now, I had others to prepare for. I didn’t want to be here when the Lycan King arrived. 

I moved through the crowd of wolves, quickly heading for the exit, but the grand doors immediately opened.

My heart raced and slammed to a stop as I found four identical men standing before me on the aisle. I frowned at once. These faces were familiar.

Aeson, Ras, Lane, and Cace.

The Sterling quadruplets that saved me from that trap!

I staggered back, blinking many times. How could I not have remembered the Lycan Kings I had met in the woods on the day I died?

All this time, I had thought there was only one Lycan King, but they were four. 

And…And their blues were fixed only on me as they moved closer, like some sort of magnetic force existed now between me and them. Lust blazed in their gazes. I felt my heart pound erratically and my wolf howl to life inside me, trying to claw her way out.

“Mate!” the four of them suddenly growled.