Page 24 of Reclaiming His Lost Mate
Shaking the worry off me, I opened the door, and Lyvia’s ever-discerning gaze traced me from head to toe, breaking down every mask I was hiding behind. I felt the urge to duck, but I fought it off. There was no need to because Lyvia could have as well figured it all out already.
“I thought I’d find you here,” she began, her voice soft and her warm, amber eyes regarding me. “I assumed you weren’t going to open the shop today, seeing as he sought me out, and the turmoil I saw in that man could have only meant that he found you first.” Lyvia’s head lowered slightly, eyes never leaving mine for a second, as if she was daring me to dispute her.
Wordlessly, I shuffled to the side, letting her walk through to the living room, which usually felt cozy and warm but felt like an escape room to me now. Only then, realizing that my lips and throat were dried from hours without hydration, I moved to the kitchen for some water. Lyvia sat, quietly watching me from the living room as I filled a glass by the sink, emptied it, and returned the glass cup to the cupboard before coming back to join her on the couch I’d sat on for the last hours.
A second after I dropped on the couch, she asked, "How do you feel?" A small, empathetic smile played in her voice. I sighed hard.
“I don’t know how he found us. I do not know what he wants, andit’s scaring the hell out of me, Lyvia,” I confessed. That was the only thing I could say without confronting the multitude of emotions that were running through my mind. “He saw Mia, Lyv. He came home with her yesterday evening. I do not know what he wants,” I repeated, crossing my legs under my butt and letting my back slump on the backrest. Lyvia just stared at me quietly, and when she pressed her lips together, expelling a small sigh on release, I knew that Lyvia knew something. I sat up. “What is it, Lyvia? What did Alexis say when he consulted you?” I asked, now recalling Lyvia's first words when she came here.
“He came asking me to break a spell for him,” she said quietly.
My breath seized, confusion lacing my eyebrows together. “A spell?”
Lyvia nodded. “Marissa, your stepsister, cast a love spell on him weeks ago, forcing him into marrying her and making her his pack’s Luna.
Kyle and Leah had told me that Marissa and Alexis had never married, but Marissa had been so set on having him that she’d used dark magic. Once again, the lengths that my sister would go to appalled me.
“Through sheer strength of will, Alexis escaped and journeyed here to break the magic and the mate bond,” Lyvia said, explaining. “I was able to confirm that the vow he made to her wasn’t sanctioned by Igaluk as it was made under the compulsion of dark magic, so their union will be void once he returns to his pack.”
I sat in shocked silence as I digested all that Alexis had been through to undo the vile magic Marissa had wrought on him.
Lyvia’s voice sounded again, bringing me out of my reverie. “He didn’t come here looking for you two, but it may seem that Igaluk has her ways.”
“What does that mean?” I shook my head.
“Alexis had initially met the witch, Suzanne, the head of a small but strong coven two towns away from Matsuna. But even she could not help him break it because it would have killed her. It was the darkest of spells, Selina. He was bound to her by blood and a customized artifact, and you may not even be able to fathom the kind of willpower ittook for him to escape from under Marissa’s nose and still sever their alliance,” Lyvia said, an eyebrow furrowing, face drawn together in disbelief.
My mouth dropped agape, shock running through my veins. Was Marissa so desperate for the title to still go after Alexis with dark magic five years later? I tried to imagine the trouble Alexis went through to find Lyvia and how hard it must have been for him. Lyvia, too. If the head of a coven could not break Alexis’s spell, it must have taken a lot for Lyvia to do so.
“Are you okay, Lyvia?” I asked through a thin breath, forgetting my problems for a moment. “That must have taken up your strength…breaking the spell for him.”
Lyvia’s face softened, a smile lifting her beautiful face. “You don’t worry about me, okay? I’m a little spent, but I had to make sure you weren’t driving yourself crazy with thoughts. I’ll connect with the earth once I get back home, then sleep it off,” she said. “He may not have come here expecting to find you and Mia, but…” Lyvia spoke again but paused halfway, and my heart missed a beat.
“But what?”
“But like I said, the look I saw in the man’s eyes tells me that he will not be leaving Matsuna for Shadow Moon Pack anytime soon, and I reckon you know why.”
The memory of Alexis’s conflicted reactions from a day ago surfaced in my mind, and I recalled him saying he wanted to make up for things. But as soon as that memory sprung, a memory from five years ago flashed in my head—the one where Alexis constantly humiliated me just because he felt a pull to me. The one where he stormed out on me after our night together, accusing me of drugging him without a chance to explain and threatening to ruin my life.
If I gave him a chance again, Alexis was sure to disrupt our peace and destroy both my life and my daughter’s, just as he had five years ago.
Determined to keep my family of two together, my resolution built, unyielding.
I was not going to forgive Alexis. Not now, not ever.
Chapter 11
Selina
If Alexis thought that gardening the eight rows of herbs I planted behind my log cabin, forming a fence with strong redwood sticks around my backyard, or staking my climbing Nasturtium plants so that they didn’t crawl over the other herbs—in the dead hours of the night, might I add—was going to undo all his doings from five years ago, he was sorely misinformed. His actions didn’t put even a dent in my decision, and by the next day, I put on my big girl pants and went back to work because, well, I had a child to support.
Work was slow today. My customers may have thought the herbal shop would still be closed after the impromptu shutdown yesterday, but business was still busy enough that I couldn’t take a seat till way past noon.
When I came up for air, Lyvia’s infused trinkets above the entrance door announced the presence of one more customer, and I turned to him from behind the wooden counter that still served as a display shelf, with a smile, only to find that it wasn’t just any customer. He spoke before I could, sauntering across the shop to where I stood as he swept a manicured-looking hand over the top of his slicked-back golden hair.
Tom.
“When I came by yesterday and you were closed, by Igaluk, my pretty Selina,” Tom started, his signature panty-dropping smile in place, “I thought the world was ending, thinking that the loves of my life, Selina and Mia, were moving out of Matsuna.” I chuckled as I took in his six feet of height and lean build. His brown eyes were almost black and scathing to look at, even though they were opposite to his golden retriever energy. Dramatically fisting a hand to where his heart was under his cashmere turtleneck, he spoke again, emphasizing each syllable of every word. “Do not do that to me again, honey.”
