"This is my house now?" Lilian exclaimed, her eyes shooting up as she looked around what was laid before her.
She had never owned a house before as she had gone straight from the orphanage she grew in, to the Drayke estate at sixteen, living in the servants' quarters with two other maids.
But this was totally different.
She stepped further into the house, touching everything as if they were eggs that would break if mishandled.
The living room had white, sophisticated walls and large windows with gorgeous curtains. From the couch, to the coffee table down to the fresh flowers on the table, everything looked expensive, screaming sophistication.
"Wow... All this is mine?" She breathed out when she moved into the kitchen and saw all sort of modern appliances, including the ones she hadn't even seen in the almighty Drayke's kitchen.
Still lost in her exploration, Lilian walked down the hallway and found the bedroom. It was large and the bed looked soft with thick blankets and many pillows.
Then she saw the bathroom and gasped.
"Oh my..."
A glass shower, a deep bathtub, marble countertops with expensive-looking bottles lining the shelves.
She picked up one bottle and her chest tightened.
She had seen this brand before in Cassandra's bathroom. She had been the one stocking it, making sure Cassandra never ran out of it.
Lilian slowly set it down, tears welling up in her eyes. She had always wondered when she would get to own at least a bottle of skincare like that.
She walked back to the bedroom and sat on the bed.
"So, I'm not only alive, I actually have a life?" She wondered aloud as the realization that she wasn't a maid anymore, dawned on her.
"To you the force behind this, thank you... For this second chance." She whispered into the room.
Then her eyes landed on something on the nightstand: a digital calendar.
Lilian reached for it slowly. The date was displayed in bright numbers.
"October 5th, 2025?" Her eyes widened in shock.
The last date she remembered was 2015. She had died in early October, right before her eighteenth birthday.
"Wait... This means..." Her hands started shaking and the calender slipped from her hold.
"Ten years... ten solid years have passed?"
A decade had passed while she was dead, while Cassandra Drayke lived and breathed and built her empire. This realization made her rage begin to build like a tsunami, the feeling of joy and gratitude from seconds ago disappearing quickly.
"She... she robbed me of ten years of my life! Ten years of birthdays and possibilities and chances to be something more than a maid." Lilian's voice was hollow.
"She ordered my death, had me beaten until I stopped breathing. And then just moved on without anyone punishing her?"
"Oh, so a dead maid didn't matter because her family is rich and powerful?" Lilian stopped up, her fists clenching, her face hardening.
Lilian remembered her plans for her twentieth birthday. She had been saving money. She was going to buy herself a small cake, just for her. And she was going to make a wish that her life would get better.
But she never got the chance.
"You stole that dream from me." Lilian said to the empty room in a cold voice.
"No, Cassandra, I won't let you go scotfree. I'm going to dedicate this new life of mine to ensure your pay for every single thing you did to me!"
"Even more than... I will pay in tenfold." Her angry eyes were now picturing Cassandra's image in the corner she was staring at.
"I will destroy everything you have built while I was lying cold in a grave somewhere!"
"I'm going to take everything from you and have you reduced to nothing. You will crawl on your knees before me, begging for forgiveness but won't get a tiny bit of it." She yelled as if Cassandra could really hear her.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, back at the hotel where Lilian had fled from earlier, Cassandra Drayke stepped out of the shower.
She had reluctantly gone to take her bath, ready to lodge out of the hotel after running after the strange woman whom she had spent the night with.
"Just what was wrong with her?" It was the thought of this woman that had filled her mind even as she tried to take her mind off it. Afterall, it was supposed to be just a one night stand.
But somehow she couldn't shake off the thoughts about her.
"Is she alright?" She wondered as she remembered the look in the woman's eyes. Firstly, she had look horrified then became angry and hit her hard enough to make her stumble.
Cassandra's hand instinctively went up to touch her cheek. The mark was gone now because of her werewolf healing, but she could still remember the sting.
"What did I do wrong?" She muttered as she started getting dressed.
"Didn't she find the night perfect as it was for me?" She wondered aloud. They had met at the club, talked and laughed for hours over drinks. The chemistry had been instant and when they had gone back to the hotel together, everything had felt so right.
In all honesty, it was the best night of Cassandra's life.
"I don't even know her name... Even her scent." Cassandra shook her head as she buttoned her blouse.
They had been too drunk last night to exchange proper details. She had planned to ask this morning over breakfast.
But the woman had run before she got the chance.
"Oh, right..." Cassandra paused as she reached for her jacket, remembering she had blocked off her wolf and this was the reason she hadn't been able to perceive her scent well enough to recognize it later.
She had always block the wolf before sleeping with someone because the wolf hated that Cassandra wouldn't wait for their mate, that she kept sleeping with people who weren't "the one."
So Cassandra had learned to block the connection temporarily, just enough to avoid the constant complaints and disapproval.
She closed her eyes and released the block. Then her wolf surged forward immediately, and then everything changed.
The lingering scent hit her like a wave. It was on everything: on the sheets, on Cassandra's own skin even though she had bathed.
"Vanilla and strawberry... Mhmmm..." Cassandra found herself breathing it in hungrily then suddenly, her wolf slam against her consciousness so hard that she actually stumbled backward.
"What the..."
"MATE!" Her wolf's voice exploded in her mind. Sharp, furious and desperate.
Cassandra's eyes flew open.
"What?" She breathed out.
"That was our mate! The woman from last night... the one who ran away! Our mate!" Her wolf continued, sounding both excited and angry.
"That's... that's impossible. I would have known. I would have felt..." Cassandra's voice shook but she stopped as she caught herself.
"You BLOCKED me, you idiot! How could you feel anything when you cut me off completely? How could WE recognize our mate when you locked me away just so you could frolick around?" Her wolf snapped.
Cassandra sank down onto the bed, her legs suddenly felt weak.
"My mate..."
She had been waiting for her mate for ten years. Ten long years of searching, of hoping and wondering if she even had one.
And last night, she had finally found her but she had let her run away.
"You didn't even get her name. You don't know who she is. You don't know where she lives or..." Her wolf was snarling now, jumping around angrily in her head.
"That wouldn't stop me from finding her!" Cassandra cut her wolf short, actually saying the words out loud.
"I will find her.... No matter what, I swear." She added and stood up quickly, her voice becoming firm and determined.
"How when you don't know a thing about her?" Her wolf demanded.
"I don't care what I have to do." Cassandra snapped back and grabbed her phone from the nightstand. Her mind was already racing.
"The hotel has cameras. The club has cameras. Someone must have seen us together. Someone has to know something."
"I will hire investigators, offer huge rewards, use every resource I have..."
"I will tear this entire city apart if I have to. I will search every street and question every person. Check every single database." Cassandra said quietly, her jaw setting.
"And if she's no longer in this city?" Her wolf asked, still sounding annoyed but slightly hopeful now.
"Then I will search beyond it. I will search the entire country if that's what it takes. I don't care how long it takes or how much it costs." Cassandra's eyes hardened as a thought settled in her mind:
She had waited so long for her mate and wouldn't lose her now that she found her.
"I promise you..." Cassandra whispered. This was a vow to her wolf, herself and to the woman who had run from her this morning.
Cassandra grabbed her jacket and headed for the door, having no clue that the woman she sought after was her enemy...
Her doom!