by Jayme Morse
“We can stay until tomorrow. Something might change tomorrow,” he said.
“It’s possible,” I agreed as we entered a room covered in royal family portraits.
I recognized some of the people in the portraits now, like the King and Queen. I even spotted Milos Santorini in one of the portraits. I supposed that shouldn’t have been too surprising. He was a Lord, after all.
That was when my eyes landed on a portrait, and I froze in my tracks.
The girl in the portrait looked just like Iris.
I grabbed Aiden’s arm and pointed at the portrait. “Do you see that?”
“No, what is it?” Aiden asked.
“Look at that portrait. See the girl standing in the front row, furthest to the right?”
“Holy crap,” Aiden murmured under his breath, and that was when I knew I wasn’t only imagining it.
The girl had long, straight strawberry blonde hair. She wore a beige dress that reminded me of the kind pilgrims wore. Her fair skin looked a little paler, bordering on sickly, but the resemblance was uncanny.
“It’s not actually her… is it?” I found myself whispering.
“There’s no way,” Aiden replied, shaking his head. “If she was an ancient, we would know it.”
“How would you know?” I questioned.
“At least one of us might feel some sort of attraction to her, but we don’t. There’s no way she’s an ancient.”
I bristled at the idea of any one of my mates finding Iris attractive.
I frowned. “Isn’t it possible that you wouldn’t be attracted to her, considering you’re all my mates?”
“That’s true, but we weren’t mated to you the first time we met Iris,” Aiden replied. “Only Theo was. And while it’s possible to not be attracted to another ancient, at least one of us would be—especially since it’s been so long since we had any interaction with any other ancients prior to you. I’m telling you, Raven. She’s not an ancient.” He paused. “And even if we did lack attraction, then we probably would recognize her, at the very least. We had a reason not to recognize you, but it makes sense, given the circumstances. No one would have kept Iris locked inside a tower and sheltered from the rest of the ancient werewolf world.”
I wasn’t entirely convinced. “But if Iris isn’t an ancient, then why does the girl in this portrait looked just like her?”
“Iris apparently originated from an ancient. That girl in the portrait must be her mother or grandmother or something.”
It made sense, I supposed. Iris was a Descendant. Generally, Descendants only came from very powerful werewolf bloodlines, many of them closer linked to ancients.
Iris had also seemed to know a lot about the ancients. She was the first one who had told me so much about them when I had first arrived at Werewolf Academy, like the fact that having sex with an ancient could get you knocked up really fast and that once you fell in love with an ancient, you could never fall out. I had never really thought to question how she knew all of that, but if she had ancient blood herself, then of course she would have known.
What surprised me the most was that Iris had never mentioned having ancient ancestors.
***
That night, we all headed back to the plane to sleep.
Well, I tried to sleep. It just wasn’t happening for me.
My mind just wouldn’t turn off. I kept trying to think of things to potentially trigger something—anything—but it wasn’t working.
I glanced around the plane. All of my mates seemed to be sleeping comfortably.
Quietly, I crept off the plane and set foot on the sandy beach. I glanced up at the full moon, noticing that it looked different here on the island. For some reason, the moon looked larger. Round. More vibrant. The stars seemed to shine more than they did in both Wolflandia and the human realm. It felt like I was seeing the sky in high-definition, or something. It was incredible. There was something about it that made me think it was somehow magical or something. I hoped that being out here would help spark something for me.
It didn’t, though.
That was probably because Princess Fallyn had never really been allowed to go out on the island at night and explore. She had been kept under lock and key, often grounded in her tower, away from the entire kingdom.
What a lonely life she must have led. I still wasn’t sure how or why my parents had helped me escape to the human realm, but I would be eternally grateful for whatever sacrifices they had made to get me there.
The strangest part about all of it to me was that they had suppressed my memories. Why wouldn’t they have wanted me to remember? Was there something in my memories they were trying to protect me from?
I wished I could ask them.
Sighing, I sat down on the sand.
“Want some company?”
I glanced over my shoulder to find Theo walking towards me.
I smiled as he sat down on the sand next to me. “What are you doing up?”
“I was awake. I heard you getting off the plane. I thought that maybe I could get some alone time with you,” he explained.
“So, you’re not mad at me anymore?” I asked.
“Shh.” Theo put a finger to his lips. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I just want to enjoy this getaway with you.”
I snorted. “You consider this a getaway? Everything about this island feels dark and gloomy to me. It’s really depressing.”
“I consider any time I can get with you a getaway,” Theo replied. “Especially when I get you all to myself.”
I knew that shouldn’t have made me smile after our argument, but it did. There was no sense in trying to hide it from him.
“Does being here bring back memories for you?” I asked. “I mean, this place used to be your home.”
“Yeah, it does. Not that all of them are necessarily good memories.”
“Why weren’t they good?” I asked.
“My life on Nocturne Island was mediocre, at best,” he replied.
“Is that because of Kane?” I asked.
His jawline tensed up. “Someone told you about Kane?”
