Morana knows she's different from other people in more ways than one. Firstly, she's sixty-seven years old but stopped ageing in her twenties. Weird things have also happened around her right after she's wished for it. But most importantly, no matte...
I leaned back and let out a heavy sigh. I wondered if me and Alejo would actually ever again be able to go a day without something being an issue. It didn't seem like it.
"Don't give him too much shit, alright?" Rick said. "It's nothing about you. He's just overly insecure and sensitive about anything regarding the coven."
"Hard to not take it personally," I answered. "I mean, he won't even tell me what the fuck they did, though they so clearly hurt him somehow. Does he really think I'd side with them over him?"
Rick gave me an appraising look before taking a slow sip of his drink. "If you ask me, my guess is that they are using you to threaten him."
I felt my mind go temporarily blank. "What do you mean?"
"It wouldn't surprise me if they told him they'll hurt you if he steps out of line," Rick answered in a very matter-of-fact voice that didn't feel suitable for the topic. "So he's not telling you because he's afraid you'll do something when you find out that'll lead to them harming you."
My heart ached. I hadn't even considered that possibility. If that was the case, then they definitely were the worst type of people there were. But now that Rick had said it, it made sense. The invite to the gathering that day was enough to prove they were capable of it since they had used Alejo to get me to go.
"Do you love him?" Rick then asked out of nowhere, startling me out of my thoughts.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you love him?" he repeated himself. "Like the romantic type of love, not just friendship love."
I felt bitterness fill me and I answered with what Alejo had said when I had asked if he loved me, "Does it matter? We're not mates."
"You may not be. Or something has just gone wrong somewhere and you actually are. I, for one, do not believe you are just two random people that met by coincidence. It's honestly pretty obvious you are something more than that."
"Oh yeah? And how did you come to that amazing conclusion?" I filled my voice with annoyance, but the truth was that I was curious about the answer. And it also gave me a hope I knew was foolish.
"The poster," Rick simply said and elaborated as I raised my eyebrows. "It took me about eight years of knowing Alejo before it deemed me worthy of opening it. Maya can still only open it at times. I know for myself exactly what happened to make it decide to let me open it, and it feels odd it would allow you to open it before you really knew him. Unless you somehow, in fact, are his mate."
"What happened to make it open for you?" I asked, while deciding to ignore the last part of what he had said. A little hope was fine, but that type of hope was too much and the disappointment would be too great when it inevitably turned out to not be true.
"Well, to tell you the truth, for a long time I thought him a bit pathetic." Rick gave me an apologetic look and an embarrassed smile before going on. "The thing is, his coven, witches in general actually, treat shifters very poorly. My dad and uncle both worked for Alejo's coven as a mixture of servants and bodyguards. And they were basically treated like nameless and replaceable garbage. Alejo is treated better than they were, in some regards at least, because no matter what, he still is a witch and the Priestess' son."
Rick smiled bitterly and took a sip before continuing.
"Dad left the coven when he found my mom. I know Uncle stayed because he didn't want to leave Alejo alone with the coven. My uncle is old enough that he was around to watch Alejo grow up and has always been protective of him. It wasn't until about two years ago when he decided to move to Colorado, to where my dad lives. A lot of that was because of old age and not wanting to burden Alejo with having to look after him."
Alejo as a kid? I wondered what he was like. He had to have been adorable. But then the image of the Alejo now bending his head in submission came to mind followed by images of a younger Alejo doing the same.
I held onto my glass so hard my knuckles turned white.
"Anyway," Rick continued. "I grew up knowing how shitty my uncle was being treated and my dad had been treated by the coven, so I always thought Alejo's situation was exaggerated and that he had to be weak and pathetic. Like how he would always lower his head in submission to his mom and older sisters. It was all just ridiculous in my eyes. He is a witch, after all. It couldn't be that bad."
Rick shook his head, and it looked like his eyes shifted color. That they went from the deep brown to a golden yellow. I assumed it was a trick of the light until one of all the things Alejo had told me came to mind. Shifters' eyes changed when their more animalistic side surfaced, and anger was one of the emotions that triggered it.
"That is until I actually witnessed for myself how badly they treated him." I heard the suppressed anger in Rick's voice. Heard it on how it shook a little and I both wanted and didn't want to know what Rick had seen. "And they do treat shifters worse, but the fact that it is his family does at the same time make it so much worse for him. My opinion of him changed that day and since then, I've always been able to open that poster. But why would you have been able to open it from the start? You didn't even know him enough then to be able to be seen as worthy enough. Well, like I said, it would make perfect sense if you are indeed his mate."
My head spun a bit by what Rick had told me. It hurt my heart imagining what his father and uncle probably had suffered, as well as imagining the kid Alejo that had made Rick's uncle stay behind when his own family had moved away. But that last bit, the bit of me and Alejo somehow being mates... I did hold hope. I had a stupid and ridiculous wish for it to be true. But logically I knew better. We weren't, and I definitely didn't have enough luck for us to somehow turn out to be.
"We're not mates," I said firmly, but Rick didn't look like he believed me in the slightest.
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