Page 115 of An Enigma for the Lycan Crown Prince
“You weren’t?” I ask, surprised.
“It’s true that I was in love with him, but I didn’t take him back. It wasn’t like that,” she pauses. “Why don’t you come inside? And you too - Elder Geneva, was it? Beta Calvin told me you would come.”
“Yes,” Geneva smiles and shakes Grace’s hand. “It’s very gracious of you to do this today.”
“It’s nothing,” Grace says. “And it’s what Gilbert would have wanted.”
She leads us inside her house. Everywhere are signs of children. She isn’t marked though, and I wonder why she never found her mate. Goddess, hopefully Dad wasn’t her mate, just to reject her and be with my mother! But I don’t think my mother would have accepted him if he had.
Once in her living room, Grace prepares tea for us and serves it with cookies and sandwiches. The cookies are colorful with sprinkles and funny forms. “I baked them with the kids yesterday,” she chuckles.
Both Geneva and I take some tea and cookies, before we both eye her expectantly. By now, I am just curious. I thought I would be angry, but she doesn’t look like she was lying, and she certainly doesn’t look like someone who would steal another woman’s man and keep him from his child.
“Gilbert came to me one day,” she starts her story. “I knew he had met a woman and that he’d settled down with her and even had a child. That’s why I was surprised to see him. He told me that his wife had passed, and that she left him with the child. He kept saying he couldn’t do it without her, and that he was not made to be a father and give his daughter what she needed.”
“What did you say?” Geneva asks when I remain silent, still trying to digest what she just told us.
“I told him to go back,” she says. “It’s one thing that he would have wanted me as his chosen mate but it’s entirely another if he leaves his child behind. I am not that type of woman. That’s what I told him. Gilbert wasn’t in love with me anymore, Flora. He didn’t want me, not really. He just thought I would be the easy way out. So, he left again.”
“He left from here?” I ask, stunned.
“Yes, and at first, I believed he had returned to his child, but then I found out from a mutual friend that he hadn’t. Instead, he was hiding in another pack. The mutual friend told me that Gilbert was constantly watching his daughter – you – in secret, but didn’t dare to reach out to his mother anymore.”
“What an idiot,” I mutter. “Grandma would have forgiven him easily, and made sure he would have had a relationship with me.”
“That’s what I told him, too,” Grace says. “I went with said friend to see for myself what Gilbert was doing. Gilbert broke down when he saw me. He… he really had changed. He looked grey and sickish. Guilt must have eaten him alive. He told me that a witch helped him take on another name and scent, and to live in another pack without anyone being able to track him. Our mutual friend was the only one who knew, and well, me. The friend reached out to me because he was worried.” Grace gets up, walks to a shelf and takes a box out of it. “Gilbert was an idiot, but I think the loss of his chosen mate, your mother,sent him into some sort of shock, maybe even a psychosis. I am no expert, but the Gilbert I knew certainly wouldn’t have left his child. I think he had a real breakdown.”
“It sounds like it,” Geneva says quietly.
“And then?” I ask.
“I spent a whole week talking to him. I don’t know how to explain it, but he had completely lost it. I was actually getting worried. It was as if he was losing his mind.”
“Maybe losing his mate and being separated from his child did that to him,” I say sadly. “If only he would have stayed…”
“My friend and I believed the same,” she says. “And after days, when he finally had a moment of clarity in his psychosis, we convinced him to return.”
Geneva and I exchange a surprised gaze. “He… agreed?” I ask.
“Yes, as I said, he had a moment of clarity, a moment where he truly realized what he was doing and what was happening to him.” She takes the box and hands it to me. “The proof is here. He had a journal at the time. He used to write in it at the beginning when he was still sane and later, in his moments of clarity. It’s full of regret and love for you.”
“Don’t tell me, he didn’t return because-“ I can’t even finish the sentence.
Grace’s eyes gloss over in sadness. “Our friend was driving, and I can’t remember what happened, not exactly, just that there was an attack and the car started to overturn. We dropped down somewhere, but I can’t remember where. When I woke up again, years had passed.”
“What!?” Geneva exclaims. “You mean, you were in a coma? For that long? But your wolf should have healed you a lot faster!”
“She should have, but she was too weak. We were rejected shortly before. My mate claimed I wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted someone of a higher rank, someone more beautiful,” Grace says shortly, clenching her fingers around the hem of hershirt. “When I woke up, I had no memory at first. My ex-mate was with me, but obviously, I didn’t know who he was. My memory slowly returned, and I remembered everything. Then, my luna told me about what had happened, and that my friend and Gilbert passed that day. However, the problem was that they all believed his fake identity-”
“So, Flora and Hazel never found out,” Geneva concludes. “And Hazel probably didn’t feel the bond to him rip due to the witch who put a spell on him.”
Grace nods. “It took a while for me to understand everything and get my full memory back. I wanted to reach out to someone in Silverlake Pack, but Beta Calvin reached me first.”
It’s silent around us. I feel my heart beating faster, my throat burning, but I want to keep it together. This woman here has suffered for my family, despite not needing to. She could have just turned her back on my father and lived a peaceful life, but she didn’t. I can’t cry now, not here, not now. Keep it together, Flora. I take a few shaky breaths to calm my heartbeat down and to force the tears burning in my eyes to dry. Then, in a spontaneous gesture, I reach out my hand to touch Grace’s. She relaxes her grip, looking up at me in surprise. “Thank you for watching out for my father and for making him do the right thing, even if at the end, he died before he could return to me. And just for the record: if my father had taken you as his chosen mate, I would have been happy to have you as a stepmother.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she looks away.
“What about your former mate?” Geneva asks quietly. “You said he was there when you woke up.”
