Luciel’s POV

Pages blur into a singular shifting shape as I sift through them one after the other, leaving the words upon them to suffer the same fate of being digested and dismissed within the same breath.

They are not entirely useless. They offer a slew of information about lupines, from details of the first emerged pack formations and their migration patterns over time, to their internal conflicts that were important enough to be of note.

It is only further proof of the Gods’ opinion of me that not a single text offers the information I seek.

Not one tells me how to break a mate bond.

I swallow around my clenched jaw as I shove the latest disappointment back into its shelved home before pulling the next free.

The library remains still and quiet, outside of the fierce tearing of pages slicing through the air. It is a frantic sound, even to my ears— panicked, but being conscious of such a thing does not allocate me the strength to slow myself.

I was not panicking, not yet, but I could feel its approach on the horizon, steadily looming larger.

It should not. Everything was still… ‘in the air’, and I had always been the type to focus only on the present and not stress myself with the possibilities of the future, but this situation was different. Which, of course, it was, what with an overly frightened werewolf claiming to share a soul with me.

But it was more than that.

It was an itch beneath my skin, a gnawing sort of dread that had gathered inside of me from the moment that same petrified wolf found the courage to look me in the eyes and make his will unquestionable.

Now there was all this dread and unseemly panic at the mere possibility that none of this would go how I wished it to.

My fingers move faster, sending the pages flying as I scan them each with due diligence. There were only a short number of texts left, no more than six, and I needed one, only one, to have an answer, or at least the suggestion of one, before I faced my clan again.

I had managed under the stares on my way here, presenting as if nothing was amiss, so that none of them decided to behave as if something was, but that had been automatic, a continuation of the surety I had been presenting since I first dolled out instructions and walked away from him.

Peter Heil-Calderon. My would-be soul-mate and the werewolf who’d shown up at my doorstep with tears lining his face, and shaky demands for a chance at love.

If I were honest, I felt bad for him. Truly.

He had mentioned searching for his mate for quite some time, and despite all odds, he had found his way to the coldest region on the planet, beneath its ice, and all the way to me.

It was only a shame that I was that other half he so desperately searched for, because being a mate— a life and soul partner— was the very last thing I wanted from this life again.

I did not have the capacity to love another again, let alone with the totality that a mate bond required, and whether or not the boy wanted to believe that, it was the truth.

The kindest thing to do, and the most reasonable, was to end it now, while it was still early. If only the clan had been as thorough with recording other cultures as we were with our own.

I sift through the remaining tombs and scripts until my fingers find a scroll dedicated to prestiged werewolf bloodlines, and stall.

The answers on how to end a mate bond would not be there, but Peter had made a point of sharing his other names, and when he had said them, a thin veil of pride cloaked him for a moment.

I tug the ribbon’s edge, undoing the bind around the aged parchment before I straighten it and scan the two dozen lists of names.

I spot them instantly.

Heil.

Calderon.

Separated here, but here.

My chest tightens.

Two bloodlines of note, and the werewolf I named a guest had claimed them both.

The irritation beneath my skin worsens and begins to spread.

I retire the scroll with stiff fingers before returning it to its home, where I stare at it for a long moment, wondering if perhaps the Gods were real and held me in the lowest of regards.

My gaze shifts to the remaining books, three left, but the hunger to consume them is far quieter now.

I had always planned to handle this delicately, so the fact that the boy came from two olden bloodlines did not change matters. It was not as if they would turn up here for revenge when I broke the bond between us.

I did not know much of anything about the werewolves of today, but the ones of the past had always respected one’s right to break the bond. That was why the option was there.

But even if times had changed and the boy’s family or pack was foolish enough to do such a thing, werewolves of any line barely held a candle to the vampires that walked these halls, and that was before one even considered our mages.

His bloodlines did not matter.

I reach for the next text, and soon finish the last. They each reveal nothing at all.

I sigh as I slide the last one back into place and turn to rest against the immovable frame.

I had little hope that I would find an answer here, but I had willed it to appear if only to put an end to all of this before the moon rose.

In any case, the mages would find something. Research was their area of expertise. I only hoped they would be able to do so sooner rather than later.

I stand still within the quiet, but it is not entirely quiet. Nothing ever was within the ice; one simply learned to tune certain sounds out and allow others in.

There was always a hum from the clan, lying beneath the surface, and overshadowing the more subtle, hidden sounds. My ears twitch, filtering through them on their own accord until it singles out him and his—

Gods… Was he crying?

