My mate - Accept or reject

*Chapter 30* - Riddle

A/N: Happy New Year.
This chapter is dedicated to Myklha for her sweet comment.

*Lucas's P.O.V.*

A week later I wasn’t so confident, Emily hadn’t given any sign that she was improving, that she struggled to get back to me and our lives as we have to share together. But I wouldn’t let myself give up hope. I was still sitting next to Emily, who now had been established in our bed. I had only left her side a few times when I went to the toilet or bath, dinner I brought up cause I wouldn’t leave Emily's side for too long. My though got interrupted when there was a knock on the door, and Emily's family came in. Brigitta immediately began to cry when she saw her daughter lying still in the bed, and Anthony softly put his arm around her and I could see the whole situation also was hard on him. They were here every other day to see their daughter and it was like this every time, not that I couldn’t understand them, I was just as sad that I haven’t been able to give them any good news. Matthew came up to me after a while.

"Lucas, I know that you're not in the mood to consider this right now, but we have to figure out what to do with the roughes. There are a total of 117 that I have locked in your and my basement. We need to agree on what we should be done with them."

I'm look at him with furrowed brows.

"I'm not leaving Emily's side, I will be here when she wakes up ..."

I was interrupted by Anthony who put a hand on my shoulder.

"Son, I know it's hard to leave your mate in this situation, but both I and her mother stays with Emily until you return. You are still Alpha for this pack, and Emily would expect from you that you still took care of your pack, she won’t be happy when she wakes up if she finds out that you have let it all hang. At least take care of the roughes, we all need to know what’s going on, if this is it or if we should expect more. And the roughes might be able to tell you."

He said with an encouraging smile at me. And I notice how my stubbornness disappears, I look over at Emily, and knew Anthony were right, Emily would expect me to get a grip on this. I look with an imploring glance at Brigitta.

"Promise to send for me if there are any signs that she wakes up, I want to be here when she wakes up, so she knows that I've been worried about her."

I say, and receive a gentle smile.

"Of course, Lucas, you should be the first thing she sees, we'll come down after you if she wakes up while you are gone."

After a little hesitation I nod, and follows with Matthew down to the basement. There are 69 roughes sitting around in the cells. But one thing I notice is that there are almost only men, and they all seem to be in their 20s or older, however, there are 19 women in one of the cells, but I still look at Matthew surprised.

"Do you have the other women and children at your place?"

I ask surprised, because even though most women are often tucked away under attack in packs, roughes don’t do it like that in roughes packs it’s all members who fight no matter age or gender. And I am therefore surprised to only see men in that age down here, and the few women. And I got even more surprised when Matthew shakes his head.

"No I have only 48 men at my place., And the dead roughes were also men. What I have been able to see it does not look like there is anyone under the age of 20, and there are 50 men here as well as the 19 women."

Still a little confused I nod.

"How many dead roughes were there?"

I ask. I knew we had lost 6 on our part, two from my pack and 4 from Matthews, additionally there were 45 wounded, most were up and going already, besides Emily there were only 2 of our there still lay in bed to get over their injuries. So all in all we did well in the fight. But I hadn’t been interested in how many of the roughes who had been killed, and now that I thought about it, I actually had a bit guilty that I had left all the cleanup to Matthew, but I also knew that he understood my desire to be by my mates side.

"56 dead roughes, all older men."

I stare at him in surprise, and exclaims.

"56!, there was 173 roughes? How did they become that many?"

I ask confused, Matthew shrugs, don’t know more than I do. Once again, I look around at the roughes sitting around the cells, and is once again surprised, they don’t behave like roughes, usually roughes rush around in the cells and spewing profanity. But these are sitting completely still and just look or talk quiet together. I look around and sees the doctor who helped Emily, and go over to him.

"Tell us what's going on, you’re not normal roughes, I know that most of you have been in packs before, but usually when one becomes roughes there insanity is lost as soon they leave their packs, but you haven’t. So tell us why you have chose to be roughes and why you went in battle against our packs."

