A/N

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The rise and fall of his chest was heavy. His bones made satisfying cracking sounds as his body morphed back into his true form. Raven black coat shrinked, baring a sun-kissed skin that was flawless— no scar or wound or any evidence of pain from killing and tormenting his preys were revealed. It was him— only him. He was a savage wolf in sheep's clothing.

His lips were bleeding but I was denifite it was not because of a critical blow on his face. As his sharp fangs retracted, I had noticed those had sunken deep into his bottom lip, drawing blood. Tongue darted out so casually as he tasted the crimson liquid. He frowned.

The golden gleam in his eyes shifted to an admiral blue, resembling the adriatic sea. The depth of his character was undeniably my greatest question up to date. He was a mystifying persona existing on earth. He had the whole kingdom in the palm of his hands, and I felt as if he was the opposite of Lykos in ruling Sidus.

Brushing away the traces of blood on his chin with the back of his hand, he stared at me intently, studying my face. I swallowed hard as my eyes met his. He had the darkest aura around him— something I surprisingly couldn't decipher.

Clothed with nothing but his dominance, he walked towards me. As he reached the closest spot infront, he crouched down on one knee and his fingers tipped my chin up, his eyes roving my face for injuries. I allowed him to do so, regardless of the bond humming quietly around us.

Galax's hold on my waist loosened. He lifted his face and turned around to glance at the Duke. I could no longer see the child's aura. Whatever happened earlier felt even more real.

"Papa, are you hurt?"

A little pinch in my heart made me stare at my mate's lips. The innocent endearment Galax used to pertain to him caused soft flutters to run in my stomach.

Apollo remained calm and simply shook his head to say no. He cupped the boy's cheek and smiled. I questioned myself over and over again. Why couldn't I trust him?

This person put me in this living hell, and yet I was enthralled by him and his glorious face even if it seemed very clear that I was only feeling this way because of a destiny so cruel I was robbed of freedom to choose who to love.

I wanted to dwell in loneliness and self-loathing, but I would always be reminded of the fact that I was here fighting for dominance. I had come this far to redeem the alpha in me and to reclaim my pack. Too many things had happened and along the way, I was given more challenges and obstacles as if one big problem wasn't enough.

Fate must be very fond of me.

I reminded myself about my purpose of living. You are breathing for a reason. You are here for a reason. You lost your pack for a reason. You met Galax for a reason. You remembered Lykos for a reason. And you are fated to Apollo for a reason.

This borrowed life meant so much more than my dilemmas. I should stop overthinking and finally do something in order to fulfill whatever mission I still had to accomplish. What it was that I had to do was still indefinite but I swept away all my doubts for it will come at the right time.

"Papa, it's cold. You should wear something." Galax pulled away from me and wrapped Apollo's upper half in his tight embrace.

Apollo closed his eyes and accepted the comfort he was giving him. There was always this part of me, no matter how I tried, could only regard the goodness in every person. And I was feeling it in the Duke of Therion's face.

He wasn't lying when he said he would be loyal to his family.

Eyes still closed, I heard him whisper.
"I am glad both of you are safe."

I would've drowned myself in hate for letting the bond gather around my skin in order to relish the unambiguous concern he was showing, but then, I felt in peace with him in that moment.

He was the Mortifera and I should be afraid of ever falling into his traps, however, I was bonded to him in spirit and at times like this, it seems too hard to resist the fall.

You are fated to Apollo for a reason. The mental note echoed once more. But a strong tinge in my chest told me I would be betraying Lykos.

"You killed them?" were the first words from my lips.

He shifted his body a little to the side to keep Galax in his hold. He slumped his naked bottom on the floor and sat comfortably, pulling his knees up whilst spreading them a little farther apart without shame. His fingers raked through his dark hair.

"I did."

I quickly pursed and licked my chapped lips and nodded. I was nervous, to be honest. It would never go away each time I was with him, but I'd learned to keep it in place.

"All of them?" I probed, even though I knew what his next answer would be.

"Aye. Death is their punishment." Apollo was quick to respond. "I promised you I would kill every single one of them."

"Promised?"

I removed my second robe, keeping my eyes on him. "You did say you'd kill them but I don't remember you promising anything, Apollo."

Successfully taking the blue robe off me, I passed it to him and he eyed it for several seconds before taking it and wrapping it around his body. The mix of his bronze and fair skin seemingly glowed in front of the fireplace. He was glorious, emanating beauty beyond ordinary.

Those bluish grey eyes were usually dim, but now it was staring back at me with a light of favor.

"Everything I tell you I'd do for you will always be a promise."

There he was again, playing with my heart. Why was he doing this to me?

I had been confused for so long. Why the sudden care and kindness? He was being unfair for manipulating me with the power of the bond. Or was I the only one between us thinking that way? That he only cared for me because of it?

"Promises are nothing. They're merely words of false hope and they are meant to be broken. Life has taught me that." The bitterness solidified my claim.

"I see. You must have little faith in people."

