Chương 35: Apparently, I Have a Mate

The moment I stepped into the room, anxiety crept up my spine without warning. It wasn't fear. That belonged to people with fragile bodies, limited options, and a reasonable expectation of death. This was something far more irritating, an instinctive pressure tightening beneath my ribs as though some part of me had already decided that nothing spoken within these walls would improve my day. The secured meeting room was so quiet that even the smallest movement felt intrusive.

A heavy table stood at its center, while two chairs had been pushed aside, suggesting that neither guest had managed to remain seated for long. Thick curtains covered the windows and blocked most of the evening light, leaving a brass wall lamp to cast a muted golden glow across the room. Its warmth did nothing to ease the tension gathering in my chest. Two people waited on the far side of the table. The first was a young woman whose beauty drew attention immediately.

Loose waves of violet hair framed her face, close enough to the color of my eyes that I noticed the resemblance at once. Her irises, however, were a vivid pink, made brighter by the emotion she was struggling to contain. The moment she saw me, the worry on her face broke apart. For an instant, I mistook what replaced it for excitement. It was not; more like recognition. The young man beside her had tousled brown hair and the kind of face that seemed naturally suited to arrogant smiles and unnecessary trouble.

Whatever confidence usually lived there had already cracked. His golden eyes widened, shimmered, and filled with enough emotion that, for one unsettling moment, he looked ready to cry. I disliked that reaction almost as much as I disliked the room itself. Before anyone could speak, both strangers rushed toward me.

They crossed the room with startling speed, not fast enough to rival a vampire, but more than enough to provoke a violent response from the guards had my family not already occupied the doorway behind them. I could have avoided them without effort. For some reason, I chose not to move. The woman reached me first and wrapped both arms around my waist, a broken sound catching in her throat.

The man followed half a heartbeat later, embracing me from the other side and burying his face near my shoulder as though I were someone he had spent years trying to find. And just like that, Aura clung possessively to my left side, Celeste pressed herself against my right, and two complete strangers sobbed into me from the front. Wonderful… Apparently, everyone had decided I needed to be buried beneath affection today. Celeste released a wounded, strangled sound.

"Mother." I looked down at her and found betrayal staring back at me.

"You didn't even try to dodge," she complained.

"You wanted them to hug you, did you not?"

"I absolutely did not." There was this feeling, and I wanted to see what it meant.

"You hesitated."

"I was ambushed." I'd never admit anything like this to Celeste, or she might use this interaction against me in the future.

"You allowed it." From my other side, Aura released a tiny roar that might have been intimidating had it not been accompanied by two harmless puffs of fire.

"Release Master!" The young woman only cried harder, while the young man tightened his hold as though he feared someone might tear me away from him. Behind us, Adrian, Vera, and Malcolm stood frozen. Their expressions ranged from suspicion to confusion to the stunned silence one normally reserved for watching a carriage explode in the middle of a church service. Vesper remained perched on Vera's shoulder, its crimson crystal eyes fixed on the strangers.

He watched the scene with its usual unblinking judgment while I remained strangely still beneath the strangers' embrace. I should have forced them away, yet something encouraged me to accept them. The longer they clung to me, the more clearly I sensed it: not one thread connecting us, but two. Both were faint and damaged, frayed at the ends as though something had severed them violently and left the remnants buried inside their souls.

They didn't connect to me properly or settle behind my ribs like the bonds I shared with Adrian, Celeste, Vera, and Malcolm. Neither carried the steady pulse of my living bloodline. The threads were undeniably there, broken and frayed, yet familiar in a way I could not explain. They felt as though they belonged to me while also leading back to something that was no longer mine, and the contradiction unsettled me enough to smother my anger. Celeste and Aura were not nearly as distracted.

They moved at the same moment, with Celeste wrenching the young man away from my side while Aura planted both hands against the woman and shoved her backward. The strangers stumbled before dropping to their knees as though their strength had abandoned them. Their heads bowed, their shoulders trembled, and the same word escaped them in a shared whisper.

"Mother." Silence swallowed the room. Even Celeste froze. Aura's face twisted into pure, offended confusion while I stared at the two kneeling strangers and discovered that my mind had temporarily misplaced every useful word. That rarely happened. Malcolm was the first person foolish enough to disturb the silence.

"Do you have children we don't know about?" I slowly turned my head toward him. He raised both hands.

"I mean more children." My eyes narrowed.

"Are you implying that I cheated?" Vera made a quiet choking sound, and Malcolm wisely closed his mouth.

"I have no idea who these people are." That was the honest truth, but something about them gave me a bad feeling. My declaration lacked the certainty I wanted, undermined by the damaged, almost-familiar bonds I could still feel between us. The young woman lifted her head first. Tears clung to her lashes as she drew in a trembling breath and forced herself to speak through the grief threatening to overwhelm her.

"My name is Nadia Vaust." Immediate irritation sharpened through me. Vaust… Hearing my family name spoken by a stranger felt like watching someone stroll into my bedroom dressed in my clothes. Beside me, Celeste drew breath to object while Aura opened her mouth as well, though whether the dragon intended to argue, threaten, or bite someone remained uncertain.

