Chapter 18
Fated Mates
DELILAH
Ihad just slipped into a restful sleep when I heard my door open.
I jolted awake to find a very distraught Calpurnia.
Her breath was heavy, and she seemed to be shaking.
She looked as though she had seen a ghost. She shut the door behind her, leaned against it, and began to nervously shake her hands as if she were flinging water from them.
She looked down at the floor and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
Concerned for my friend, I quickly climbed out of bed, even though my fatigued body wasn’t happy about it.
“Cal? Are you all right? What happened?” I said, trying to sound comforting. She continued to pant and shake as if she hadn’t heard my question. I steadied her trembling hands with my own and looked up into her eyes.
“Calpurnia? Tell me!” I tried again.
She exhaled a long, slow breath, swallowed, and met my eyes with her big amber orbs.
“I…I… think I found my fated mate!” she said, stumbling over the words at first, but when she finished, her voice was focused and deliberate, as if she had been scanning every piece of information her mind held to understand what had just happened to her.
“What! Are you serious? Who? Wait, what is a fated mate?” I asked.
She calmed herself, cleared her throat, and began to explain.
“Most high Fae create a mate bond with a chosen partner because fated mates are extremely rare. A fated mate is the other half of your soul in another person, and once you find each other, the pull is so magnetic, one of the most powerful forces known to our realm. We believe it is a predestined match set up by the Guardians themselves. I read many stories about it as a girl, but I never thought it would be my reality. I’m just a servant, and he’s… he’s a General.”
“The General? As in Cercies?” I swallowed the lump in my throat. Guilt forced bile up from my gut.
“Yes!” Her eyes beamed, and her smile exposed almost every white, sparkling tooth. She continued, “I’ve only heard about him but never seen him in person before. He rarely comes to the castle because he is stationed at Dragon’s Maw.”
She began to pace around the room, looking down at the floor, talking expressively with her hands, and increasing the speed of her words.
“I was summoned to help the fire sprites carry breakfast all the way up to the war room. I walked to the buffet table in the back, and when I was setting down a tray, I felt these eyes dig into my back. It was like a shockwave that flooded all my senses. Like an earthquake that only I could feel. It was so intense that it frightened me, so I slowly turned around, and then I saw the General’s eyes locked onto mine, and he looked just as startled as I did. That’s how I knew...he felt it too.”
She broke from the circular path she had been pacing moments ago and sat on the windowsill ledge. She stared out through the glass, longing. Her golden amber eyes burned with pain. I slowly approached and took a seat beside her. She began to cry.
“I’m a low-born, powerless servant, and he’s a high-born General who isn’t allowed a mate. The Guardians can be so cruel,” she said, while tears welled at her waterline.
My eyes began to mirror hers, as if crying could be contagious, but I knew mine were genuine.
My tears came from the unrelenting ache in the pit of my stomach.
Only a couple of hours ago, Cercies had been all over me and I had enjoyed it.
Should I tell Cal what happened in the lounge?
I did not have any feelings for him. I knew that for sure.
Cercies is a military mastermind and the second sexiest Fae male I had ever seen, but he had the emotional intelligence of a potato. I began to say, “Cal, I’m so sor—”
(BOOOOM!)
My door burst from its frame and crashed to the ground.
The hinges tore free, and splintered wood scattered across the floor.
We jolted, grabbing onto each other in fright.
Our jaws dropped in unison as we stared, wide-eyed, at the intruder.
In my doorway stood a seven-foot muscled General panting heavily with a very noticeable erection straining against the fabric of his pants.
His heavy steps shook the floor as he approached the window.
We were both in shock, unable to speak, unable to move, unable to look away from the proverbial elephant in the room.
My heart hammered wildly. Oh fuck was he looking for me?
Please don’t be here for me, I thought. But where his attention was focused was unclear.
Oh no. How was I going to explain to Calpurnia why her fated mate had just broken into my room like this? She was going to hate me—she would never forgive me. I hadn’t known he was her fated mate. I didn’t know fated mates even existed!
