Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sally and I sat together alone in the dining hall. Everyone else was in an emergency meeting at the mansion, and Sally was the only one who remained at the college to keep an eye on me. “The situation in the north has gone south,” she said somberly, unlike her at all. “We already have the name of the leader of this organization that works again us.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised.

She nodded. “His name is Evander, it seems,” she sighed. “From my understanding, he’s a charismatic person who leads dozens of werewolves and humans with a strong arm.”

My appetite was lost at once, and I felt a spark of anger toward this Evander man. Tempest, who’d awoken not long ago, growled in agreement. She was much calmer now, and much more rational.

Sally and I didn’t talk for the rest of the meal, each of us stuck in her own head, and when it was time to go, Sally accompanied me back to my room - I’d been released yesterday from the infirmary, thank God.

I went to sleep, not waiting for the men to come back, and when I woke up in the morning, I was surprised to see all three were in their bed, sleeping soundly. It was the first time I woke up before them, and I decided to make the most of it.

First I headed toward Apollo’s bed and studied his sleeping face. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep, as though he had no care in the world. His mouth was a little agape, and he was snoring. I smiled and went to Strider’s bed, feeling like a stalker. Strider, unlike Apollo, seemed much less serene in his sleep, and he tossed and turned endlessly. When I walked to Fred’s bed, I found him sleeping with the same serious face he wore while he was awake.

When I finished checking them out to my satisfaction, I took a shower. I didn’t linger for too long, and after I put on some jeans and a tee, I was about to open the bathroom door to walk out when I heard voices outside. I wanted to open the door and laugh in their faces that I now knew how they looked like when they were asleep until I heard Strider saying something that made my hand freeze on the door handle.

“We need to tell her.”

“Isn’t there any other way to let her understand that?” I heard Apollo asking, his quiet voice very uncharacteristic.

“We still can’t know for sure,” Fred said, his low voice making me shiver - and not for the reasons it usually did. “We need to see her first to be sure.”

I couldn’t stay in the dark and so I forced myself to open the door. The three turned to look at me with surprise and I leaned back on the door I’d just closed. “Be sure of what?” I asked, not even pretending I wasn’t eavesdropping.

Three pairs of eyes stared at me, and for some reason my cheeks burned, but I held their stares. I wasn’t going to let them intimidate me.

At once, as though they set it up beforehand, their expression closed off, turning inscrutable. “I guess we can be sure now,” Strider said quietly.

Apollo nodded. “I didn’t know it was even possible, especially with Spirits like Angela and me - or humans in general.”

“Can someone explain what the hell is going on?” I folded my arms, annoyed. “Is it somehow connected to that Evander dude? Sally told me about him and that he’s the head of the organization that wants us all dead.”

“No, it’s definitely not concerning Evander,” Strider murmured, avoiding making eye contact with me. In fact, all three seemed to be fascinated with staring at the walls and not at me.

“What’s going one?” I asked, getting angry and worried in equal measures, and Tempest inside me muttered, Now they decide to shut up? Stupid.

I like you better when you were comatose, I told her.

I already apologized for losing it, if Tempest could roll her eyes, I was she would’ve done so now. You can’t be mad at me still. And just a reminder, Apollo and Strider did much worse things to you and you forgave them in the end. Is it the fact I’m not a hot dude?

I chose to ignore her, and looked at the guys expectantly, knowing that if I wasn’t going to get answers, I would really be pissed.

It was Fred who finally explained, but it was the most incomprehensible explanation ever. “The four of us are in the Mating Race.”

“What?” I asked, totally confused. “What the heck is a Mating Race?”

The three exchanged glances and I felt another rush of anger. “The Mating Race,” Strider replied uncomfortably, and I saw both Apollo and Fred weren’t exactly relaxed as well, “happens very, very rarely, when a werewolf find his Mate, but other men want her - and she didn’t choose her Mate yet. In such a case, some sort of a bond is created between the men who’re after the same girl, so they know they’re fighting for her heart, and eventually, at some very important event, the woman needs to choose between the men - if she chooses her Mate, it’s all good and well, but if she chooses a man who’s not her Mate, then the man needs to fight the Mate to win her legally.”

A bad feeling made my stomach crawl, and I found it hard to breathe. “What does a-any of it have to do with me?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

Apollo didn’t look at me when he said, “We’re in the Mating Race.”

The silence that came after this was so thick, it could be cut with a knife. Fred closed his eyes and sighed; Strider sat on his bed and put his head in his hands; Apollo was with his back to me; and I… I was flabbergasted.

The three of them didn’t want me to look at them and look at me. Epiphany dawned on me then.

Fred, Apollo and Strider wanted me. In some weird, cosmic way - they wanted me. And one of them was… “No,” I blurted out, feeling horror grabbing my body and causing chills to run down my spine. “It doesn’t make any sense… I’m not a werewolf! I can’t have a Mate! And you, Apollo, can’t have a Mate either!”

“That’s what we thought, too,” Strider murmured in a pained voice.

“But the three of us know we’re in the Mating Race,” Fred said quietly, “it’s a knowing like that of a werewolf who knows who his or her Mate is.”

“We also know which one of us is your Mate, Angela,” Apollo said, his voice torn, “which makes this entire ordeal into one big of a mess.”

My lips quivered and I fell to the floor. “Why?” I asked, stupefied and mystified. “Why… me? Why you? How… why?” my hands balled into fists. “What do you even find in me? I’m… I’m not…” my voice was so small, it was barely audible. “Why you… How can you… want me? And w-why didn’t you say… anything?”

Silence was the response.

I had no idea how long the four of us were in this stunned silence, but I guess that if there wasn’t a knock on the door, we would’ve stayed like this for a long time still. I rose on my feet, my knees a little shaky, while Apollo opened the door. At the entrance stood Greg, Brom and Megan, who was attached by the hip to Brom ever since the two Mates - with the telepathic bond and everything - and in addition to them there were two more people whom I didn’t know.

“Can we come in?” Greg asked, looking at all four of us. The tension in the air was still clear.

Apollo nodded and let the five in. Megan and Brom settles on one of the beds, while Greg leaned against the wall near me, and the two strangers simply stood there. They were humans - I knew that for sure. The guy was around my age, with neat black hair and grayish-blue eyes, his figure lanky and tall. The woman was in her twenties, with smooth brown hair, light brown eyes, and a short, petite body. She was pretty for a human.

“Wayne, meet Adria Cole and Louis Ford,” Greg said, his voice loud over the silence. “These are the Seers I told you about. Adria, Louis, meet Angela Wayne, the girl who hosts Tempest, the Spirit of Chaos, Calamity and Disasters.”

Adria and Louis turned to look at me at once. The two stared at me for a few moments, and I saw a spark of recognition in their eyes, as thought they’d already seen me before. “I see,” Adria said in a soft, soprano voice.

Fred faced the Seers. “Is Angela the one you foresaw about in the past, Adria?” he asked.

Adria looked at Fred, than at me, then back at Fred. “She resembles her,” she said in a faraway voice, like she was in a different galaxy, “but while she resembles her, she’s not identical to her.”

“I don’t understand,” Strider said, looking so lost.

Suddenly Louis stepped toward me, his eyes fixated on mine. He took my hand in his, and his face contorted in sorrow. Something inside me fell and made me shiver uncontrollably. It was too much. Everything that happened today was way too much for me to bear.

And then he said, his voice quiet and sad, “Brock’s death wasn’t your fault, Rosa.”