Chapter 3: Not Dead?

Elva’s POV

Pain. That was the first thing I made sense of and as I struggled to open my eyes, I tried to remember the numerous folklores that we have read on death. Was I supposed to feel pain when I lost my mortal body?

My eyes finally opened and made contact with plain white ceilings. I look around, at the room that was made of gold decorations and white paintings. 

“The afterworld sure is beautiful,” I murmured and then tried to sit up. 

“Princess! You are awake!” Two voices rang out from behind me. Startled, I turned to see two beautiful women standing behind me. 

“Princess?” It was odd enough that I felt as human as ever in the afterworld. But I was now a princess? 

“Yes, you are our Zedia’s Kingdom Lycan Princess” one of the two women said while the other one rushed out of the room. 

“Where am I?” I struggled to ask, my hands rushing to hold my head as intense pain shot from my head to my spine. 

Before she could reply, the door opened and a middle-aged woman rushed in. 

“Oh! My darling!” She exclaimed and wrapped her arms around me tightly until I was struggling to breathe. 

“Your Highness, the Princess seems to be in pain,” someone said and the woman released me. The moment I see her face that’s full of worry, I feel my mind go blank. 

“What’s going on?” How can this woman in front of me look like me so much? Almost like we were carved from the same mold. 

Her next words send my mind into another spiral, “My little darling, you can’t recognize mother even when I’m right in front of you?”

Mother? The conversation I had heard from the parents I had known all my life comes flashing back into my mind. 

If they were not my real parents, was it possible that this woman in front of me was?

The thought of it made sense. My parents had died and now that I was dead, we get to reunite in the afterworld. 

“Did you say she’s in pain? Where?” The woman’s voice broke through my thoughts as she ran her hands all over me. 

“I think I must have hit my head while I was alive,” I told her, saving her from searching for any injury.

“When you were alive? You are still alive!” 

“I’m still alive?” I turned to look at the two girls in the room. “Aren’t they angels?” I asked, looking between them at the woman that called herself my mother. 

Also, if my mother wasn’t a ghost, how could she look like she wasn’t aging? She looked nothing like someone that was old enough to be my mother. 

“You aren’t dead my darling daughter. Your father smelled your scent while passing by a city and saved you from the river.” She explained. 

I pinched myself a little hard in between my thighs and had to use every bit of self-control in me to not scream out. 

So I didn’t end up dying…

“Your father and I have searched the whole continent for you… at some point, we thought that we had lost you forever..” she trailed off while her eyes became teary and emotional. 

“But now that we have finally found you, we would definitely make up for the time that we lost you.” 

“How can you be so sure I’m your lost daughter?” I blurted while I also wondered how long I have been asleep. Was I saved immediately? Was this the same day? 

In my last moments, I had no idea who to pray to. Surely, I wasn’t one of the moon goddess’s children but then, I had no idea who the humans served.

I had been so certain that I would end in the afterworld after jumping from the cliff. 

But now I was some lost daughter of this woman here? 

“Of course, you are our daughter! Only a Royal Lycan has the bloodline passed down. Your father smelled our bloodline and searched around till he found you.” 

Royal bloodline? Before I could ask any more questions, she spoke up again. 

“Also, we ran a DNA test here when you were unconscious and it came out positive.” 

“You are indeed my Elva.” She added as tears fell from her eyes. 

Elva? “How do you know my name?” 

“I named you Elva. How can I not know your name? If you still have that name then it only means that the people that found you must have seen the jade necklace with your name.” 

I nodded, a little numb from all the information I was getting. Somehow, after jumping from that cliff, I managed to survive. And now, I was the lost daughter of this woman in front of me. 

And there had been some necklace that I had as a child too.

“Bring some water for the princess and get the physician,” the woman in front of me, whom I was somehow not ready to call my mother instructed the two girls and they rushed out of the room hurriedly to carry out her instructions. 

She turned to me as soon as they were gone and in the softest voice I had ever heard said, “Elva, I know this might be hard for you to take in, but you have all the time in the world, my darling princess,” 

“Also, until you feel comfortable enough to call me mother, you can call me Lydia.” 

I nodded, my heart tugging with warmth from her words. I felt a sudden urge to wrap my arms around her. Like she was a safe haven. 

But after everything that had happened before I jumped off the cliff, I was scared to allow myself to be happy. 

Worried that I’ll let myself become happy and that all of this would be a lie. 

Hurried footsteps sounded outside the room and the door was pushed open at the same moment. 

“My little princess!” A man boomed loudly, his voice echoing in the room from its deep baritone. With his huge build, his speed was surprising as he arrived in front of me in seconds.

“Thank the fates that you are awake! You had father worried when I found you, almost dead in the river,” 

Remembering that the woman beside me had just said something about how I had been saved by my father, it was safe to guess that this was the ‘father’ 

“You will scare her!” Lydia exclaimed and with her dainty body pulled him towards her. 

“She just woke up, we have to let the Royal physician check to make sure that she’s fine,” 

The man moved backward as he shot me an apologetic look. 

“Your mother has cried to sleep for the past nineteen years, I got too excited about you finally being here,” his face turned a little red as he tried to explain himself and somehow, I found myself shaking my head hurriedly. 

“You didn’t scare me. I’m just still finding it hard to understand why I would still be alive after jumping off a cliff and be here with my real parents,” 

“You jumped off a cliff!?” Lydia asked, her eyes widening as they filled with tears at the same moment too. 

I nod, looking at the pained expression on their faces. “Your Royal bloodline must have saved you, that has to be the reason why I was able to smell it from such a distance.” He said with a sigh. 

“Royal bloodline?” This was the second time I was hearing it. 

The man looked at Lydia who nodded before he sat down in the available space beside Lydia. 

“As our daughter, you are the princess of Zedia and you have the royal bloodline of the Lycans flowing through you. This also means that you cannot be easily killed and would always be identified by your scent,” 

“Lycans?” I had heard my father, John, and Jake talk about them sometime, but I have never liked to sit in conversations like that. 

“Are you like a different type of werewolf?” 

“No, we are superior to them.” Lydia said and her face had a look of disregard toward the werewolves. 

“Your mother has some bias towards them. But yes, even though we both shift into wolf form, we retain our humanoid form more and are a lot stronger than them.” 

“And I’m just like you?” I asked, my heart lurching with excitement at the thought that I wasn’t just a mere human weakling.

I was a Lycan! A Royal lycan!

“Yes, you are a lycan too, my darling princess,” Lydia said. 

Tears rolled down my eyes as soon as she confirmed it. 

Confirmed that I was a Lycan.