Chapter 39

Helen POV

Justin checked over his shoulder more times than I could count, waiting for my parents to follow and start more trouble. I knew how they felt by now; they didn’t care to fight me after Justin’s outburst. I wasn’t worth the trouble of war.

We aimed for the hallway where he said his mother used to reside. Justin pulled my back into a spare closet, throwing us inside and shutting the door before a set of footsteps crossed past us.

I held onto my mate, still overwhelmed by my parent’s words earlier.

“Stop it,” Justin groaned, brushing my face with his fingertips. “Stop letting it consume you. They don’t deserve the right to break you, Helen.”

I stared up at my second mate, feeling the warm cries on my cheeks trickle downward. “It’s not fair.”

“What’s not fair, my mate?”

“If Diana had beaten me in the games, if she had ripped my throat out, they would be proud of her. They would congratulate her and be glad that we had our victory.” I dropped my head, feeling the world crumble around this tiny broom closet.

“We didn’t even get to have the winner’s ceremony.”

“Well, between framing you for murder and fighting the Alpha King, you and I have been a little busy, mate,” Justin chuckled.

Even now, under the heavy persecution of his father and the other packs, Alpha Justin wasn’t bothered by the attention.

“Our ceremony will be our matehood,” Justin hummed. “We can celebrate it forever. Deal?”

I looked up at him in the darkness, hoping he was correct in that claim. “Deal.”

After a brief kiss in the seclusion of our hiding spot, we peered out of the door to see the hallway still lined in guards. They were pacing the hall and it was clear Alpha King Juden was in his room near the old bedroom where Justin’s mother resided before death.

My Lycan mate growled a noise under his breath. “This isn’t good. They won’t move.”

“Not unless there is something worth moving for,” I replied, eyeing him carefully. “If you cause a distraction, I’ll take the key and go see what I can find.”

He hesitated but finally passed the key back into my possession. He inhaled sharp, his fangs extending and his nails growing. He had gotten really good at shifting on command, but the control aspect still plagued my thoughts.

One wrong move, his Lycan would easily kill again.

He burst from the closet and charged down the hallway, the warriors guarding Juden’s bedroom meeting my mate halfway where a fight broke out. Justin carried his rampage for a minute, more warriors coming to join, before bolting down the hall with every Lycan in tow.

I took the key to the old door, unlocked it swiftly and then jumped inside, slamming it behind my entrance. The floor was covered in layers of dust, several laps of gray, building dirt casing everything in this room like an old time capsule.

Rifling through the desk and the drawers on the nightstands, I realize that nothing in this room has changed. Old jewelry still sits on the tables, waiting to be put on in the early morning, an old gown hung on the wardrobe, set out for use.

I go through the room until I think I’ve exhausted myself. Justin is raging a war outside in the courtyard, pulling my focus for a moment before my eyes fall on the charred ash of the fireplace. Something about it pulls for my attention, calling to me, and I fall to the brick step to get a closer look.

My hands shift through the dust and ash, coughing from the soot flying in the air.

A small scrap of paper sits, half burned and covered in gray ashes that stain my fingertips. The handwriting is familiar, bringing relief to me and Joy both as it is the exact page we have been rummaging around for; but why is it in the fire place.

I recall the last page we had read together and fill it into the sentence accordingly.

“A male Lycan can lose his power if he has sex with a virgin werewolf on the full moon, unless..” I leaned in to read the scrap of paper, entranced with it, “the male Lycan has found his one, promised mate. Lycan’s cannot reject or find another fated—they are trapped at the bond of which their power source will surge forever. Their one true mate.”

I flipped over the page, my hand shaking as I read.

“The strength through the bond will grow, will heal the Lycan and his mate, creating a powerful legacy of a bloodline that will forever carry on the Lycan gene. Only at the marking of the Lycan’s mate, will the Lycan’s power be at its fullest strength.”

My heart dropped when I finished reading that line, tucking it carefully into the elastic of my pants, needing to get this information to Justin. I knew the bond was creating power between us, but I never knew it was to this extent.

The thought of carrying on the Lycan gene through our matehood frightens me.

Before finding his mate, Justin was a reckless risk during the full moon. What if our pups are the same way? What will happen to us, to me personally, if I can’t handle a Lycan mate and a Lycan pup. I convince myself I’m creating a problem when there is none; but this sheet of paper proves a lot.

Justin will not lose his powers because of our matehood. If anything, I should worry now that he has marked me, he is stronger than ever before.

The door creaked open and I turn quick, my dusty hands caked in soot but my eyes wide as I anticipate seeing my mate in the doorway.

I’m wrong.

My lips began to quiver. “Sc—Scott?”