Page 59 of The Alpha's Fallen Spell
Fiona sighs, a small sound of resignation. “Margo, can you and Alex finish closing up? I’ll be in my office.”
The purple-haired woman—Margo—nods, though suspicion lingers in her narrowed eyes. “Sure. Should I call anyone, or...”
“That won’t be necessary,” Fiona says with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s fine.”
She gestures for me to follow her through a door marked “Private” and into a tiny office space. The room is sparse but organized—a small desk with neat stacks of papers, a filing cabinet, and what looks like a pullout couch along one wall. A black cat is curled up on a cushion, watching us with unblinking, yellow eyes.
Fiona closes the door and turns to face me, arms crossed over her chest. “How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy,” I admit. “I’ve been searching for a year.”
She looks surprised, perhaps because I didn’t give up. “Why?”
The question is simple but loaded with meaning. Why for so long? Why at all? I struggle to find the right words, suddenly aware that all the speeches I’ve rehearsed for this moment seem inadequate.
“You’re dying, Fiona,” I finally manage to say. “The treatment Maya gave you is not a cure. It’s just delaying the inevitable. Without your wolf, without our bond, you’ll fade away.”
She looks at me for a minute, then does something I don’t expect. She laughs. It’s a short, sharp sound, utterly devoid of humor.
“You think I’m dying?” she asks, shaking her head. “Erik, I’ve never been more alive.”
“That’s not possible,” I insist. “Maya’s research—What we’ve seen with other artificial shifters—”
“I take it you’ve found more of us,” she interrupts. “The Silver Ring’s other experiments.”
I nod. “Four facilities. Dozens of shifters, all in various stages of the process. None of them survived more than a few weeks without their fated mates.”
Her expression softens slightly, a look of genuine grief crossing her face. “I’m sorry to hear that. They didn’t deserve such suffering.”
“Neither did you,” I say quietly. “Fiona, I’ve been looking for you since the day I returned and found out you were gone. I’ve been to thirty-seven cities, following countless leads. I need to make this right.”
“Make what right?” she asks, her voice hardening again. “Your rejection? Your absence? The fact that you chose your duty over the mate bond that might have saved my life?”
I wince at the frankness of her words. “Yes. All of it. I was wrong, Fiona. So wrong. I was afraid of what the bond might mean, what it might demand of me. I put the kingdom before you, and it was the greatest mistake of my life.”
She listens without interrupting, her face carefully neutral. When I finish, she walks to her desk and leans against it, putting more distance between us.
“And Elina?” she asks quietly.
“Reassigned to Captain Thorne’s squadron a year ago,” I reply without hesitation. “There was never anything between us. She lied to you, manipulated the situation, spread rumors. I should have seen it sooner.”
Fiona nods, as if this confirms something she already suspected. “I believe you,” she says. “But it doesn’t change anything.”
Her words crush me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’ve built a life here, Erik,” she says, gesturing around us. “I own this café. I have employees who depend on me. I have friends, a home, a purpose. I’m not the broken girl you found in the woods anymore.”
“I can see that,” I say, and I mean it. The transformation is remarkable—not just the dark hair or the healthier appearance, but the confidence in her posture, the steadiness in her gaze. This is a woman who knows her own worth, who has found her place in the world. “You’re incredible, Fiona. What you’ve built here—”
“I built without you,” she finishes for me. “I built it despite you. Do you understand what that means?”
I swallow hard. “I think so.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” She pushes away from the desk, moving closer, her eyes never leaving mine. “When you rejected me, you thought you were sparing me. Protecting me from the burden of a mate who couldn’t give me what I needed. Youthought I was too broken, too damaged to handle your divided attention.”
“I was wrong,” I admit. “I see that now.”
“But you were also right,” she continues, surprising me. “I was broken. I was damaged. I needed to heal—not just my body, but my soul. And I had to do that myself. No one could do it for me, not even a fated mate.” She pauses, collecting her thoughts. “I didn’t need you in order to survive, Erik. I didn’t need the mate bond, or my wolf, or the kingdom. I needed to find myself—the person I would have been if the Silver Ring had never stolen my life. And I did that. I saved myself.”
