Chapter 25 Perfect Reflection

~Liam~

I’m lying in bed, trying to get my mind off the flash of pain I saw in her eyes. I caused it, and now guilt was eating at my conscience. I had no choice but to hide the truth from her. I couldn’t tell her, and her ignorance would protect her. As long as she didn’t know more than what she needed to know, I could keep her with me.

Gale understood, and he would keep Lexy in check since she was easily carried away with her emotions and morality. I hoped to listen in on them, but Salina found me. After she screamed my name, anyone would.

Fuck. Cruel mate. She seriously kicked me down there, twice, in one day! I deserved it, but our future generations didn’t.

A chuckle escaped me. My fiery Anna – she was unlike any other woman I’ve met before. As an Alpha, I could get anything I wanted, including women and I bet she was the only woman in the world who had the guts to deal damage to my pride.

“I like her,” Luca said then howled. “You deserved it.”

“She could come up with a better insult. All she called me was ‘jerk’.”

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Then we can both call you creative names.”

“Not happening. You’re not showing yourself in front of her again.”

“You’re just jealous cause she ran her fingers through my fur,” he said, smirking.

I blocked him. They were all stressing me out and the day was far from over. The bathroom door opened, and the scent of lavender filled the room. I didn’t have to look to know that Salina was standing by the doorway, with her white cotton bathrobe worn loosely on her tall and slender frame to show off her thighs and cleavage. After months of living with her, I’d already grown somewhat immune to her efforts to seduce me.

It was hardest during my heat cycle, having a gorgeous woman sleeping beside me at night was almost unbearable to resist, but somehow, I managed. I had no interest in Salina, in any way, never did and never will. Lexy had ruined my thinking with her moral talks – I should value myself for my mate. Besides, I’d never stoop so low as to fuck my first mate’s sister, no matter how desperately I needed relief.

My mate, Anna Bella Fiora. I now knew her name without having to ask her for it. Her name suited her just right – her parents must’ve thought long and hard about what to name her.

Hopefully, she wouldn’t try to leave – she’d have no chance of succeeding. My warriors would capture her and bring her back in less than three minutes. I didn’t want it to have to be this way, but I had no choice.

“Put some clothes on, Salina. You’re wasting your time standing there.”

“Still won’t look at me?” she asked.

I ignored her and thought of how to introduce my mate tonight. The pack would be glad that they’d have their Luna, and that she was my mate. I’d have to talk to my Head Gamma about the preparations – he also had to report to me the occurrences during my absence. Regular Alpha duties. Maybe when this was all over, I could take a break and go somewhere with my mate to unwind – just the two of us, no children to babysit, and my children, I meant Lexy and Gale. Sighing deeply, I sat up, flinging my legs to the side of the bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked in anger as Salina’s naked body greets my line of sight. I immediately looked away, dismissing the deeply hidden thoughts that made their way back into the surface of my mind.

“Seducing you,” she said boldly. Her newly showered scent grew stronger as she came nearer. “Like what you saw? We’re the same, her and I.”

“She’s nothing like you, Salina,” I spat. “Put some clothes on.”

“There’s no need for it,” she said sweetly. I felt her presence in front of me, and her hands kneaded my thighs. I grabbed her wrists to pull them away as she kneeled on the floor and looked up at me.

“Look at me, Liam,” she said, her hands moving towards there. I clenched my jaw, hard, as memories of her kept coming back. It should be disturbing that she was using that voice on me – the same gentle voice that my mate used to bring my walls down, every damn time, instead I found it comforting. It brought a pain in my chest that I could rid of, but one that I wouldn’t dare forget.

A handheld the side of my face, startling me. I looked at her.

A gentle expression stared back at me, her lips in a pout and eyes that sparkled with innocence. I gulped as my eyes swept over the tops of her breasts and thighs. Her hands crept up to my abdomen, slowly making their way to my chest, and she rose to her feet as she pushed me back down onto the mattress, her eyes never leaving mine.

And in them, all I could see was her, and the way she used to look at me with the same innocent expression on her gorgeous face.

