Golden Destiny

Chapter 12. Alexei

The Monday after Mia's first shift
Alexei

"Do you reckon it was a good idea to leave at this time?" Dimitri asked Alexei offhand as they were getting off the plane.

"I didn't know that I had a choice. When the King and Queen come calling, who are we to delay?" Alexei answered while signing the documents handed to him by one of the palace staff.

"And besides, she needs time to digest everything that has happened. Can you imagine knowing about everything all at once, it must be a shock the system," he continued.

"Don't you feel even a bit anxious to be leaving her so close to that pup who fancies himself an Alpha? We saw him at that diner on Saturday, and he sure seemed to be regretting a whole lot of things," Mischa piped in.

Alexei just shrugged, but on the inside, he was clenching his jaw so tight, he felt as though his canines would shatter.

The truth was, he didn't want to leave her when his father decreed that he and his friends must come back home. He didn't want to leave her, ever. And that feeling made him grow wary of the things that might come.

Because it was still unclear who among the three Princes are meant for her. The reigning Kings and Queens of the shifter world believed that the matebond as it pertained to Mia would awaken only after her first shift. And seeing as that happened on Saturday, the events as foretold by the prophecy were going to be a bit clearer, specifically as to who was Mia's mate.

Alexei was wildly attracted to her, had been since the moment he first set his eyes on her. Then again, that wasn't an impossible happenstance. Mia was, perhaps, the most attractive wolf Alexei had seen in his eighteen, almost nineteen years. Of course he would be attracted to her. But getting to know her, getting to talk to her and spend time with her, Alexei had a feeling that his attraction was beginning to run deeper.

She was pure and kind, but she was also feisty, with the kind of dry humor he had only heard from his most trusted friends. This side of her he got to see when they would exchange light-hearted teases. She was sarcastic at times, but her sarcasm was delivered with a sharp wit and a disposition that could only be described as "good."

She was also wickedly smart, able to follow his ramblings when it was just the two of them. And they were ramblings. He found he often lost his train of thought when she was looking at him with those chocolate brown eyes that held, it seemed to him, the secrets of the universe.

Yes, he was definitely attracted to her.

But in the same vein, he also felt guilty that he jumped at the chance to be away from her after she had found her wolf legs. Because while he wanted so much to be the one that destiny had chosen for her, he was also terrified of this possibility. He was afraid that his past might repeat itself.

He watched the landscape in his home country change from industrial to the evergreen colors that surrounded the palace. His mind flitted to when he had just turned eighteen years old, about seven months ago, when he felt his heart call out to another wolf. His mate.

———0———

He had been perusing the wares in Izmailovsky Market when the most delicious scent called to him. He followed this aroma of what it seemed like a bouquet of the most fragrant flowers known and he knew he had found her when he saw her in profile, looking inside the glass windows of an antique clock shop.

He was about to come closer when the shop door suddenly opened and a human male carrying a female child stepped out, the little girl running to his mate and beamed up at her.

"The shop owner said my watch was a vintage, mom. A vintage! I knew it was special when I bought it off that man outside the the chip shop. You said he was skeevy, but I knew it!" The girl said with a wide grin.