To Thaw A Frozen Heart (2020 - ON HIATUS)

Prologue.

Patrick Dale was one of the alphas affected by Alice's curse. His family ran the Alaska territory. He had been taught to not treat any of the other supernaturals differently, to give them all the respect that they deserve. He had been one of the guys trying to convince Eli not to humiliate Alice. He had tried to reason with Eli, to remind him that witches don't take well with being crossed, and especially not to be insulted. Eli listened to his friends as much as he paid attention to his studies. Which was to say he didn't.

Four years after graduating from Highgate, ten years after Alice's curse, Patrick met his mate. It had been so long that he had forgotten the incident and hadn't considered the possibility that Alice had lumped him into it. Sure, he had been in the garden that day, but she would only try to get her revenge on Eli, wouldn't she?

Theodora, Thea for short, was a wonderful mate for him. She was kind, and creative, and was an advocate for the equality between supernaturals. And when he took over the role of alpha, she also made a wonderful luna for him. Three years into their relationship, the two of them had their first child together. They named him Cypress, and they had big dreams for him.

They taught Cypress to be kind and to treat everyone with the care and respect that they deserved. Patrick and Thea were both hopeless romantics and believed wholeheartedly that the soulmate bond provides you with the perfect mate, and they instilled that same idea into him.

In his early twenties, Patrick's beta, Max Olwen, had a chosen mate. Max never put much faith in the idea of having a predestined soulmate. He and Delta, a water elemental from Washington, were very much in love. The two of them complimented each more than any predestined mate. Delta was a pretty young woman, with blue hair and tinted skin, her actions as fluid and graceful as her element.

Anyone who met them would have thought they were perfectly meant for one another. Not knowing Max's thoughts on destined mates, it would have appeared that they were the pair the gods had created.

Within a few months of the birth of Cypress, Max and Delta announced that they were expecting a child of their own. But that pregnancy brought many hardships and was full of health scares. Their daughter had been born four weeks early and having lost too much blood during the birthing process, Delta died that same day.

Even with the death of his lover, Max did everything he could to take care of his daughter. Aspen had been a pretty baby, and her mother's features were prominent. She had been born with a full head of blue-black hair that only became bluer with age and the same murky blue eyes as her mother.

Although they kept her mother's lineage in mind, it was not clear to the wolves when Aspen's Sagani talents started to appear. Delta had been a nereid, a specific subset of water elemental that can affect the physical realm and change the weather based on how they feel, and it had seemed that Aspen had gained those skills as well. Aspen's gifts weren't noticed immediately because they lived just below the Arctic Circle, snow and ice were normal parts of their lives. It took until she was nearly three before Max realized that her emotions were the cause of the sudden shift in precipitation, not a response to it.

Although Max could have gotten her the necessary training she needed to understand and have control of her Sagani half, he was too ashamed. Not of his daughter, but of himself. The closest water elemental tribe was the one in Washington, but Max couldn't face Delta's family, to have them know that he was the one to take her hundreds of miles from them and ultimately the reason for her death. So he did the best that he could do, taking care of Aspen the best that a single father could, trying to need the least amount of help from his friends he could manage.

Max had met his destined mate, Elaine, when Aspen was four, and he only accepted her so that Aspen could have a mother figure. Even then, Elaine had been someone he shared a bed with and almost could have loved. They eventually birthed three sons together, and Aspen was slowly pushed aside. As Aspen grew older, Max felt more comfortable returning to his main business, going on trips for weeks at a time, never truly aware of the way that Elaine treated his daughter.

Even though he continued to dote on her, Aspen had essentially lost everything to her younger brother, Christopher.

Christopher Olwen was the firstborn male and legitimate child, so he was rightfully the heir to their father's title. Aspen, on the other hand, was a bastard, a hybrid, and most importantly a stain on her stepmother's otherwise seemingly pristine image. She spent the rest of her childhood in isolation and had to bend to every demand of Elaine's.

Cypress Dale: an alpha who had a picturesque childhood and a curse he was unaware of. Aspen Olwen: a would-have-been beta who has been cast out because of her mixed blood. While they were only 386 days apart, their worlds couldn't have been more different. Until they collided. 

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898 words. Updated 07.01.2020