HERS

Chapter 16 Kenzo Atallah

Chapter Sixteen

KENZO ATALLAH

“You’re stubborn,” Cree said to me, looking amused as we sat at the bar of his restaurant Let’s Eat.

We’d spent most of the day going over the older Books of Time to catch up with everything that was going on.

There were so many things we’d never known about.

Apparently, The Great Prophecy had been there since the very beginning.

When the Original Fate first created us, it took a lot of Fate's power. Fate had to rest for a millennium. In the time of Fate’s rest, evil started to grow in the shifters’ hearts.

Once Fate woke up, sadness filled Fate’s heart upon seeing the evil that had filled the shifters’ hearts over Fate’s absence.

Fate vowed to never leave her precious beings again.

Fate sent a piece of themselves out to be reborn.

Once the piece of Fate was reborn, that piece would relieve the current Fate of their duty.

Every thousand years, a Phoenix shifter was born, and it was a signal to Fate that the rebirth had started.

The rebirth was put in place so Fate would never have to exert all of their energy to the point of exhaustion.

Rebirth would happen until Fate became whole again, marking the age of peace and harmony.

We were never big readers, but the stuff in the Books of Time had me wanting to know more about the history of Fate and shifters.

“I’m not.” We mugged Cree, not caring for the smirk on his face.

“But you are, and if you want, I can give you some advice to save you some trouble.” Cree chuckled before taking a sip of whatever he was drinking.

“Advice from you?” We looked at Cree with a brow raised.

Cree was our boy, but let's be real. He wasn’t the best to take advice from.

That wasn’t to say he wasn’t knowledgeable because he was, but this was something he didn’t take seriously enough.

Just last year, he was parading around a fake mate for whatever reason.

We weren’t judging Cree; however, there were certain things you didn’t play with, and one of those things was the sacredness of a fated mate bond.

In our opinion, there was never a good enough reason to hide your fated mate.

To each is their own, though. Although things with Cree and Halo worked out for them, in many other cases, things would have gotten a lot uglier.

“Aye, I see that look. I know I have done some dumb shit concerning my mate. That’s why I’m tryna help you, though. I see myself in you. We both want control. The thing is, control isn’t always the best way to go about things.”

“No judgment here. I’m just saying you have an interesting track record in choices.”

“More like selfish. I was only thinking about how Halo and my decision would benefit me without thinking about the bigger picture. I didn’t take the time out to think about the pain I was creating in my mateship with Halo.

I’m working on them now, but I can’t help to think about how things would have been had I done everything the right way,” Cree responded in a reflective tone.

His face matched the seriousness of his voice.

“You live and you learn.” We nodded our head in agreement. One thing I’d learned about Cree was he was never serious and joked more than he was ever serious. We could count on one hand how many times Cree was serious. If he was being serious now, we knew to listen to what he was saying.

“Absolutely. But let me save you the trouble of having to learn the hard way. All this stuff going on with Bellamy and Bellum, it gotta be a lot for you and your bear to deal with. I know for a fact from my experience believing my mate was dead and finding out she was still living, it has you and your bear feeling extra protective. I get it. Don’t push your mate away because you are scared of losing her again. ”

We instantly knew Cree was speaking on us not wanting to take Bellamy to the Sanctuary of Life.

Were we scared to lose Bellamy? Nah. It was the fact that she wanted to go check on another bitch-ass male shifter.

She had to be smokin’ pixie dust if she thought we would be okay with some shit like that.

I loved that Bellamy wasn’t anything like Bellum, but I hated that she didn’t understand how the fated mate bond affected us.

We really wanted her to hurry up and get her memory back because she had us feeling like we were mated to a fucking human.

Thank Fate that wasn’t the case for us. We would have been pissed if Fate had mated us to a trifling-ass human.

Hell, having Bellum as a mate would have been more tolerable than being with a human.

“We aren’t scared of losing her.” Our top lip curled in disgust at that thought.

Cree looked at us like he wanted to laugh. “Right. You must be scared that you might lose her to her ex that she wants to go see.”