“Aiden did.”
“Kane was a nightmare that I don’t like to discuss,” Theo replied, a dark look clouding his eyes. “He and I weren’t as close as the others.”
“Why weren’t you close?” I asked.
“Kane made me do things that I’m not proud of.” He didn’t look at me as he spoke, picking up sand and allowing it to fall through his fingers. “But it wasn’t only that. He had a personal beef with me, too.” His eyes slid over to meet mine then. “He knowingly went after everything I ever wanted,” he explained. “If he was here right now, his biggest mission would have been to make you fall in love with him—even if he didn’t have feelings for you.”
“Why would he have done that?”
“Because Kane was on a constant mission to hurt me,” Theo replied. “He did anything he could do to make my life miserable or a little more hellish than it needed to be. It was a constant competition towards us. A battle of powers. He was the Alpha, and I was the Beta. He knew I was the second most powerful, which made him compete with me harder than the others.”
“Who’s the Beta in our pack?” I asked him.
“I couldn’t tell you. I can only assume that it’s me,” he replied with a shrug, “seeing as I was the Alpha until you came around.”
“Does it bother you that I took your place?” I had never really asked, but I had always wondered if it bothered him that he’d been replaced by a girl.
“There’s no one in this world who I would have rather been dethroned by,” Theo said, glancing over at me. “Besides, when it comes down to it, you’re probably the only one who could ever boss me around and get me to do what you want me to.”
I laughed a little. “I’ll remember that, but so far, I think I’ve been the furthest thing from bossy.”
“You have your moments.” He laughed. “You know what sucked th
e most about life on Nocturne Island?”
“What?”
His blue eyes locked on mine. “You weren’t here.”
“It’s not like you were missing me back then. You can’t miss what you never had.”
“That’s true, but there was always a void. I was never truly happy. I felt like I was always looking for something, something that I would never find until the day I found you.”
“Did you suspect that I would be your mate?” I asked him.
“When we went looking for you to bring you back to Werewolf Academy, I had no idea. I thought we would just bring you back to school and keep an eye on you. Don’t get me wrong. We would have done everything to keep you safe, because we promised your parents we would. But I didn’t know before I met you that you would change my life.” His eyes met mine. “The moment I saw you, though. Everything just changed. From the moment we first made eye contact, I just knew.” He inched in closer to me then, so close that I could feel his body heat just radiating off his skin in the cold night. “And from the moment we kissed, there was nothing I’ve ever wanted more than you. A future with you. A life with you. I would be lying if I told you that I wonder all the time what would have happened if you didn’t kiss Aiden and then Colton and Rhys. I wonder if it would just be you and me, because as far as I’m concerned, that’s how it should have been from the beginning. I blame myself sometimes.”
“Why do you blame yourself?” I asked.
“I just wonder if you would have kissed them if you knew form the beginning that I was your mate,” he explained. “I thought that I was protecting you by not telling you, but in the end, all I did was hurt my chances with you.”
“Theo…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say, exactly.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to rehash things,” he replied. “I know you’re going to make a decision eventually. I don’t know if you’ll choose me or not, but there’s something you should know.”
“What?” I asked.
Theo’s bright blue eyes, which sparkled underneath the light of the full moon, locked on mine then. “It might sound crazy, Raven, but the truth is I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been since the day we met. You really are everything to me. I would die for you.”
I could see it in his eyes. He meant everything he was saying… every last fucking word.
And, so, I kissed him then. Even though I knew my other mates were all sleeping aboard the plane, hundreds of feet away from us, for that moment in time, it felt like it was only us. Like we were the only ones on the entire island, and even the entire world.
Our lips had only been tangled up in each other’s for seconds when Theo pulled away from me, abruptly ending the kiss. I stared at him, both surprised and confused. It wasn’t like him to end our kisses too soon.
“Look,” Theo whispered, pointing his chin up at the sky above us.
I glanced up, and then the breath caught in my throat.
I wasn’t sure how it had happened, but our kiss had ignited something.
All of the stars in the sky were falling now—hundreds of them, their beautiful bursts creating an endless stream of colors, which reflected against the water that lay before us.
“Does this always happen on Nocturne Island?” I asked him. I had never seen anything like this before, but I had never seen anything like the Nocturne Island sky before, either. Maybe the shooting stars falling like this was a frequent occurrence here.
“I’ve never seen anything like this happen in my life,” he replied, shaking his head.
“Then, what the hell just happened?” I questioned.
“It was our kiss,” he replied. “We kissed and then the stars started falling.”
Even though it really had felt that way, I stared back at him skeptically. “How could our kiss cause hundreds of stars to fall from the sky?”
“Easy,” Theo said. “You and me? We’re magic.”
And then he kissed me again.
Chapter Twenty
The following day, I sat in my bedroom at the Darken house, doing my homework with Maddie, Vince and Iris.
“It just felt so magical, you guys,” I told them. “Theo and I kissed, and the stars just started falling down all around us.”