Suddenly, all my panic and anxiety melted away as his eyes locked onto Calpurnia’s.
I finally exhaled the breath I had been holding, relieved.
Both of her feet were on the ground as she sat on the ledge, her knees pointed toward Cercies.
As he approached her, she tilted her head all the way back to gaze up at her mate’s face.
His rough finger traced her jaw, delicate despite his size.
“Please tell me you felt it too?” he asked her, his voice deep and soft.
She swallowed and nodded frantically, her eyes wide and her hands trembling. Her breath quickened.
The General dropped to his knees. He ran his large hands down her legs from her knees to her ankles.
He placed his hand on her ankle and brought her leg up, resting her foot on his muscled shoulder. He groaned softly as he trailed delicate kisses from her ankle up to her knee.
Cercies looked different, half crazed, with a feral, animalistic look in his eyes, the kind that only a high Fae male in the presence of his fated mate could have.
Their eyes locked in a heated gaze. Twin fires flared in their molten amber eyes, as though one sacred flame had been cleaved in two and forced to wander alone. Fire found fire. Soul found home.
Her eyes lit up, and she giggled nervously; I noticed the way she melted at his smallest touch, the unexpected tenderness of the General. Cercies licked the inside of her thigh and said, “I followed your scent all the way to this room, and now I need your scent all over my face.”
She moved the tousled strand of black hair from out of his eye, trying to redirect his focus.
“My name is Calpurnia,” she said with a beaming smile. It was a different smile than her usual; it was wider and more genuine.
The General slammed his eyes shut in shame; that animalistic look faded from his eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
He had been so worked up he broke the door down and was ready to take her right in front of me, without even learning her name first.
Still kneeling before her, he took her hands in his and said, “I’m General Cercies of the Kingdom of Flame, and you, Calpurnia, are my beautiful fated mate.”
She wrapped her arms around his thick neck and slammed a kiss onto his lips. He stood, and her legs dangled before she clung around him. He held her weight with ease, supporting her with large, strong hands gripping her ass.
I decided to tiptoe out to give the new mates some privacy.
I was almost to my door when I heard Calpurnia yelp.
I flinched; my head whipped around to make sure she was okay, and I realized that the outburst was from a sudden change in position.
He stood with her thighs on his shoulders; she sat in his hands like a chair, his face buried beneath her skirts, while she began to moan.
I raised my brows and quickly turned back to the door, taking that as my cue to leave. While in the hall I could hear her moaning Cercie's name. It bellowed down the hall unapologetically for all to hear.
There was a small sitting room around the corner from my bedroom, where I decided to sit and wait for my bed to be available again, although I was probably going to need to change my sheets. My nose wrinkled at the thought.
I decided to go far enough away to give them some privacy, but close enough that I could intervene if needed.
I didn’t think anything bad would happen to Calpurnia, but I didn’t exactly trust Cercies either, or Titus or Aurelius for that matter.
Especially after seeing that hungry, animalistic look in his eyes when he came for her.
As scary as that look can be, I did find it…arousing. I cannot deny the tinge of jealousy I felt, not about Cercies in particular, but for the powerful rush that overcomes all your senses and rationality when you find your fated mate.
I had that with Jared, at a mortal level, and now I’m finding it difficult to recall the details of his face.
A single tear dropped onto the book in my lap.
I had managed to snag one off my desk on my way out of my room and fully intended on reading it.
But now, all I wanted to do is curl up on this loveseat and cry myself to sleep in hopes I will see his face again, if only in my dreams.
An explosion shook the entire castle and woke me with a jolt. I heard Calpurnia screaming, not in pleasure but in pure terror. I jumped to my feet and rounded the corner; red-hot flames shot from my bedroom doorway, and I was horrified and in complete disbelief at what my eyes were seeing.
Calpurnia was wrapped entirely head to toe on my bed in the duvet, screaming for her life, under the blanket.
Cercies was on one knee, fully nude, with his arms up, using a magical orb to block the full force of Titus’s flames.
The High Lord stood with his back towards me.
He directed an acute but brutal stream of rageful fire at his General.