“Fuck you. We could never be scared to lose Bellamy to anyone. She belongs to us,” we growled at Cree. He was about to get fucked up. There wasn’t another shifter alive who could take Bellamy from us. They’d be dead before they could lay a paw on Bellamy.

“Then what’s the issue? It seems like she just wants to check on this shifter. Nothing more. I don’t see the harm in taking her to go see if he’s alive and well.”

“You would take Halo to go see her ex?”

The sinister smile on Cree’s face spoke volumes.

“Halo doesn’t have any exes. However, if someone looked out for her in a time when I wasn’t able to, I wouldn’t mind taking her to check on them.

I mean, you’ll be there. If dude tries anything, you can just kill him, and there won’t be any other threats for you to be worried about.

” Cree sat back in the bar chair smirking at us.

“There is no fucking threat when it comes to Bellamy,” we replied while cutting our eyes at Cree.

“Should be no issue then.” Cree shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

“But if not, I don’t mind letting Bellamy tag along with Halo and me.

Halo thinks her father might be in the Sanctuary of Life too.

She wants to find out. I’ll try to keep an eye on her and dude,” Cree continued to tease us.

We wanted nothing more than to wipe that eat-ass smirk off his face.

“Bellamy isn’t going anywhere.” I meant that too.

If we weren’t going, neither was she. I didn’t understand why she needed to see if that shifter was still alive.

If she didn’t love him or want to be with him like she claimed, she shouldn’t have wanted to see him this fucking bad. It didn’t make any sense to me.

Because you are allowing your fears to lead us, my bear grunted lowly. He didn’t like the idea of our mate wanting to see another shifter; however, he was far more understanding than I was.

“If I know my mate, she’s going to invite Bellamy, and I guarantee if you try to tell her she can’t come, she’s going to resent you. You think she’s difficult to deal with now. Just wait until she’s pissed at you.”

“She’ll just have to deal with it.”

“She won’t, though. It’s going to affect the strength of your mating bond, even more so because it hasn’t been completed yet. Trust me. You don’t want to go through that. Just come with us and stop being difficult,” Cree tried to reason with me, and I heard him, but I still wasn’t sold.

He’s right. We are going to go with our mate. It is our duty to support her in all things.

I shook my head at my bear trying to lay down laws. Of course he wanted to act like he was the rational one when in reality, he usually was the one who acted an ass.

“I guess,” I mumbled, feeling myself getting annoyed because I knew it was going to be a matter of time before we relented to go with Bellamy to the Sanctuary of Life.

“You know it is a shame when Creeland is the one making sense.” Tiny’s voice came from my left side.

Creeland and I looked over at her as she casually sat next to me.

Tilting her head forward, she looked past me at Cree.

“I’m happy that you learned from your actions.

Maybe there’s hope for you after all.” The sarcasm in Tiny’s voice couldn’t be missed.

“‘Preciate it,” Cree responded back to Tiny with the same sarcasm.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when I said this,” Tiny said with her face balled up like she had eaten something nasty. “Creeland is correct. You are going to push your mate away before you have her. Pride and ego can be very dangerous.”

“I hear you,” was my only reply. I didn’t have much else to say when I knew they were both right.

“Don’t just hear me. Listen as well, or you’ll be like that one over there twiddling his thumbs like a little pup,” Tiny said in a joking tone.

“I can tell how much you missed me over the last year. Gotta come back and see me more often,” Cree responded smugly.

“Missing you sounds scary, and luckily, I’m not here for you…

this time. Kenzo. It’s a long road ahead of you.

There are many things that are coming your way.

Be warned: when they come to you, they aren’t coming to fight fair.

You have to watch them for they do not come alone.

Corruption has many ways of seeping in. They know it’s time for you to be the Alpha of your kind.

No more running. Fate has blessed you. Go take your throne from the ones who conspire against you. ”

I’d always known that at some point, one of the shifters in my family would have to step up to become the True Alpha of the Bears.

