Reclaiming my Fated Alpha novel Chapter 6

HELIOS’ POV

I stand by the lakeside and watch as Laurel’s figure disappears under the canopy of trees. She is going home. I should too, but for some reason, my feet are rooted to the ground and I cannot tear my eyes away from her.

For some reason, my heart goes out to her.

It is only after she is long gone that I finally start to move. This is the first time I have seen Laurel cry.

“You made her cry,” Apollo, my wolf chides, stating the obvious.

I roll my eyes at his remark and continue my stride toward my residence. Maybe I should have gotten Laurel to stay at the packhouse instead of with her parents. At least I would be able to keep an eye on her.

“Oh, what a wonderful idea! All the better for her to hear you hump her sister!” Apollo is very sarcastic tonight.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up. You’re the reason she’s in this miserable state.”

I shake my head and smash a fist against a pine tree, scaring a few owls and they quickly hoot and fly away.

In a sense, Apollo is right. I shouldn’t have slept with her sister…Janie? Jasie? What was her name again? I sigh. I can’t even remember her name, let alone how she snuck to my chamber.

In my defence, my mind was not sound back then and I blame it on the full moon. I was delusional and could not control my primal thirst; the desire to fuck any hot-blooded female that came my way and to suck their blood dry.

“You should go after Laurel and apologize,” Apollo suggests. And when I do not answer, he asks, “You like her don’t you?”

A shadow falls over my heart. I do, I do like her. I may even love her.

I can still remember vividly the first time I laid my eyes on her. She was only sixteen then and it was her first day at the pack warrior training. She had long wavy hair, the colour of chestnut and it was tied back in a ponytail. And her eyes were the colour of the ocean, blue and clear like a beautiful summer’s day. She was petite compared to the other trainees, but there was a glint of fire in her eyes, a determination I had never seen before in any of the warriors.

The first few months of training were the toughest for her. She failed at almost every challenge but she did not give up, not even when countless voluntarily walked away from the training, citing it to be too tough for them. Never once did I hear her complain.

And finally, when the day of the trial came, she beat every other contestant on the field and became my Beta.

Laurel Moon, she is a breath of fresh air in my life. She is the reason I wake up with a smile in the mornings, the reason I forge on when all hope seems lost. Somehow, this girl has the power to make me breathless, whether she knows it or not.

But she is not the one meant for me. She is not my mate. Somewhere out there, she has a mate waiting for her. One who is truly deserving of her love.

“She’s not my mate,” I echo out loud and nod to myself. Jamming my hands in my pocket, I continue my walk back home, stepping over fallen logs and brushing away twigs and branches that stand in the way.

“It’s a good thing too. The Moon Goddess made the right choice. She deserves someone better, someone healthier. Not a freak like me. I will only bring her pain.”

I think of my illness and how it has plagued me since the dawn of my birth. As a child, I would often ask why I had to carry this curse, why I had to suffer like this every full moon. But now that I am a grown man, I do not ask these questions anymore. I just have to suck it up and live with it.