Chapter 64: His Fated Mate

Selene’s POV

I was back with the breeders.

Given how everything had fallen apart, it was the only place that made sense. I couldn’t bring myself to stay in Lucian’s chambers anymore. He kept calling. He kept sending messages. He said we should fight ... that we should fight to stay together. But I didn’t have the strength to fight anything. I was barely holding myself together. How was I supposed to hold us together?

I was struggling just to breathe. Talk more of struggling to be with someone else.

Word reached me that the wedding preparations had already begun.

Valerie was the one who told me.

I didn’t want to leave the breeders’ room. I didn’t want to see anyone, speak to anyone, or pretend I was okay when I clearly wasn’t. Depression was wrapping itself around me slowly, and I kept denying it ... kept trying to shove the feelings down somewhere deep where I wouldn’t have to face them.

Valerie told me to take it easy. Easy. As if that word meant anything to me right now. What could I do? Nothing. I wasn’t bigger than the elders of Winterwood. If they said I couldn’t marry him, then that was the end of it. There was nothing I could do.

I hadn’t touched the food that had been brought to me since morning. I couldn’t eat it. No matter how inviting the smell was, it couldn’t move me.

Was my nose even working anymore?

I was in trouble. I was going to die ... not from a wound or a curse ... but because I couldn’t marry Lucian. That was how much I loved him. That was the pathetic, painful truth.

Then I saw it on the news.

Lucian and Tessa were going to appear as a married couple soon.

The air in the room started to choke me. The walls felt like they were pressing in.

There was only one place in this whole territory where I’d ever found peace in the middle of a storm. The library.

I went without thinking twice about what I might see there. I just needed silence. I needed to breathe.

I grabbed the first book my hands landed on and started reading without even checking the title. Words were just shapes on a page, but at least they gave my mind somewhere to run.

Then Ms. Ashlyn walked in.

"Selene, welcome," she said softly.

I stood to greet her.

She took one look at my face and saw everything. There was no hiding it. The despair was sitting right on my skin.

"I know it’s hard, Selene," she said. "Life doesn’t always go the way we plan it. But we have to keep living regardless."

Ms. Ashlyn and her words of wisdom. Even now, she had them ready.

I didn’t try to hide how I was feeling. She was the only person I felt I could actually talk to.

"It is hard, Ms. Ashlyn," I said. "I thought I’d never allowed myself to have high expectations. Not me. A poor outcast breeder. How could someone like me ever seriously think she’d become Luna?"

I fought hard to hold back the tears burning behind my eyes.

"Let it out, Selene," she said gently. "Nothing is impossible as far as I’m concerned. Anyone can become anything. You don’t have to doubt yourself. Your story isn’t over until you’ve stopped breathing."

I looked at her.

Something shifted in my chest. A small flicker. She was trying to give me hope, and damn it ... it was working.

"What do you mean until I stop breathing?" I asked.

"What I mean is, Lucian and Tessa might not get married."

Something tingled in my ears. Like the words had struck a nerve I didn’t know was still alive.

"Lucian and Tessa are betrothed mates," I said, steadying my voice. "They can’t be stopped from getting married."

"They are betrothed mates," Ms. Ashlyn replied, "but they are not fated mates. If the goddess hasn’t joined them together ... truly joined them ... we can annul their union."

She began pulling books from the shelves as she spoke, moving with quiet certainty. She found the one she was looking for and threw it across to me.

"Page one forty-three," she said.

I opened it.

What she was saying was actually written there. In black and white. Including how to prove two people were fated mates.

"Fate is a very dangerous game," Ms. Ashlyn warned. "If you’re going to play it, you must be sensitive and careful."

"How do we start?" I asked.

I wasn’t even listening properly to the second half of what she said. All I wanted was the answer to the fate question.

"How many days until the wedding?" she asked.

"The first part of the ritual is tomorrow," I said, the urgency already coiling in my gut. "We don’t have much time, do we?"

"We can try to do it today," she said.

That was all I needed to hear.

Desperation flooded my entire being.

"What will we need?"

"A strand of Lucian’s hair," she said. "And yours."

"Easy. I’ll get it."

