[Stephanie]
Arthur was a bad storyteller.
I knew it when he said he found the Phoenix and got the Phoenix blood. It was rare that I found out about something he wasn't good at doing.
Seventeen years ago, he and Paul were on a trip. He found his friend near a crater fighting a Salamander. His friend was protecting an injured phoenix. He helped chase away the Salamander. He saved the Phoenix and his friend. The Phoenix left a little blood to thank him.
This was the l~o~n~g story he told me.
It took only about five minutes, including the time I spent getting the two lunchboxes Lily brought over and the time I spent back on the park bench with the two lunch boxes.
"You said it was a bit of a long story. And then what happened? Your story was finished by the time Lily brought us our lunchboxes!" I grumbled to him as I speared a meatball from my lunchbox with my fork.
"Long story short. Save your time," Arthur said and gave me a smile.
"Save my time and ruin a great story." I rolled my eyes.
I fed myself the meatball. The moment I bit the meatball, I closed my eyes and felt its delicious gravy dance with my tongue in my mouth. Mrs. Grete's cooking always satisfied my picky tongue and stomach.
"It's not a great story. It's about Paul and me saving my friend and a Phoenix. Then I got the Phoenix Blood. That's it. This meatball is delicious." He said, praising Mrs. Grete's fried meatballs in passing.
I opened my eyes to look at the culprit, who had once again made me lose my curiosity about his story.
"Thank you for making this story even shorter and less interesting. Salamander, Phoenix, these are legendary creatures that only exist in creature atlases. But in your story, they become ordinary animals." I said.
"Actually, that was the only occasion I saw these two legendary creatures. I also thought they had disappeared from the earth long ago before I saw them." Arthur laughed as he ate the last slice of roast beef from his lunch box. He was a faster eater.
"You could have described to me what the Salamander and the Phoenix looked like and how you heroically defeated the fire lizard, like a superhero," I said.
Arthur rubbed his chin and thought for a few seconds before he said to me, "A Salamander looks like a large red lizard with no teeth. It can breathe fire and swim in lava. I didn't defeat it. Paul scratched its belly, and then it jumped into the lava."
"And for the Phoenix, its body size is smaller than an eagle, and it has a pair of orange eyes. It looks like a raven, but its whole body is covered with golden-red feathers." He said.
I shook my head and sighed.
Forget it, Steph, why don't you just pretend you're listening to a history lesson? You already know Arthur isn't a storyteller.
"If I tell you my experiences in a storytelling style, I will inevitably exaggerate the details to spice up the experiences. Instead of letting it be peppered with lies, I will be more convincing to you and your wolf by just telling the facts that I remember. " Arthur found me disappointed and explained.
Actually, you're just trying to find a genuine-sounding excuse to cover up the fact that you're not a good storyteller, right?
I snickered when noticing Arthur's ears were turning red.
I got butterflies in my stomach. Not a bad feeling. As I realized that, Arthur looked more approachable at the moment.
***
The introduction to the Phoenix in the creature atlas contains an additional note about Phoenix Blood. It mentioned Phoenix Blood can help souls return to the past if paying the appropriate cost and using the correct method. The use conditions and methods are currently unknown.
"I remember that the atlas states that the user of Phoenix Blood has to pay a certain price and use the correct method to help the soul return to the past. But there is no record of the method and the conditions. How did you know that? And what is the price your friend paid?" I continued to ask my questions, although I no longer expected Arthur to tell me a story full of drama.
"Honestly, I paid the price, and my friend used..." He paused for a moment, "... the right way to exert the special effect of Phoenix blood to save you."
My eyes widened, and I overlooked the meatball on my fork falling back into my lunch box.
"What did you pay?" I asked.
I hoped it wasn't some valuable price, or I was going to worry about not being able to repay him.
"A certain number of years of my life. It's a condition for her to help me function properly with the Phoenix blood." He said.
The hot, humid wind blew in my face, and I shivered, accompanied by my stomach churning.
I was sure my ears weren't wrong. I suspected something was wrong with my eyes because Arthur's expression was now calm, and his voice was as low as usual.
"Do you and your wolf still think I'm going to kill you now?" He even joked with me.
"How many years? How many years have been taken away from you?" I asked. My lips were trembling.
"Probably 100 years. That was the initial condition. However, the final number should change a bit because..." Arthur trailed off after he noticed my reaction.
I stood up from the bench and pressed my palm to my forehead.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
His lifespan. He paid 100 years (and maybe even more) of his life?
Was this Alpha King mad? Or was I insane?
I pulled the head rope off my head and rubbed my temples, relaxing my head to help me digest Arthur's answer.
If I got it right, in my last time, Arthur and I didn't have any interactions from the time I was born until I died, except for having seen his name in history books.
Even if he knew that I was his future mate in his previous life, that would have been the first time he met me when he saved me. That meant he sacrificed many years of his life in his last life to save a stranger for him.
"Steph, are you okay? Did you reopen the mind link? Did Rose affect you?" He asked me as he walked over to me.
"Are you immortal?" I looked up into his eyes.
"Of course not. I'll die, too." He raised one of his thick black eyebrows
"Then why did you sacrifice some of your life spans to save me? Stephanie was just a stranger to you then." I asked.
"Because you are my mate. What's wrong with that?" His eyebrows pulled together as if he didn't understand why I was acting so surprised
"No, no, mate shouldn't be the reason. We didn't know each other back then. You never even met me in our last life. Haven't you thought that I might be a sinister girl..." I said, scratching my hair in distress.
I was not trying to be self-deprecating. It just didn't feel right to me.
My first mate in my last life killed me, and then my first mate in this life sacrificed his life span to save me.
For me, the MATE was no longer the motivation or reason for the action. So I couldn't understand Arthur's act of saving a mate he had never met through self-sacrifice.
"You think I shouldn't save you? Do you want to die?" Arthur asked.
Did I? Well, what I just said did sound like I was blaming him for saving me.
"Alright! I'm not sure why I thought about that. But, do you know how long you can live? What if you won't live long after you've paid for 100 years of life? You said the number of years your friend took would change. So what if your strange friend secretly took more than 100 years of life? Aren't you scared?" I said.