Charlotte:
I hid outside the door while his mother greeted him. My heart pounded louder whenever I heard him speak.
Then she asked to join them. I noticed Maximus looking very uneasy with my presence.
"What is she doing here?" It was as if he ignored whatever his mother had said and asked for an explanation again.
"She is your mate," Lady Darcy announced, causing Maximus to not even look surprised. Instead, he looked disgusted by the idea.
My smile started to fade. Seeing disgust in the eyes of soone you love dearly is heartbreaking. Maximus’ love was all I had ever wanted. But he avoided like I was a disease. Even when he used to date around, he never chose . I wasn’t even worth flirting with.
"Mom, I’m not here to be part of so joke," he hissed, waving his hand at , silently telling to leave.
"We are not joking. Charlotte will fill you in on the truth," Lady Darcy glanced at , signaling for to step forward and speak for myself. It wasn’t easy to look into Maximus’ angry eyes and talk to him about being mated to him.
I could tell he wouldn’t want to hear it.
"It’s true. I felt the mate bond with you in the woods," I tried to sound like Helanie, even copying her body language. Maybe if he saw Helanie in , he would date to get over her.
"Bullshit," Maximus hissed.
"Well then, how do you explain her knowing you felt the mate bond with soone in the woods?" Lady Darcy folded her arms over her chest, making Maximus look slightly uncertain. He was already hurting, so he didn’t realize his mother could have filled in.
"I can’t accept her," he said softly but firmly.
"Don’t you want to be free from this curse? Just accept her and be free—you know you can’t love like this forever," his mother used the sa excuse about his curse and stepped closer to him. "Your mate isn’t even afraid of you. Can you imagine that? If soone else found out their mate was a lycan, they would have quickly dumped you and moved on."
Lady Darcy knew exactly what she was doing. We had to plant seeds of doubt in his heart about Helanie.
"Besides, I’m not asking you to marry her forever. You need to break the curse, rember? Or else—you will beco a danger to your brothers. Do you want that?" I watched Maximus’ face pale.
Everyone knew the brothers ant everything to each other. And Maximus, no matter how hard he tried to act carefree, wasn’t as detached as he pretended to be. He loved his brothers and took pride in the fact that they loved him too.
"Or do you have soone in mind who would accept you? Soone who is your fated mate? There is only one, and that is her," she continued.
I could tell Maximus was struggling with the thought of accepting because it would upset Helanie.
"I an, even Helanie—you see how she once lived as a rogue, but now she’s dating better people," I didn’t know why I slid that in, but it was my way of reminding him that Helanie wasn’t in love with him. Given the chance, Helanie would go after anyone and date them without thinking about how it would make Maximus feel.
For Maximus, he had an excuse to accept . I was his fated mate.
"And my son cares about his brothers. How long can they keep looking after him?" Lady Darcy asked Maximus.
"Kane and Norman have put their lives on hold for you. You owe them this much. You don’t want to beco a danger to them, do you?" she continued. With careful thought, Maximus finally nodded.
"It’s not like I have soone else who loves ," he muttered.
Thankfully, this was exactly what I wanted to hear from Maximus.
Now he had a reason to accept without feeling guilty about betraying Helanie.
After nodding his head, he rushed out, probably to go for a run. He didn’t even say out loud that he would accept —just gave us a hint.
"Now, it’s up to you to make him fall in love with you," Darcy turned to , giving a sharp look, as if telling to be ready for whatever challenges ca my way.
"What about Helanie?" I asked, still wondering how we could get rid of her.
"Ugh! That slut, I’ll take care of her and her mother," Darcy punched her palm, probably rembering how Helanie’s mother once stole her mate.
"But your work isn’t done yet. We’ll need to perform so rituals to show Maximus that accepting you will truly break his curse," Darcy added.
She had already told that Maximus would have to take part in so strange rituals with his mate to be freed from the curse.
In this case, Maximus would have to give a large amount of his blood to his mother for her to perform a ritual. That scared .
I didn’t know Darcy could do sothing like that. Did she have a witch on her side? That was terrifying.
"Do I need to give my blood too?" I asked.
"No! We’re not actually doing any ritual. Your blood is insignificant. We’ll just make it look like we took your blood. Since you aren’t needed at the start, I’ll take the blood and co back saying we’ve started the ritual," she explained.
She was talking in a way I didn’t fully understand, but I trusted her. Especially because I didn’t care about anything else as long as I got Maximus.
However, I couldn’t wait to tell Helanie that Maximus was mine now.
Oh, sweet goddess, she was just his girlfriend, while I would be his mate.
And thanks to his mother, who sohow found out that he had felt a mate bond in the woods—with so random girl he probably killed and ate.
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