Page 21 of Reclaiming His Lost Mate
Alexis.
Chapter 9
Alexis
I hadn’t stopped looking for Selina. I had eyes everywhere, combing packs in Alaska and beyond for the golden-haired woman who I didn’t do right by, but it seemed as though Selina had vanished off the surface of the earth, completely changed her identity, or was right under my nose and I couldn’t sniff her out. All this time passing and me not having a chance to make up for how much of her life I ruined was a burden words couldn’t describe. But I didn’t let that frustration stop me. If it was anything, it was fuel to my drive, and I woke up every day with renewed energy to find Selina.
This was the only reason why when Marissa was found by my warriors at Shadow Moon Pack borders with her five-word message saying, “I know where Selina is,” I abandoned everything, and my feet moved on their own accord, hope soaring in my chest as I breezed through to the interrogation room where Marissa was held.
After uncovering that Marissa’s action was responsible for my one night with Selina and my breakup with her, I’d cut her off completely, but she had been hell-bent on reconciliation. I’d refused to entertain her, but not today, when she held the key to finding Selina—something I hadn’t been able to do for five years. But as I approached the interrogationroom with Rhys trailing behind me, a dark feeling overcast my mind, telling me that I was doing wrong by coming here.
Rhys had already assured me that Marissa had been searched and had no weapons on her, so that gave me some bit of consolation.
Once the door opened, I stopped to take Marissa in.
She hadn’t changed much in five years, still having that desperate look in her eyes that one would easily mistake for determination, but what caught my attention about her was the crumpled piece of clothing she clung to.
“What is that?” I asked Rhys without letting my eyes leave her, my jaws locked and features tense as Marissa paced the small room.
“She says it’s the map to where she heard Selina is. She won’t let anybody touch it.”
Marissa turned just then, and her eyes widened. “Alexis. I didn’t think you would come. I have information about her,” Marissa rushed out immediately, taking only one small step forward and thinking better of it.
The nerves flooded me at once, the turmoil inside me manifesting as a scorching storm through my entire body. My heart rattled in my chest, but I managed to shake my head once, my skeptical side winning. “You haven’t been known to have the best relationship with your sister,” I said, sticking with the titles because saying Selina’s name out loud was something I didn’t yet deserve since she left because of me. “Why would you now care enough to share where she is? And if I haven't been able to find her, how come you have?” I rasped out, watching Marissa closely for any slip-ups in her character.
I got nothing.
“You can believe me or not after I show you what I know, but if we don’t act fast, Selina is going to be in serious danger,” Marissa bit out through quivering lips, eyes scanning my face in despair.
My wolf shot up on high alert, and I was crossing the door in less than a second, shutting it with every other person present outside. On another day, I would have pressed for more information, but I had gotten nowhere in finding her on my own, and if, by some slim, goddessforsaken chance, Selina happened to be in harm’s way, I was going to do anything to stop it.
The energy permeating the air was thick and chilling to my bone marrow, but I drew closer with heavy steps, and Marissa tore her eyes from me, moving with a sense of urgency as she spread the crumpled map on the table.
“It’s a small hidden pack, but it makes sense that she would be here,” Marissa said, pointing her index finger to a tiny spot on the squeezed cloth. I inched forward, ignoring the sudden nausea threatening to undo me until I was side by side with Marissa. I reached for the spot on the map in order to see where it led while Marissa went on, speaking in a rapid fire. “It has something to do with Torin, Alpha of the Black Moons, taking over our packs, and he saw Selina as…”
With how fast Marissa was speaking, hands flailing, I didn’t see her pull something tiny from her sleeve and take a sharp swipe at my wrist. I muffled a groan as pain shot up my arm, blood fast-filling the line that she had cut on my wrist and pouring right on top of the piece of clothing on the table.
Just then, Marissa’s mask fell away as a cold, blood-frosting snare covered every inch of her face. My brows furrowed, my heart thundering now as blood pounded in my ears and poured down my wrist. That is when I realized Marissa had tricked me. Before I could think of an explanation for what was going on, that unnatural energy I’d been feeling in the air closed in on me, wrapping its eerie, long hands around my neck in a wicked, unyielding grip, chaining me to the point where I choked.
“Marissa,” I called out in a strangled tone, ignoring the flare on my hand as I clutched my neck. “What…what are you doing?”
Marissa smiled, devilish, deceitful, and proud, like she just caught a rare kill. “Oh. Just what I should have done five years ago. Now we’re locked in for life. The spell has ensured it,” she said, pointing to the map soiled with my blood just in time for me to see the dark wisps of smoke rising from around the bright red stains.
Dark magic.
“You’re mad!” I bit out, drawing in strained breaths as I felt my insides shift until I watched my own body like an outsider, having no choice but to bend to every word and command from Marissa's lips.
“Yes,” she replied with a triumphant smile. “Yes, I am, and we are getting married in three days!”
No. Way.
“I am not doing it,” I stressed out through clenched teeth, but that seemed to be funny to Marissa as her response was a condescending laughter that sounded and felt like spikes raking through my skin.
“Aren’t you, Alexis?” She asked, hand propped on her waist. The woman who was just in misery about her missing sister was gone. “Do you not feel your insides liquefying like it’s been dipped in lava? Or don’t you feel like throwing up till your intestines splatter all over the floor? Don’t show up in three days, and you’re dead!”
For three long days, I desperately sought a way to lift Marissa’s spell. I scoured ancient texts, consulted with the pack’s elders, and even reached out to allies. Alpha Kyle and Luna Leah of the Moonlight Pack had second-hand knowledge of magic. But with each method I tried, I came up empty and remained tethered by Marissa’s curse.
And just as she’d predicted, three nights later, against my will and power, there was a small gathering of six consisting of me, Marissa, three elders from my council, and my Beta, Rhys, in my throne room, marking the beginning of a marriage spun by Marissa’s spell on me through dark magic. Everything in me told me to put a stop to it and not hand the welfare of my people into the hands of a woman driven insane by her search for power and not to dishonor my memory of Selina by taking another woman into my home, but I couldn’t utter the words.
