The large wolf moved through the forest at a slow, heavy pace, its paws brushing softly against the fallen leaves. The night air was cool, but even that freshness could not ease the confusion inside his mind.
After a while, he stopped and slowly lowered himself onto the ground, lifting his gaze toward the large window where the lights were still glowing.
For a long mont, he just stared at it, as if that would be enough. But it wasn’t.
At this mont, Lance wished his wolf could put him into a deep, dreamless sleep and take over completely like it tended to do. But tonight Lancelot seed to be stubbornly refusing to take over his body.
The silence pressed in around him, and as his body slumped against the grass, his eyes closed, though his mind refused to rest.
Ramona’s parting words kept echoing inside him, soft yet cutting straight into him. "It’s almost as if she is your true mate and I am just a stand-in. A substitute!"
He could still hear the tremor in her voice, the hurt that she had tried so hard to hide behind anger. And he had felt that pain- every bit of it. And yet, he had not felt it enough to turn things upside down for her. It had almost felt as if he could feel pity...
And more so beneath that pain and pity was sothing else. Suspicion. What she had said in anger... could it really be true? Could it be they had made a mistake in realizing their mate. However, that was impossible.
Yet he had his doubts.
He let his mind drift back to that mont when he had t the girl again after she had turned eighteen and realised she was their mate.
He rembered how the bond had flared between them, and yet what he had felt was not joy or wonder as the other usually felt but a sudden, crushing sense of disappointnt.
It wasn’t supposed to have been like that. Almost every fated mate pairing that he had witnessed had been perfect for each other. But with Ramona...
He’d known her since she was a little girl, and even though Zen had always liked her and indulged her, Lance had seen through her façade. She usually pretended to be kind, but her actions did not always match what she portrayed. There was a bit of cruelty inside her.
The only reason he had been willing to accept her was because she had toed the line, keeping the negative side of her in check. And he had convinced himself that it should be enough. No one was perfect after all...
And so, he had never told anyone, not his brothers, not even himself if he could help it but he had never truly loved Ramona.
He had cared for her, respected her, even tried to convince himself that affection could grow into love. But the truth was entirely sothing else.
This initial resistance that he had felt was also the reason they had made the pact that they would only claim their mate together so that all three of their affections would be the sa.
However, that had not happened in the years that passed. He had even convinced himself that, based on what he knew of the generation of past triplets, it could be sothing related to the curse that seed to be on them of never receiving love for all three of them...
But now, with Emira’s bond, it felt easy to be drawn to the sa person. Both Kael and Zen cared for the girl, and he himself felt protective of her. And it was getting impossible to deny the truth. Even though he didn’t think she was his mate... he was almost hoping...
Like tonight. It wasn’t just Kael who had been bothered by Cassian Redwood taking her attention all evening. He too had been bothered and distracted by it.
That, in fact, was the biggest reason that he had wanted to take Ramona there today was to let Kael warn her not to ss with Emira... or push her into the arms of the
The wolf sighed, leaving a small puff of air not liking the suspicion in his mind. They had indeed not done right by their mate and now this suspicion, just before their mating ceremony was not good...
Even as the human mind continued to ponder over the details, a faint unease spread through him?
The bond had never felt right, never whole. What if it wasn’t just them?
His wolf stirred again, restless under his skin. For the first ti in years, Lance couldn’t tell if the unease in his chest ca from guilt... or from sothing else. He had never really heard that a fated bond could be tampered with. And all three of them mistaking their mate was not sothing he could likely believe in...But the what if refused to leave his mind.
And there was only one way to confirm this—the Ancestral Bowl.
It was the sa jade vessel that absorbed the blood of every mber of the pack during initiation, the one he had last used to welco Emira. But few knew that the bowl possessed other, more secret properties.
Lance closed his eyes. He needed Ramona’s blood. And Kael’s. And Zen’s.Only then could he know the truth—whether their bond had been tampered with.
The wolf rose to his feet and lifted his gaze once more toward the now-dark window. Then, turning away, he padded silently through the trees toward his own cabin, determination replacing the confusion that had clouded his mind. He would test it—soon.
But even as he reached this resolve and walked back to the cabin, the thought was cast away not much later as he saw the visitor standing there waiting for his return, silent, and utterly unexpected.
He paused and asked slowly," What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be..." But before he could ask more, the visitor shook his head and gestured that they would talk inside.
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