Again?

The question answers itself as the distant heaves from the other side of the castle intermix with whimpers, each as tortured and discomforting as the ones that he had released when I first made mention of breaking our bond.

But why in all the realms was he crying, again?

“Kito.”

Kito is through the library doors with his head bowed before I have even finished his name.

I flick a finger, and he rises, but keeps his stance strong. “Has something happened to our guest?”

“No, Pylen,” he replies without hesitation. “Maeve is with him at his quarters.”

“Then why—” I stop myself, suddenly not sure that I should ask it aloud.

My ears had always been sharper than most, even before I was turned. They had once helped me avoid becoming prey, and then hunting prey. But when I passed the clan’s trails, they’d helped me adjust to the echoes of the ice and all the sounds that travelled within it faster than my peers.

As Pylen, that skill had only gotten amplified as the magic that screened many sounds and secrets from the clan was unhidden to me, which meant that just because I heard the crying, it did not promise that anyone else did.

But it hardly mattered, trying to protect the boy’s image. News of his tearful habit would have spread to all by now. He was only lucky enough that he would not be here for long enough to suffer the shame of it.

“Pylen.”

My gaze shifts to Atieno as he strides through the open doorway, his eyes wide and alert. My own widen slightly as surprise passes through me.

Atieno had never been anything other than lively, but I was used to seeing him more composed. This situation seemed to have stripped him of that to a certain degree.

“News?” I surmise, and as he nods, I dismiss Kito with a grateful nod.

Atieno waits for the doors to close before he speaks.

“He was the marine biologist to the humans’ research team. They thought him human as well, and we’re in a big stir when they realised he was missing,” he narrates without pause. “We got to them before the news spread beyond the bases, and were able to contain it.”

“Thank the Gods,” I sigh as my shoulders fall and the very first measure of relief finds me.

“We adjusted their recollections of events,” he continues quickly. “As far as they are all concerned, the members of his team all boarded the plane together, with him, and will separate from him amicably. I sent Ban with them to ensure the spell does not waver.”

I nod, already thinking of how I might best thank Atieno and the rest of the mages for their brilliance. “You are a gift, Atieno,” I tell him. “All of you.”

“It was hardly any trouble, Pylen,” he replies with a slight bow before he hesitates. “We brought his personal items back with us. We can deliver them to him, but I thought you might want to examine them first?”

His hesitation introduces itself to me.

Examining the belongings of an intruder was nowhere near the realm of my responsibilities as Pylen. There were many others better suited to examine the findings and search for clues on where Peter’s statements differed from the truth, but…

To allow another to search his belongings was not wrong, but after he had claimed me as his mate, it did not feel quite right either.

Atieno seemed to have reached the same conclusion, based on his hesitation.

The only problem was that I did not want to do it.

It felt equally wrong, if not more so for me to dig through his belongings, and that may be because of his age or his penchant for tears, but the reasoning did not change the feeling.

It felt advantageous, especially towards a creature so seemingly vulnerable, but his presence did not impact me alone. It risked the clan, and so did the unknown.

Withholding a sigh, I nod, and Atieno disappears without a word. It takes no more than two minutes for him to usher them all in—three trunks and one strapped navy-blue bag.

He leaves me with them with a final nod as if privacy is needed, but perhaps it is because they smell him.

Scent had never been as domineering a sense for us vampires as it was for his kind, but it was there, and while there was no blood here for me, I could and did recognise his scent.

It was too different from the ones I knew to ignore or mistake.

It was… soft, like him, subtle like a natural fragrance carried by the wind. Somehow creamy, but with traces that reminded me of a forest’s floor, and also— sweet.

It was the very scent I had picked up the last time I surfaced.

What would have happened if I had followed it then?

The question remains unanswered as I step forward and start my search with the first trunk.

It contains nothing but clothing, shoes, a strange pair of tiny boots, several books, and a set of thoroughly used notebooks filled with equations and statements I have absolutely no chance of understanding, but they very quickly prove too extensive to be fake.

I find photographs in another, a stack of them filled with familiar sights of beloved landscapes above the ice, only at the front of each is a tightly bundled team of humans and Peter.

He stands out in each one.

He does not appear so small in them, even though he is often crouched or huddled into himself, and perhaps that has something to do with the fact that he is always positioned at the front with his wide blue eyes staring up at the camera.

