Page 74 of Heart Broken Mate

“The last Heline to grace these lands was almost a thousand years ago. I would never have thought I would have one on my doorstep. And not to talk of a Peline,” he said and faced Luke. He kissed him on the lips too. He looked like an excited little kid who was just told he would have real elves visiting on Christmas morning. There was even a little dance to his steps as we started towards the house. There was a striking resemblance between him and the house. They were both elegant and ancient. They look like a piece of work stuck in time, and it struck me as wholesome.

“My name is Timothy Kael,” he said as we stepped into the house, and it was just as I expected it to be. Expansive and extensively made of concrete. “I am the Kael family custodian.”

I looked around me, expecting to see more people, but he was the only one there. He must have sensed my confusion.

“The family doesn’t stay together for security reasons. The Tarloux and his allies can take us out more easily that way. I take care of business in the family house. We’ve owned it for centuries. Even the Tarloux couldn’t seize it. There is history here. You must be tired. I will leave you to sleep, and we’ll take care of business tomorrow.”

“No,” I told him. “I’d rather we do that first. We still have a long road to cover, and the Tarloux are strengthening their army as we speak.

Timothy smiled at me and nodded. “I understand that. Can I see it?” he asked. We knew what he was talking about. They would all want to see it.

Luke dipped his hand into his back pocket and removed the small bag holding the stone. He removed the stone and handed it to Timothy.

“It is real!” Timothy said and collected the stone. He wrapped his hands around it as he looked at it with awe. He had to move to the closest chair to him and sit down. He said nothing for a long time and just looked at the stone, the awe in his eyes growing ever more significant as he stared at it. After a while, he stood up and walked back to us, and handed Luke the stone again.

“They will come for it,” Timothy said. “They aren’t just in Nillport because you stopped their shipment.”

“The Twins are there,” I told him.

“Yes. And they only show themselves for things that are of the utmost importance. This is the most important thing to the Tarloux since they went on their crusade against the royalties. They have spent centuries looking for it. They want it, and they will kill for it.”

They killed my mother and father for it. The night I still have nightmares about. They had broken down the door midway through dinner and asked my father for the stone. They had assumed he was the one with the royal blood, and they had assumed wrong. My mother had guarded me and laid down herlife for mine. I didn’t see what happened after she fell in that alleyway, but I knew she didn’t just die because those men didn’t come after me. She must have stood up again and fought to keep me safe. She died so I could have that stone. She had made a great sacrifice. Now, it was my turn to make sacrifices and fulfill my destiny. To bring peace and the old order back to the werewolf world. To stop the reign of terror that the Tarloux had established and run for centuries.

“Will you fight with us?” I asked Timothy.

He fell to his knees suddenly and bowed before Luke and me.

“I bequeath my sword to you,” he said. “Your word is my command. I will lay my life for you and fight your battle. The blood that flows in your veins and that flows in mine are the blood of allies, and it will remain so forever.”

We stayed the night because Timothy insisted, and we didn’t want to offend him. We had a large dinner, went to bed early, and woke up to get back on the road. We had two more families to see.

The second family was called Gork. They were even older than Kael, and they had a dark history of betrayal and deceit. Bonne advised leaving them out, but they controlled a large army, and their soldiers were feisty fighters. They lived almost like nomads, never staying in a place for too long and always moving in large numbers and camps. A moving herd of werewolves was trouble brewing, so it wasn’t a surprise that the night we found them, there were having a big fight.

It was a dark night, one of those with nary a star in the sky, and we could barely see beyond our noses. We had walked in on them, and no one noticed us for a long time as they were allgathered around a bright burning bonfire with four werewolves fighting beside it. They were growling and yelling at them.

“This is just like ten percent of their total number,” Luke said as we made our way into the crowd, and they moved out of the way for us, barely taking a second look at us. They were a very careless group that was obvious immediately, and I guessed that was why they’d been betrayed so many times over the years. They have gone through many leaders, too, and were on their fourth leader in the last ten years. We watched them fight, and I saw they fought differently.

They were skilled, and that was their useful secondary character. What put them above most werewolves was the hunger in their eyes. It wasn’t one for blood or death, but the fight itself. They enjoyed it and the pain that came with it.

No wonder they die so young. It seemed to me that it was all they were all living for—the pain from the fight.

I watched the four men fight, and there were no rules—just bodies smacking into bodies, bruises, and broken bones. We had a lot of fun watching them until there was a gentle growl amongst them, and soon it started to grow and spread, and they were all growling. The fight had stopped, and everyone was looking at us.

Finally, they took notice of us. One of them stepped forward, and I recognized him from the images Bonne had given us. He was their leader. They called him Penit.

“We have strangers in our midst,” he said and started towards us. “People who have enjoyed our show even though they are not deserving of it.”

The Gork had fought alongside the Tarloux when the insurrection started. They were royalty but had always been looked down on as they didn’t fancy castles and beautiful dresses. But after the war, the Tarloux turned around and started killing them. They were royalty. Pretty pink dresses or not. They had prestige and power, and they were a worry. Now, they have a vendetta against the Tarloux, always killing off their scouts and raiding their warehouses and business.

“I think we deserve it,” I told the man who was standing before Luke and me now. “We are after all of one blood.”

“One blood? Are you Gork?” he asked.

“No, I am a werewolf.”

“Oh, there are werewolves that I would cut down just by looking at them. We are not of one blood. They are bile made to mix with the right blood.”

“Not this blood,” I said and stepped closer to him, putting my hand on his chest. He stepped back suddenly, and the wolves around him growled at me. I smiled and opened my hand to show him the stone.

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