King of The Vamps

The Deceiving Clove

"You aren't my second choice," Ulric spat as he stood still in front of the door.

"Then what am I?" Her soft voice drifted through the air, full of disdain.

He wasn't sure he wanted to discuss this. He'd spent centuries guarding his emotions, refusing to speak on the matter, and all of that protection was crumbling down around him. He made his decision with his next words.

"You are mine," Ulric answered while turning around. She stood there, looking every bit like an angel. Except he hated the expression in her face. She looked as though she was suffering emotional torment. Amaryllis looked betrayed and full of sorrow and yearning.

"No, I'm not," she whispered. "You have another mate. You lied to me." She hung her head in anguish.

"Amaryllis, you have no idea what you're saying," Ulric said, feeling his body tense up. "I don't like being accused of things." He wasn't lying to her. He had no mate but her. She was the one and only one he wanted.

"Then why am I your second chance mate. What does that even mean? Please tell me!" She said. Amaryllis had never felt so upset and so betrayed in her life. Even the fright she felt when she was chosen to come to the castle and was ripped away from her family didn't compare to what she was feeling now.

Ulric said that a mate was your other half, your soulmate, the person you are destined to be with forever. And she was only his second choice. The second best. So what happened to his first mate?

"You aren't my second choice, mate," he replied. He appeared in front of her in a split second, amazing her at his vampiric abilities.

"You are my second chance." He said that as if it were supposed to clarify something- it did not.

She started up at him in confusion, waiting for him to explain.

He aggressively pulled a hand through his hair, and turned around, walking toward the door again. "Ulric, you said you were done trying to fight the mate bond. Please don't walk away from me," she begged. "I want to know what happened, please. I can tell you're conflicted and I want to help you. I'm in pain too."

He growled lowly in frustration and grabbed Amaryllis's hand, leading her to the couch. It was a long story. He stood in front of the couch and paced while she sat on the couch looking so small and sunken in. He didn't like her feeling the way she was feeling.

"First of all, there is no other mate. I don't have another mate. All I have, and all I want, is you, Amaryllis," He said, making sure to emphasize that point clearly.

"Binta was alluding to the fact that I had a different mate at one point in time, many decades ago."

"What happened?" Amaryllis asked. She needed to know.

Flashback to 200 years earlier:

Ulric walked along the edge of the kingdom grounds. It was a beautiful day outside, one of the best they'd had in a while. The rain seemed to condemn them to dark, dreary weather, which was unfortunate for them as they had already been condemned to hiding by the humans.

He looked over his shoulder when he heard a faint noise arising from the woods. Whatever it was was deep into the thick brush of the woods. He continued to hear the sounds of twigs snapping, getting closer and closer with each step.

It sounded as though someone or some creature was walking toward him. Based on the pattern and the frantic speed, it sounded like a person.

He took off into the woods, not making a sound as he flawlessly ran through the brush. As he quickly approached the thing in the woods, a smell captivated all of his senses.