There was an intensity in the room that hadn't been there before.

Ajax fought the seriousness like he always did, coming back to his normal self as a defense mechanism. An easy smile was the best way to keep his cards hidden, the easiest thing to help him process the words I had just thrown at him.

But even without the mate bond, I could read Ryder well enough to know that I had confirmed my own words. I had seen the moon goddess. I had met the woman who created werewolves. And I wasn't even a werewolf.

"How many times did you talk to her? Can you talk to her now?" Keiko wondered, the moment for eye rolls and sassy comments long gone. I didn't think she cared one single bit about the clothes she left behind anymore.

"I don't think I can reach her anymore. Or maybe she was coming to me, I don't know. She said it had something to do with magic. Now that I have no magic in me, I don't think I could reach her, even if I knew how." The admission felt like a letdown. I was their hope. And so quickly it was shattered.

"What did she say to you?" Ajax wondered.

It was hard to remember now. There had been so much that she said, all of it weighing so heavily. And now that I could speak, I could remember so little of it, and trying to decide which bits were important was even harder.

"We talked about mates. She told me that she picks the mates for the werewolves." Which was a dumb thing to say because they obviously knew that already, but it felt like each word I was getting out helped me remember a little bit more. "She talked to me about the king and queen from back then, and they had a siren friend I think, not a mermaid. Is that a real thing? Sirens?"

Keiko stilled, becoming little more than a statue. Ajax grimaced, unable to cover it for once. "They were on this earth once, they're existence is questionable now."

I wanted to dig into the answer but knew better than to distract myself when my memory was so fickle. "She had this mirror; she could show me things through it. or at least, she could show me people through it. I think it was her connection to the world because once..."

Ajax came forward then, taking my hand gently in his own. His touch wasn't affectionate or something that I would even describe as kind. It just felt... urgent. Ryder stiffened, but kept his mouth shut while Ajax said, "Listen, you might feel crazy saying some of the things, but not a single soul here is going to judge you. What we are all facing right now is beyond anything we could have ever imagined. Just say it all, whether you think it's important or not, wild or not. We are in this together now."

Together indeed. Right now, it felt like we were the lone crew of a sinking ship.

"Well, when Ajax was choking, she was there. Or she could see it. She called me to her then and I told her that Ajax was going to die and she knew that he wasn't. She said she's tightly bound to him, that she would know if he was dying," I explained.

Ajax blinked, jerking away just a little too quickly to be casual. "Well." He cleared his throat roughly. "That's something."

"And I saw her, I saw her here, in this living room, when Ryder marked me." I couldn't meet his gaze then, staring at the king instead. "She was right behind you, I could see her as if I were looking through a window at her. you knew. You sensed her. you said something about it."

"I just thought I was losing my mind. I mean, I was very sick before that. I didn't think...fuck, that's crazy."

"When I marked you," Ryder croaked. "She was here when I marked you without your consent."

Something he would never forgive himself for, a burden he would shoulder for the rest of his life. And now, the goddess of his entirety had witnessed his crimes against his mate.

"I agreed to it," I said softly. "That was the second time she came to me. she asked me if I would have picked you for myself if there had been no mate bond between us. I obviously said yes which was when she put me through the heat that brought you here. She even told me that you were going to tear up my pretty little neck. it was her last effort to bring us back together or to try and combat the wolf-drain, I think."

Ryder took a shaky breath. "So, you were okay with me marking you?"

"Yes, of course I was. You're my mate."

It was the wrong thing to say. I could see him visibly crumple from my words, but he just nodded his head once. "It's comforting to know though. The guilt was beyond anything I could conceive. I never thought that I would be capable of doing anything like that and then you were there and bloody and nothing got better in the end."

"It got better," I corrected gently. "It just took more time."

"I don't mean to be rude, but can you tell us anything else about the book or the moon goddess?" Keiko prompted.

Right. I wanted to pull Ryder into my arms and let his head rest on my shoulder until all those unbearable feelings poured out of him, but now was not the time for that. "I just remembered seeing the book when I was talking to her the first time. It stuck out to me, like it was calling to me or something. I mean, I was in a room with a literal goddess who looked completely unhuman and I was still drawn to it. So what exactly is in the book?"

"The origin story of the werewolves. How we split from the other magic realms, how we were created. It's pretty common knowledge among kids."

"Let me read it," I demanded. "She wanted you to bring it here. You obviously know it cover to cover. There is no other reason for this."

There wasn't even an ounce of hesitation from Ajax. "It is yours."

The thick volume was taken out of its place and plunked into my hands. It was heavy in my grip. The yellowed pages were heavier than I anticipated and I could smell the old paper already. The leather was soft and worn, almost feeling homey in my hands. And just for a brief second, I ignored all of people in the room that were watching me steadily.

And I just felt the book.

I listened for the sounds of magic, waited for the pressure in my palms to tell me what page to flip to, for a flash of a gorgeous woman beyond this earth.

And nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

"Well?" Ajax prompted after a second of silence.

"I guess I better be a fast reader," I muttered. 

~~~Distraction Section~~~

Hello everyone! I hope you are doing well. I just wanted to let you all know that a new book will be coming to my page soon! It's not going to be a werewolf novel, which I know is the crowd favorite, but I hope some of you will be interested. It's going to be about a small town girl being helplessly in love with her hockey star neighbor.

Question of the Day:

Would you rather lose all your money or all of your pictures?