Dark Alpha: A Fated Mates Novel

40: AS IT WAS

~SINCLAIR~

Sin had spent a good majority of his teenage moons in wolfspace.

When he was still young and his daemon took over, it pushed his human side to the crevices of his mind, and made him unaware of what was happening in reality. Then, his subconscious was trapped in that space till the daemon deemed it fit to let him have control again.

Sin hadn't been in wolfspace for a while, but he remembered how it felt. The meadow was just as he always met it, filled with white and red flowers. He was lying over the plants, and if all of this wasn't spiritual rather than physical, he'd be horrified by how he was crushing the poor plants. 

The moon was sharp and bright, covering half of the sky as far as he could see. He smiled. Vannie would love to see wolfspace. She'd want to draw as much magick as possible from her source.

The thought of her made him jerk upright. Where was she? What was happening? Why was he back here when he'd thought he was finally free from getting trapped here again? When he sat up, he realized that he wasn't alone, as he usually never was in this place.

He was a reincarnated god. When he got to wolfspace, he saw all the versions of himself that had tread the Earth, and they talked like friends. Sin relaxed and smiled.

***

"If I'm reincarnated, does that mean Vannie is, too?" He asked, watching eighteen other versions of himself as they lay around the meadow. "Was she your mate?"

The one closest to him was Mattain, the last Alpha de Noir before Sin. "Oh, no. Vannie is very much your mate."

"Just mine?" Sin asked again, just to clarify. 

"Just yours." Sin wasn't sure why, but that reassurance made him very happy. Then Manny continued, "Want to know what she's doing right now?" and his happiness tripled.

Sin's smile felt a little goofy even to him, but he did not try to hide it. He was insane about his mate, and he wanted everyone to know about it. "Is that a trick question? Of course, I want to know what Vannie is doing."

And as if his words could conjure up things, there was a mirror in front of him. That was one thing Sin appreciated about wolfspace, how easy everything was. There was his mate, resting her head over what looked like her apothecary table. Dear Gods, she loved that place. He would build her a thousand more all over the Realms.

"Lovely, isn't she?" Manny was saying, but to another Alpha de Noir. This one was named Lucas, and he stared curiously into the mirror. "Dark, long hair. Beautiful gold skin. What color are her eyes?"

"Blue. Like the sapphire gemstone."

"Ah," Lucas replied, eloquent as usual.

Sin didn't feel threatened by talking to these Alphas about Vannie. It was like talking to himself. And it wasn't like they could jump out of wolfspace and move on to her, right?

He frowned, wondering if they could. He'd kill them with his bare hands and take them to the gates of the lands beyond himself, even if he also had to die to do it.

"That doesn't explain why her soul has connected so easily to the Inlands, though," Mattain said thoughtfully. "Don't you think, Lucas?"  

The other Alpha laughed. It was a rather boisterous sound that Sin himself couldn't ever let go enough to release. "You're about to stir up trouble, Manny. I'm not going to be a part of it."

"No, no. I'm not doing anything untoward, I promise. It's just. . . your mate can feel danger when it's about to overcome the Inlands. And she has become your packmate without any ritual, almost like the lands themselves gifted the link to her."

Sin frowned, suddenly not feeling safe having this conversation. "I know she heard my thoughts. But it's only mine she can hear, right? It doesn't mean she has become a full Inlander. It just means she has become my full mate."

Manny chortled. "Yes. But still, that can't be correct. . . because you haven't marked or mated with her yet." His gaze turned sly. "Something is afoot with your little gorgeous mate."

The mirror shattered into mist, as Sin grappled to remember what exactly had led him here. "Where is she really? Why am I here?"

That was the disadvantage of wolfspace. He only had bits and pieces of his memory whenever he was here, and he usually didn't mind, but now it was his undoing. He sensed there was about to be a fight between him and his past selves, and he needed all the leverage he could have.

"She's tending to your wounds in her bedchambers. You were shot in the heart by a poisoned arrow, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you will remain in wolfspace for much longer than you're used to."

Sin's jaw clenched. "And the fae male that shot at me? Where is he?"

"Your mate is keeping him in isolation where he can't see the moon. He will be completely powerless in another few days."

Sin was a little mollified by that. It was funny how both lycans and faeries got their powers from the moon, but one relied more heavily on it than the other. He hoped Vannie would squash the bastard under her feet.

He touched his heart where the arrow must have gone through. The Celtic marks he'd first gotten after recognizing Vannie as his mate would be distorted by now. 

"Don't you see?" Manny was still talking. "The last events leading up to your incapacitation is no coincidence. It's the fates telling you not to take matters into your own hands. You're not allowed to live with your mate, just as none of us were allowed to." A sweeping hand pointed to the rest of the Alphas in wolfspace. 

Sin was on his feet immediately, staring down Mattain. But there was no real anger in his stance. Just an almost stifling sense of certainty. "Let me just make myself clear, since no one seems to be listening to me at all. If they take her away from me, I will tear apart the heavens to bring her back. If they take her down to Hades, I will destroy the abyss and send it into everlasting chaos. If they take her to the seas, I will make the waters burn."

It was a vow, and everyone knew an Alpha's vow was binding law.