"So are the bangles real magical artifacts?" Gamma Harry suddenly asked. "Just asking, because if they are real, why didn't they work?"
I looked at my bangle. It was smooth and smelled like magic.
Even magic had a smell... unlike my dream-traveling mate.
"They are real." I smiled. "But mate isn't."
I poked him on the arm. "Bell is dream-traveling, remember?"
"How did you know you could take it off safely?" Killion asked.
"I didn't," I admitted.
Something snapped in mate at that point. He pretty much snarled at me, "Princess, you could've hurt or killed yourself."
"Nothing ventured, nothing gained?" I asked. "No pain, no gain? Or was it 'A stitch in time saves nine'?"
"It's not!" Mate answered hotly... and then he calmed down, drawing a hand across his wild hair. "Never mind."
Hahahaha. I think I've just annoyed Mate in so many ways, his anger circuit board shorted.
Oh, and I know just the right idiom to end this episode: "All's well that ends well."
Except that this was real life, and now we had real-life issues to deal with, so it wasn't quite "the end." In fact, we had a number of things to resolve:
Like what to do with Beta Lorent.
Who was currently cuffed, with two guards on either side of him.
Lady Amber was frowning. You could tell she was extremely distressed by the current revelation of her family's drama. It made me wonder what stories they had told her thus far.
"Elliot, what have you done?" she asked. "How could you?"
"Lies!" Anthony burst out. "My dad would never do such a thing."
He looked at the other Lorent wolves, but none of them answered him.
"Had you never spared a thought for your own mate or children? What would Lucille do without you? And Lavine? And tell me, would you have the Beta title confiscated from Anthony? Your son had been training for years to inherit your Beta title. How could you?" Lady Amber scolded.
"And I cannot believe it, Olivia! She was your own sister, Elliot! Our sister! My only sister!" At this, Lady Amber broke down and cried. Luna Edith moved over to comfort her. So did my mum.
"It wasn't my intention to kill her... She gave me no choice..." Beta Lorent admitted. Seeing his sister cry, his eyes turned glassy too. So bad guys had people who loved them, whom they loved and didn't want to see sad or disappointed too.
"Now it is my turn to tell a story," Lady Amber said. She blinked away her tears. No matter what, she was determined to tell this story. "A long time ago, there were three puppies. One day they had a new brother. They were very excited. Their new brother's name was Elliot."
At this point, we had all reseated ourselves to hear the story.
Elliot Lorent was a very special child. Unlike his three siblings, who were born by their mother, Elliot just appeared.
When James Lorent the Second was a young man, he was captured by vampires during the great war and tortured cruelly. It was only because he was a white wolf that he had survived, and also because there was a female rogue who took pity on him and helped him.
He became intimate with her. The two of them escaped together during a raid, but he left her and returned to his home pack. Originally, he wanted to bring her back with him, but rogue hate was strong during the war, and he feared for her life.
At that time, the remnant rogues had grown desperate. Out of money and supplies, and broken off from the defeated rogue army, they began to pillage and rob.
The vampires weren't helping either, and the pack was under immense pressure.
James Lorent the Second dreamed of leaving his pack and beginning his own pack anew on greener pastures, away from his original packland, which was rife with rogues and vampires. However, James Lorent was of a Beta bloodline, and his mate was just an omega. When the Alpha was killed in a skirmish, he rejected his omega mate and convinced the Alpha's daughter to be his mate for the sake of their pack.
Back then, there was no such thing as female Alphas. For the pack to survive, they needed a male wolf to lead it. The brave Alpha's daughter was only 16 then, but she agreed. James Lorent was handsome, a rare white healing wolf, and at 26 seemed mature, strong, and dependable.
He also asked his younger brother to be his Beta. Together with the remaining survivors of the rogue attack, they fled the destruction of the war to the Green Packlands.
Back then, land in the Green Packlands was cheap. Nobody wanted it. It was too far north, there was no train station, it was too close to the warlocks and wild rogues, but there were no vampires. And it was out of the warpath. Using the remainder of his Alpha mate's family wealth, they bought as large a piece of land as possible and settled there.
Unknown to anyone then, the Green Packlands were where James Lorent's rogue lover also lived. He could visit her often, and he did.
Years passed, and the war was over.
One day, while James Lorent was visiting his mistress, rogues attacked. His son, James Lorent the Third (Rebel's dad), was only six years old when it happened.
He ran out to look for his father, who had closed off the mindlink to be with his secret lover. While searching for his father, he ran into rogue wolves who bit him. He was saved because James Lorent was just returning home and found the boy bloodied on the street.
After that, James Lorent never went out to see his lover ever again.
But a year later, a rogue baby was left at their doorstep, wrapped in a shawl that James Lorent recognized.
His mate immediately knew the baby was his because the shawl was the exact same one he had bought for her about a year ago. She took the baby in as her own.
At first, James Lorent went out to seek his lover and return the boy to her, but found that she had died from a lack of medical attention shortly after giving birth. It was her grieving mother who left the baby at their door.
Filled with guilt and remorse, James Lorent became increasingly withdrawn and died shortly afterward in what appeared to be another rogue attack. His eldest son was only eight when he died. He willed everything he had to the eight-year-old.
James Lorent's mother took over the burden for the boy. She built up the Lorent pack from the ground up, establishing it as a place of healing. Her pack were formerly jewelers and craftsmen, and she established fine jewelry and art to preserve Lycan culture—much of it would otherwise have been destroyed and lost during the great war.
