The Mate That Wasn't Mine novel Chapter 62

Chapter 62

MAXIM POV

The way my feelings transformed with Tess, especially that stolen hour in the train carriage, or every time she slept in my arms were concrete proof that one’s heart can ascend. Can leave the normal behind and go upwards to new planes. Somewhere impossibly bright and joyful.

Unfortunately, every week since she left has proven the opposite is also completely true

It is possible for one’s heart to plunge ever deeper into the abyss. Just as I did not know just how far I can spiral downwards.

Whe

the top of the bliss with Tess would be, I’ve no idea

It started that morning. With Vigo “discovering” her lantern and the scrawled message on the cliff edge. The silver haired introvert who hurt her that time.

Running to the cliff ledge, Vigo stood waiting, hands clasped and looking remorseful, I dropped to my knees numbly and allowed myself to feel… nothing. Just empty.

Soon Prince Remy had his arm around me. So did Warden Marshall. “She mustn’t have been in her right mind,” they whispered. “You cannot blame yourself.”

“She won’t have meant it, she loved you…people can lash out…” Remy added.

I just scoffed.

Written into the stone, I REJECT MAXIM PAGANO. I REJECT RAVENBOW covered in blood, it’s pretty hard to argue someone didn’t mean it. Took me long enough to scratch the fucker into the stone in the first place.

Thankfully the injury to my hand healed pretty quickly. Can’t go giving anyone ideas that this was anyone but Tess.

I managed to stammer back. “It was a row. A silly, stupid…I thought she was at the archery range. She’s always gone there…Fuck. Fuck, I didn’t do enough. I thought she could handle losing her friend eventually. I didn’t do enough to look after her properly.”

At least that bit was true. I didn’t. There was nothing I could offer to make her stay so I had to put myself through the performance of her death instead.

Prince Remy gave me a few days leave. His icy white hair and cold blue eyes momentaril

rolled over, realised she was still gone and returned to my Tess–scented dreams.

softened. Door locked, covers over me, I slept like a log. Then

Ignoring every knock on the door until duty compelled me to get my ass back outside. I don’t know why but before leaving my bedroom, I shaved off my beard.

I want to be someone else. Pretending to be the same man Tess loved in the dark is only going to torture me. You’re meant to look younger when you take off that layer of furry scruff, I just looked fucking miserable. My brown hair has gone from tousled to neglected, my eyes dulled.

Shrugging on my leather jacket and striding out of Block E, I had to shrug off condolences from every cunt I’ve ever fought in drills. Then every fucker who I’ve overtaken in my training days. Every bastard Warden, including Marshall who has seen fit to do nothing but pull me down for years. All of them had a sad glance, a hand on the shoulder.

It goes on for days.

Kai and Silas especially but I ignore them. Even when they shout out, “You’ve got to talk to us at some point!”

Actually, no. No I fucking don’t.

Allette and Hazel want to weep on me and whisper how tragic it all is. How beautiful her soul was.

Luna Sabrina simply studied me whilst Princess Hazel made me drink another cup of herbal tea whilst waiting for Remy. But then she has her own issues.

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Chapter 62

The Alpha remains distant from his Luna. Killing Donlon did not heal them, it broke them. Just because his one eyed smirk has been wiped from the grounds of Ravenbow, what he did to Sabrina is growing larger. The spectre of just how twisted his plan was is wrapping its tendrils around their bond and pulling them apart for the whole pack to tensely witness.

I cannot expect the Luna’s sympathy in the midst of her own storm. Nor do I want it.

I don’t care. I’m just completely numb with missing Tess. Her scent has faded from the room, my dreams already getting more desperate, clutching at clouds that don’t feel like her body anymore. Her warm şkin, her soft stomach. It’s all fading away.

Now, I feed Pawful their chicken and retreat every night.

And yet that was not the lowest layer.

Just over a week after Tess left, Alpha Hale finally decided how to cleanse the pack of Donlon’s influence. As I blithely stood next to Warden Gray, overseeing some first–year sparring, half–awake, half–dead, Prince Remy came through.

