Leah's POV
"You see, it's just a step you have to make." Cristine wrapped her hands around my shoulders. "We should get going, this is the perfect moment the mages would be on their fullest."
It seemed I had to go with her flow, and put outside my argument. Maybe she was right, maybe she wasn't. If it got to that the extent of letting the mage have my body, which I really hoped it wouldn't, it was going to be a one time act.
Perhaps everything had their price tag.
"Kate." She called, opening the room door. "Keep the house warm."
Kate came out of the room to stand close to the door leading outside, and blocking our path.
"I'm coming along. Let me get ready." She rushed back into the room without waiting for Cristine to give her an answer.
"No!" Cristine shouted. "You aren't coming with us, where do you think we are headed? It's not for you to go."
But by then, Kate had dressed up in a fancy gown that matched the tone of her skin, white skin, and a yellow gown that looked like an Arab dress.
"It's the town of mages, and then the hall… I would love to be there!" She turned around a spot for us to check her out.
"Listen, you can't come with us, so stop all this act."
She didn't leave, instead placed one hand on her waist, taking a step closer to the door.
"You have classes tomorrow, you shouldn't miss any one of them,"
"Classes?"
That was when she stepped aside, finally accepting to stay alone in the house. She couldn't argues Cristine concerning her classes, it was very important.
We had boarded a cart to the town of mages. Cristine's look at me was becoming creepy like she had something in mind to say, but doubting if it was okay to let it out. My eyes met her gaze, but she would cover up with a smile as though she had nothing in mind. That was something crazy about her.
"Tell me, what's it you have to say?" Perhaps I could force her to speak.
She cleared her throat, sitting upright. "Actually… I wanted to ask…"
But she would try to wave it off, trying to make it look she had just some minor stuffs in her head that wasn't worth her speaking about.
"And? Why delay speaking?
"I wanted to ask about your relationship with Gerald… I really want to know?
She had caught my attention. What was it to know?
"How do you cope with him being your mate?"
Her question was strange. The look on her face made me know it was an important question to her, something she really wanted to know.
"There's nothing special about us," I said. "Sometimes I feel it's a creepy connection."
She cocked an eyebrow, shaking her head to each side like she had an idea that I was wrong. "You call it a creepy connection? Does it feel foreign?"
If it felt foreign? Like something otherworldly? I didn't think so. My wolf instinct always made me feel like I'd known him for years, like we had been together for different lifetimes, but my logical reasoning wouldn't let me believe that, always reminding me that he was someone I had barely known, someone that was sometimes a friend to my father.
"Leah," she called. "Tell me about your love connection with him, maybe I would start from there…"
That was something I couldn't explain. Was there a love connection between us? We hadn't been mates for up to a week.
"I don't know."
But she shook her head. "Something must have drawn you both together… I want you to tell me about it… Or where you forced to become his mate?"
"Of course not."
"Then how did you know he's your mate?"
"Because I felt it."
She was becoming too serious, acting as though we were discussing something that included life and death. Maybe it involved that. She had started to hold me by the wrist, and her eyes? I could feel something different about them. Her action was already revealing it.
"What's all these about?" My eyes narrowed at her.
Her eyes became wet for the second time of the day.
"The picture…" She wiped her face with her right hand, turning her face away from me to look outside the cart.
"What about the picture? You refused to tell me anything about it."
She gulped in air, filling herself up. "That was the picture of my mate…"
"You… You had a mate?"
That sent cold shivers all through my body. How had she had a mate and I wasn't aware of that? I was twenty years of age, and she was twenty-two. It seemed possible for her to have had a mate.
It wasn't reasonable for me not to know that about her.
"We had kept it a secret. That was two years ago."
I stayed mute, and was trying to process everything in my head. Hiding their relationship? I had not heard of that. It wasn't the same act Amon and I had planned to do. We were to carry out the marking process without us becoming mates, and that was what we were to keep as secret. But her action of hiding the fact that she's gotten a mate?
It wasn't something I would have done except I was pushed into it.
"Something must have made you do that? You could tell me about it…" I felt her emotions like we were both connected to each other, just the same way she had tried to comfort me during my break-up with Amon.
"It was because of my parents… They didn't see it fit for us to be together. I had to keep it a secret, waiting for the time for things to ripen…"
I made her lean on me, touching her hair to help relax her body.
"The war had brought everything down, taking my parents life, and also his life… Your parents had accepted us to become members of this pack."
"Sorry…"
I could remember the day she was brought in with her sister into the pack. That was two years ago. The only thing I'd known about her was her parents' death.
I couldn't imagine the heavy load of emotion she could have felt at that time, what about losing one's mate? It was like losing a part for f one's self.
"But the mage we are going to meet…" Her voice regained life in an instant. "He told me my mate won't be from this pack, that he is going to be an Alpha from a different pack…"
Her face had lit up with smiles, and that caused me to wonder how easy it was for her to change moods. She could be bothered by so many things, but in the next instance, she could regain life as though nothing had happened.
"He told me there might be so many controversies about him."
"Controversies?"
What was special about that?
"He told me it's a sign for me to know that's he's the one, and all I need to do is to make things work out between us."
"The mage told you all these?"
"Yes, and I believe everything he's said."
She spoke so confidently. It was obvious that she was a strong believer of the mages, but she hadn't given me an explanation of why she had so much trust in them.
"We have arrived," she said.
"The mages town…"