Chapter 76: Chapter 76

KAIROS

This was all wrong.

“Why hasn’t her wolf disappeared?” I questioned, my voice echoing in the silence. “Where’s Adelie?”

A chill was creeping into my veins, replacing the warm blood that usually pulsed through them. I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth, a result of biting my lip too hard in anxiety. Why wasn’t she responding?

Something had to change.

I stormed over to John, grabbing him by his shirt. “What happened?” I yelled, my voice raw with fear. “What did you do?” I demanded, shaking him for answers.

But he was as lost as I was. His gaze was fixed on her unmoving form. Nothing was changing.

“No!” John’s voice broke through the silence. “This can’t be the end.”

His body started to tremble, and I released him, my gaze falling on the lifeless wolf before me.

Could this be it? My heart ached. It was a physical pain. I clutched at my chest, my nails digging into my skin. The pain was real. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the ground. My legs couldn’t support me anymore.

A heavy sensation settled in my chest, as if something was squeezing my heart and refusing to let go.

What was happening? This wasn’t just grief. It was something more profound, something deep within my soul was being ripped away.

~Kye, my wolf, was communicating with me.~ “We need to go there,” ~he urged, his voice filled with hope.~

“Why?” ~I questioned.~

“Can’t you feel it?”

~A strange pull was drawing me towards our pack’s territory, towards a specific location. And then I saw her. Not just a girl. A breathtaking woman.~

“Mate!” ~Kye exclaimed, his voice filled with awe.~

~“What’s your name?” I asked her.~

~“Adelie Murrell,”~ she replied, her voice as sweet as a melody.

~“I need you here,”~ I told her as we sat by a fireplace, my shoulder throbbing from a wolfsbane injury.

~“If you needed me, you would love m—”~ she started, then stopped abruptly. “Reject me,” ~she pleaded.~ “Reject me and free yourself from me.”

~“Adelie, I could never do that. I need you,” I confessed, looking into her tear-filled eyes.~

~“Then why are you causing me so much pain?” she asked. “Alpha—” she started, but I interrupted her.~

~“Call me Kairos. We are equals.”~

~“I was serious. Adelie Murrell, will you marry me?” I proposed.~

~“Do you know what rejection did to me? It hurt me like nothing else ever has, but somehow you managed to hurt me even more,”~ she confessed.~

Her tears fell freely, and my heart clenched in response. “You rejected me without even realizing it. You make me feel things that I didn’t think were possible to feel with anyone else,” ~she admitted.~ “Mark me.”

~“I don’t think I love her; I know I love her,”~ I confessed to her father.~

~“I received your father’s blessing,”~ I told Adelie.~

~“What blessing?” she asked, her eyes wide with surprise.~

~“I don’t have the ring with me now but…will you marry me?”~

~“This isn’t just about this one incident, is it?” she questioned. “You hate that I keep things from you.”~

~“I hate that you don’t let me help you…when I’m terrified of losing you, terrified that you’ll disappear and never come back,”~ I admitted.~

~“I won’t leave you,”~ she promised.

“~I don’t want to meet you on the other side. I want to meet you back here. Do you understand?~”

I blinked, coming back to reality. “What happened?” I asked, my voice echoing in the emptiness. I felt odd. Hollow. Like a piece of me was missing.

“The bond is broken,” John’s voice floated to me from my side.

What bond? I was too foggy to comprehend. I felt like I was in a daze, unaware of my surroundings. Then, my gaze landed on her.

Adelie…

ADELIE

I felt the soft fabric against my skin. I was back. It felt like I had returned from the dead. I wondered how long I had been away.

Darkness was all around me. I knew Madeline was in control of my body, but I couldn’t reach her. We were too distant. She was out there, living, while I was trapped in the shadows.

Madeline…where was she?

“Madeline.” I called out to her, but there was no response. She wasn’t there. Why? Where was my wolf?

“What happened?” I asked, my vision still fuzzy, adjusting to the light. All I could see were blurry figures.

A figure approached me. “Luna, we had to remove your wolf from your soul to bring you back,” a voice explained, though I couldn’t recognize who it belonged to.

My wolf was gone. I felt odd…or maybe I just felt too little?

I had lived without my wolf my entire life. Why did this feel different? Slowly, my vision started to clear.

They had completely removed her. I was no longer a werewolf. She wasn’t even in my soul. Madeline was gone.

In a matter of seconds, my vision returned and I sat up. Everyone was watching me. And one person was on his knees, looking into my eyes.

The one I had called mate—the one who I used to feel as a mate—wasn’t there anymore. I recognized him, but he felt unfamiliar.

Our souls were no longer the same. But where was his and where was mine? I couldn’t feel him. My heart felt empty, devoid of the emotions he used to stir in me.

He was no longer my mate.

I looked into the eyes of the one who used to make me feel so much.

Now, I felt very little. I felt tired, I felt hungry, I felt weak. But where was the love? I knew it was there, but it was a different kind of love.

Kairos Garcia, the one I had found to be my second chance mate.

Hello stranger.

^End of Book Two^