I said with a closer look at him. There was silence for a long time, before there was a answer, but it didn’t come from the doctor, but an elderly man who had been sitting at the back of the cell.

"Look around, no mates, don’t you think that's weird? That's why we 'chose' to be roughes to keep our mates safe."

This comment led to a lot of the roughes exclaim.

"George!!"

And one of them continued.

"Damn man, you can’t just tell it all, we don’t know if our mates are safe, we don’t even know where they are."

George, as the roughe apparently named shrugged and looked angrily at him who had talked.

"Yes because it’s really matters, we all know, that when we are killed cause we are roughes, then most of our mates also die of grief. So let us be honest and hope that they let the doubt benefit us and hopefully we can find our mates."

Several of the roughes muttered consensual. I and Matthew exchanged confused glances, it was Matthew who broke the general tumult that had arisen since everyone had something to say.

"Shut up, tell us what you're talking about, what's with your mates."

It was George who responded after receiving nods from the others.

"None of us here have voluntarily chosen to be roughes, but it was our only option. Our mates disappeared, and we received a few hours later a letter with instructions if we would keep our mates alive. The instructions started to be to leave our packs to go roughe, then hurts some people and attacking packs, and the last was this attack, but unlike the other times, we this time were told that we had to fight to kill , the other attacks have only been to injure, but yours was different."

He said to mine and Matthews’s astonishment. Once again, we exchanged glances and I murmured softly.

"It must be 'The Dark One' who is behind this."

Matthew nods consensual. We could both feel the truth behind the story, so we believed George. Matthew looked around at all of them.

"If you tell the truth, we will do whatever we can to help you find your mates"

I nodded assent, but then stiffened, something tried to pull me back to Emily, and I didn’t hesitate with a rapidly.

"I have to go."

To Matthew, I turned on the heels and quickly ran up the stairs to my and Emily room. Where I immediately look at the bed where Emily lays, but there were no chance, she was still laying lifeless and pale. I stopped surprised, I really felt that I should be with her, and that I had taken as a sign that she might wake up, but nothing do suggest that this was so. Brigitta look surprised at me when I came rushing in.

"Lucas! Is something wrong?"

She asked, now all eyes turned towards me, and I sadly shook my head while I muttered.

"I thought ..."

I broke off as Emily moved, no, not like she was waking up, she actually hovered about a half meter above the bed. I stared surprised when the air around her began to flicker. I stepped toward her, wanted to make sure she was okay, but when I reached out to touch her, my hand was stopped by an invisible force and I realized that I couldn’t get closer than 20 centimeters to her. The flicker that was around her, made sure that I couldn’t touch my own mate. I saw how everyone in the room look confused at each other as the air shimmered angrily to prevent our vision to Emily, before it once again disappeared completely. I quickly stepped to the bed, to discover that instead of Emily was now a wolf, and not any wolf, no, a wolf so unlike any I had ever seen before. Its fur was shiny silver but Emily’s wolf Amy's trademark the blue-black dot under her right eye, was still there. There came a whimper from the wolf on bed and Lurius immediately became strained I felt him struggle to get out, and when we heard another unhappy howl from the bed, I couldn’t hold him back any longer.



Lurius’s P.O.V

I break through my human defenses and in the middle of the bedroom I take over and land on all fours, and walks toward the bed where my little mate lay and whimpered. I gently licked Amy on her nose, which was my way to express tenderness, and heard a weak.

*Lurius?*

I give a happy barking.

*Amy I thought I'd lost you?*

I says I'm relieved to hear her voice through our link again, since I thought that I had lost my mate, I knew that my human still had his human mate, and I was happy with Emily, she makes my human happy and thereby also me, but I for some time lacked an important part of myself, and I had known that it was cause I missed Amy, and missing her had made me feel empty.

