After Sebastian leaves I quickly get up and run to the bathroom to examine the damages. The huge bite mark that I expected to be on the side of my neck is gone, leaving behind a tender piece of red skin in its place.
I wipe away the blood with a wet hot rag but that only reveals a patch of purpling skin. A bruise. Great.
Sniffling, I exit the bathroom and walk back into the living room where I curl up on the couch with my knitted blanket. Tears slide down my cheeks until there's a wet spot on the front of my shirt. I hear thee door open but I don't ask who it is, mainly because it's probably just Vanessa and also because I'm afraid Sebastian might have returned for another round of apology, an apology I might not accept.
"Lia?" I hear Vanessa say, causing me to release the tension in my body.
"Yeah." I mumble, taking my head out of the blanket.
"Why are you still gloomy? Didn't you and Sebastian kiss and make up?" She asks, scowling at my appearance.
"No! He bit me instead."
"WHAT?" Vanessa yells in alarm, she's by my side in seconds as she examines the bruise on the side of my neck.
"Awe crap! That jackass marked you! You see this is why you should have let me kill him."
"Why? What does it mean? Is it bad? Am I gonna die? Will it affect the baby? W-"
"Shut up would ya? I'm trying to think. Why the hell would he mark you? I mean obviously you didn't consent to it. And judging by your questions you have no idea what this even means. Which takes me back to my original question... Why did he mark you?" Vanessa says to herself as se paces back and forth in front of me.
"I don't know, " I answer her. "We were arguing and then I said that there wouldn't be an us anymore and he got mad. Kept saying I was his. Then he bit me." I say.
"Wait," Vanessa stops. "You told him that you guys wouldn't be together anymore?" Vanessa asks incredulously.
"Yeah." I mumble. "I didn't mean it, I was just mad and I wanted to hurt him so I... I don't know, it just came out."
"Well no wonder he bit you." Vanessa says with an eye roll.
"What do you mean by that? What possible reason could he have for biting me?"
"Sweetie," Vanessa says with a head shake and a pity smile. "You don't tell a werewolf that's madly in love with you that you guys can't be together. Especially when you're carrying his child. It just makes them all crazy and then their wolves take over and basically makes them act on animal instinct. Just like in the human world where you don't mess with a woman's child, you don't mess with a werewolf's mate. It's basically suicide, unless you know what you're doing but even then you should be extremely cautious and probably sleep with one eye open. Or both."
"So he bit me because he couldn't handle being rejected?" I exclaim as I stand up from the couch.
"Oh trust me, if you had rejected him, both of you wouldn't be able to handle it."
"What does that even mean? What does this bite mean? You can't just bite someone like that! Even animals have some kind of reasoning, no matter how horrific."
"Well of course there's a meaning. The bite means that Sebastian marked you as his mate."
"His what?"
"It's the equivalent to a husband or wife in the human world. Mate is basically the short version of soulmate. Once you mate with someone, it's forever and always. Unless you reject them, but that's a whole 'nother subject."
"You mean, I'm married to him?" I ask furiously, clenching my fists at my sides. Vanessa quickly widens her eyes when she realizes that she just freaked me out.
"Whoa, calm down you're turning yellow eyes on me."
"I am calm!"
"No you're not. And plus, you're not completely married to him. See, the mating process takes two steps. The mark is the first step basically think of it as an engagement. The third step is the actually mating which is basically like the marriage license which binds you two together for life." Vanessa explains as she gently sits me down.
"Okay," I say after taking a deep breath. "So how do I undo this?"
"I don't think you want to do that."
"Why?"
"Besides the pain that ensues afterwards, because it's permanent. Rejecting someone in the werewolf world is no joke. It is both emotionally and physically painful. That's why shifters die when their mate dies, werewolves and lycans don't but there have been many that have committed suicide after rejecting someone or being rejected."
"Why's it painful?"
"Because it's fate's way of saying don't fuck with love. It also makes them take it more seriously. It's also because rejecting your soulmate is like having a part of you literally get ripped out of you. And you stay with that pain until the stars realign and find you a new mate which takes years, some werewolves have known to die before getting a new mate. It's a sad, painful, lonely process Lia, a process I don't want you to go through unless you are absolutely positively sure that you do not want to be with Sebastian for the rest of your life, because once you go through with it there's no going back, all the feelings you guys ever had for each other will be gone, all the wonderful, romantic memories you've shared will have been wiped. You forget them and they forget you."
I stare at Vanessa's grave face and sigh. This is more complicated than it sounded.
"Wait!" I say when a thought occurs to me. "I thought lycans and shifters could choose their own mates? So the stars weren't even aligned for them."
"Technically. Look I'm going to try to make this sound as simple as I possibly can. Werewolves, their mates are already predestined, and what I mean by that is that no matter what, they can't develop feelings for someone else. Doesn't matter how much they try. Once they meet their mate, there will already be a connection there, not to mention they'll already be in love, the mating bond just increases that. Now for lycans and shifters it's a different story, although they can develop feelings for other people, their mates have already been predestined as well. So let's say they were to try and mate with someone that wasn't their mate, their relationship will literally be doomed. It always ends in death, either one of them kills themselves or the other one kills them."
I gasp at her words. Is that seriously what happens? And if so, now that Sebastian has marked me, does that mean our relationship is doomed? I don't think I'd be able to handle that, I'm already in love with him.
"What if we're not mates? Will it still hurt to reject him?" I ask hesitantly.
"Yes, but not as painfully as it would hurt to reject your actual mate. But I doubt you guys aren't meant to be."
"Why?" I ask.
"Because you guys are so in love with each other it makes me want to marry the next guy I see. And plus, I don't think it would make sense for you guys to end up with different people after you've created a miracle baby. That would just be cruel on fate's part."
"But it could still be possible. How would I know if I wasn't his mate?"
"Wait until you guys try to kill each other, I guess." Vanessa says with a shrug before quickly smiling. "But like I said, I doubt you guys aren't meant to be."
"But what if it takes ten years for us to kill each other!"
"No, the deadline, literally, is six months. If you guys make it past six months then you're mates, if not, I promise to take good care of my goddaughter."
"Goddaughter? How do you even-"
"Call it a godmother's intuition."
I roll my eyes before sighing irritatingly out loud.
"So what now?" I ask as I put my head on her lap.
"I may be rooting for you two to kiss and make up but I do think that you guys need a break from each other. You've been practically glued to each other for the past five months-"
"Two, I didn't even like him those first three." I say in a matter of fact tone.
"Fine, two. But anyways, yeah no contact with each other whatsoever, at least for a couple of days."
"But Thanksgiving is in four days and my grandparents are coming and I really all of us to be there, you know, as a family." I say sheepishly.
Ever since all the lycans moved in and I got to know them all, I've really begun to feel like I'm a part of something, part of a family. I just want for one day, for my chosen family and my blood family to just come together and be thankful for one another. It's the only thing I want and getting that will literally make me the happiest woman on the face of this Earth.
"Okay, so three days off from one another, that can be done."
"Great," I say before taking in a deep breath and sitting back up. "I think until then I'm gonna lay on this couch and be a hermit." I tell her as I gently push her off the couch and crawl back under the blanket. I smile to myself as I hear Vanessa mumble something about me being a couch hogger.
Oh yeah, happiest woman on the face of this Earth.