Page 48 of The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate
Lydia is watching me with her hands folded again, a weak smile on her face. “He told me about the curse, Lucas. He wanted someone to be there in case you ended up choosing to be with your fated mate and she died. He wanted someone to protect you.”
“So, you’ve known this whole time?” I murmur.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” she sighs. “There was never any need to before. But now…”
“I can’t be with her, Lydia. No matter how much I want to be. I know Father took his fated mate, but look what happened. She died, and then he took my mother as his mate. I don’t want to do that to Sienna. There’s no good reason to.”
I walk over to the window and gaze outside, my heart in turmoil. “I keep hurting her. She wants to understand why I won’t be with her, and I can’t even tell her. Nobody can speak of this curse to anyone but my bloodline. Whoever cast it made sure to leave no loophole.”
Lydia comes to stand beside me. For a few minutes, she says nothing. Then, she admits, “I always believed you and I would end up together. That’s what your father intended when he brought me into the pack. He reared us side by side. He trained me to be the luna.”
I keep looking out the window.
A small laugh escapes her. “I don’t blame you, though. Who can resist their fated mate, after all?”
I close my eyes. The guilt is crawling up the back of my neck like a creature with legs.
She touches my arm lightly. “Lucas, you cannot keep her close to you. Not with the bond this loud. Not with you like this. You will end up marking her.”
I brace one hand on the window frame. Outside, the estate is going dark. Somewhere in this building, Sienna is breathing, alive, and hating me.
“She’s the liaison.” My voice is rough. “She has to be here.”
“Then find another way around it. Find a way she can stay here without you being overwhelmed with this desire to possess her.”
I sneer. “Are you suggesting I find another woman to give my mark to? Because that is the only way the fated mate bond will disappear. Where exactly am I supposed to find such a woman?”
When Lydia says nothing, I turn my head to look at her.
“What?”
She sighs. It is a small sigh, carrying no judgment. “Either you are being deliberately obtuse, Lucas, or you do not want to hear what I am telling you.”
I fall silent.
I look at the woman I have known for twenty years. Every birthday. Every scraped knee. Every bad night after my father’s funeral, when I could not sleep, when she sat on the edge of my bed and said nothing for an hour until I could breathe. I know her better than I know my own reflection. I know what she is offering. I know what the offer means.
“I don’t want to use you like that.”
I can see the exhaustion under the careful arrangement of her face.
“Lucas. I have loved you my whole life. I have never asked you to love me back. I did not expect it then. I do not expect it now.” Her voice does not waver. I hate her for the steadiness of it. “But I want you to be happy. And your happiness is contingent upon her living. This is the one thing I can do that keeps everyone alive.”
“Lyd—”
“Give me one good reason this doesn’t work.”
She’s right. Lydia is the only woman in this territory trained to stand beside me in the role of luna. I see now that my father brought us up shoulder to shoulder for exactly that purpose. The pack would shift beneath her hand like water. She is my oldest friend. She would bleed for this house. The fated mate bond would blunt. Sienna could finish her work here and go home to Moonvale. She could be somewhere else in the world, moving through her life. Alive.
“It doesn’t feel right,” is all I manage to say.
“It isn’t supposed to.” Lydia’s mouth twitches with a flicker of sadness. “You are saying goodbye to something.”
I close my eyes.
“I am not forcing you.” Her hand finds my shoulder. It’s warm. Familiar. “You take the time you need. But if you keep going as you have been, you will mark her. And you will watch her die. Do you want her to go through that? Do you want to live through it?”
I don’t answer. I cannot.
