Chapter 21: The Healer

“Miss Bentley,” he whispered my name like an invocation.

I gave him a warm smile, one that does not reach my ears but enough to warm the snow under his boot. He did not reciprocate that smile. Instead, he studied me with a pair of flabbergasted eyes as if he’d seen a floating headless ghost before him. “Yes, Mr. Esborne?”

Elliot immediately stood up and pointed a finger at me. Rude, yes. But he looks cute considering his youthful features. I’ll just dismiss it as a younger sibling's tantrums.

“Get her out of here!” He was now looking at Zarion, face blushing with raw anger. “Get her out of my place!”

My amusement vanished in a heartbeat. “What—why? I don’t understand, Mr. Elliot—”

Zarion rested his hands on his shoulder, trying to fill him with a calmness that I don’t even know if he possessed it too. “Elliot, calm down. I haven’t told you about her yet—”

“No words are needed, Zarion. I could see it—smell it. She’s going to be a problem!”

“She is the problem.” He flashed him a grin that made me scowl.

“A problem? Why is that?” Zarion glanced at me. I was now standing too, unable to move in my place while looking at the hysterical Elliot.

I still don’t know why I find Elliot cute.

“Elliot, what did you see?!” Zarion hissed as Elliot’s eyes shut, white sightless eyes beamed at us. His body was shaking so badly that I felt guilty for coming here. His mouth fell open, and a couple of seconds later, he was now muttering words I couldn’t understand. Words that I don’t understand. “A tragedy. A war. I could see it coming. The moment my eyes laid on her, I saw a glimpse of it. All of it. I thought I was just mistaken, but no…”

“You still have time to go back to your place.” Elliot’s eyes bored through me, making my hair rose. “You are a human, right?”

I nodded, my tongue completely controlled my inability to think of a reply. “If you don’t want to join—or worse, die—you should pack now and leave the place.” Inside my head, I wanted to give the meanest smirk and curse at him the wickedest cuss. Why do people keep on pushing me away?! What’s their freaking problem? They don’t get to control my life. I’ve been under my grandmother’s control for the last eighteen years—

“Oh please, give me a break will you? You don’t own me so you don’t control me either. Nor give me what I should do with my life!”

I want my freedom. And now that I have it, I want to keep it. I need to keep it. To be honest, they keep on giving me the same advice: stay away from Zarion and werewolves. Speaking of the devil, Zarion glided to my side and squeezed my shoulders. “She doesn’t even listen to me. I doubt she does to you too.” He grinned, white teeth flashing. “She already made a decision already, Elliot.”

This bastard fucking grin. He grinned not at me, but to defend me.

“A decision to join and be like us—werewolves?” Elliot cackled. “She must be crazy.”

“Well yes, I am!” I shouted because I couldn’t contain it anymore. “I’m so crazy that I followed this strange man I found in the cabin in his doggy form when he ran away from me. When I did, I just woke up on a snowy morning to watch strange species transforming from wolves into humans, and vice versa, that—” I hoisted a finger at him, my other hand gripping my waist tightly. My head almost exploded due to that information. I sighed before resuming as I dropped my finger. “But you know what made me crazier? It’s when I found out that I am mated to his step-brother!” My finger is now pointing at Zarion. The bastard just shook his head, ruffling his hair with his glorious fingers.

I wished those fingers were inside me instead.

Come on Cassidy, stop being thirsty!

“What?” Elliot whispered, utterly shocked. He looked at Zarion for confirmation and he shut his eyes in less than a second, thumb scratching the tip of his nose while nodding. “Goddess.” Elliot fussed and slowly arched his head in my direction. “You’re mated…to Alpha Brandon? That son of a bitch is really a son of a bitch!”

I brought my head into a nod and strode towards him. “Yes, and I want to reject him. Desperately. Can you please help me?”

Elliot swallowed a lump in his throat. He shook his head a second later. “It’s too rare to have a human mate.”

“Well, you’ve got to do something!” Zarion ordered him, voice whole and rough. Commanding. Elliot gave the former Alpha a gaze drenched in unfeigned hostility. “You support this, huh, Zarion? ”

Zarion looked away. “Of course, you wouldn’t be here in my humble abode if you wouldn’t care about this.” I saw his hands balled into fists and softly punch the wooden table in Elliot’s kitchen. “Elliot—”

“Do you know anything about the process of rejection?” I cut him off, willing his anger to remain at bay by masking my interaction as a question towards Elliot Osborne with a voice full of hope. There must be a case where a human is mated to a werewolf. And if I am the first one to be in that case, then—

I’m screwed.

Elliot averted his gaze, forcing his feet to enter his messy kitchen. He grabbed a wooden stool chair and stood on top of it, reaching for something.

It was a book.