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Lachlan POV

“Any sign?” I asked Nilo as he walked up to where I'd been standing at the docks for hours now.

When my guilt and my sorrow become too overwhelming, this is where I find myself, in this very spot, staring out at the sea.

She was gloriously beautiful, from her glowing hair to her broad, translucent fins, glimmering in the setting sunlight. That last sight of her before she dove beneath the water’s surface has been haunting my dreams for months now.

“No, Alpha. The ocean is too great. We will never find her, I’m afraid. I am sorry, but I don’t think there is any hope.”

No. There will never be hope of her return after the pain I put her through. I can see that now.

“I told you,” Killian, my lycan snarls in my mind, “I warned you, begging you to be kind. You ruined everything. She was what we were looking for, but you turned her against us forever. She will never return. And….I don’t blame her. I just hope she finds the happiness she deserves. The happiness that she never found in us, her true mate.”

“Are you saying you could tolerate feeling the continuous pain of betrayal if she were to find happiness in another? Because I couldn’t. I can’t.” She was ours. Two years we had her in our grasp, but never noticed the bond.

I did not and will not accept the rejection. If she chooses another, I will know, and it will haunt me, pain me like I did to her for the longest time.

It will be no more than I deserve, but I will never give in…

How was I to know she was a hybrid? A fae? Her uncle claimed she was a pure lycan, fathered by one of his strongest warriors while also bearing her mother’s alpha genes. How was I to know she was fathered by fae and not a lycan like he claimed?

I dismissed her after our forced wedding, knowing that if our contract marriage resulted in a child, I would be forced to fully mate her and reject my fated mate. I didn’t want to risk it, though she tempted me.

Her beauty was otherworldly. Her clear, flawless skin, her slim waist, her womanly curves and the rose hue of her cheeks and pillowy lips. I wanted her, but hated myself for it.

I didn’t want to betray my fated mate by being stuck with another, so I constantly rejected her, thinking she was a temptation sent from hell to torment me and break my resolve.

Unknowingly, I betrayed my mate right in front of her, weekly, and sometimes daily when I couldn’t get the image of her beautiful face out of my mind.

I did not want to permanently bind myself to Wayne’s niece. The alliance was necessary when we were coming out of war with the northern clans, but I didn’t want to be stuck with that bastard in an alliance forever. He was just as likely to stab me in the back as the vampires and demons of the north.

For all the reasons I had to avoid Lira and bide my time to annul the marriage, it never changed how much of a temptation she was for me. I should have given into the urge instead of fighting it. I should have…..

“GAHHH!” I screamed, clutching my chest and sinking to my knees.

No…. NO!

She can’t be. Please….. no, my Lira.

“Alpha!” Nilo drips down beside me. “Is it..?”

The tightening in my neck as I strain myself to nod sends a stabbing pain down my spine. My heart feels as if it is being ripped in two. Killian is snarling and howling inside me, right at the surface, on the cusp of breaking free.

Is this the pain she endured? How? How did she endure it?

Every day of the first several months of our marriage, she would beg my men for an audience with me. Is this why? Was she trying to warn me, to beg me to stop?

The pain inside me intensifies at the realization.

Lira. My Lira. What have I done?

“She is betraying you,” Nilo states, worry etched on his scarred features.

No. I betrayed her. She rejected me. After months, she is just moving on, which is something I can never do.

I hope he enjoys his time with her, because I will get her back, if that’s the last thing I do.

~~~~~

Elelira POV

Pain. Intense, like no other, radiates through my torn and broken body.

Two weeks. I have survived two weeks in hell, and I pray this is finally the end.

Returning to the western coast to search for some sign or clue as to who my father could be was a mistake. A huge mistake.

I came to land once, but once was all it took to be thrust into a hell worse than any other.

Now, here I lay, in a bed of my own blood, locked in a cell just waiting to die. I am praying for death, and I feel its crushing weight closing in on me.

Finally.

There is no other escape. My fate is now the same as my mother’s. How much pain must I endure in my short life? Not even 21 and I have faced every torture this life could hold.

I’m done fighting. I choose death. That is the only freedom I will ever know.

“Holy shit, she is still alive,” a man snickers from outside the cell door.

“I thought she wouldn’t survive after last night,” another says.

“That was way cruel. Too much for my taste.”

“Should we help her? She is a fine thing. They left her for dead. If we help her heal, maybe we can keep her for ourselves?”

“The alpha would have our heads if he were to find out.”

“How would he know?”

“Your mate would know,” one snickers.

“It would be nothing new to her. She would ignore it and keep her mouth shut like she always does.”

“Ahh, you trained her well.”

“It’s all in the back of the hand and the flick of the wrist.”

The men cackle and snort while laughing with each other.

“I’m sorry, Ela. They inhibited me. I can not shift to change us; to save us. I’m sorry.”

“ I’m sorry too, Val. I’m done. I can take no more.”

She whimpers, knowing what’s to come, but accepting it, knowing it’s our only way out.

My uncle must have discovered the truth, because he knew how to inhibit not only my Lycan, but my magic as well.

With the last of my strength, I can do just this, emptying what is left inside me for my final escape; the last of my life.

“Goodbye, Valerina. I am sorry you were cursed with such a pitiable counterpart.”

“Don’t say that, El. Don’t take-“

Her words are cut off as I pull on the last remaining shred of magic inside me, calling them forward, then coating my heart with the force.

One thought is all it takes to end it. End it all.

~~~~

“Elelira!”

I groan as I turn in bed.

“Elelira!” Val’s voice filled my head.

A bed? How did I come to be in a bed? Did those men take me? Was I unsuccessful? There is no way….

My eyes shot open and I sat up, alarmed and unsteady, gazing around at the familiar room around me.

No….

Why am I here? In this bedroom? The chambers I kept for 2 years. 2 painful years in the south.

Hidden Cove Pack.

Why am I here? Did Lachlan find me somehow? Why? Why would he?

“El, I don’t think-“ Val starts to say, but knocking at the door cuts her off.

“Elelira. It is time to wake up. The omegas arrived to help you prepare for the wedding.”

“Wedding?” I echoed. What wedding? Whose?

Niomi, a familiar face, the elderly woman who once helped me in my adjustment to the south, opened the door and I gasped.

It really was her.

She died. After one year of life here in the south, the only person who ever showed me an ounce of kindness died of an incurable disease. How can she be here now?

“Niomi? Mimi?” I stumbled to my feet as I murmured the nickname I once called her, gawking in disbelief. I hastily stumbled towards her, practically falling into her arms as I wrapped my arms around her in a warm embrace.

She is taken back for a moment, but just a moment. Her hands quickly started patting my back, hesitantly at first, then with more purpose as I began to sob in her arms.

“What is this? We just met yesterday but I am glad to see you have accepted this old woman already.”

“Yesterday?”

It had been almost 3 years since we first met, 2 since her death and I last saw her.

Her death.

She was dead. She can’t be here.

She nods and smiles at me kindly, making my heart pang. “Elelira, dear. Your uncle and future husband are waiting. We must begin the preparations if we want to make the ceremony on time. It's your wedding day!”

“My wedding?” I asked hesitantly.

I release my hold on her, but continue to stare in disbelief, trying to hold back my tears as I begin to contemplate in disbelief and horror of what happened.

“Yes, dear. Your wedding to Alpha Lachlan Stiles. You have yet to meet, and you wouldn’t want to be late.”