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...
All was dark. No, it was more than dark. It was as if I swam in nothingness and I knew nothing. No sense of self, no beginning or end. There was absolutely nothing. I was aware of nothing.
Except there was one thing I knew, a color. The most beautiful color I had ever known. The color of forget-me-not.
A voice came, or several voices. It was hard to tell as the sound echoed everywhere and seemed to be both within and around me.
"A price was asked, and the price was paid. Blood for blood. A life for a life."
The nothingness was gone, though everything was still dark. But now I knew it was because my eyes were closed, so I opened them.
I stared up at a ceiling I recognized by a faint black spot that had been there ever since one night when Maya had opened a bottle of champagne. It was the ceiling of my living room. But...
My mind was sluggish, but I knew that was not where I had been just moments ago. I had been on the lawn outside the coven's house. Mom had cast a spell against Morana and I had run to block it. I had been hit. I had been dying. I had died. So how was I staring at my living room ceiling? And, as I felt my body more, why did it feel like every single muscle in my body was sore?
"Alejo?"
The most beautiful sound reached me. A sound I would never get tired of listening to.
I sat up and turned towards the sound to face Morana.
She looked like a mess.
Her eyes were red and face slightly puffy from crying. Her clothes were covered in blood and it was not only her clothes that were. Her hands were the worst, but there was also dried blood up her neck and some on her face.
But though all of that registered in my mind, there was something so much more important that I noticed. Something so important that nothing else mattered. It hadn't been some wishful thinking in a moment of death. As I looked into her eyes, those beautiful eyes of forget-me-nots, it all clicked into place again. What I had wished for above all else, what I had already felt and somewhat known, though it hadn't made sense.
"Please say something," she said and I could hear pain and fear that broke me. That I wanted gone from her by any means possible, and since she had asked for me to say something, I would naturally oblige. But there was only one thing on my mind and I couldn't find any other words.
"Mate," I whispered.
She rushed forward. The table was between her and where I sat on the couch and instead of going around it, she took a step up on it before throwing her arms around me. Before throwing herself into my arms.
I was shocked, but I had also expected it, so I managed to brace myself and caught her without any difficulty.
"Thank Goddess," she said, and I opened my mouth to say something in return, probably to ask her one of the millions of questions that started to appear in my head. But she pressed her lips against mine. Kissed me with a desperate ferocity, as if she was trying to make sure I was really there.
I answered the kiss. Relished in her closeness. Relished in the knowledge that we truly did belong together. Nothing could separate us. Not now. Not ever.
When she moved away a bit, to breathe no doubt, I placed a hand on her cheek to stop her from kissing me again. It wasn't that I didn't want to kiss her, but I had so many questions, too many questions. And besides, I rather wanted to get lost in her eyes.
"How come I couldn't see it before?" I asked her and moved my fingers to the corner of her eyes. Then I leaned in and placed soft kisses on them. She smiled when I was done and she opened them again.
"Because our mate bond was dead," she answered.
Anger rushed me and I was determined to hunt down and kill whoever had done that. How dared they do such an awful thing and for what purpose? As soon as I knew, they would regret ever having been born.
But that could wait. In that moment I just wanted to be there with her and appreciate her.
"How come it's alive again then?" I therefore asked next.
"Because you..." She swallowed hard and I could see her eyes watering. "Because you died."
"I can't have died since I'm alive," I answered bluntly. Because that had to be the case. There was no way I had died but still was alive.
"You did die," she said, and then something shifted in her. Her eyes narrowed, anger flashed in them. "You promised you wouldn't! You promised to not die! You broke your promise!"
She hit me a few times before tears took over. She then leaned her head against my shoulder instead, sobbing uncontrollably while her hands held me in a tight grip.
I was confused and still didn't believe I had died. But that mattered not. What mattered was that she was upset, devastated, and crying.
I held her gingerly, while making circles on her back with my hand.
"I'm sorry," I said in a hushed voice. "I didn't mean to break the promise. I'm really sorry. But I'm here, right? I'm alive, so all is well now. I'm sorry though. I promise to never die again."
"You better not!" she said through her tears.
She cried a while longer and once she had finished, I let her calm down some more. Then I asked what had to be the most absurd question I had ever asked.
"If I died, then how can I be alive?"
She moved her head up again so that she could look at me. Her eyes were even redder. There were streaks of dried tears down her cheeks and a little bit of snot coming out of her nose. But yet, I couldn't imagine someone being more beautiful than she was.
"The Death Shadows. They resurrected you."
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