The Alpha's Cursed Mate

Chapter 28

A stone path leads past the city walls, expanding into the evergreen trees, and we take it side by side. The path is crumbling at the sides and coated in emerald moss, silencing our footsteps. "Did you read about the first Alpha?" Alexei asks, holding my hand as though the God might reach from between the trees and snatch me away.

"He was in the story of Anera and the God. The God loved the she-wolf Anera, but she broke His heart when she found her mate. She was mated to the first Alpha, Lucan, and he was the Goddess' favorite child."

"History repeats itself."

"The God doesn't love me," I say, "not like He loved Anera. He never drank from her or tried to hurt her. He disliked the Goddess and her creatures, but she was His one exception."

"And you know the Goddess spoke to the first Alpha?"

I nod and move my hair over my shoulders. "She was pleased with his revival of Anera's village. She rewarded him."

"This land was his," he says.

"Your territory?"

"Yes."

"Is that why there's a statue of Anera in your keep?"

"My grandfather was an eccentric soul. He was very interested in the God and Goddess and always asked his mother, Anera, about the God. He had the statue built in her honor after she passed, but his siblings didn't like it, so they put it in that courtyard to be forgotten about. They told him he should have built her beside their father, not longing for the God."

The city already feels far away as the wood encloses around us. The canopy blocks the sky, and I no longer feel bound to time.

"Did she? Long for the God?"

Alexei shrugs. "I don't know. The mate bond is a powerful thing, but perhaps she didn't long for Him romantically. Maybe she missed her friend."

"So Anera and Lucan are—"

"My great grandparents."

Alexei guides me off the path and onto the forest floor. "The book you read from the west," he continues, "was the book the Goddess told me to find. There is a place in these woods where Lucan, my grandfather, my father, and I speak to the Goddess. When you told me you had found the Goddess' steps after the location was told to you in a dream, I couldn't help but believe you because I had a similar place here."

My chin falls. "I-I didn't want to make up that lie. I'm sorry, Alexei."

He picks up my chin and brushes his knuckles against my cheek. "It's alright."

He steps over a tangle of fallen branches then assists me and tugs my skirt free when it's caught. I search our surroundings for any kind of ethereal artifact yet see nothing but plain forest.

"Like the Alphas in my family before me, I've stopped aging, I don't sleep often, and occasionally I feel when something is about to happen."

"You're the Goddess' favorite," I declare.

Alexei glances. "And you are the God's."

I take a deep breath. "Does Senet know your family's history?"

"He does. I'm relieved he didn't tell you because I made it clear that I would do so myself."

Alexei stops suddenly, so I look around again. "Is it here?"

He motions ahead, and at first, I don't notice the phenomena, but my eye catches the pattern, following it in the tree branches and trunks. From the forest floor, two trees grow upward from the same spot, curving slightly away from one another, but mirroring each branch, nob, and leaf. A leaf falls from one side, and an identical leaf drops from the other. In the gap between the trees — a space too tight for me to fit through — is something unusual. I step closer toward the space and try to look through to the other side, but it's blurred and warped. Alexei comes behind me.