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Chapter 7

Daemon

“True mate?” Seymour sounded genuinely outraged. “Stories about true mates are no more than fairy tales told to little wolf pups at bedtime!”

“Legends, rather,” the elder corrected him. “Legends based on fact. Every known case has been recorded. I assume you’ve heard of wolfkins?”

“Of course. Didn’t your parents tell you about them when you were a kid?” I drawled sarcastically, choosing Seymour as the target for the aggression that was rapidly spiralling out of my control.

“Of course. Just like yours did,” my friend shot back, accepting the challenge with a grin.

Ragnar rolled his eyes at our dark sense of humour:

“Idiots…”

There was no need for any explanation when it came to Ragnar’s assessment of us, but his mention of documented cases of this strange bond raised a whole new set of questions.

“What do you mean, ‘every known case has been recorded’?” I asked.

“Written down, documented, and verified,” our mentor patiently explained. “Every manifestation of a true bond has been recorded in the chronicles of the lycans’ origins.”

“We have chronicles?” Seymour leant towards my ear.

“Of course, we do! They’re kept in the Temple of the First Turning.” Ragnar reacted instantly. “Ignorant little heathens…”

Seymour was about to ask another question, but my elbow in his side made him think better of it.

“Your lack of knowledge is frankly alarming.”

The elder pulled an offended face.

“Easy there, Sensei!” Seymour raised both hands in surrender. “We’re still kids when it comes to our wolf forms.”

He affectionately ruffled my hair.

“And Daemon here is basically still in nappies.”

I slapped Seymour’s hand away, baring my teeth.

“And a little touchy, too…” He clicked his tongue but wisely moved a little farther away. “So don’t go pointing the finger at us. Take it up with our mentor.”

“Fair point, you little bastard,” Ragnar conceded, acknowledging the accusation as entirely justified. “Since we’ve apparently reached this point, it’s probably time to introduce you to our sacred writings. But that can wait a little. So, who is she?”

At first glance, Seymour might have seemed like the sort of person who could trivialise any situation by turning it into a joke, but I knew him too well. If that had truly been who he was, we would never have become friends.

My friend tactfully bit his tongue, pretending to notice the bottle of whisky for the very first time — the same bottle we had been knocking back for the past half hour. He plastered a foolish grin across his face and headed towards it as though he were approaching a long-lost lover, leaving me to answer the question myself.

My answer was brief:

“She’s my ex-girlfriend.”

“Hmm…” Ragnar gave a noncommittal grunt. “I had no idea you’d been involved with a she-wolf. Let’s hope the fact that you already know each other works in your favour. So, which clan is she from?”

“She isn’t a werewolf. We were together before I was turned.”

Ragnar’s smile slowly faded.

“So… she’s human?”

“Judging by what I saw, definitely not a crocodile,” Seymour called from behind the bar, but Ragnar didn’t even snap at him for the ill-timed joke.

Silence fell. Gradually, it deepened into something oppressive.

The elder said nothing, his brow furrowed as he considered something. Seymour gave me a questioning look that clearly said, "What’s wrong?" I could only shrug, though every instinct in my body was screaming that this situation was not going in my favour.

Though what am I talking about? It’s been a bloody disaster from the start. It’s Diana…

“Is something wrong?” I interrupted Ragnar’s train of thought.

Our mentor looked up at me and let out a heavy sigh.

Not a good sign.

“Well, you see, boys…”

Another bad sign.

Every time Ragnar began a sentence with those words, nothing good ever followed. I straightened, suddenly tense, while Seymour set down his glass without even taking a sip he’d been about to have and hurried back over. We both stared expectantly at the elder.

He sighed again.

What the hell is going on?!

“The true bond…” Ragnar began, his voice lower than usual. “… is something Artemis grants to an exceptional couple. It is far more than love or desire.”

He paused.

“It leaves its mark not only on history but on the very fabric of our world. It cannot be seen, yet the ancients and the strongest among us can sense it.”