At times, there are smiles, hesitant, but there. Others more often feature a fierce flush to his cheeks, but there is never any doubt about the absolute joy that he feels.

It shines through his eyes like starlight.

I had witnessed that look, I realise belatedly. When he first looked at me, it had been there, only developed in spades as he stepped forward and gazed at me as if I were his people’s Goddess incarnate.

That was before he saw the tears, of course, and oh, how there’d been so many of those.

I sift through the rest of the trunk, stalling only when I reach a thoroughly bundled object at the bottom that I only have to touch to know to leave as it is.

Not so innocent then…

The rest of his belongings are, though, innocent and filled with more of the same, until I reach the navy bag and find a trove of his most personal items.

There is a journal that I do not open, a wallet with cards that do, in fact, name him as Peter Heil-Calderon, aged twenty-six. There are more books, a thick set of gloves, an electronic tablet that seems for reading, an absurd amount of candy, and another set of older pictures.

These are wrapped specially, placed in two sets of envelopes to protect them, and they showcase what can only be Peter’s family.

It is a large one, it seems, filled to the brim with wolves that look terrifyingly alike, especially one that I believe to be Peter’s twin until I find them side by side in one photograph, and spot the crinkles beneath the other’s eyes.

There are many childlings— many of them, who have their own dedicated section of photos. I ignore those as steadfastly as I do all the ones of the white rabbit that seems to be Peter’s muse, but the remaining photographs feature the people who resemble Peter the most.

They are all bigger than him, Peter being the only one who is not made of muscle, his height, his only saving grace, but even that is barely noticeable amongst the rest.

And they are hugging in almost every picture, tightly bound as if any space between them was cause for alarm, and though chaos shows in certain settings, with them hoisting Peter into the air, and peace in others, with them all dozing over each other.

But there is one common thread through each picture, and that is that Peter is at the centre of each one.

It is impossible not to notice why. It is not just to better place him, like in the first set featuring the humans.

In these, it is clearly done out of a subtle sense of protectiveness— I see it by the way they crowd around him, flanking each side, a wolf’s bodily tell.

These wolves guard Peter fiercely, even with the brightest smiles on their faces.

I sigh again as I repack his items as they were, ensuring nothing is out of place. He would undoubtedly smell the traces of me on them, but I had little concern with that. If someone went through my belongings, then they should possess the decency to return them to their original state when they were through.

Repacking them, I hesitate on the half-filled journal, eyes trailing the white cover with an etched, crescent moon.

I had left it last so I could read it with a better picture in mind, but that was before it was unmistakably clear that Peter was exactly who he said he was.

If there was reason to believe for even a moment that he was not, then I would force myself to examine that too, but when one considered his arrival, the photographs, and the fact that the boy’s cries had only just quieted, it was hard to believe that he was here with secret, nefarious purposes.

I slot the journal back into its home before I sit myself upon one of my trunks and settle my palms over my face.

I would have to leave soon, face the clan and likely the boy again instead of hiding in here, but I deserved at least a little while longer to try to come to terms with this reality that the Gods have assigned a soul-match with another that is not Arraya.

I may not want it or feel it, but that did not mean that it was not there.

I only wondered why him. It was destined to end, so I should not really give it any thought, but my mind settles there regardless.

How could I share a soul with him? A mortal and a timid one at that?

In what world did they ever imagine him finding the love he sought amongst creatures he feared?

It seemed his Goddess was as cruel as her counterparts.

The clan would argue likewise, or would they? What the clan thought of the entire situation was beyond my imagination, and no part of me was particularly keen to figure it out.

It was no secret that I had loved another, and so was the fact that I had never been the same without them. But so many of them were as devoted to the Gods as Maeve, would they expect me to entertain this?

I rub at my eyes, feeling true exhaustion for the first time in decades.

I could not remember the last time I thought this hard about anything, let alone worried over a matter so. Life had morphed itself into a familiar, unassuming creature over the ages, and here it was, changing into a livelier, unknown beast that had already drained me under a single day of its ‘changes’.

“I did not think it would be this,” I grumble to whatever spirit of past or present might be here. “I would not have asked if I did.”

Why did you ask at all?

The question rings in my mind and does not quiet until the library doors open for the third time, a revolving door at this point, only who enters might be the one who delivers my eternal death.

“Guard?” Maeve seethes as she marches towards me with her sword in hand and fury blazing within her eyes. “You made me his guard?”

I resist the urge to rise so that I can put space between us. “Yes, I did, so— why are you not guarding him right now?”

