Fated To the Alpha by Jessica Hall
Chapter 87
Katya POV:
My father never came back, I was expecting him to, he always comes back but this time he didn’t and after two days Ezra said I couldn’t wait any longer and had to deal with my mother’s body.
I opted for a private viewing and to have her cremated. I didn’t see the point in having a funeral, this was never her home. She didn’t have friends here, she only had me and dad and he was now gone.
All mum’s friends were back in Jackson’s pack, her reputation was built there, and for her entire life it was home. I couldn’t bear the thought of having people show up, who didn’t know her and only had a perception of what she did.
To be honest, no one truly knew her, yet she was my mother and the woman that raised me, that was the real Shirley, but here all they saw were her mistakes not who she was, one of the things I hated about werewolf communities was the fact they were tight-knit communities and gossip travels fast.
There are no secrets and besides Angie and Jasmine, I never saw her interact with anyone unless it was with her fists. My father was the outgoing talkative one while mum she was more stern, less approachable and shut off to others except me and dad.
Getting up after listening to the lady drone on about life after death and yadda yadda, I walked out. That woman in the coffin was not my mother, that was some hollow version of her, and I couldn’t handle seeing her like that. Ezra follows me out.
Mateo staying behind to talk to the woman, they said her ashes would be ready in few days, my mother soon to be reduced to ash and nothing more, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it and for the last two days I also noticed I hadn’t heard or spoken to Kora either, like she just left me like my father did, never in my life have I ever felt so alone, I had no one left, no family to fall back on and that is the most lonely feeling knowing you are on your own. Yeah I had Ezra but he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t my mate and realising that without the mate bond I would truly be alone, completely and utterly alone frightened the hell out me.
“Kat?” Ezra asks, coming outside where I was leaning on his car.
“Lets just deal with Angie, I want to go home” I tell him before reaching into his pocket and digging out his keys.
“The ceremony barely started, Kat come back inside”
“So I can look at her rotting away in a wooden box? This was never her home Ezra, she has no one here, besides you and Mateo I have no one here. I want to go home” I tell him before unlocking his car and hopping in.
Ezra walks off back inside before coming out with Mateo.
“So what do you want to do about Angie?” Ezra asks as he starts the car before reversing out of the parking space. We already knew she took the first lot of photos. But that was as far as her involvement went. Yet it still made me question if everything was a lie, I couldn’t trust her but I also couldn’t bring myself to K*ll her or banish her over a photo.
“Send her home” I tell him looking out the window at all the houses passing by.
“So you want her to stay?” Ezra asks and I could feel his shock and I could hear Maddox growling through the link as he f0rced forward.
“Send her home to her family” I tell him again. Honestly I couldn’t care less anymore. I was over it. If Jackson got a hold of me and K*lled me tomorrow at least I would be free of the misery and the constant looking over my shoulder. I just no longer cared anymore whatever happens, happens.
“Actually can you drop me home first, I don’t want to see her” I ask Ezra and he nods.
“ Fine but Mateo will stay with you, I won’t have you by yourself” He says his eyes looking in the mirror at Mateo. I sigh, not expecting anything less. Getting home Ezra said he would be back in 10 minutes, I went into the office needing a distraction and hoping to do some of my online studying for school. Walking in, I find my laptop bag on the desk. Next to it was Mathias’s journals. Forgetting the school work I pick that up instead.
Mateo comes in with a bottle of coke and he hands it to me.
“I thought you were studying?”
“I was about to,” I tell him, flicking through the pages. Mateo sits on the edge of the desk grabbing the journal, I was looking at the other day while I looked through the newer one, I hadn’t looked in yet.
“You would think there would be more, wouldn’t you?” Mateo says, making me look at him.
“More what?” I ask confused.
“More people cursed, surely your family isn’t the only one who has cursed out the moon goddess?”
“She probably has it in for my family, why not everyone else does?” I shrug.
“The Moon Goddess doesn’t hate you Kat”
“Well she cursed me, that says otherwise, she could always take it away, but where is she?” I ask him.
“It is a blessing, being a healer is a blessing” He says flicking through the pages.
“And a curse, I am cursed with death by everyone around me, that doesn’t sound like a blessing” I tell him.
“Sh*t I think I just tore it” He says and I roll my eyes and was about to take it from him before Mathias decides to curse me for letting him destroy his precious artefacts.
“Hm at least you didn’t have it as bad as this guy” Mateo mutters looking at the book and I look over his shoulder at what he is looking at.
“Who is that?” I ask not remembering seeing the drawing of the man in the book last time.
“Some gemini healer”
“Where did you find it?” I ask him.
“Stuck upside down on the page, I thought it was blank and went to turn the page when I felt it tear, pages must of been stuck together” He says with a shrug and hands me the pieces of old weathered paper. The outside was stained yellow and it had water marks on the edges, and looked like it had been through hell, with how yellow and orange it was.
The drawing on it is still visible despite the appearance of the paper; the drawing itself is still intact. The paper was soft like tissue paper proving its age as it withered away.
The man in the picture was drawn with what looked like pastel or some sort of charcoal paint, I wasn’t sure. By the look of the drawing, he looked crazed, his eyes pitch black and hardlines drawn on his face with hollow cheeks, he looked dead but right next to his neck where a mark should be was that strange symbol from the page before but in this drawing, they looked different and slightly more detailed.
The drawing I saw before looked like two crescent moons back to back with a circle around it making it appear like a pentagram, but in this drawing, it looked more like two overlapping bite marks the curve of the teeth did kind of resemble two crescent moon back to back inside a circle.
“No name” I mutter hoping there was one.