*You never lost me, I've been here all the time, I just had to keep myself in the background so Emily could develop her powers to the maximum. Had she also had to protect me, we both could have lost our lives. The Moon Goddess therefore saw it as the only way to push me in the background until Emily had gained control of the powers.*

She said, but broke off and let out a loud yell, I jumped quickly up in bed beside her and curl me around her body, which is still the same size as the first time I saw her, she is still a small wolf, but I know that she is stronger than even the largest wolf.

*Amy what happens? What's wrong?*

I ask panicked by seeing my mate in these pains

Amy moans and said groaning.

*It’s the silver it has come into my bloodstream. I took over from Emily's body to take some of the pain from her human body, as she was about to give up. But I had never imagined that the pain would be this excruciating. I don’t know how long I can make it.*

She said weakly. I howled aloud at the pain her words gave me. I saw how the other people in the room, who before had smiled and talked happy with each other after Amy had come, now stiffened and look tense at us lying in bed, they must have been able to perceive what was going on, but right now I couldn’t care less about it, right now was all my being concentrated on my mate.

*Don’t give up Amy, I just got you back, Emily just got you back. I don’t believe that only happen so that you and Emily leave us. The Moon Goddess wouldn’t be that evil. She must have thought that you could fight the silver and therefore she has given you back to Emily. You have to believe that, because I will not let you leave me.*

I said miserable. After some time Amy response.

*Lurius, the Moon Goddess sent me a message. 'All the mates are alive until the sun hit the sea tomorrow, tucked away in a cave where the flowers never grow and the earthly truth dies'*

*What? That makes no sense, what do you mean?*

I ask confused. But Amy shakes her head.

*It was what she asked me to tell you, it must be some kind of riddle which you need to figure out to find these mates there is talked about.*

*I think I know who it is, they roughes who attacked told us that their mates are hold hostages and that’s why they attack. So I assume that they are the ones we will find if we figure out the riddle.*

I say thoughtfully, two days, we have two days to figure it out. My thoughts are interrupted.

*Lurius you have to take into account that it might be a reason why I came back to give you the clue. Emily couldn’t do it because she is too weak to use her and Lucas' mind link. But the Moon Goddess knew that we two could communicate. It is likely that this is the only reason that I come back.*

Amy says gently, although I still can hear the pain in her voice.

*No the Moon Goddess would never be that mean to me, first giving me hope for so just to take you from me again. You just have to fight, we have at least 80 years more to spend together, so you dare to leave me this way, there is still so much I want to do with you. Our pups aren’t even been born yet, you have to fight so they can see the light, so that we can educate them and tell what is right and wrong ...*

I got interrupted in my speech stream of Amy's gentle laugh.

*Our pups? Only you can involve someone who is not even a reality yet.*

*Our pups are a reality, they have been since I knew you were my mate, ever since I've dreamed about a little girl who looks just like you ...*

Once again I got interrupted as she gently continues.

*Or a little boy who is the spitting image of his father.*

I smile.

*There you see you've thought of them too. So they are a reality, maybe they don’t exist yet, but they will become a reality. And therefore you have to fight so we can get our kids to love.*

I feel how the pain radiates from Amy. And I know that in order to combat the silver she has to concentrate fully on it. But I hear anyway a faint whisper.

*I will try to fight it ... But you have to solve the riddle, it’s important.*

I whimpering lifts my head to look down at my mate. Before I turn my eyes toward the others in the room, and see everybody looks at me questioningly. I sniffling lower my head and burying it by Amy's neck, I have to feel my mate, I can’t concentrate on anything other than to be near her. I was allowed to just lay with her some time before Anthony slowly stepped toward me.

"Lurius, please let Lucas tell us what is going on. I know you're worried about your mate, but so are we, Emily and Amy are our family."

Slowly I lift my head and glanced at my human's parents, Emily's parents and Clarina and Matthew, who all looked down at us with worried eyes. Once again, I looked at my mate before I let Matthew take over.