Page 87 of A Chance at Love for the Twin Alphas

Dalila stares at the gravestone, her eyes wide. “What… oh my god, Tony, is she…? What… how… what happened?”

“It was when I returned from our mission. Remember, I told you about the pack we freed? It’s not been too long ago that we returned… maybe two months. I was walking through a park when her scent hit me. And I instantly knew it was from my mate. I followed the scent until I saw this young woman coming out of a bookstore.” I pause, my heart clenching painfully. “I was about to walk towards her, wondering what to say and do when she crossed the street. She even looked up for a moment and met my eyes, and she looked surprised and smiled. I set a foot to walk to her and meet her on the other side of the street when a car came way too fast and hit her. The driver had a heart attack which led to the accident…”

“What…” Dalila’s eyes are clouded with horror and sadness. “I’m so sorry, Tony!”

“I don’t understand why the Goddess did that to me,” I say bitterly. “Why would she show me my mate and then rip her out of my life in such a manner? I wish she would have let her reject me instead. At least she would have been alive then. She would have been happy with someone else, but to end her life like that… it’s so cruel. If the Goddess wanted to punish me for something, why take it out on her?”

Ever since that day, Lysander has gone completely silent out of grief, and I was left alone with my sorrow and pain. I might have only felt the mate bond for a few minutes, but to have it ripped that very moment tore a hole into my soul.

I know I needed a lesson in responsibility and didn’t take my life too seriously at times, but… was that really the only way to make me grow up?

At the same time, I feel so bad now for showing Dalila my first mate’s grave. She will think I’m not sincere and that she is just a second choice… a rebound. But she isn’t! “I… I want you to know that you aren’t any less important,” I blurt out. “You are my second chance, a chance I’m so thankful for and so scared to lose, and I don’t want you to think that—”

“Tony,” Dalila says earnestly. “I don’t. Please don’t panic. I feel your sincerity through our bond, and I might not understand or feel the mate bond the way you do, but even I, a human, would be devastated had I lost you the way you did lose her.”

I pull her into my arms, both relieved at her words and also deeply humbled. Her scent calms me down a bit. “When she got hit by the car,” I continue. “I instantly ran to her and called the ambulance. She was still conscious at that moment, and she looked at me as if she knew something was different about me.”

Are you an angel?she asked.Are you my angel?

I couldn’t save her or do anything, so I just held her hand and told her I’d be there for her until the end.

“She died before the ambulance came,” I mutter.

Afterwards, her parents and her brother thanked me, the stranger on the street who tried to help her. They didn’t know I could have saved her had I followed the scent faster or ran across the street to meet her in front of the store.

Maybe the car would have hit me instead. Sometimes, I wished I would have died instead of her.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Dalila says sadly. “For all it helps, I doubt your goddess wanted to punish you, Tony. I don’t know why, but I think something went awfully wrong.” She pauses. “The thunderstorm that led me to you… it didn’t feel natural. Maybe it was her way to make it up to you.”

“Henry said the same… about how she sent you to me personally,” I say quietly.

“Does your family know?”

I shake my head. “You are the first I’ve told this to.”

Dalila takes my face in her hands and pulls me down into a gentle kiss. It’s kind of funny because she is tiny, and I’m not, but I love the way she is. She is like a powerful little chihuahua, and I love it.

“Tell me about her,” she urges me softly. “I’m sure you tried to find out who she is.”

“I don’t want to belittle you by—”

“You won’t,” she reassures me. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but I have quite the unshakable confidence.”

I smile at her before I nod. “She was studying to become a teacher,” I explain. “And she worked in that bookstore to earn a bit extra for her student fees. She had a small but nice circle of friends… I never met them, but I secretly attended her funeral, and some of them held a speech there. They were devastated.” I pause. “It all feels so wrong,” I admit. “Me laying eyes on her just to lose her. I didn’t even have the chance to mourn her because I didn’t know her. I felt stupid for mourning a bond I barely felt. On top of that, my lycan went completely MIA on me. And… then I met you, and I feel so happy and whole again. I know I should feel guilty that I can live my life while she can’t. And I feel bad for dragging you into this and for being so broken while you deserve someone who is fully there and—”

She narrows her eyes to a glare. “Is this your way of breaking up with me!?”

“No,” I blurt out.

“Then listen to me,” she huffs, violently poking my chest with her finger looking every part of a dangerous chihuahua now. “I know a thing or two about loss. And I won’t allow you to belittle what we have. You are allowed to mourn the loss of your first mate. I would never hold it against you. In fact, I would think much less of you if Corinne didn’t matter to you. My respect for how honest you are to me just made you even more worthy in my eyes.”

“Allow me to accept you,” I say instead of answering her words.

She blinks. “Huh?”

“I told you, as mates, our bond at least partly snaps in place when we accept each other. We can mate and mark whenever we are ready, but accepting you is the first step. I… I would like to accept you as my mate, officially, in front of the goddess. You don’t need to accept me in return yet. Just do things at your pace.” I pause. “I just know there will be no other woman for me than you.”

She smiles. “Alright.”

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