Rebel's father was more interested in the healing arts, though, but she encouraged him. She was a mother who encouraged all her children: her eldest, James, to pursue healing magic and science; her second child, Olivia, in art and divination; her third child, Amber, in books and culinary arts; and her fourth child, whom she loved as her own, in whatever he pleased, which turned out to be wealth and power. So she encouraged him to be a businessman.
Since she could not revoke her mate's will to leave everything to only one child, she worked doubly hard with her own allowance and created a Lorent fashion empire so that she could leave an estate and some funds for the other three children, particularly her daughters, who never got mated.
She died of old age, handing over the pack to James Lorent the Third (Rebel's dad) and his Luna, Edith.
Elliot was unhappy with his share of the inheritance, asking his Alpha brother to give him more. James did and made Elliot the second Beta at his insistence.
"But you've always thought yourself better than that, didn't you?" Lady Amber said.
"You've also always blamed Olivia and me for not mating. In your eyes, our inheritance might have been yours if we were already mated off.
"But most of all, you've always felt you should've been the Alpha. I will tell you now, Elliot, you are our brother. It's true, but only half true. Your wolf is at most a Beta wolf, and no longer a pureblood at that. It was our mother's Alpha blood in James that made him the rightful Alpha of the pack.
"You've always come home angry as a child. No matter how hard you tried, you couldn't beat James in a fair fight. His wolf was larger, he had a commanding presence you could not match, and his healing was far more powerful... Now you know the reason."
Beta Lorent's face was drained of color as he heard this story.
And then he spoke. "How dare you? How dare you make up such a story?"
Lady Amber shook her head, her tears flowing freely now. "I wished I could have taken this story to my grave, but since it seems you might be meeting yours first, I felt I owed it to you. Don't worry, I will take care of your mate and children when you are gone. Rest in peace, brother."
Then she stood up to leave. "Forgive me, but I will take my leave first. I cannot bear to watch my brother dig his own grave any further."
And because she was the type of woman who was intensely considerate of her loved ones' feelings, she also called to Anthony, who stood alone and pale as a sheet. "Come, Anthony, keep me company."
Alpha James nodded. He signaled for a guard to escort Lady Amber and Anthony out.
"I'm embarrassed you had to see that, have our family's dirty laundry aired in front of you like that," he said sheepishly.
Dad just shrugged. He seemed to be at a loss for words.
"It's okay," my mum said simply.
Alpha James nodded. "I've always wondered how we had come to this trouble. Now I think we were always in it."
"Do you believe in the four-generation curse, Alpha James?" Mrs. Beta asked suddenly.
"My father rejected his soulmate, mated my mother for power, and then was unfaithful. You are saying he brought about a curse? If so, I am the second generation. My son will be the third..." Alpha James considered aloud.
"And it would fade with each generation and be broken by the fourth generation," Mrs. Beta said.
Now they all turned to look at Rebel and me as if considering our futures together.
"Don't worry," I said. "I'm really lucky, remember?"
Luna Edith suddenly smiled. "Son, you must cling to Sam with your life. She is your lucky charm."
"I don't need luck. I'll fight my way out, curse or whatever!" Rebel growled back.
"Me too!" I said.
"You stay out of it!" he said.
"You..." I spoke before I even thought about it. "You're lucky I'm not good at following instructions."
"It's not an instruction, Princess, it's an order!" Mate was getting agitated now, even though on the outside he was wearing his usual angry glare.
"I thought I was cursed since the day I was born. Now I find that I was cursed since my grandfather's time. It's best you stay away from me, Princess," Mate said.
I just laughed at that, waving my bangle-clad arm in front of him. "Too late! You can't reject me now!"
"What made you think I was going to reject you?" Mate asked.
"You weren't?" I asked.
"It didn't even cross my mind," Mate told me solemnly.
Oh.
Well, that was a lot of worrying over nothing.
"Okay! Let's break the curse together!" I said.
"No. Stay out and wait for me. I will break it myself," Rebel said.
Mrs. Beta gasped. "Is that why... why you chose to remain in the fight cage?"
Rebel nodded. "I didn't choose to be there, but since I'm in it, I might as well. Every time I win a fight, I get the opportunity to meet high-ranking vamps. I'm very close. I've already met one with such a ring."
"A Curse Ring?" Mrs. Beta asked.
Rebel nodded again. "They call it a Sire Ring. With it, I will break my family's curse and my own from that damn warlock."
"The warlock one was just a prophecy, not a curse," I informed Rebel.
"Whatever it is, I will break it," Rebel growled angrily.
I sighed. That's why he's a rebel. Oh well, he was my Rebel, though.
"Oh." Alpha James looked like he had just realized that his son was actually doing something with a plan and purpose.
"Okay, do whatever you want," I decided.
"I don't need your permission," Rebel growled back.
"You're right." Alpha James said to Dad, "Young people have their own ways to solve problems."
Dad nodded sagely, but when he spoke, it was directed at Rebel. "Sometimes you need to choose to do things you don't want to do. Just remember your reasons for choosing."
Was that how Dad saw my fight-dog mate all this time?
"Well, it's late. Thank you for your hospitality. We will take our dirty laundry home with us to wash out now." Alpha James rose.
Everyone stood up with him.
"You're welcome anytime," Dad said. "We are family now."
They shook hands and left. I followed them out of the library, down the stairs, and to the pack house entrance.
"Bye-bye," I said and waved them off.
Mate left with them, which ticked me off a bit, but then I remembered that he wasn't going to reject me after all and felt happier.
My wolf is simple like that.