Maeve’s eye twitches, and the trunk inches back slightly. “Atieno brought the food. I told him to stay with him while he ate so that I could track you down and see if you had misplaced your mind for myself.”

“Maeve—”

“I am your second— your guard. I am not the guard to a snivelling, bawling werewolf.”

I sigh, my newfound habit it seems. “As you mention that as well, why was he crying again? He had stopped when I left.”

Maeve folds her arms, her gaze shifting away and taking some of its fury with it. “I shared the truth with him. It made him emotional.”

My brow lifts on its own accord. “And what truth might that be?”

“That he is not your priority, the way you are his,” she states unflinchingly as her attention returns to me. “I just did not expect it to make him bawl so.”

“Oh, no? You didn’t?” I ask curiously. “You did not think such words would make the young werewolf who has cried more than he has spoken to cry again at such an assessment?”

“No, I did not,” she retorts with a sneer. “He knew it already. I thought it would be a reminder. I would not have said it if I knew it would set him off again while I was chained to a station forced to listen to it.”

“He seems quite sensitive,” I admit and she laughs dryly as she steps away, falling into a pace.

“He is a dry leaf in a snowstorm. Bound to break.”

I feel myself frown. The comparison was not inept, but that did not make it particularly favourable to imagine.

“I made you his guard because I know none will hurt him with you at his side,” I reply, hoping the honest confidence in her will ease her ire. “I can only guarantee that with myself and—”

“So you guard him,” she cuts in and I laugh. “What?”

“You are not serious,” I ascertain, but her expression remains just so. “Maeve, you know he will cry more with me.” She opens her mouth, but I carry on. “You are faultfully blunt, I am brutal with it— words you’ve spoken yourself, do not deny it now. I would be worse, especially since it is me he seeks the bond with. So until he stops doing so, the duty of ensuring his safety—”

“Falls onto me,” she concludes dryly. “Me, who has done right by you, the clan and the Gods, and still, I am the one punished.”

“It is not a punishment.”

“He will not stop crying, Luciel..”

“Then, stop making him cry,” I retort, struggling to contain a laugh. “You have the ability to be nice. Be nice.”

Maeve does not laugh, she does not even sport a smile as she turns to face me again. “This is serious, Luciel.”

“I had not noticed,” I retort, but Maeve’s stare remains stagnant as she takes a slithering step towards me.

“You have a soul match, and he seeks you,” she reminds me and the itch beneath my skin revives itself. “The longer he stays, the more we all become ensnared within this entire situation.”

“Yes, that is why the plan is to break the bond and send him away once I know how,” I reassure her. “It has not changed.”

Maeve eyes me, but restrains whatever thoughts reign behind her gaze as she nods. I relax, glad the matter is concluded, but then she says, “He asked after you.”

I struggle not to shift as discomfort wells inside of me. “For what purpose?”

“To see you, you idiot,” she barks, glare turning lethal. No wonder the boy cried again. “I told him you were busy, but—”

“But?”

“But, what am I to say each time he asks, because he will ask again? You can not always be busy, not while he is living in these walls.”

“That is hardly a concern, Maeve. It has not even been a day,” I remind her and myself while I am at it, because somehow, it has felt much longer. “By the morning at the very latest, we should know how to break the bond, send him on his way, and then all will be as it was.”

“As it was,” she repeats dryly. “As if we can ever return to such a thing.”

I frown. “What is that to mean?”

Maeve’s lips part, but before she can reply, a knock falls upon the doors and I stiffle the urge to curse as I drag a hand over my face.

I had not been this sought for in decades.

“Enter,” I call and Saada steps through the door, the vampire I had sent off in search of Peter’s lineage after he’d spoken all his names aloud.

I mean to dismiss her, seeing as I have already found the details myself, but there is a tightness to the skin surrounding her brows that gives me pause.

“Saada,” I speak quietly. “What is it?”

She looks between Maeve and me, unease showing in her eyes as if she does not want to speak.

“Tell me,” I instruct as the irritation beneath my skin suddenly spikes.

“He is… the omega son to former alphas Aiden Heil and Julian Calderon,” she begins, but before I can question the use of alphas, plural, she carries on. “Brother to Damon Calderon-Heil, current alpha of the Dark Moon pack… which is currently classed as the largest and strongest werewolf pack in the world.”

“Gods,” Maeve mutters, but Saada is still not finished.

