Page 63 of Heart Broken Mate

Werewolves had been unable to bring us down, but cheetahs did the job alright. We couldn’t even get to the last ritual before we died. I closed my eyes and welcomed death. Before the darkness overwhelmed me, I saw Hayley. If there were a heaven for werewolves, she would be there waiting for me. I took solace in that.

***

I could feel my heart beating. It was a distant feeling that seemed so far to reach. Just a gentle repetitive motion that started the blood pumping through my body. I remember what happened, and I knew I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead, but I wasn’t.

I could feel the softness of a bed pushing against my back, and smells started coming to me. It was the smell of herbs burning in a furnace, and then voices came next. They began as a whisper, and then I could hear them and make out words. Merine was speaking with someone else.

“Are they coming to?” he asked.

“Yes,” the other man replied, “Give them a minute. They might be disoriented at first.”

I blinked my eyes open, and light flooded through, making me close them back immediately. I opened it gently again to let myeyes get accustomed to the light. Soon, I could look around and saw I was in a room of some sort. It wasn’t the room they gave Hayley and me, and it wasn’t Merine’s room. It was a different one. And the room was lit up by a burning furnace in the corner.

I should be dead, I remembered again, but I couldn’t even feel any pain. It was like I had gone to sleep, and then I was awake again. I remembered the cheetahs. I remembered how they attacked and their fangs sticking into my body. They pulled at my limbs, bit me, and they killed me. I died. They killed me, and they killed Hayley.

At that thought, I sat up immediately, but I got woozy and fell off the bed, my head hitting the floor

“Come on,” I heard Merine say, and soon I could see him above me. He was looking down at me. “Help me with him. Let’s get him back on the bed.”

He stretched his hands to me, but I moved them away and turned away from him. “Where’s she?” I asked as I struggled to get up. “I saw her die! Where’s she?”

Merine held my hands again; this time, I didn’t push him off. I let him pull me up until I was sitting on the table, and then he handed me a cup of water.

“Drink that. It should help you calm down.”

I didn’t take the water from him. “Where’s Hayley?” I asked.

“She’s right there,” he said and pointed to the end of the room, where there was another bed. She was there, sleeping. I stood up and walked to her. She was just like me, with no injury to her body and she looked so peaceful just sleeping there.

“What this?” I asked Merine. “What did you do to us?”

“You passed the test,” he said. “The ritual is done. You have all the keys.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I will tell you all that happened after she wakes up. For now, you need to sit down and drink some water. You need to rest. When we are done here, I will take you to the stone. It is waiting for you. They are all waiting for you.”

A couple of hours later, we walked down the same road we’d walked since we’d arrived at the village, but something was different this time. People lined the road this time, and they all bowed a bit as we passed. They whispered amongst themselves, and to them, we were close to gods. We had come here for the stone, and we would be leaving with it. It was something that had never happened before, and that was what awed them.

Merine had told us what happened after Hayley woke up, and she was disoriented like I was. She looked at herself and couldn’t believe it. We both thought we had died, but it had all happened in our minds. The drink he gave us from the cauldron contained hallucinogens, and it distorted reality, so we thought we were getting attacked by cheetahs. That was the last test. To see if the connection we shared was genuine and strong enough that we would have the same hallucinations. We passed that.

We walked past the group and came to the mountain again. Merine was waiting with a box again. They seem to have a lot of those just waiting around. We stopped before him, and he nodded at us.

“Centuries ago, against better judgment, the leader of our clan let two royals into our village. They were women heavy with pregnancies and couldn’t be turned away. The story that follows is one that we have exhausted in excess and have become familiar with, but it is also one that was never finished. It was one with an open end, and today, we bring a close to the story. Throughout our lives, we have made the stone a purpose. We have waited for the day when the ones worthy of it shall walk through our gate—not that we have one.”

That got a couple of snickers from the people, and Merine smiled before he continued. “When the two of them came in with the medallions on their necks, I saw something different about them. I saw the look of royalty on them, and I was tempted to hand over the stone to them. To do this so that the clan can be fulfilled. So, we can say in the history of men; we played our part. But aligning with better judgment, I put them through the rigor of the ritual, and they came out victorious. Now, they have earned this, and it shall be theirs. Our job as custodians of the stone is over. Now we can go back to being a mere clan with families and children to care for.

Yola stepped out of the crowd, and he had the keys with him. He handed the three to Merine, who smiled and nodded at him.

“The first two keys to the box have always been with us,” Merine said. “But the last key, the old family kept away to ensure only someone with the royal blood will be able to recover. For the first two, we were instructed only hand them to the couple that passed the test. The couple destined and fated to bring peace and restore the flourishing old order to the werewolf world. You two are that couple. And you have proved yourselves beyond doubt.”

He opened the box, and there it was the moon stone.

It looked like a random piece of rock, black and with jagged edges, but there was a pull in it that I felt immediately. It wasn’t just an ordinary piece of stone. It was power. A breathing and living power existed inside the rock; now, it was mine and Hayley’s.

Chapter twenty-eight (Viper)

There was too much cold for this time of the year. Just a simple breath of it, and my throat was getting sore. It felt like I had chewed dry ice. I walked down the stairs in the Palace and walked out. The two boys I had set outside the door bowed at me, and I nodded back. They were just there to save face. If Luke and Hayley were to show up now, those kids wouldn’t be able to stop them. They might stand and fight because they want to prove themselves, get good word to me, and book their place in the community early enough. The smart thing to do, however, would be to run away. Those two were no joke, and heaven knows what has been done to them inside that tribe, where they had gone missing for days now,

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