Chapter 19 - Soren
When I was a kid, and things went wrong, Gramps always went with the sage advice that everything happens for a reason.
I’d come home after that run-in with Aurela’s parents in a foul mood, slamming around the house, and he’d forced me to give him some version of the truth that he could work with. I didn’t tell him who the girl was, or what the exact situation was, but he’d grasped the basics.
“If you love someone,” he said, “that means you want the best thing for them. Even when that thing isn’t you.”
He was right. I wouldn’t upend Aurela’s entire life. I wouldn’t get her sent to another country, force her away from her friends, or make her redo her senior year of high school when she was so close to getting out.
But I was fucked up over it. And through the subsequent months, as I grappled with the pain and depression that came along with having to end it—of having to tell her she was wrong about us being mates—Gramps came back with that line again and again.
Everything happens for a reason.
Only now, nearly fifteen years later, do I finally believe that.
When Aurela said she wanted to come with me, my body flushed with a joy so bright and impossible that I thought I might pass out from the feeling of it.
And when she told her brother they would talk later, and I got to witness her first step away from being that timid girl, locked away from the world, it was like I could taste the triumph.
I’d give anything to have had these past fifteen years with her. But maybe we both needed this time to come to grips with ourselves. So she could get to the point that she could talk to her brother like that, and I could finally break the rules to keep her.
Maybe if I’d been more of a rule breaker back then, I could have told her parents to fuck off. She and I could have fled town together, enrolling in a human college. Doing anything to stay together.
But I didn’t, and that’s okay.
I’m feeling so good as we walk out of the hospital together that I stroll right past the man standing at the entrance.
I miss the way his expression rearranges itself, and I could have gone all the way home without noticing his rage, except he hollers at us, cheeks red and a vein popping in his neck.
“You fucking whore!”
My wolf does not like that.
“Caspian!” Aurela gasps, staggering backward, and it’s like all the progress she made inside with her brother has evaporated.
When I turn and look at the man who’s supposed to be better than me, good enough for my mate—at least by her parents’ standards—I could laugh.
Except I’m furious. So I don’t.
“What the hells did you just say?” I whisper, walking toward him, positioning myself so I’m between him and Aurela.
“Caspian, don’t do this,” Aurela says, but her ex-fiancé’s eyes are on me.
I hear the door to the hospital opening and shutting, and can tell from the scents around me that the guys are here, including Xeran.
“Step away from my mate,” Caspian growls, and I growl right back at him.
“She’s not your mate,” I say. “She is mine.”
“This is a clear violation of pack law,” Caspian says, his eyes skipping past me and somewhere over my shoulder.
Xeran appears, walking forward and pinching the bridge of his nose, like all this is too much for him. “She bears his mark,” Xeran says simply, looking at Caspian. “Have you marked her?”
“What?” Caspian’s eyes swing to Aurela. “You said you wanted to wait until marriage.”
“And you said I’m a fat bitch, and the only reason you’d ever touch me is because my parents are practically paying you to,” she fires back.
My satisfaction at her standing up for herself is washed out by a maddening anger at the sound of that.
I knew about the kinds of things he’d said to her. The pressure to take her to bed, alternating with slimy, awful comments about how he could never be attracted to her, despite the fact that he clearly was.
As far as I care, Caspian has only ever been her fiancé in name, and never in spirit. In fact, he’s been worse than nothing. He’s been a bully. Just another thing in Aurela’s life holding her back, trying to convince her that she’s not good enough.
“If she’s never carried your mark,” Xeran says levelly, “and you’ve not publicly claimed her, then you have no right to her.”
“I didn’t have to claim her,” Caspian spits. “She belongs to me. Just ask her parents.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” Aurela snaps, stepping up beside me. Her hand finds mine, and I don’t know if it’s more about her needing support or more about her wanting to calm me down. “Just drop this, Caspian. It’s not like you loved me, anyway.”
“This was never about love,” he laughs, rolling his eyes. “It’s about the promise I had to the Cambias fortune.”
Lachlan growls, stepping forward. “My parents were never going to cut you in on that, you asshole.”
“Sure,” Caspian shrugs, his eyes drifting to Aurela. “But after I married her, it would only have been a matter of time before she ate herself to death.”
“You want a fight?” I hiss, stepping away from Aurela, even as she tries to hold onto my hand. “You deserve to get your ass kicked.”
“Yeah,” Caspian laughs, gaze locking onto mine as we start to circle one another. Then, he looks to Xeran. “I’m invoking Article Five. An official challenge. I beat him, and I get to keep Aurela.”
