Chapter 21
-Johan-
I had nothing. I had nob*dy. I had lost my mate, my partner, and my best friend in one fell swoop.
Walking out into the snow I had intended to go after Mavis. To apologize, to somehow make things right
again. But I knew there was no going back to the way things. used to be.
or
Even if Mavis did take me back. It was only because she had lost her true mate – to whatever his
name was. Even if she did take me back. I would forever live with the knowledge that I was ast
resort. The only option she had left. I refused to be someb*dy else’s leftovers.
Bitterly enough, I had an inkling of how Dorothy must have felt when I’d shown up asking for her back. I
really was pathetic. I was weak just like Ignatius had said. No. wonder Dorothy had chosen him.
Julianna, my inner-wolf, growled at these thoughts. It was their fury that had boiled inside of me when I
saw the spark between Dorothy and Ignatius. The same fury that had drained from me just as quickly
when Mavis walked out of the door. I had failed her.
‘You have failed no one, Julianna growled. “They have failed you. Failed us. Mavis most
of all.
Too many half-formed thoughts were racing around my brain, clouding my head in a haze of guilt and
fury and reckless abandon. I wanted nothing more than to escape my mind, to hand the reins to
someone else and give in to primal instinct.
Julianna pounced on these thoughts, coaxing me to let go. To let them take over and handle the
enemies we had made. I wanted to submit. To allow myself to be guided as I had been all my life by the
woman I thought I loved. I still loved her, even after everything. And for that, I hated her all the more.
‘She betrayed us. She drove us from our true mate and now we’ve lost Dorothy for good. She tore you
away from her, Johan. She tore me from my beloved Renee.
Renee?
I realized quickly that that must be the name of Dorothy’s inner-wolf. I doubted if even she was aware
of that fact yet. She was so young, so gentle. I wanted nothing more than to feel her arms around me
again.
‘She doesn’t want you. She’s turned her eyes to Ignatius now. To the Alpha who was supposed to be
your trusted friend. No true friend ims another man’s mate.”
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Julianna was seething, their anger and confusion merging with mine and turning my mind into a
personal hellscape for the both of us.
‘And she followed him. Willingly. Dorothy is just as evil as the rest of them. Just as weak. Renee would
never reject me. Dorothy must have shut her away entirely.”
I had never heard Julianna as vocal as they were at that moment. Wolves conversed with their human
vessels, but rarely choosing rather to mingle their emotions with that of their human counterpart and
governing only the instinctual side of our beings.
–
They felt overpowering in their fury that raged in my chest like a hot poker burning away into my flesh.
Julianna wanted to escape, wanted vengeance, and instant gratification. As much as I knew I should
fight it, I wanted these things too.
I wanted to make Mavis pay for the years of abuse she had thrown at me. The abuse I had taken with a
smile and a heartfelt apology. I wasn’t the poison that killed our rtionship. ‘She’ was.
She would answer for what she had done. They all would.
Julianna urged me off the path towards my car and into the dark woods beyond instead. Our true
home. Our sanctuaryy where no mortal human dared to step.
I pressed on into the dark. I pushed all thoughts of Dorothy aside as I barreled through the trees,
shifting painfully as I ran. I felt my joints pop and click as my b*dy changed, as I passed the reins over
to Julianna to guide me where they saw fit.
Julianna burst forth with a howl that shook the snow from the surrounding trees. It was a howl of pain
and mncholy. It was a death knell.
We charged through the forest, heading straight for that big barren manor with the unbearable clock in
the hall. Tearing through the trees towards our first target. The biggest thorn in my side and boot on my
back. My father.
I caught one final glimpse of the moon casting her light down through the trees and illuminating me.
I wondered for a moment if I was making the right decision. But just as suddenly as those gentle
moonbeams had touched me, we were back under the cover of the trees and the moon and her beauty
was lost to me.
We continued on, swallowed up by the dark tha
-Dorothy-
stretched around us in all directions.
Ignatius carried me, still half-n*ked, to the steaming bath that stood full to the brim with hot water. Some
of it had spilled over the edges as we had neglected it in our
???
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S**ual advances.
I was suddenly exhausted, thest of my first heat period finallying to an end. I leaned my head
against Ignatius as he tested the water before gently lowering me into the bath. I cried out in rm
when water sloshed over the edges and soaked both Ignatius and the floor but Ignatius brushed it
aside, shushing me with a k*ss that left me breathless.
Ignatius lifted my sogging shirt up over my head and I lifted my arms to help him. I was fully n*ked in
front of him there in the bathtub but I didn’t mind at all.
He got to work washing my hair, surprisingly gentle for a man. I realized with a pang of sadness that he
had probably done this before. As Ignatiusy me down and sshed water over my head I made a
silent oath to ire wherever she was; ‘He’s okay. I’ll take care of him. I promise.
–
I exhaled my promise in the form of air bubbles as I dipped my head back under the water like a
ceremonial baptism – A passing of a mantle. The cradling of a heart that once belonged to another.
‘I promise’.
Ignatius continued to clean me from head to toe and I was too exhausted to protest and tell him that I
could do it myself. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself anyway, gliding his hands over my
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skin under the water as the warmth slowly turned me into a content, human-shaped cherry tomato.
I curled my knees to my chin as he scrubbed my back and closed my eyes. Of all the directions I had
imagined my life going, I had never expected this. I couldn’t believe I had ever wanted anything else.
“Ignatius.”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
B