Chapter 107: The Final Truth - Part 2
ELIA
"So the night my father had a coughing fit that left him bloodied, I went. I packed a bag, let my mother give quick advice, things to rember since it had been so many years since I was there. And I went. Alone."
Elia waited, but he seed reluctant to go further. "What is it?" she asked.
"I fear your anger," he said simply. "I want you to rember, I was young, and hadn't prepared, and I had many, many things on my mind at the ti. I didn't see everything through the sa eyes I would now."
She nodded. "I will, Reth. I promise."
He took a deep breath. "I found you the second day. You were still in that town, which pleased . You weren't hard to find. You'd moved houses, but not far. I suppose you were still in school, but the weather was warm and I rembered that school stopped during those months. Anyway, when I found you… it was night. You were in the backyard of your ho, and you sat in front of a firepit and you looked… beautiful," he said, hushed with awe. "Until that mont, I'd been looking for my childhood friend, wanting to find out who she had beco, if she still made feel so sure and comfortable. But when I saw you there… sothing opened up inside , Elia.
"I had been hiding in the parklands that bordered your property, and when I saw you I was so overco I stood straight. Had you been looking, you would have seen . You were lit by the flas and you had a blanket wrapped around your shoulders and… I almost gave the mating call, and it startled so completely, I dropped to the ground. I was afraid and confused and suddenly needy. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced that before. I crawled a short distance away and sat there for quite a while getting myself under control again. I resolved that I would go speak with you and see who you'd beco and perhaps…"
"Perhaps what?" she breathed.
"Just perhaps. I didn't know. But I knew I had to see you, had to talk to you, hopefully touch you. So I hid my things and readied myself. But when I went back, you weren't alone any longer. A male had joined you, and the two of you were… cuddling." He said, his voice flat for the first ti since he'd started talking.
Elia bit her lip—disturbed, but also touched that he was so obviously unhappy about the mory of the teenage Elia snuggling another man under a blanket. And her eyes welled, because she knew the sumr Reth was talking about. She rembered the guy—a year older, a year further ahead at school. And he wasn't important. Not at all. But for about three weeks she'd been enthralled. Completely obsessed with him. They'd dated for two months and by the end of it she'd realized he was a pompous ass. But that first month… it had seed like heaven to her sixteen year old self.
Reth had to have shown up during those weeks when there was nothing and no one else she could think about.
"It was obvious you loved him. You never took your eyes from him. And your scent…" Reth grunted and turned away and Elia wanted to laugh.
"Reth, he was a high school crush. We dated for two months. We barely more than kissed."
Reth nodded. "I can see that now. But you understand, at that point I'd been putting off mating—not the relationship, but even the act!—for years. To see you that way with him, and so focused on him… I saw it through Anima eyes. It seed clear that if he asked you, you would have mated him, and I thought… I thought you'd forgotten . I thought I was the stupid one who hadn't let go of a childhood friend. But the problem was, you were… so beautiful, Elia. I wanted you desperately."
He looked down, as if in sha and she put a hand to his chin and pulled him around to look at her. "I wish you had co and talked to ," she breathed. "I wish I'd had that choice back then. Reth, once I got over the shock, I would have followed you. If I'd known." Which made the anger spark in her chest. "But you didn't tell . You didn't even let see you!"
She knew there was a fierce light her eyes, but she was so angry! Why had he waited? Why hadn't he fought? Wasn't he all about dominance? If he'd shown up and chased that guy off, she would have been overjoyed!
She tried to imagine a teenage Reth, full of his newly found manhood, and how her sixteen year old self would have fallen over backwards to be loved by soone like that. Instead of the ungracious pawing and slobbering of her high school dates.
The few that there were.
Reth stared at her. "I thought I was too late," he said simply. "I stayed in your world two more days. I watched your ho. Though he didn't stay with you, he was there much of the ti, and you always smiled more when he was close. You humd after he left. To my young eyes, you were… happy."
"Reth—"
"Do not deny your attraction to that man, Elia. I could sll it on you."
"He wasn't a man, he was a boy. He wasn't trying to be my mate, he just wanted to get the mating on," she said dryly. "I was obsessed with him for a few weeks, but then he showed his true colors and we broke up and… I wasn't happy, Reth. I was sad, and lonely, and… I wish you'd co just a few weeks later."
"A few weeks later I was back in Anima. I was King. My father was dead and my mother was wasting away. I was convinced I'd never see you again, but you'd sohow beco the asure by which all other females must stand. And none of them did. None of them ward my chest like the mont I saw you. I didn't catch myself smiling when I thought of others. I didn't… yearn."
"How, though?" she asked. "If we hadn't spoken… how did you know it would be like this?" she waved a hand between them.
"It's the call of the true Mate," he said and put a hand to her face. She stared up into his fierce eyes and her heart flipped. "The act of mating is nothing to the Anima, Elia. I gave up avoiding it after that. I hoped that if I joined my body with other females, my heart my follow. But it never did. After years of taking any woman that offered herself, I… stopped. I was hollowed out by it all—my heart calling for you. When, despite all the mating I still hadn't taken a mate, a wife, the people called the Rite. They demanded that I find my true mate from among their ranks. And I… I didn't have a choice, truly. But even in my heart… I walked into that night seething. I hate the blood rites, the brutality of them. I hated the idea of giving my heart over to soone who had killed to get it. But I couldn't see any way around it. You were gone. I had a responsibility to my people… and then, sohow, impossibly, you were there…" His voice had dropped to awe again.
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