/Alpha wants us both. We have a task. Bring blades/

And what a task it was.

Hurrying to the packhouse I trotted up the bleak tower stairs. The parlour was largely empty, apart from a wan, nightgown wearing Princess Hazel laid sleeping on the couch. Her hair hung over the edge of the dark blue chaise–longue in golden ribbons.

She has become nocturnal. Wandering around crying at night, only to crash in the day.

I continued upstairs to the throne room. Alpha Hale’s grand mahogany throne had been shredded by his huge hands, a grey column showing signs of cracking, small pieces covering the floor. Prince Remy and Warden Marshall waited for me to complete our gruesome quartet.

One of the blood red drapes was dislodged, ruining the balance of the room, letting too much light in and highlighting the dust and cobwebs that time had sought to imprint.

“Now. The members of Ravenbow are trained. To the highest level?” the Alpha snaps.

“Yes Alpha,” Remy and I replied.

/Is he okay?/I checked in.

/He has banished my mother from their bedroom now. No meals together, no walking together./

Alpha Hale has started to wear his armour too. To remind everyone he is conducting his own war. Not just the one against the rebels outside.

His chest is covered with an immaculately bright white breastplate, his shoulders covered in large, white scales of protection. It makes his thick golden chains clatter as he gesticulates.

“There are only three men I trust in this place now. That is all. You three.”

It’s a compliment to be sure. But it’s laced in danger. Warden Marshall nods in deference but does not look at Remy or myself.

“So I need you three, working together to test every other man, and woman’s mettle.”

“Alpha?” Warden Marshall checked. “Everyone…checked?”

“I want them questioned. Under the highest of stresses, using whatever means you must. I need to know what Donlon promised them. You heard him-* looking my way. “Mocking me. Saying I’ll understand what his plan was. Well someone else here must know something. His journals have yielded fuck all so far. It’s time to get more thorough.”

So began my descent. After the first searing screams of one first year I began to depend on the memory of Tess to get me through

“WHAT DID DONLON PROMISE YOU!” one of us would shout, whilst the other would pour boiling water onto the same patch of their thigh-

Chapter 62

Every time their wolf healed, the water would rain down again. A piece of flesh that could never fully repair, a pound of flesh to the Alpha, to remain alive.

Days blurred.

It took weeks but we got through almost all the first years. It worked. Several had been told to fetch their army uniform to him. None had interacted with anyone outside the pack. A fact I believed.

However what turned my stomach was the stories that spilled from their mouths. Nearly every man had enjoyed a “special” conversation with him at some point.

Donlon would tell every man just how unique they were. The talent bristling under their fingertips if only they could master their personality. That he could see they were a diamond waiting to be shined up. He would keep an eye out for them.

Hearing the phrases he had spouted to me, almost verbatim was crushing. Then infuriating. Finally it was just embarrassing to realise how readily I had given my trust to someone pretending to be my mentor.

It left me embarrassed. But it made Remy angry. He went too far with the water on one swearing, resistant chump. Down to the bone. The screams were enough to send Warden Marshall down to check on us. “The hell is going on? You have something?”

Of course not. Just the same tales. Not even any uniform. This was just some young blade wielder who was stuck in the middle of the ranks.

I yelled, “Break!” Forgetting ranks I grabbed the Prince by the scruff of his neck, the black iron kettle hitting the cell floor with a clatter, ignoring the Warden left in the cell I travelled with him down the corridor.

“Get the fuck off me! Maxim!” he scowled, his pristine white clothes the only brightness down here. His fists came up, pushing me away, his blue eyes furiously cold and blue.

“You’re fucked off you were tricked, well we all are!”

“Almost word for word Maxim! He had me thinking I could overthrow my father!”

Snapping out of my own self–pity I took a proper look at the man I am assigned to protect. He’s lost weight. His skin is pale, washed–out. He’s going to snap under any more of this pressure.