Xeran sighs again. “She is not a piece of property. But I can’t stop you from invoking Article Five. You can issue an official challenge.”
“Great,” Caspian says, turning to me.
“You idiot!” Aurela shouts at him. When I glance at her, I see Phina and Valerie holding her back. “You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Yeah, ri—” Caspian starts, but he’s caught off-guard when I shift, lunging toward him, hungry to make him hurt for all the pain he’s caused my mate.
He shifts just in time to absorb the blow of my tackle, and we go spinning out into the grass outside the hospital. He’s everything I expected him to be—weak, sloppy. Silver spoon-fed into thinking his wealth could buy him anything.
Including even a modicum of ability when it comes to fighting.
I could kill him instantly if I wanted to. But I don’t.
First, I get the sense that Aurela doesn’t want me to. And Xeran has worked so hard to keep things bloodless after the death of his brothers that I don’t want to sully that with a fight right here outside the hospital.
Shifting back into my human form, I slide out of the way just in time for Caspian to miss his shot, careening into a stone bench, cracking the side of his head against the armrest.
“Good thing we’re already at the hospital,” I say, tilting my head to the side, mocking him. This feels more like Felix’s thing than mine, but I need to let out some steam.
All the pressure from the past week. Everything building up after I found her in the woods.
After I found out about her wedding.
That night, I had to break things off with her, and she pleaded with me not to go. Begged me not to leave her. I’ve been carrying that around with me for years, and finally, here’s a good place to bury all the violence built up inside me.
Caspian—either through vanity or sheer stupidity—shifts back as well, and I get my hands on him, throwing him to the dirt with ease. I didn’t spend the past five years of my life training tirelessly to fight fires just to lose to some Gucci sweatpants-clad asshole.
“This,” I say, stomping my boot into his stomach, “is for treating my mate like she’s beneath you.”
When he tries to grab my leg, I kick at his arm with the other, making the elbow bend in a way that it absolutely is not supposed to.
“And this,” I say, baring my teeth at his yell of pain, “is for every fucking evil thing you’ve said to her over the course of your sham engagement.”
“Please,” he sputters, blood and spit flying up over his face and glittering in the light of the afternoon sun. “Please, stop.”
“You know I could kill you, right?” I ask, crouching down, and I hear several of our onlookers suck in a breath. Xeran makes no noise, but I know what he’d prefer I do. “According to the pack article you’ve invoked, I could rip out your fucking throat right now.”
Caspian whimpers, turning over onto his belly like the worm he is, trying to crawl away, but he can’t get a purchase because the grass is slick with his blood and—
“Oh, yuck,” I mutter, standing and stepping away from him, watching as his pants go dark around the waist.
He buries his face in his arms, and for a moment, I almost feel bad for the fucker.
For a second, we all just stand there, watching him cry into the grass, moaning at the injuries that are nothing compared to what any of us have gone through, fighting the wildfires.
Nothing like the times trees have fallen on us, like the time Lachlan swam through a burning pool to save Valerie, like when Felix was nearly burned alive by Tara.
Raising my chin, I look to Xeran and gesture loosely down at the trembling figure in the grass. “What do you think, sup? Does this count as a final end to the fight?”
I quote the article Caspian has invoked, even though I know what final end really means. When the pack articles were written, fighting to the death was the only acceptable way to win. If you issued a challenge or accepted one, you knew that you wouldn’t be coming out of it alive unless you won.
Either Caspian is as stupid as he looks, or he was banking on us not following through with the actual wording.
“This is sufficient,” Xeran says, something twinkling in his eye. “You’re the victor of the challenge. What are your spoils?”
“He stays the fuck away from Aurela, and her family, for that matter. In fact…” I pause, turning around, staring down at him. “He leaves Silverville. And if he dares to come back, I’ll rip him limb from limb.”
“What do you say, Caspian?” Xeran says, even though the loser doesn’t get a say.
Caspian drags himself up to sitting, then shakily and embarrassingly gets to his feet, digging into his pocket with his uninjured hand, still coughing and sobbing.
We all watch in silence as he unlocks his nice car, sliding into the front seat and pulling out of the lot with the speed you’d expect from someone with only one usable hand.
For a moment, all is quiet. A butterfly flaps between us. Aurela moves quietly to my side, her fingers lacing between mine.
Then, of course, it’s Felix who breaks the silence.
“Should someone tell him that piss will ruin his leather seats?”