“How?” Seymour asked cautiously.

“The mark,” Ragnar replied. “A magical essence reflected on the bodies of the bonded couple — identical, mirrored. It cannot be forged or artificially created. It is a gift. The legend says that a lycan who wins the mutual love of their mate will be able to complete the full transformation.”

“That can’t be!” Seymour exclaimed.

Our mentor merely smiled indulgently. I was struggling to process this new information.

Every lycan had heard at least once that, long ago, werewolves had been capable of completing the full transformation, but that ability had been lost centuries ago.

“The complication is that true mating belongs exclusively to our kind. At least one of those bound by the connection is always a wolf, because the attraction originates with the beast. In nine cases out of ten, when both individuals are werewolves, the second beast accepts the mark because it instinctively recognises the bond. But your case, my boy…” Ragnar paused briefly. “Yours is different, because your chosen mate…”

“Is human,” I finished for him.

Diana is human. She isn’t merely an exception to the rules of the wolf world. She is something entirely beyond it. Even in my imagination, I could never reconcile her with my world — the world where the beast made the rules.

I involuntarily remembered the first time we had met.

I was standing in front of a shelf of spices, trying to figure out what the difference was between black and red pepper.

Judging by the smell, none whatsoever. Judging by the price tag — twenty-three cents.

I had almost given up and decided that perhaps experimenting with spices wasn’t worth the effort when someone rushed past, collided with me, and sent the jar of ground pepper flying from my hand.

“I’m so sorry!” came a voice, followed by a sharp sneeze. “Excuse me!”

Another sneeze.

“It’s fine…” I muttered, sensibly retreating from the epicentre of the spice explosion as my nose began to itch. “You should probably move aw...”

I froze.

A brunette with emerald-green eyes stood in front of me, wearing an apologetic smile.

“Are you alright?”

Taking my involuntary nod as confirmation, she hurried towards the exit. And while I was still trying to gather my thoughts, I caught sight of the back of her T-shirt: a fox and the words “Caution: Foxy and Furry.”

When I finally came to my senses, I realised I was still staring at the shop door like an i***t and that I hadn’t even tried to introduce myself to the “foxy” stranger.

For the next week, I loitered near the shop every evening, hoping to see her again, because I simply couldn’t get her out of my head. Her image followed me through working hours and training sessions and was the last thing I thought about before falling asleep.

What were the odds she would come back to that particular shop? What if she had only wandered in by chance? She hadn’t even bought anything.

Two weeks passed. I had almost given up hope when, one evening on my way back from training, I turned a corner and instinctively caught a slender figure by the elbows. She had slipped on the wet pavement because of her high heels and grabbed hold of me, desperately trying to keep her balance.

“Sorry!” the figure squeaked, brushing her hair away from her face.

Those same emerald eyes. Like a bolt of lightning down my spine.

She recognised me too. Her lips slowly parted into an uncertain smile.

“Pepper guy?” she said with a smile.

“Girl from the hit-and-run stranger squad?” I blurted out, unable to believe my luck or the sheer absurdity of the coincidence.

She laughed so genuinely and brightly that something strange and warm stirred in my chest. It was an instant response. A sense of effortless rightness, as though someone had just ticked a box in the heavens: “Yep. These two belong together.”

Seymour’s voice dragged me back to reality.

“So what happens in that tenth case, when the other person refuses to acknowledge the bond?”

Ragnar turned away and stared at the sitting-room door, as though hoping someone might walk in and spare him from answering. But no one did.

“True mating isn’t simply a gift from Artemis. It’s a kind of ultimatum,” the elder said slowly, as though every word was becoming harder to pronounce. “And the Goddess does not take kindly to having her gifts rejected.”

“And what happens if someone refuses?” I asked, suddenly tense.

“Death,” Ragnar said heavily, taking a long swallow of whisky. “For both who bear the mark.”