It was always in the Atallah bloodline for us to be the leaders of the bears.

Fate had told my great-great-grandfather the council would only last for so long.

I only hoped that it would skip me and my bear.

Being an Alpha seemed like too much work.

We liked our peace. After becoming the Alpha, there would be no such thing as peace.

No matter how we were feeling about the situation, we knew it was our duty to be prepared, which was one of the main reasons we started to go to the Kismet Packland to watch how the brothers ran their pack.

My bear and I weren’t all the way sold on being the True Alpha, but we knew we needed to be prepared just in case.

“You’re speaking about the council?” we asked as a million things ran through our mind. Tiny was speaking as if the council had been corrupted, but we couldn’t tell. All five of them seemed like their normal egotistical selves.

“All cannot handle power, which is why Fate gave the ones who are pure of heart the title of Alpha,” Tiny replied in an omnificent tone with her eyes glowing white. “All it takes is the smallest bit of darkness in their hearts to become corrupted.”

“It’s hard to see any of the council members being smart enough to do anything outside of fucking or giving commands,” we chuckled lightly.

Not to be overconfident, but none of the council members were of any threat to us.

My bear easily dwarfed theirs in size and power, which was why they usually left us alone.

If anything, they were all feeling themselves and needed to be reminded of who the fuck we were.

“Don’t sleep on others because you think you know them.

Our own uncle betrayed our entire family because he was jealous that his sons weren’t next to become the Alphas of our pack.

Uncle Augustus sat back for years plotting and waiting for the right time to try to kill us,” Cree spoke up as a brief look of sadness flashed in his eyes.

“We just can’t see them doing anything crazy. Guess you can’t put nothing past anyone in this world. We will be on the lookout for them doing anything suspicious. Ti—” I turned to ask Tiny a question, but the chair she just occupied was empty.

“Her and Minnie always appear and disappear when they feel like it. Get used to it,” Cree responded nonchalantly.

“That shi—”

“Hey, Alpha,” a feminine voice said, cutting me off.

I looked at the brown-skinned hand running across Cree’s back.

“I know you’re off the market, but I was wondering who your friend is.

I don’t smell a female's scent on him, sooo are you available?” the she-wolf asked while gliding her hand from Cree’s back onto mine.

Her pointy nails lightly scraped my back.

That shit felt good too, and we wanted to be offended.

She was touching me, but her nails felt so good, we decided to give her a small pass.

“We have a mate.” Our reply was short and simple. There was no need to entertain the she-wolf more than that. We might have been annoyed with Bellamy, but we would never disrespect our mate by entertaining another she-wolf.

“I don’t know you. Identify yourself to your Alpha,” Cree demanded while looking at the she-wolf with squinted eyes.

The she-wolf wrapped both her arms around my neck in what would have been a loving gesture from my mate, but the tightness of her grasp, as well as her sharp nails digging into the sides of our neck, was uncomfortable.

Without a doubt, whoever this was wasn’t a she-wolf.

Sharp nails weren’t normal for she-wolves.

“You are no Alpha of mine.” It was odd to say, but this shifter’s voice was beautiful. Her word held malice against a voice made from angels. Her voice sounded like a beautiful nightmare. “I serve the Tsar and no one else. He has sent me here to warn you to give up. Give up before it’s t—”

“You dirty, mangy, too skinny for that big bird-brained head bitch. If you want to live to see another day, I’d suggest you get the fuck off my fucking mate.” I couldn’t see her, but I could hear Bellamy.

She sounded pissed. In fact, she sounded like she was going to fuck both of us up.

Bellamy was so angry, she was projecting an image of her wolf into our head.

Her wolf was as pissed as she was, pacing back and forth in all of her beautiful, majestic fur that was a pure white color.

My bear and I were both star-struck at how beautiful Bellamy’s wolf was.

Even more, we were excited that she was pissed about seeing another female shifter on us.

It gave us a feeling of pride knowing our mate felt possession over us.

We should have been scared of the energy radiating off Bellamy; however, it excited us more than it should have.