Elara's POV
Velora's gaze lingers on my skin, and I know she's trying to search me as though there's something she sees that's hidden beneath my skin.
"You survived…" she murmurs, her voice heavy, and her fingertips grazing my skin. "Alpha Cassian stopped. "That… that never happens, but for you?"
She shakes her head, then she's scanning me over and over again.
"Ahh… stop."
To confirm what exactly?
My eyes are starting to hurt as I attempt to process all these
I'm not someone who cries easily, not even when the pain has reached its peak level, but Liam's betrayal made me, and now, I feel like I'm about to. It's above its peak level, and that is how these constant tears have started, and won't stop. My body remembers fear even if my mind tries to stay numb.
"At least you survived," Velora says.
She steps back for her eyes to capture a full frame of me. And slowly, she comes closer like a thread connects our eyes and she is walking on it.
"Concerning what he said about a mate bond," she says. "If that's what it is, you know you can't refuse him, right?"
I freeze. She grips my arms, her face all eyes on me.
Mate.
I've heard about this strong bond between werewolves that always comes with a bizarre connection that always dismisses the fact that the male and female might not know each other.
But for a human like me?
"You know you wouldn't refuse if that was the case?"
The candles behind me quench.
The gammas who stand around me, who have gotten me back into the room after the meeting with Alpha Cassian and after he says "she's my mate," turn back to face the candle.
"Leave her," Velora says. "Leave. I'm here now."
The room has become too dark for me to see them, but I hear their footsteps and the bang of the door—the same bang before Liam's betrayal.
"Elara, lie down." Her voice turns softer than it was during our first meeting.
I oblige.
She lights the candles again, and that same scent of herbs and smoke begins to fill the room—the scent has always been from the candles after all. I find my body going soft, sleep forcing itself into my eyes.
I jerk up, close and open my eyes in sequence.
"You are here now." Her lips curve, but the smile never reaches her eyes. "Alpha Cassian owns you."
My breath is ragged. The scent is like hands pressing me against the bed, also injecting me with needles that carry the fluid through my bloodstream.
"No one!" I shake my head. "No one owns me."
"So?"
"I've never been owned by anyone."
Perhaps Liam's giving me out for a price means I am sold?
"I've been kidnapped by the pack." My fingers dig into the bedspread, I scream. "He should let me go!"
This pack—the Dawnfang pack. I've only heard about it but have no knowledge. Such knowledge should be meant for werewolves, so I think. How would I have known I would be in it?
As though my words cause a twist in Velora, her look layers up—not a thick texture, but tiny pieces of materials being placed on top of each other, each material a thought of hers.
"But what he said… you become his mate." She rubs her palms on her eyelids.
"Never."
She draws closer to me. Her fingers touch my leg, and it sends a cold feeling through me. I jolt before keeping my leg in place. She smiles like that is intentional—expected.
"He is supposed to go on with the Bloodshroud." She sniffs the air. "But he doesn't."
"He—"
He looks at me almost the same way he does in this room, but deeper than that. There are many things about him—it isn't just about the way he looks at me. The smell of blood replaces his scent. Not just the smell of blood as it comes along with the memory of my parents, laid dead on the floor.
But what about that?
"Elara."
My breath catches like I've been pulled out from a nightmare. "Ahh."
"The Bloodshroud. He stopped. He didn't proceed," she says.
"What about that?"
All I know is that my life could have come to an end.
She gets on her feet, her face all eyes on me, takes slow steps until her fingers reach for my neck. I tilt my head, just a bit, breaking the smoothness of my breath.
She starts grazing me with her fingers. "The ritual of seeping out your blood to cure his curse."
His curse…
The strange fur I notice growing out of his skin, the suffocation I see in his face, and the way he rushes out.
Everything begins to take on a meaning.
"But he stops." Her voice raises slightly, her eyes wide open like a mouth to swallow me whole. "Have an idea?"
He is standing so close to me, his eyes on my necklace. The last moment before he steps back, the smell of blood which only seems to be an illusion from my thoughts, changes—something else—a feeling I almost get from Liam, but never the same.
"I don't know."
She releases her hold on me, her palms rub against her eyes again.
"Your eyes…"
"Do you remember him?" She asks, diverting my attention.
"Who?" My brows furrow.
"Alpha Cassian, you don't remember him?"
"I… I don't know him. I've never met him."
"Think." She hisses. "Your parents… That night. Think."
That dark night. I remember that night, but how is it related to Alpha Cassian, and how does she know about it?
Her gaze lands on my necklace. "You wouldn't take it off."
I shake my head.
"It's an important piece of them," she whispers. "Lilith."
My eyebrows raise like a live wire touches me. "You knew her? You knew my parents?"
She goes silent, and her palms don't go for her eyes. Tears streak down her cheeks, but her jaw stays rigid, as if her body fights itself. Is it grief? Guilt? Or something sharper—like fear?
"Maybe I know them." She touches the necklace. "But that isn't important. Not now."
She leaves the bed, her face smiles as she approaches the door.
"What then if not your knowledge of them…"
"Deciding your fate to stay in this room or not is more important." She opens the door.
"But… how do I decide that?"
She walks out.
"Velora!"
I hear footsteps, but no answer.
Soon, all that follows is silence, no footstep, almost as though the clock above the door has stopped. I push myself off the bed. Somehow, I've been able to withstand the smell of the burning candles and just one of them is left. It already burns low.
The door opens before I turn the knob like it's been waiting for me to do this. Darkness claws at me, and the guards aren't outside. Not even a footstep gets to my ears. Just silence.
Velora planned this?
When I walk several steps from the door, the scent of spices gets to me. I froze. I can barely see as my eyes find it hard to adjust. But my eyes can't find earth on the floor, except…
Now I hear footsteps as the smell intensifies to my nostrils.
I stumble back, but my feet are hooked against the floor. Too late.
He's here.
Cassian.
His body blocks the hallway. His scent wraps around me like chains.
"Elara." His voice was a growl. "You planned to leave?"