My Long Lost Mate

Leaving Lisa to take care of her mess, we decided to head back to our room for a well-deserved rest. I wanted to help clean up the mess in the kitchen, but Luke told me that she had to do it herself for her to learn her lesson. He said she'd done it so many times that he could even remember the horrible smell of her puke.

For the safety of Bob's heart, we helped move him to his room so that he wouldn't see the mess in his kitchen in case he woke up before Lisa finished cleaning the mess she made. Bob wasn't the type to cause trouble, but like most werewolves, he had a pride to keep. Lisa knew about it and took advantage of it, engaging him in a drinking contest to have a drinking buddy for the night.

Seeing Lisa like this, I can see why the Moon Goddess chose Lisa and Andrew to be mates. One needs to find someone who is as crazy as they are in order to have someone who can keep up with them. Then how come I'm chosen to be Luke's mate?

I wonder what kind of qualifications I had for the Moon Goddess to choose me as Luke's mate. Was there some sort of election when she chose someone as each other's mate? No, wait, the real question is—is she even real?

I glanced at Luke, seeing him with a frown on his face. He had his brows curled together, beads of sweat forming on his forehead all the way to his neck. Is something wrong with him?

"Is something wrong? You don't look well," I asked, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him from walking.

He glanced at me and smiled, but even the birds would know that he was forcing himself to do so. "Nothing," he said, taking my hand in his and locking our fingers together.

"But you're sweating so much," I added, wiping the sweat off his forehead with my other hand. He, too, wiped his own sweat, appearing to only have realized that he was sweating buckets in the middle of winter.

"It's… a weird thing my body does," he chuckled, brushing away my concern as if it was unneeded. "I sweat a lot in winter."

Seriously, what's wrong with him? It's obviously a lie. Does he need to go to the toilet? It sure looks like it. Is he too embarrassed to say that he needed to go for number two? He didn't have to be.

Thinking that my assumption was right, I didn't ask any further and pulled our tangled hand, asking him to continue moving. "Come on, we should hurry and head back to our room."

He looked visibly relieved that I didn't insist on asking about his condition, and it made me sure of my previous assumption. Perhaps it was his way of releasing the tension that had accumulated within his body, now that everything has calmed down.

Even though nothing happened at the manor and everyone is safe, this does not mean that nothing is going on outside the manor. Something was definitely going on outside that caused the animals to run from the mountain. I wonder what that is. I hope it's nothing too serious—though the possibility seems a bit low considering how frantic those animals were.

Why does trouble keep coming? I thought everything in my life would go well once I escaped my father, but it really is trouble after trouble.

After walking at a faster pace, we finally arrived at our lovely room. It's only been a day since we left for the village, but it sure feels like it's been weeks since we were last here. There's really no better place than your own room. I wish I could stay here forever.

I let Luke use the bathroom first to take care of his business and took a warm bath, while I waited for him as I sat on the sofa. I threw more logs into the fireplace, letting the fire warm the whole room.

I watched as the fire grew bigger and bigger, devouring the logs to fuel itself. The sight of the fire reminded me of the fiery flames from before, the sensation of it around me still as clear as day.

Weirdly enough, I liked the sensation of having the fire around me. It was comforting, as if I was being engulfed in a warm embrace. If only the circumstances were better, it would be a nice experience to be surrounded by that fire. I'd love to feel it one more time. With that in mind, a question came to me.

Will it hurt if I touch this fire?

I held out my hand, inching closer to the warmth provided by the dancing flames. If it doesn't hurt, does it mean I can control fire or something? I know every witch has something that they are good at, like the blood witch, but I haven't found what mine is. Perhaps this could be my—

"Ouch!" I guess not.

As my hand got closer to the fire, the comforting warmth quickly turned into a painful warmth, shattering any hopes I had for a new discovery about my magic. Right now, my magic is pretty much a puzzle, something that I've got to solve in order to discover.

Though I've grown accustomed to feeling my magic around me, I still haven't gotten the hang of it. I knew how to let my magic in and out, but I still couldn't control the flow of my magic.

Maggie told me that magic is very vast and that it can be used to do almost anything. It's exciting to think about doing so many things with magic, but at the same time, the thought of magic controlling me rather than me controlling my magic scares me. If you can't control it, magic is practically a double-edged sword.

I heaved a sigh and leaned back on the sofa, pulling the blanket to my chest for extra warmth. It would be perfect to have a cup of hot chocolate while watching the snow fall outside my window.

As I was thinking about going back to the kitchen to make myself a cup of hot chocolate, someone knocked on the door.

"Alpha," called the person, and by the sound of his voice, Andrew was the one standing behind the door. I walked towards the door and swung it open, allowing Andrew to enter. "Oh, you're here too," he said as he entered, then noticed something was amiss.

He looked around and noticed a few things that didn't seem to be Luke's laying around the room, and his smirk grew as he put the pieces together. "This is no longer Luke's room alone, is it?"

"He insisted on sleeping together," I explained. 

"Of course," he said, folding his arms over his chest and smiling from ear to ear like a proud brother. "Perhaps you should start thinking of a name for your—"

"Andrew," Luke finally came out of the bathroom, looking better than before. He scowled at his Beta, telling him to shut his mouth with his eyes. Andrew laughed and pretended to zip his mouth, but the smirk on his face only grew wider. Without beating around the bush, Luke asked the man, "What did you find?"

"Just a bunch of scared animals," he replied, taking a seat on the sofa in front of me. "They all left their houses in a hurry. Even the squirrels didn't have the time to take their acorns out of their secret stash," he said, then rummaged through his pocket, taking out a bunch of acorns. "So I took them instead."

What's with Andrew and squirrels?

"Did you find out why?"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I didn't find anything, but I smelled something while I was running through the forest. It smelled like there was another wolf in the area, someone who was not part of our pack."

"Is it a rogue?" I asked.

"Rogue usually smells like shit, but this one didn't smell as bad," he replied, shaking his head once more. "It certainly is an unfamiliar scent, but for some odd reason, I feel like I've smelled it before. I can't seem to put my finger on whose scent it is, though."

Is someone from another pack paying us a visit? If so, shouldn't Luke have known about it? And why would their appearance scare the animals?

Luke, hearing about it, calmly brewed himself a tea, taking his time to think of his next decision. "Send a message to the other packs and ask if anyone has entered our—" he abruptly came to a halt, the teapot trembling in his hand.

By the next second, the teapot slipped from his grasp and shattered into tiny little pieces on the ground, spilling the tea inside. I quickly jumped to my feet and ran towards him, catching him just as he was about to fall.

"Luke!"