Chapter 2
1443 Words
PRESENT DAY
The chalice pulsed between our hands like something alive, its silver light flickering in time with a heartbeat. Cold wind slipped through the trees, rustling branches and leaves like they were whispering secrets they didn’t want us to hear.
Lohe’s voice was low, taut with tension. "Ready? This is your last chance to change your mind."
We stood outside the packhouse, in the garden of my brother's pack. My family and Pippa’s watched from a safe distance, their faces full of love and that kind of sadness you feel when something is ending, even if it’s the right thing.
After I laid it all out for Dad, I sat down with Mom and my siblings. They weren’t thrilled about me leaving—how could they be?—but in the end, they got it. It was time I flipped the script and started living for myself. Even if it meant walking away from everything I’ve ever known, everything I’ve ever loved.
When my gaze met Lohe’s deep chocolate irises, I drew a shaky breath and said, "My mind is set. Let’s go, prince. Bring me back to your castle."
"I will," he answered, his features tightening with focus.
Silver light exploded from the relic, wrapping around us in a surge of raw power. My stomach flipped, nausea clawing at my throat as the world shattered, time splintering like glass.
Then… nothing.
No space. No sound. Just a vast, endless void. We hung suspended in midair; my lungs refused to move, my body weightless, my thoughts frozen. Fear crept in, dark and insistent. But I clung to one truth—my mate. The life we’d chosen. The love that tethered us.
Suddenly, the emptiness ripped open.
A starry sky spilled across my vision, brilliant and infinite. My feet sank into tall grass, the cool wind brushing my skin like a whispered welcome.
Lohe stood with his back to me, unmoving. Between us, the chalice lay discarded on the ground. Its glow was gone. Its magic spent.
Had it worked? Were we really in Lohe’s kingdom?
"Lohe?" My voice scraped out, hoarse and unsure. "Where are we? Is this your world?"
He turned slowly, his expression folding into a frown of disbelief.
He didn’t speak. Just stared at me for a few moments. His gaze swept over me like I was a stranger. My stomach knotted, dread blooming in the silence.
Then he said it.
"Who are you?"
His words were soft, but they hit like thunder.
"What do you mean? I’m Selene."
He tilted his head, repeating the name like it didn’t belong to me. "Selene?" It sounded foreign on his tongue, like he was trying it out for the first time.
Confusion clouded his features. Something had gone wrong. The crossing had changed him.
"Yes. I’m your mate. Don’t you remember me? Remember us?" My voice trembled as I stepped closer.
He recoiled, hands lifting like a shield.
A chill surged through my veins, locking me in place. My breath hitched. The air was too thin, too sharp.
His gaze flicked sideways, searching for something, some buried memory. But it kept snapping back to me, wary and untrusting.
"I…" he faltered. "How do you know me?"
"You’re Verelohe, first prince of the House of Vadros. A dragon shifter who came to Earth. We met, we fell in love. We chose to return to your realm together. Don’t you remember the crossing?"
I tried to stay calm, not to overwhelm him. But desperation clawed at me, wild and rising.
"I know exactly who I am," he snapped, his features darkening. "And I recall the passage, the rush of magic, the relief of being home. What I don’t know is you, witch."
My jaw dropped. "I’m not a witch. I’m your fated mate!" I whispered-shouted, torn between fury and heartbreak.
His fists flexed, knuckles whitening. "I was trapped in your world for what felt like an eternity. That cursed artifact drained me, keeping me weak and stuck. Was it you who put a spell on it?"
His gaze was hollow. Gone was the warmth, the love I’d memorized. I barely recognized him.
"No! How can you even think that?" My voice cracked. I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to hold myself together as pain bloomed sharp and sudden, like a dagger. He remembered only the suffering.
He studied me, frowning. "You speak boldly for someone I don’t know. I don’t mean to be cruel, but I have no memory of you. None. You say we’re mated, but I don’t see my mark on your neck." He stepped closer, just a breath away. His head tilted, nostrils flaring as he inhaled. "And you don’t have a scent. If you were mine, my dragon would know. But he doesn’t."
Shit. This was worse than I feared. Way worse. Even Kullasim—his dragon—was confused.
"I have a gift," I said, voice trembling. "I can mask my scent when I choose. But the travel to this world was unstable. It didn’t just mess with your mind. It scrambled my powers. I can’t control the release right now." I shook my head, panic rising like a tide. "Please. You have to believe me."
He stood like a statue, regal and unyielding. His features were sharper now, more severe. He seemed taller, broader. Fearsome.
So close. And yet impossibly distant.
"How can I believe you," he stated, voice low and edged with fury, "when I see no proof? No mark. No scent. Just a stunning woman with eyes that don’t belong in this world." His gaze swept over me, cold and calculating. "Your beauty...it’s unnatural. No one looks like that. It must be a glamour. A spell to lure and deceive."
He stared at me like I was a mirage, too perfect to be real, too foreign to be trusted. Even his compliment felt like a blade wrapped in silk.
He thought my gray eyes were wrong. That my long black hair, my pale skin, were illusions spun to trick him. But they were mine. Always had been. Once, he’d traced every strand like it was sacred. Once, he’d told me my eyes reminded him of a sea before a storm.
We were opposites—his sun-warmed skin, my frostbitten tones. But I’d always believed our contrast was part of the magic. We fit. We balanced.
Now, he saw the difference as a lie.
What would he say if he knew the whole truth? That I wasn’t just a woman from Earth. That I wasn’t just his mate.
That I was a werewolf?
Destiny had a twisted sense of humor, pairing a werewolf woman with a dragon shifter. A difference he once embraced, even cherished.
"The Vampire King cursed the chalice," I said, choosing each word like it might tip the balance. "It trapped you… But it also disrupted mate bonds in my world."
His expression didn’t shift, but something flickered behind his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or the ghost of it.
"My friends and I went to retrieve it from a cave," I continued, voice soft but steady. "You were there, guarding it in your dragon form. We didn’t know it was you at first. We only wanted to lift the curse. And we did. Eventually."
I paused, watching his face for any sign that my words were reaching him.
"You were magnificent," I added, almost a whisper. "Terrifying and beautiful. Your red scales shimmered like hot embers. But even then, I felt something. A pull. I didn’t understand it until later."
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
"You shifted back after we met. You were weak, confused. But you looked at me like you knew me. Like you’d been waiting."
I took a step forward, slow and careful.
He didn’t move. His eyes stayed locked on mine, unreadable.
"I’m not lying to you," I said, voice trembling. "I wouldn’t. Not to you."
A flicker passed through his gaze, and a sliver of hope bloomed in my chest like a fragile flame. He opened his mouth to say something—
But then his head snapped to the side.
The earth shuddered beneath us. A low rumble, then the unmistakable thunder of hooves.
Knights. A dozen, maybe more. Towering horses, their breath misting in the cold night air. Moonlight caught the edges of their swords, turning them into slivers of ice.
They closed in, and the night turned darker beneath their presence.
One broke formation, stepping forward. His silver baton gleamed like a warning in his hand.
"Identify yourselves," he said, voice like steel. "Or face the consequences of Tharval law."
- Writer