“That sounds like something out of a movie,” Vince replied.
“It does,” Iris agreed. “What do you think it means?”
“I know what it means,” Maddie chimed in. “You and Theo are, like, totally meant to be. It’s written in the stars for you guys.”
“I don’t know if that’s what it means,” I replied, even though the thought had definitely crossed my mind. Why else would the stars just fall when we kissed?
“Unless it’s a bad sign,” Iris commented.
“A bad sign?” I questioned with raised eyebrows.
“It sounds completely and perfectly romantic. How could it be a bad sign?” Vince asked.
“Well, doesn’t it sound a little weird? You kiss him and then the stars just start falling down everywhere? What would happen if the two of you had sex? Would all the trees in the world catch on fire or something? It sounds a little destructive, if you ask me,” Iris replied with a shrug.
“Okay, you have been reading way too many dystopian novels or something,” Vince commented. “I think it seems much more likely that Raven and Theo are soulmates.”
“Time will tell, I guess.” I shrugged. “I’m not going to lie, you guys. That kiss and how perfectly magical it was definitely has me leaning towards Theo a little bit. It was, by far, the most romantic thing that’s ever happened in my life… and I don’t believe it’ll ever happen with anyone else again. That was a once in a lifetime thing.”
“Trust your gut,” Maddie said with a nod.
“I’ve always thought it would be you and Theo in the end. Team Theo,” Vince said.
“Team Theo,” Maddie agreed.
“Really?” I asked her with wide eyes.
“Yeah, the two of you just seem so right for each other,” she replied with a shrug. “I’ve never seen you talk about anyone ever the way you talk about him.”
“I sort of feel like they’re all right for me in their own way,” I replied with a sigh.
“That’s because you’re greedy. You want to save allll the mates for yourself,” Vince joked.
“How would that even work, anyway?” Maddie asked. “If they can only be attracted to other ancients, doesn’t that mean that they’d spend forever mate-less if you don’t choose them?”
“Unless someone can figure out a way to break the curse,” I replied with a shrug. I didn’t know if that was even possible. I still didn’t know the details of the curse, or who had put the spell on the ancients. All I knew was that there was a curse. I was going to have to ask Aiden about it at some point.
“But speaking of the ancients, there was something interesting we did find while we were on the island,” I said, changing the subject. I turned to Iris. “There was a portrait in the castle. I’m not sure how we missed it during our field trip, but there was a girl in the portrait who looked just like you.”
“There was?” She darted her eyes away from mine then, glancing down at the floor.
“Yeah, we figured that it must have been one of your grandmothers or a direct ascendant, because she looked just like you. The resemblance was freakish. Aiden had to convince me that it wasn’t you,” I said.
“It definitely wasn’t me. It wasn’t a grandmother, either. I don’t have ancient blood.”
“It had to have been a relative of yours,” I insisted. “She looked like she could have been your twin, but obviously in ancient times.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” Iris replied.
“It must have been a doppelganger,” Maddie suggested. “Just like Elena and Katherine on the Vampire Diaries.”
“You never told me you liked the Vampire Diaries!” Vince glanced over at her excitedly. “Team Damon or Team Stefan?”
“Team Stefan,” she rep
lied.
“Ew.” He wrinkled his nose. “Team Damon all the way.”
Iris glanced down at her phone. “It’s almost four o’clock. I need to get going.”
Maddie, Vince, and I exchanged a look.
“What’s the sudden rush?” Vince asked the question that we were all thinking.
“I, uh, need to help my brother,” Iris replied as she gathered up her things.
“I thought you and Eric weren’t even speaking,” Vince said.
“We’re not, but he needs my help with something. I might not like him right now, but we’re blood, you know?” Iris replied with a shrug. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“See you,” I replied with a nod.
She left the house. Once I heard the front door close, I glanced over at Vince and Maddie. “Okay, did she seem a little… weird? It almost felt like I upset her by mentioning the whole portrait thing.”
“I’m sorry—and please don’t repeat this,” Maddie said, shooting a glance over at Vince. “But Iris is always a little weird.”
“It’s okay. Your secrets are safe with me. And your gossip, too.” Vince shrugged. “She does seem a little bit strange lately. But I’m pretty sure it probably has nothing to do with you, Raven. I think she just has a lot on her mind with whatever’s going on with Eric.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “I hope that’s all it is, anyway.”
My real fear was that Iris and I were drifting apart. It had been happening ever since Maddie came into the picture. I was going to have to talk to Iris about it eventually, but I wasn’t sure when I would be able to do that. We were always with Vince and Maddie. Maybe I could ask her before class at some point.
***
The next morning, I was making my coffee before school when Aiden came strolling into the room.
“Morning,” I said with a smile.
“Good morning, gorgeous.” His brown eyes met mine.
“You seem in a good mood today,” I replied.
“Any day spent with you puts me in a good mood.” He lifted me into his arms and spun me around in a circle.
When he put me down on the floor again, I smiled. “It’s way too early for you to spin me around in circles.”