“Nope, but from the page it was stuck to, says he could K*ll with one bite, and was believed to be mad after the loss of his mates and K*lled himself” Mateo says and I hand him the paper drawing back.
“Mates, as in two or more?” I ask him,
“Yep said he had two mates, both d*ied from the plague and without them his mental health deteriorated. Also says his ability to heal d*ied with them, that he could no longer heal and they believed his healing ability for others stopped working before he K*lled himself and that his blessing turned back into a curse without his mates”
“Can I have a look?” I ask him, handing him the paper drawing and taking the book from him. I looked at the old page and the writing was so old it looked like gibberish to me and might as well have been in a foreign language.
patient showed signs he caught the madness and could no longer recall his own name, and was received to hast gone mad after the loss of his mates, both d*ied from black perpetual wink plague and without ’em he deteriorated into onset madness, he show’d are signs of corporal decline. his ability to heal d*ied with ’em, inability to shift e’en on a full moon could no longer heal and it is received his physic ability for others depleted an he ere he took his own life, injuries discover he used his venom to end his life, the benison bestowed upon him by the Moon Goddess not deterred ere his demise was actually a beshrew without his beloved mates to keep him firm-set.
I read the passage again before looking at Mateo.
“You understand what it says?” I had a headache just from reading the old text and trying to figure out what it meant. Let alone actually understand it.
“I’m not just a pretty face kat, I swear you only use me for my godlike appearances” He says.
“Yeah all I got from that was an eye twitch and headache” I admit, some of the words I didn’t even know what they meant and would require a dictionary to know the meaning of some of them.
“I told you I like history, love this sort of stuff and find it fascinating.” He says looking over the pages of the book before looking up again when Ezra finally returns and comes in.
“Angie?” I ask him.
“Gone home, what are you looking at?” Ezra asks before stealing my coke and taking a sip while sitting on the edge of his desk next to Mateo.
“Mateo found this, said it is about the gemini healer apparently he can read whatever that is” I tell him handing Ezra the book.
“Yeah Mateo is secretly a nerd, who do you think did your English Essay, he probably knows more about my family history then I do?” Ezra says.
“What for Mr Nagi, that was you? I thought it was Ezra” I tell him and he shakes his head.
“Nope I did it, Eziah Mathers is actually Ezra’s great grandfather on his mother’s side, Mather’s was her maiden name, Mr Nagi was once my teacher horrid man, smart but horrid”
“But you were at Jasmine’s that night,” I tell him.
“Yep, didn’t mean I didn’t come home, Ezra mentioned it when he asked if I was coming home, so I came home early in the morning and typed it up and stuck it in your book before going on patrol duty” He says with a shrug.
“So it wasn’t you?” I ask Ezra who was reading the same passage before he looks up,he shakes his head.
“Nope wasn’t me”
“See not just a pretty face” Mateo chuckles.
Grabbing my laptop from off the desk I sit on the couch and Mateo takes the journal sitting beside me, while Ezra sits at his desk doing some paperwork.
After an hour I couldn’t stare at the computer anymore. Mateo was completely immersed in whatever he was reading, his greyish-green eyes downcast as he turned the page.
Despite his size, he managed to sit on the small couch quite gracefully and not look to uncomfortable, he was shorter than Ezra not by much he was still over 6ft, but Ezra was really tall and wider must be the Alpha genes, while Mateo build was like most werewolves, he also wasn’t much different in build, his hair was little longer but darker, his facial features not as defined as Ezra’s and D*mn was I jealous of his eyelashes.
His hair was a little longer, more I just rolled out of bed but it worked for him, making me wonder what it would feel like to run my fingers through it when his full l!ps turn up in the corners.
“Is there something you want or are you just going to stare at me?” Mateo asks, raising an eyebrow at me. “I was just looking” I tell him embarra*s*sed that he knew I was gawking at him.
I look away and Ezra chuckles, shaking his head. “What’s so funny”
“You two are, you both want each other yet won’t openly admit it or do anything, I have told you both Maddox and I are fine with it, if you want to touch him Kat you can, quite frankly I am sick of giving you both permission just do what you want, ” He says and I feel my face heat forgetting Ezra can feel everything I feel, was kind of embarra*s*sing.
Mateo watches him as he goes back to writing something on a piece of paper before he sets his book aside and pats his chest. I didn’t hesitate before moving and laying on him, I found him calming like Ezra, only different.
Mateo wasn’t Ezra, they were for the most part polar opposites, Ezra was more dominant and aggressive while Mateo was laid back, oddly enough Mateo was beginning to smell familiar to me, smelt right.
“Maybe Kora will relax a bit, she is still not talking to you?” Ezra asks looking over at us.
“No, I think she is sad over mum” I tell him before feeling Mateo’s l!ps press to my head, his hand moving up and down my back and hip before moving under my shirt,his fingertips drawing circles on my lower back, his finger tips warm leaving a tingling sensation on my skin.
“She will come back eventually, not like she can actually leave you” Ezra says.
“She could want to go for a run” Mateo says, making me look up at him, I put my hands on his chest, bracing my chin on them.
“You should allow the pack runs again, everyone already knows and things should just go back to normal” I tell them.
“You would be okay with having people here” Mateo asks and I nod before he looks at Ezra.
“Maybe next week we can organise something I will speak with Alex tonight when I do the patrol rosters, I also want you off patrols Mateo, you stay with Kat from now on until we figure out things with Jackson,l I don’t even want you filling in, if they ask tell them to get someone else ”
“Well I won’t complain about that, nowhere else I would rather be” Mateo says looking back down at me before brushing his nose on mine.