FROSTBOUND

7 — Not My Mate

~Adrian~

I know I had not drunk any alcohol this morning to believe I was seeing things.

I know it wasn't a hallucination to stand in front of a woman looking exactly like my dead wife.

It had not been in a dream that day, it was not in the night to think it was one nightmare that I knew I'd wake up to not seeing its reality.

It had been real. Very much real and I'd been the one to personally pull the shroud over her face drained of anything that spoke of life.

My wife had died. Gone from me forever, and it was barely a week since I buried her. I'd watched the two men with my own eyes pull her corpse from the glass-covered casket down into the seven-foot-dug grave.

It isn't any madness to think that maybe she'd resurrected or, will I say, escape from the grave to run back to me and call me her husband again.

We were not mortal either.

I know the pain. The ache, the tears that never cease as I think of her every minute. I know how much I wished these powers I possessed could bring her back to life. But then, after all I did, neither could my wolf nor my vampire powers save her not to talk of granting her a second chance at life.

However, I'd be foolish to think she had magically woken up and run back to me.

I knew it wasn't her when I smelled her.

That wasn't the scent of my wife.

My gone Luna.

This woman might have the exact body and face, but I was sure of my powers, that this—Was not the mate I'd put my mark on.

She's totally different, even if her physical features said otherwise, I couldn't rethink of the woman I'd spent a whole three years with. Three good years before, the accident came and took her from me.

My eyes fell on the woman struggling to get to me, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes.

She was still whimpering from the push. I didn't know I'd pushed her that hard when I smelled her and found out she wasn't my wife.

Juliana never told me she had a twin, meaning she had someone who looked exactly like her.

If I hadn't known her parents too well for over 10 years, I would have believed that maybe they had another child that I wasn't aware of. But all they had presented to me as their only child was Juliana. The woman they had brought up to cherish so much.

So how come this woman was here?

"Adrian, please don't do this to me. Do you know how much I've waited? Desperate to meet you again after all that has happened to me. The worst of it... I can't remember you. If not for Mother and the help of Doctor Kane, who god used to save my life, I wouldn't have been alive to know I was married to you," She said, making me turn wide-eyed.

What was this woman spilling? Who the hell was she to think she could deceive me?

"Are you telling me that you're alive? That you're my wife?"

She nodded.

"Margaret told me so, since I can't recall anything of my past."

"You mean you're alive and here with me now but can't remember who you are?"

She nodded at me again.

I let out a long strangled laugh.

My eyes can't fool me.

I stared down at her neck, my hybrid eyes searching for my mark on her. A mark I had given her years back to claim her as mine. A mark which even if it closed each time without a trace, with my Werepire eyes I could still see it on that spot, vibrantly thumbing and indicating she was all mine.

But nothing was there.

And then, she has the face of my mate.

"Tell me, who sent you? I'll spare you from death only if you tell me the truth. Speak up now," My hands grabbed her neck, strangling the lies out of her mouth.

I intensified the grip on her, keeping a space for her to say the truth or she dies in my hands in this cold morning the corpse of my mate still lingered in my eyes.

"A...Adrian. Please...stop. You're hurting me. I don't want to...die."

"Then say the truth if you don't want to rot in my hands!" I hurled into her ears, getting more agitated at the sight of tears running down her cheeks as her hands struggled on mine to set herself free.

But her strength couldn't match mine. She wasn't even close to it.

I steadied my hand firmly waiting for the truth.

Her tears turned into a glare and she grabbed my hand pulling on me with all the strength she had, but I didn't even feel life in those hands. She was dying and she was seeing it with her own eyes.

"Let...me... Go!" She cried out and forced her hand against my chest to push. I caught them in mine, a sudden sharp pain causing through my body.

She fought away, collapsing to the floor as a loud cry shot out of her mouth. "Someone help me!" Her cries filled the whole room like that was the last strength in her.

I clung my hand down below, where the agonizing pain of her knee on me burned.

She had kneed me hard on my manhood.

"Juliana!" Someone screamed from outside. The door kicked open with a loud thud, mother rushing in with alter shock on her face.

"Mother, take that woman away from me. I don't want to see her or I'll end whoever she is." My voice came with a groan.

I was seething knowing the pain she'd just inflicted on me. I was seething seeing she was still there acting as if she was bewildered at everything and looked at me now like a horror.

"Adrian what have you done to Juliana?" Mother shouted, running to her side and scooping her into her arms.

"Juliana? You called her Juliana?" I stared at her, wave-shock crashing on me.

"Yes, does she look any different from her?" Mother curdled her into her arms, hugging her even more tightly than I've ever seen her close to her. "I won't let you hurt my daughter-in-law this way, Adrian. You must be insane!"

"No mother, can't you see?!" My fingers pointed. "How come you're believing this woman is your daughter-in-law? Can't you see she's not her?!"

"I know you're very furious right now but you're going to kill her before you know. Go outside. Leave us alone now. Go out and let me speak some sense into you!"

My mother shocked me more with her answer.

I clenched my fist so tight, struggling to stop my claws from surfacing.

With teeth gritted I said to mother, "I'll be outside. And you better make sure you'll explain e

very damn thing to me." Without wasting any more seconds, I hurried out before I got someone killed here.