There was no smile on those lips when he said it, but I felt insulted without a doubt. I just couldn't get if I was affected because his statement was a jab to my ego or because I was convinced about me having no more trust in people.

I chose not to utter a reply. I'd found Galax crawling towards the fireplace and I wanted to pull him back knowing that the massacred head of another wolf ignited it, but then, I was pinned to my place as the wind hit the windows harder.

"We'll have to stay here until morn." Apollo stated the obvious before pulling himself up.

He walked towards the adjacent room and I heard the sound of another window closing with a loud bang. My ears were peculiarly sensitive as I heard even the Duke's lightest movements. Even without him in sight, I knew he opened several drawers inside that room and was looking for something.

My heightened hearing proved to be precise as he walked back to the hearth fully clothed in what seemed to be a peasant's clothing. He appeared closer to ordinary but even without the grandest of clothing and lavish jewelries, he still obviously looked like a carrier of royal blood.

He strolled inside the cabin as if he was already familiar with its limited space and knew what it had in store. Galax followed him as he rustled around the small kitchen, and I too, trailed him and washed the long gash on my forearm as soon as I got hold of clean water from the unlikely unfrozen well in the backyard.

There was a snow storm that I had to run back inside to veer away from catching a bad cold. I went back to the kitchen and found Galax sitting beside the Duke while slicing large button mushrooms on the wooden dining table.

"Where did those come from?" I asked, moving towards the boys.

Apollo continued what he was doing and did not bat an eye at my question but he replied.

"My men left them over there." He cocked his head to the side, his eyes still focused on the mushrooms. I saw sacks of potatoes, corns, and other vegetables in a basket on the left corner of the room.

"In case anyone wanted to take shelter." He shrugged.

I was about to ask more but he was quick to answer the question I had in mind.

"They have been coming back and forth in this area to catch Elise if she ever returns. I personally joined their search in this abandoned village once. Hence."

I watched him as he cut cloves of garlic and crushed pebbles of black pepper using a stone mortar and pestle. For a royalty, he definitely looked knowledgeable in cooking.

He placed all of these ingredients in a three-legged pot over a small fire in a stone surface. He stir fried them together before adding it in the already boiling vegetable broth he must have prepared earlier and then he dropped a branch of thyme.

Galax seemed excited as the delicious smell of the mushroom soup hovered inside the cabin.

"It will be ready in a few minutes." Apollo returned to the dining table with us, holding out wooden bowls and spoons.

"I had no idea you could do house chores like cooking." I couldn't help but tell him the truth.

He had that small smile again and a dimpled dipped a little on his left cheek. The smallest details of his face were in show as he sat across me.

"I am quite torn with your statement. Should I consider it a compliment, Milady?"

I smiled back with a huff and a raised brow. "Aye. It was meant to be a form of appreciation. Unlike you who can only point out my flaws." I said bitterly.

"I'm just turning the tables. You always try to compliment me with your sarcasm. Not a good feeling I suppose?" I added, seeing that he was invested in this conversation just as I was.

He agreed, still with a questioning nod.

"You and your smart mouth is wiling. But do I really make you feel unappreciated?"

His question moved me and I had to be honest. "You do. Ever since the day I met you, I always have this feeling you could easily throw me away even with the bond connecting us. It was quite disturbing in the beginning, but don't you fret, Apollo. Because I have learned my truth. No matter what I do, I will never be appreciated by you."

Because you are already hers. I wanted to add.

And the green monster appeared once more. The memories of him with the Alpha of Crux appeared. He had to let her go, but his heart was still in her hands. There seemed to be no end to their love.

Galax moved closer to me as if he understood what I'd said. He put a hand on top of the table, reaching for mine which was clasped together. He leaned his chin on the wooden surface and pouted in silence.

"You think too lowly of yourself, Freya." Apollo placed his warm hand over mine and Galax's. Somehow, the gesture was not rejected by my mind.

"You will be part of the House of Godfrey. Nobody is undermining you, not even me. I have to be true, my first impression of you is nowhere near positive and I have mistreated you. I acknowledge that. But you are going to be my queen not because you are fated to me, but because that is who you are meant to be."

His words were hard to grasp. "And this is coming from you?"

I wanted to know if he was sincere. I had to make sure about the progress in his personality because I couldn't trust him anymore. I despised him up to this moment but I was desperate to know him too. He was beginning to change his behavior towards me and I knew not to be easily swayed. I had learned my lesson— hard and ruining.

"Of course, you have my word. I have no qualms about you being my queen."

He certainly was morphing into another man. Or was he starting to shed his skin? If I could only be omniscient for a day, I wouldn't have had these questions.

The grey in his eyes were telling me he meant what he said, and his aura backed the claim. I clung to the remaining rationality in me and chose to change the subject.

"How did she take it?"

Maybe it was the right time for me to ask. They both had a long history I did not witness, but I sure would want to know his side of the story.

"She?" His brow rose. "You mean Illaria?"

Her name on his lips was a sting to the bond. I gathered myself and remained unswerved by the effect he had on me.

