Solitary

Chapter 32- A Specter's Heir

Freshly showered, we were walking down the streets of Amsterdam. My vape pen in hand as I took slow calm drags of the oil.

Winter walking beside me, and Bubba trotting in front of us with Baby hanging off his back. Baby's face as usual aimed at the sky, as his white eyes looked towards the sun he couldn't see.

My phone kept ringing, unknown numbers on the screen that I kept ignoring. But I knew who was calling. I knew they were looking for me by now.

"I think you should answer." Winter says as she loops her arm with mine. "I mean, they are kind of your friends."

"They're not my friends. You're my friend. I actually like spending time with you. I can't say the same for them." I shake my head as I took another drag.

"But it's better if you just told them what you told me. That you just need a break and,"

"You should have heard what they said to me when I left last night. They said, you can't leave we need you. I know what that means, and I know what it looks like."

"What do you mean?"

"Amber." I scoff. "When she and Alpha Ricky started becoming more serious, I saw the way my pack mates clung to her. Pulled in every direction and everyone wanted to be around her."

"It's fucked up, what she did." Winter says solemnly. "I can't imagine just walking away from my intended, that would kill me."

"It would kill anyone."

"No, faeries go through the same thing when it comes to mates. More on the scale of Lycan's than werewolves."

"What do you mean?" My eyebrows kitting together as I look to her. Bubba keeping at my side as his fur brushes against my pants.

"Lycan cannot live without their mates. Neither can faeries. We need our mates to survive and once we meet them our fate is set. Werewolves have a much stronger chance of surviving, which is why you were so lucky."

"Because I was so fucking lucky to get rejected and live." I sneer.

"Sol I didn't mean it like that. I'm just saying, your wolves can cope easier than us. Yes we're stronger but that's only because of genetics, once we find our mates that's it, we can't live without them."

"I thought the same thing when Amber got marked by Ricky. Before that I still had hope, but after at the ceremony I felt it. The minute it happened it felt like everything in me was dying."

"That's horrible."

"You think?" I laugh dryly. Recounting the memory to perfection. "I was in the woods, in this little abandoned shack. Their ceremony was on a full moon so I had to shift too. And when they fucked, my wolf couldn't handle it."

"I'm so sorry." Winter whispers.

"It's not your fault. It's no ones fault. Just mine for being so naive. And I still am. I mean, when Nikolai came he gave me the same sick feeling, but after my wolf started to get comfortable with him. Because she had hope; because I had hope. And I was an idiot, I shouldn't have gotten involved with him. I still don't know how I let it go so far."

"Sol, I've been alive for nearly five hundred years and I can safely tell you it's not a naive thing to have hope." Winter gives my arm a squeeze with a reassuring look.

Then I stop. Bubba stopping with me and Winter giving me a look of confusion.

"What's wrong?" She asked but the gentle sound of a piano caught my ears. Looking across the street I saw the open door of a bar. Seeing clearly an old man gently tickling the piano keys.