Epilogue 3
Epilogue 3
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Westin
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My first official day in Wales, I was too angry to do much of anything. I just sat there, seething in rage about the fact that Clovio was here with me. He was the last person that I wanted to be forced to be anywhere near. If I had to spend any amount of my time with these Jaegan traitors, then I would have preferred Warrick, who had tried to get my Rika's friend to fall for him. At least he hadn't dared to put his hands or lips on my mate.
Hahh. I couldn't think like that. Rika wasn't my mate. Not yet anyway. She hadn't bonded with me yet, and no matter what I felt when I looked at her, thought about her, smelled her, or anything at all that had to do with her, it didn't make a difference until Rika returned the sentiments. At the current moment, Rika was free to be with who she wanted.
Still, this didn't mean that I couldn't torture the hell out of the man. He had caused me pain, and now I was going to return it to him threefold, if not more. Oh, I wasn't going to hurt him, not really, but he was going to wish that he had never met me or Rika by the time that I was done.
That first morning, while Clovio was getting his instructions from the others that lived in the Alpha's home, I mostly just sat there and glared at them all. When Clovio did look at me, he usually looked away quickly, fear filling his eyes.
"Why is he looking at me like that?" He asked one of the men that was explaining his duties to him.
"Huh?" The man, someone from this pack that I hadn't known before, looked up at me with wonder and curiosity. "I could not tell you." He shrugged. "He is not a wolf, so I do not know his customs. He also came from the States, like you."
"I came from the states just now, but I am from Germany." Clovio told him, admitting that he didn't know any more than the wolf man did.
This went on for a while, Clovio getting his orders and being shown the ropes while I just glared and gave him looks that I wished would kill him. I also planned the many different things that I would do to him. The ways that I would make him pay.
"You look as if you are concentrating quite a bit." Alpha Cadwal said as he sat next to me. "What is it that you are thinking?" He was looking from me to Clovio and back again.
"I am planning my revenge." I spoke gleefully, but kept my voice low enough so I knew my enemy would not hear me.
"Is there a reason that you need revenge against that human?" Cadwal asked, with more curiosity in his voice.
"He made a move on my mate."
"Ahh." The Alpha nodded as he understood. He would know what this meant, and how important it would be in our world. "So, he tried to steal her away from you and made a fool of himself?" This seemed like a question and a statement at the same time, so I wasn't sure if I was supposed to respond. Instead, I just looked at him with narrowed eyes.
There was a slight pause while it felt like Alpha Cadwal was reading into my soul. He was looking for something inside of me that I didn't understand, but I couldn't hide either. What was he doing?
"Am I wrong?" He finally asked "I mean, if she was your mate, she would have turned him down instantly, right?"
"Well, you see, sh..she is my mate, but for some reason, she hasn't recognized me as such."
"Oh?" He nodded, acting as if he understood fully. "How old is she?"
"She is almost nineteen, so I know that she is ready for a mate. She should have bonded with me on her birthday, but it didn't happen. I bonded with her though, and I know what she is to me." I felt the need to explain myself to him.
"That sounds like a tricky situation." Cadwal started to rub his chin as he thought about it. "Perhaps she might be old enough for a mate, but she might not have been ready mentally or emotionally. There could be a lot of reasons that someone doesn't bond right away. And it usually has to do with timing issues. You might still bond with her, in the future. As it was though," he paused and looked at Clovio, "it seems that neither that young man or the girl in question actually did anything wrong."
"Well, that asshat over there was a part of that group that was murdering our people." I spoke in a whisper. I knew that Cadwal knew this, but not all of his pack.
"Yes, but he wasn't one that did anything but gather intel. He was innocent, or he wouldn't be here right now." Again, the man spoke as if he knew far too much for the situation. "He just did what he was ordered to do. And you would have to, if it meant your life. Do not blame the boy too much."
"He kissed my mate." I narrowed my eyes and growled the words at the Alpha.
"That is not a pleasant thought for a man in your situation, but you will get over it. When she chooses you in the end. Until then, you should try another approach."
"Oh, really? Like what?" I demanded the answer, it was actually rather rude of me, but I couldn't help it. I needed to know what he meant.
"Well, Clovio there can tell that you hate him, and I am sure that he knows you want to kill him."
"Yes, and I do." I glared at the boy again. "I will torture him until I break him completely." This was said a little too loudly. I could tell that Clovio had heard me because all the color drained from his face in an instant.
"And now he knows it for sure." Cadwal laughed. "Now that he is fully frightened like that, leave him be. Let him stew in his fear. He will be consumed with worry about when the torture will come. You can forget about him, only laughing on the inside when you see how scared the young man is of you."
"Wh..!?" I couldn't believe what he had just said. "I can't do that. Then I will be letting him off the hook."
"No, he will be cowering this whole time. And if you ask me, Westin, I think that you have a lot to learn while you are here. This is just going to be lesson one."
"I don't need to learn anything. I came here of my own volition."