“He is also closely connected to two other werewolf packs— his eldest brother is alpha to one, and his only sister, Luna, to another. The sister has also attended the Academy and left well-connected to it and its alumni.”

“Hells,” I breathe, mind whirling.

The Academy was one thing, manageable. The number of packs also within the realm of our control. It was the number of alphas connected to this one wolf that concerned me— this one omega wolf?

I had not even realised that he was an omega, but then again, I had never needed to know how to look for the tells. But his size compared to those in his family pictures made sense now, along with the steady stream of tears.

I did know that omegas were weaker than most werewolves, and hardly allowed outside of packs because of it. Perhaps times had changed, but if not then—

What in all the realms was Peter doing in Antarctica if he was an omega?

“There is more,” Saada whispers, when I am about to reach for my locs.

I still, same as Maeve. The two of us made stone figures.

“More?” She whispers.

Saada nods nervously and then swallows again with effort.

Gods, what was left? Was he some golden goose, chosen by their Goddess herself?

“Worse than the rest?” Maeve surmises, and Saada nods again.

“Well,” I encourage with a wave, “say it plainly then.”

Saada shifts on her feet and swallows twice more, a nervous tick I have not seen her display since she was a newborn, but she eventually finds the will to push the words past her lips.

“He has another sibling— one names Hagen. He is the youngest of the family. He is part of the Council—”

“The Council has nothing to do with us,” I dismiss, but Saada is not finished.

“His mate,” she continues before she swallows again. “The one Hagen is mated to a hybrid named Nikola… Amorenia.”

Maeve and I do not move a muscle, the blood in our veins seeming to stop all motion as well.

“…Amorenia?” It whispers out of me like a forlorn tale. “As in—”

Saada nods, saving me from speaking it aloud.

The only bloodlines that rivalled the ones in our halls were the ones who had created our very species— Amorenia, Thoras and Vorgium. That on its own would be bad enough, if not for the fact that the Amorenias had developed a special, desperate connection to our species in recent times for one reason and one reason alone.

Katerina Amorenia.

The name was one almost every supernatural creature knew, though the reasons why usually varied. Most knew her as the witch that had decimated the last standing coven of glory, others as the first witch to ever channel all three branches of magic.

I, like every vampire, knew her as the one witch we could never interfere with, if one were crazy enough to consider such a thing, because she was the one witch who mattered to the First.

The First vampire.
The leader of all vampires— the Pylen. Lincoln.

She was without the title, his daughter, her son— Nikola— his grandson, and they were strictly off limits, and now, Saada was saying that…

“Peter’s brother’s mate is Nikola Amorenia.”

Even saying it out loud did not make it any more nonsensical. Saada nods.

“So the wards around him?” I guess, and her head bobbs again.

“Either the mother’s or the son’s,” she surmises. “They both… live in the Dark Moon pack. They are allegedly close family friends… practically family…and they are all very protective of Peter.”

I stare at her, lips parted, headyempty, shocked too vague a word.

The dread is no longer a premonition— a creeping terror on the horizon I could glimpse from a distance. It is here, turning the blood in my stomach and bringing nausea to my throat as I seek out air for support for the first time in a millennium.

This was simple before— find how to break the bond, do so, and then send the boy on his way.

It was easy.

This… Now? This was a calamity.

Breaking a bond might as well be a declaration of war or a sealed letter begging for another to bring out the clan to its end.

If Peter was the omega in a family full of alphas, one with ties to Amorenias and the leader of my people, then I could not break the bond because then someone, if not all of them, would show up on our doorstep, the illusion of choice be damned, and there was no chance in any of the Hells that we would be able to best them.

There was no going about this delicately or nicely; there was no going about this at all.

The only way to end this was for Peter to do it himself, and if it was one thing the boy had made undoubtedly clear thus far, it was that he was not going to relinquish our bond.

“…fuck.”

————————

THIS MAN SAID FUCK LOOOOOOL

Thoughts???????

Thoughts on the reveal at the end???? The conversations??? Luciel is panicking a bit and trying to pretend he isn’t?? 

This is why Peter had to go last cause when you stack them one after the other, this man is coming from a goated family!

I love how they’re stacked up like a crazy squad, and then there’s Peter

I can’t wait for the next chapter to see how this all unravels on Peter’s side from his perspective. I wanna see how they present this to him loool

Anyway, that’s all for now! I hope y’all enjoyed, and if you did, please vote and comment! leave any and all thoughts

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeeeeee Humanssssssssssssss