I picked up my phone and finally replied to Lucian’s message. The one I’d been ignoring for days.

What do you want, Lucian? I typed, keeping my tone flat and unbothered. I needed to get close to him without raising any suspicion.

I need to see you now. Please, he replied almost immediately.

He mentioned that Tessa wasn’t around. So I went.

If Tessa had been there, I wouldn’t have stepped a foot in that direction. But Lucian could barely stand to be in the same room as Tessa, and I knew it.

Within minutes, I was at his chambers.

I stepped inside. The aura of that place had changed in my eyes. It didn’t carry the same warmth it once did ... or maybe I was the one who had changed.

"Why haven’t you been answering my calls?" he said the moment he saw me.

"I didn’t want to," I replied simply.

"I’m still your Alpha. You can’t just ignore me like that."

We stared at each other. And then he broke first ... a small smile cracking through.

"How are you calling a wolf when you’re about to be married to someone else?" I laughed despite myself.

"You’re teasing me, aren’t you?"

"Teasing you? I can’t be teasing my Alpha. I value my life."

He laughed. A real laugh. And for a second, the tension between us fell away.

"I could never hurt you," he said, his voice dropping lower. "Not again. You’re too precious to be treated badly."

"But you did hurt me, Lucian," I said quietly. "Getting married to Tessa hurt me. I won’t lie about that."

"I’m really sorry."

He reached out to touch me. I stepped back before he could.

"I wish you the best married life," I said.

His room was dim, the last thin rays of evening light cutting through. I could still see his face clearly. Sincerity was written all over it ... raw and unguarded. I couldn’t doubt him. He meant every word.

"If only it were possible to turn back time," I murmured.

"Do you know when the wedding is happening?" Lucian asked.

"I heard tomorrow or the day after."

"It’s tomorrow."

He crossed the space between us and pressed his lips to the top of my head. I let him, this time.

His warm breath against my hair almost undid me. The adrenaline surged through my whole body and I held onto every bit of it, caging it inside where he couldn’t see.

I told him I needed to use the bathroom.

I walked in, shut the door behind me, and went straight to the brush he used on his hair every morning. I found the strand. Carefully, I lifted it and sealed it inside a small specimen bag I’d slipped into my pocket before leaving the library.

I pretended to flush so he wouldn’t hear anything unusual. Then I walked back out looking completely unbothered.

Lucian still wanted to talk.

"There’s nothing more to say, Lucian," I told him. "You tried everything you could, and I understand that. I’ll survive."

I left him standing there, speechless.

But I wasn’t walking away. I was going back to claim him.

I returned to Ms. Ashlyn with the specimen. She took a strand of my hair next, and then we began.

The test followed the exact guidelines from the book. It called on the elements of the earth ... fire, which already burned in the library’s fireplace; water; and sand. The air itself would serve as the invisible witness.

We laid both strands of hair on the sand. Beneath them, we wrote out both our names and dates of birth.

The test was simple in theory. If the strands turned to face each other and the fire surged in velocity, it meant the goddess was responding. It meant the two people were fated mates.

We waited.

Minutes passed.

Nothing happened.

The fire didn’t move. The strands lay still. I stared at them until my eyes burned. I felt nothing ... not even a flicker of energy in the room. It was like screaming into empty air and hearing no echo back.

I gave up.

I turned my back and started walking toward the door.

Then the fire exploded.

The velocity it shot to was tremendous ... sudden and violent and certain. I spun around. The hair strands had shifted. They were facing each other.

"It worked!" Ms. Ashlyn exclaimed.

We grabbed each other and held on tight.

"This is ancient proof," she breathed against my shoulder. "Time-lasting. Undeniable."

We pulled apart and looked at the fire still burning strong, as if the goddess herself refused to let us doubt what we’d just witnessed.

We knew the truth now. It aligned with everything ... every ancient prophecy, every unexplained attack on my body and soul, every moment I’d felt something between Lucian and me that went deeper than choice or arrangement.

We were fated.

But the wedding was tomorrow.

How was I going to prove to an entire pack ... to the elders, to tradition, to Tessa and everyone standing behind her ... that I was his fated mate?