"Aye. I only mean well. You told me you cut all your ties with the Countess." I slid my hands away from his hold and placed them on my lap.

His adam's apple bobbed up and down once.

"She did not take it well. But she will get over it."

He was hoping for it to happen.

The thickness of his aura wouldn't lie. It was not easy for him, and I had seen it in the way he trapped her in his embrace for the last time... I was silently wishing it was their last, for the bond wouldn't let me live another day if I happened to see them that close again.

"Why are you giving up on her to fulfill your enemy's prophecy? You hate the moon, Apollo. And I am your curse, remember?"

My eyes searched for the uncertainty in his expression but I miserably failed. Unlike before, there was no repugnance in him I could easily catch. He bit his lower lip briefly before answering.

"What if I tell you I want to make things right with you?"

I stopped breathing and my body froze.

"Wh-What?"

Trouble spelled itself inside my mind. Right off the bat, he swarmed me with an army of butterflies in my stomach.

"Are you kidding me?" My fake laugh died as soon as I realized he wasn't.

He stood up and turned his back, giving me enough time to calm my reddened skin. He took the bowls and proceeded to the cauldron to pour some soup for the three of us to share.

"Is it ridiculous for me to ask you that?" His voice was deep and offended.

He did not lift his lids to glance at me as he passed a hot bowl of soup. Galax stayed silent the whole time and I wondered if he understood what his adoptive parents were talking about.

"It is. It's ridiculous. It's as if you're not being... you." I looked down and evaded his incoming gaze. He wanted to make things right? What for?

Everything about us already seemed so wrong. Only a miracle could turn it the other way around.

"This is why I want for us to start over."

My hands were still, holding the wooden spoon whilst lifting my head up to meet his gaze. His eyes were weary and I felt too messed up that everything I heard from him next complicated our relationship more.

"I want to do things right. You and I, we barely even know each other. Not that we were given a choice when the blood moon introduced us in a disarming manner. Perhaps, it would have been easier for us if we simply followed our destiny, don't you think?"

There was a drip of amusement in his voice at the end of his speech. I doubted my love for Lykos for a second. What could be stronger than a bond weaved by the heavens? Lykos had an extraordinary of kind of pull, but Apollo also had great power over my feelings.

Was he regretting what he'd done to me before? My mind was in complete havoc. How could one be in love with a King she had forgotten and at the same time be bonded with a wolf who's going to be the future King of Sidus?

Fate is cruel. It is truly damned.

I had no heart to betray Lykos. Our love was real, and it wasn't forced. Any kind of bond, whether by fate or dictated by a god, had no greater power than my love for the Warrior King.

"You are out of your mind. I can't do this." I pushed the bowl of soup away and stood up, no longer having an appetite for dinner.

The snowstorm's anger revoked the silence, letting us know the perils it could bring if we go outside.

All I wanted then was to be alone— to think things through. The man I was about to marry just said he would be willing to reconcile and to accept our destiny as mates in order to fulfill the scripts of the heavens.

I walked away from him and settled myself in front of the fireplace, sitting on the floor with my folded legs tucked in my arms' embrace. Dipping my head onto my knees, I succumbed in the darkness, shutting my eyes but feeling the warmth of the flames infront of me.

Amaree was once my name, and Apollo had no idea of who I was, or so I thought. If I wasn't Amaree and I hadn't remembered my love for Lykos, would I have given Apollo a chance to prove himself worthy to be one with me for the rest of eternity?

The sapphire in my chest burned my skin a little, as if reacting to my thoughts and aware of my dilemma. I did not mind it as I started trying to imagine the possibilities of actually being happy with the Duke of Therion in the future.

And in a snap, I did not know if I had fallen asleep and drifted in the clouds of a dream or if I had been transported into a vision.

In there, I saw myself in the arms of the Duke with the rain violently falling down on us, but instead of worries and frowns, we seemed rather blissful, carrying smiles on our lips, making the moment even more surreal than it already was.

My heart pounded against my chest in a slow beat as I pulled away from him and stared up at his magnetic beauty. Gone was the cloud of smoke hanging around him and the uncertainty in his eyes whenever he looked at me.

Apollo was simply Apollo, and he was bearing my mark on his neck.

However, the tale seemed to be incomplete without a plot twist.

My eyes widened in shock as Lykos appeared right behind him, bearing a sword in his hands. Then and there, he charged towards us with a loud roar, piercing the Duke with a heavy heart.

That was when I realized, I was not in a dream nor a vision, but I had fallen into the pits of an abysmal nightmare.

A/N

Sorry for the delay of this chapter's release. I was too down when my wattpad app updated and my draft got deleted... to think I wrote this on my phone ahead of time...

It sucks. I had to rewrite the chapter.
It's not as good as the original, I swear. But I tried.

Gonna be updating regularly again. Hopefully, I'm gonna be back on track for real.

So waduuup? The nightmare and Apollo? Hmm. If you were Freya, who would you choose?

Lykos or Apollo?

See you on the next update!!

- Therese