“Get off me,” I ordered but instead of obeying, she placed soft kisses on my neck while her slender fingers unbuttoned my shirt. Then she ground her hips on mine, awakening that which she shouldn’t. “The same, Alpha,” she whispered in my ear, biting it gently.

She used to do the same. She used to be so… fucking gentle.

My hands instinctively traced the perfect curves of her body, her smooth skin heavenly. Applying more pressure, my fingers dug into her soft flesh and wished to touch more of her. I could smell her arousal and the fragrance of lavender. “Outside… and inside, exactly like her.”

Smooth and soft, just like her.

Her breathing labored and a moan escaped her lips. “Alpha…”

I squeezed her ass cheeks hard and massaged them, pressing her center into my already hard dick.

“… touch me more.”

I shouldn’t be doing this.

She moaned my name. “Liam… more… please.”

But it reminded me of her. Begging me for more, just like her. Moaning my name, just like her.

I couldn’t take it anymore. Her voice, her skin, her touch – everything was exactly like her.

I grabbed hold of her and flipped us, so I was on top. Now face to face with her, I didn’t see Salina. I saw my mate, looking at me – lust-filled emerald eyes and a beautifully sculpted face.

Just like her, my mate, my Sarina.

I bucked my hips and her mouth opened as she gasped. Her hands pressed on my chest, then traveled down to my abs.

So soft… so good…

“Sarina,” I whispered, leaning forward to place wet kisses on her jaw and neck. “Sarina.”

Her legs wrapped around my hips and her nails dug on my back, her back arching as I let her feel how much I needed her. “Alpha…” she moaned. “Harder.”

Sarina, you’re so… good. I missed you. Moaning beneath me, completely under my mercy.

I unhooked her legs and holding them by the thighs, spread them wide. Her arms fell to her sides, clutching at the sheets.

“I’m here, Alpha,” she whispered.

The haze in my mind lifted in an instant. No one was like her. She wasn’t her.

I pulled away from her and her brows knitted.

“Alpha?”

What have I done?

This wasn’t real, the memories were all that they were – just remnants of a past I would never relive. A past that continued to haunt me but I refused to forget for it was all that I had left of her. Sarina, my mate, my light – there was only ever one you and forever it’d stay that way.

“No,” I said in between gritted teeth. “You’re not her.”

I stood and hurriedly turned around, my heart hammering in my chest. I reeked of her scent. Without bothering to button my shirt, I frantically took it off like it was a cursed item and threw it to the side. She called for me, but I kept walking, out the door, out this mansion, and into the open fields. My pace picked up as I started to run to the back, into the woods, away from her, away from here.

As the trees came into view, I felt my bones dislocate and my senses heighten. I continued to run, faster, past the towering trees, avoiding low branches and arching roots, fallen dried leaves crunching under my feet. Then the sound of footsteps changed into something heavier and looking down I saw that my feet were now huge paws.

I ran and ran, pushing my lungs to the limits until they burned and ached for rest. But I didn’t stop – I had to keep running. If I stopped, it would catch up to me – the memories of her. My mind remembered the way she used to smile at me, how she laughed at the smallest things, the cute little dimple on her right cheek that showed itself at every movement of her mouth. My hands remembered the way her smooth skin felt, her warmth, her softness. All of me remembered all of her like I just held her yesterday, in my arms, on our bed.

I had to run because if I stopped, it would be like I’d reached the end of this replay – when she laid limp on my arms, never to awaken. It’d be like the day after I buried her, when I lied on the same sheets that were cold without her, never to see her again, never to hear her again, never to feel her again.

So, I continued to run until my lungs gave up on me, forcing me to a sudden halt that I was thrown to the ground. I laid there, panting, then forced myself on my feet and took more steps forward.

I wanted to howl, long and loud until I ran out of air - to call for her, to let her know how much I missed her. But I held it back because no matter how loud I conveyed my longing, she would never hear me, and she would never return to me.

A few more steps… I had to keep moving.

I must continue… because I refuse to accept that the memory ended there.