Page 85 of Aleko
“Promise,” said Killian, grinning. Then he pulled Moira to him, and kissed his mate.
Episode 41
The Fate of Eliandra
Eliandra
Lia awoke with her heart pounding as if she were in danger.
“Wha?” Alex grabbed her and sat up, claws extending, looking wildly around the room.
“I had a bad dream,” said Lia, her voice husky, although she wasn’t sure that was what it had been. She didn’t know how to explain that she had just woken up scared.
Alex grunted and lay back down, taking Lia with him. Not that she minded. She snuggled closer and he obligingly tucked the duvet around her. Lia pressed her face into his chest so tight that she could taste him on her lips and he was all she could smell. He grunted and adjusted the arm underneath her to a more comfortable angle.
“Alex?” she asked after a few warm and comfortable minutes. “I wanted to ask last night, but I was too tired. All the stuff about the cure and mates… I don’t think I understood that.”
Alex was silent for a moment. “Yes. I should probably talk to you about that. Um… so, wolves can fuck around a lot. But when we mate, it’s for life. And if we’re lucky, we meetthe one.The one that is fated, destined, meant to be ours. But sometime in the last few hundred years, the ability to find a human mate has stopped working. That’s what the cure is—a way for the magic to work again.”
Lia thought about that.
“So when we took it to do the spell for Pellos it activated for Hudson and Yazmin,” he said.
“Just Hudson and Yazmin?” asked Lia hesitantly.
“Probably for everyone, but I think maybe… I didn’t need it.Probably because… Well, Sebastian tried to tell me.”
Lia looked up at him, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Anuket said you were related, didn’t she?”
“Yes,” said Lia. “And to Seth. She said we were her descendants. Sort of. She was rather… generous? With the relationship titles. She kept calling Seth my brother.”
“Couldn’t have been your brother. Might have been your grandfather, I suppose.”
“Um… I think I would prefer to not even consider that and just believe we might have been related on an extremely distant level at best.”
“Good call,” agreed Alex. He was petting her back in a way that Lia found incredibly soothing. “But my point is… Anuket. We’re definitely saying you’re related to Anuket?”
“Yeah, probably,” said Lia, rubbing her face against his chest to demonstrate her enjoyment. But her eyelids sprang open as she became suspicious of the question. “Is that freaky for you?” she asked hesitantly.
“Heh. No. But that would mean that you’re at least part Shifter.”
“I don’t think…” She trailed off remembering the elf ghost’s question about her magic. “Maybe? I really can’t change shape or anything.”
“No, but…” He cleared his throat. “I have wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I tried desperately to ignore you because I’m an idiot. But when I saw you in the club, I couldn’t. And that kind of obsession is abnormal for me. And as Sebastian tried to point out on more than one occasion, it’s the kind of obsession that only happens for wolves when we…” He stopped and she could feel him swallow. “It’s just that you’re human. And that should make it impossible. So I didn’t think it could be fate. And also fate hates me, so I extra didn’t think that you… that we… But you’re not entirely human and maybe that’s all themagic we needed.”
“Oh,” said Lia, a smile pushing its way across her face. “You think that’s us. You think we’re fated to be mates.”
“Yes,” he said, looking apprehensive like he was hoping she wouldn’t dash his hopes with skepticism.
Did she think they were fated to be together? She wanted that to be true.
“I don’t know about fate,” said Lia. “I keep bumping into all these ways that magic has been in my life all along, but I’ve been ignoring it, so maybe you’re right. I just…” She leaned her forehead onto his chest where she could feel his heart beating. “I know that when I am with you, I feel like all my pieces finally fit.”
He let out a sigh. “Yes,” he murmured. “Like that. Like… click.”
Lia pressed herself into him wanting smoosh all her pieces into him physically as well as metaphorically. He chuckled and held her tighter.