"Be that as it may," Cadwal gave me a knowing look and steepled his hands together under his chin, "you seem to be a little misguided and immature as well. You need to learn what it is that you want out of life and your mating. Maybe your mate didn't bond with you because your feline wasn't ready for it. That or it was her wolf that wasn't ready. Either way, you can better yourself and be the man that she deserves when you return home."
"I am the man that I-." I started, but he interrupted me.
"Really?" He tilted his head at me, his knowing look was a little too much for me at the moment. "You see, I think that you are a little too quick to anger. You need to mature, Westin. You need to become the man that your mate deserves. You need to be the person that can protect her no matter the situation. And you won't be able to do that if you are always angry at minor enemies like that." His words hit home with a ringing clang that vibrated inside of my head. I had not been prepared for this revelation, but he made a lot of sense. He was telling me what I needed to hear just then, not what I wanted to hear. "Ah, I see that you are starting to understand." He nodded at me. "This is going to be an important part of your life, Westin. You need to make the best of it."
"Yeah, I think that you are right." I hung my head in shame as I thought about it. "I need to be the man that Ri-, uhm, that she deserves. I need to do what I can to support her in the future." My resolve was set. "And as you said, he's now scared to death of me." As I said that, Clovio looked at me again, paled once more, and looked away quickly. He was scared shitless.
"The power of suggestion." Cadwal laughed. "Come now, Westin. You will have work to do while you are here as well. We are attempting to put the nation back together after those attacks."
I did the work that was asked of me. Whenever I was near Clovio, he would consciously move away from me and act as if he were afraid. He definitely expected me to start with the torture at any time, even in the middle of a work day.
We worked on removing the runes and other clues that the Jaegan had left around the pack's territory, and the rest of the nation as well. I thought a lot about Rika and why I hadn't been with her, thinking how Cadwal was definitely right. I had been immature, thinking that just because she was my mate it would all work out instantly. Her wolf probably hated my feline at the moment, and that left us at a stalemate.
My inner beast, the Jaguar that strained to get free and run through the woods, to find Rika and make her mine, was starting to listen to me a little more as time moved on. And I was finding that the little asshat, Clovio, wasn't getting on my nerves quite as much with each passing week.
About three months into the time that we were in Wales, the little pissant got the nerve to come up to me and engage me in a conversation.
"Uhm, M..Mr. Westin?" He was a lot more polite than the last time that I had spoken to him.
"What?" I said, but there was no bite to the word. I was losing my anger a little more each day.
"I..I know that you are planning to get revenge on me, and I know that you have every right to do so, after I had hurt Rika like that. I am sorry, I can't tell you how sorry I am, but I was wondering if you could get it over with. I, uhm, I am finding it hard to focus on my work as I wait for the blow to come."
"So, you admit that you did wrong by her?" I glared at him, a little of that anger coming back.
"I do, and I want to make amends. I lied to her, and I am sorry. I want to explain to her that I had no choice. They had killed my cousins, if I had defied them, I would have died as well. None of us were safe. Still, what I did was wrong, even if I was forced to do it. I want her to know that I was in the wrong, and that she did nothing wrong at all."
"Hahh." I sighed at his words. Dammit! This little shithead was making it hard for me to hate him. "She wasn't the most innocent in it all either." I closed the book that I had been reading when he walked over to me. "She wanted to branch out so much that she latched onto you. I think it was a combination of her naiveté and the fear you harbored from your family. It created this mess that none of us were able to get out of."
"A..are you sure?" He narrowed his eyes at me. "Sh..she is the Princess, so I didn't think that you would say something like that."
"I am seeing things a little more clearly than I used to." This was true as well. I was taking a step back and able to see all of what happened. How I had actually treated Rika, possessive and angry when she wouldn't acknowledge me, how Rika had rebelled and latched onto Clovio, and how this boy here was just that, a boy. He was frightened and did what he was told to do. Now we had all changed, and I was sure that even Rika had grown up in this time already.
"S..so you're not going to get me?" He tilted his head in confusion.
"I got you already." I laughed. "You've been scared out of your mind this whole time. That was it. I can't hurt you, you aren't actually guilty of anything." He jumped at my laughed words, but then a smile settled over his face.
"Y..you really are different than I expected."
"You as well, kid. You as well." I shook my head and went back to my book.
For the rest of the time that we were in Wales, I didn't treat the little pissant like I hated him. I didn't act like his friend either, but it was more of an amicable acquaintanceship. We got our work done at least.
Some of that work that we needed to do included things like settling the peace when an announcement was made in December. Queen Trinity and King Reece had revealed us to the world. I had not been expecting that before the announcement was made to our people just a little while beforehand. There had been some riots and protests that followed the announcement, but thankfully, there wasn't all that much that had happened in the area. We kept the peace and made sure things were going smoothly.
Mostly, I was just waiting for the time that I was able to go back. I had told Reece that I needed to be gone for a certain amount of time, so he told me that I was to leave for a year. That would put it into September when I finally made it home to see if Rika was able to recognize me as her mate now. It was something that I was eagerly counting down to, only six more months to go.