Chapter 61

I couldn’t lie still in my bed that night. My mind kept replaying the encounter with Maximus. How had it gotten to that? How had I let my guard down so much? I’d never felt something like that before. The blooming of desire deep within my core.

And his hands, oh his hands.

The way they roamed my body as if to memorize every line. I could still feel them lingering on my rib cage. The rough pads of them tracing under my chest and then up my sternum and over to my aching—

I groaned in response and turned over in my bed. I slowly felt my eyes finally giving into sleep. Just as I closed them, more images and feeling flooded my brain. I dreamt of each of Max’s touches.

The way he kissed my inner thighs and center. I tangled my hands in his hair as he tasted me, lapped me up. The feeling of the pressure building deep with in me. The over powering feeling of release. I pulled at the hair under me. But when my eyes fluttered to see who it was, I was holding long, light brown hair. The eyes pinning me down from between my legs were not Maximus’s.

They were Valentin Lunerly’s.

I jolted awake with a gasp then immediately slammed my hand over my mouth. I cast a glance towards Loren to make sure she was still asleep. She made this weird grunting, snort then rolled over and began snoring again. I dropped my hand, relieved.

I hadn’t told her anything about my encounter with Max. When she got back to our room, my tears had already dried up by then. She could tell something happened, but I kept my answers short and changed the subject. She could totally tell but didn’t push me on it, which I completely appreciated.

So I was left to my own spiraling thoughts and desires. Even my wolf had been silent during the whole encounter and it’s aftermath. I expected her to be sitting in the back of my mind with either a smug smirk and a bitter frown on.

Neither, actually, came her snarky voice in my mind. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.

So what do you think then?

Her damn tail swished. I told you before, it is not so wrong to have two mates.

But it is, I pushed back. You heard both my mother and Loren. No one’s ever broken a fated mate bond then turned and found a new mate. Let alone two mates. It’s totally not normal.

Which was exactly the opposite of what I needed to be. I need to fly under the radar at the school. I needed to make it through the midterms of my first year then start and finish my second and third years without anyone knowing my true identity. I needed to make it through this stupid school and prove to my mother I didn’t need a partner to help me.

Even when those partners were potentially someone I slept with and someone I desperately wanted to sleep with. I pressed my hands to my temples.

Normal is a human term, my wolf chimed in. There is nothing normal about us. We are a legendary powerhouse who can shift between forms. We are sheer magik, Zora.

I need to be a “Normal” wolf then, I said with another slight eye roll. Whatever that means.

You do realize, even your mother and Lunerly do not know what “normal” is for a wolf? My wolf said.

I creased my eyebrows. What do you mean?

Wolves were enslaved for thousands of years, Zora, she replied, giving me a pointed look from the back of my mind. The wolves that are alive now had been suppressed for so long, they had to relearn the ways of their ancestors.

I thought about that for a second. My knowledge of the Pre-War times were low. They tended not to talk about them in my classes, just referring them to the “Dark Times.” I did, however, learn of the few remaining tombs that the resisting wolves (my mother and Valentin) had recovered from the vampire’s libraries. The tombs were said to have any and all information on the wolves.

It was the first thing the vampires took from the wolves that started their thousand year enslavement. The tombs had everything the vampires wanted to know to take down the wolves.

But there’s nothing in the tombs of multiple mates, I challenged my wolf. Nothing publicly, that is.

The tombs are only the recount of wolves past, my wolf said, eerily in tone. Not the intricacies of all wolves that have ever been.

I blinked at her implication. …Are you saying that you’ve been alive that long?

In some capacity, she answered. Wolves are transferred through bloodlines. I was once the wolf of your great ancestors.

Holy shit.

Does my mom know this? I asked, fervently.

She does, my wolf swished her tail. Only the wolves of the royal line carry this knowledge. We made it that way to keep ourselves safe.

Who’s we? I pondered.

All of the wolves, she replied. Have you not been paying attention in your magiks classes?

I blinked again. I guess not.

She huffed as if completely annoyed by me. As if I didn’t have other more pressing issues than just school work.

We wolves are ancient magiks, she sat down in the back of my mind. Born from the cosmos before times. We made a pact with a group of the first humans. We were to cohabit their bodies and in return they’d receive the ability to use our shape and everything that came from it. We lived peacefully before the Great Enslavement.

I guessed I should’ve paid more attention in History of Great Magiks. Wow, I said into the echo chamber of my head. My wolf snorted.

I thought you were supposed to be good at academics, she mused.

I scowled at no one. I am! I protested. But that professor drone on and their voice is so soothing and—

Excuses are for the weak, she said plainly with another tail swish. I ignored the jab.

So you were around before the great enslavement, I said. What does this have to do with me possibly having two fated mated?

My wolf flexed her paws then tilted her head. There was once a great Queen of your line. She had not one, but four fated mates. Both ascended the throne with all of them. She had children with all of them. She ruled with all of them.

Four!? I balked. I could barely stomach two fated mates. Four was batshit crazy.

That is to say, multiple fated mates was not rare, my wolf said. Nor was knowing the names of wolves. Nor harnessing the advanced magiks of wolves. The time before the Great Enslavement was one where wolves and humans were more bound then ever. Their intertwinement was knotted.

She sounded like she was lost in a dream, thinking of better times. I breezed past all that and landed on something that stuck with me.

You have a name?

I do, she said. Calling you my name would be too odd.

But you said we’re one? I questioned.

We are, her tail swished impatiently. You are me as I am you. But my name is from the original human I was bonded to. I held it in memory of her passing.

I shifted. So what is it?

Monalunae, she said. But you may call me Mona.

“Mona,” I whispered out loud.

As soon as I said it, my eyes began to feel incredibly heavy. I curled deep into my sheets as the sleep hit my eyes.

Goodnight, Zora, Mona said. Dream of many niceties with multiple fated mates.

My dreams came crashing back in right where they left off. My hands were deep in Valentin’s hair as he licked and nipped at my pussy. I arched off the bed and felt another set of hand come to my chest. Lips ghosted around my neck. It was like Maximus had formed from the smoke behind me. I keened again, eagerly, before basking in all the glory of having two men at my disposal.