"Quiet." I pointed a finger at them. Both of them obeyed. My attention remained fixed on the woman kneeling before me.

"Nadia Vaust," I repeated.

"That's a bold name to claim beneath my roof."

"I know." She rushed the words out before courage could fail her.

"I know how impossible this sounds, but please listen. We came from the future, roughly one hundred years from now." Celeste released a disbelieving huff, as though her lungs had rejected the sentence before her mind could process it. Everyone else went completely quiet with stunned expressions. Adrian's gaze sharpened. Vera's hand closed around Malcolm's sleeve, while skepticism replaced the confusion on his face. Even Aura looked up at me as though trying to decide whether time itself could be bitten.

I studied Nadia. She had to be a madwoman. Unfortunately, madness didn't explain the severed echoes of my blood buried inside them. The young man raised his head next.

"I'm Rowan Vaust." His voice trembled, but something harder held it together.

"The future Nadia described ended. At least, it ended for us." He paused before locking his golden eyes onto mine.

"You were killed by a dark entity. When you died, every one of us died with you." The words settled over the room with the cold promise of a blade drawn but not yet swung, and the color slowly drained from Celeste's face.

"No." Adrian's jaw tightened.

"Impossible." Vera's pink-red eyes widened.

"All of us?" Malcolm looked first at me and then at Rowan.

"That cannot be right." Aura bared her small teeth.

"Master does not die." I remained silent because the story had to be wrong. Every part of it was impossible, and yet something inside my chest had gone unnaturally still. Rowan's voice softened as he continued.

"Demons invade in the future, and not as scattered cults or isolated raiding parties. It becomes a full invasion led by something close enough to a god that 'Demon Lord' is the only title that fits." His golden eyes never left mine.

"You fought him without your mate beside you, and he killed you. Afterward, she sacrificed herself to break that timeline and send us back to warn you." My thoughts stumbled over the word. Mate? I had a mate? Since when? I stared at him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" The room had become too small for the number of impossible things inside it. A demonic invasion, my death, the collapse of my bloodline, a mate I had never met, and a woman willing to sacrifice herself for me were already more than enough to process. Add a ruined future and two strangers kneeling on my hotel floor while claiming my family name, and the entire story became absurd. It was overwhelming, impossible, and far too specific to dismiss.

Worse, every word seemed to resonate with the severed threads I could still feel inside both of them. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Nadia spoke before I could decide whether to throw them out, interrogate them, or erase part of the room simply to improve my mood.

"I know what happened to your family when you were young." The room seemed to grow colder as Celeste's eyes snapped toward Nadia and Adrian went unnaturally still, his silence carrying the unmistakable promise of violence. Nadia swallowed hard but forced herself to continue.

"Your brother was named Elias, and your father sold you to Lord Silas Vane so he could settle his debts and pay for Elias's future. Vane tried to take what was never his, and that was when you awakened." I neither moved nor blinked as the room fell away around me. For one brutal instant, I was back in Silas Vane's bed with ropes biting into my skin, his weight pinning me down, and his breath pressing hot against my face.

Candlelight flickered through the panic as blood filled my mouth and my teeth tore into his throat. Then the memory released me, and the meeting room returned. Nadia's voice shook.

"The village tried to burn you afterward, but the fire could not take you. You killed them. Later, when you went over the cliff with Elias, you used his body to break your fall." Silence settled over the room, and no one dared to move or speak. It was not because most of us needed to breathe, but because everyone understood that even the smallest sound would be an intrusion.

The wall lamp hummed softly while, somewhere beyond the secured corridor, the hotel carried on without us, filled with music, laughter, money, lies, and life. Inside the meeting room, my past stood exposed beneath the light. My gaze moved from Nadia to Rowan.

"Who told you?" Rowan lowered his head.

"You did in the future. Not easily, and never all at once, but eventually you told us enough." Fresh tears slipped down Nadia's cheeks as she nodded.

"You trusted us." The word struck harder than it should have, somehow uglier than the memories themselves. Trusted... I wanted to dismiss them as liars, but the broken threads inside them ached again before the accusation could leave my mouth. With trembling certainty, Nadia began identifying the people gathered around me.

"The little girl is Aura. That is Adrian, Celeste, Vera, and Malcolm." Her pink eyes returned to mine.

"You turned us into your children more than fifty years from now. At the time, construction had just begun on the final version of your dream hotel and casino." Her voice softened as she spoke the name.

"The Vaust Royale." Celeste's grip tightened around my arm, while Adrian's gaze shifted toward me with immediate recognition. Vera drew in a sharp breath, and Malcolm stared at Nadia as though she had reached into my mind and placed one of its most guarded thoughts on the table between us. The Vaust Royale was not merely a name. It belonged to the future I had imagined, the final shape of everything I intended to build beyond the hotel that already stood around us.

I had spoken of it only to my family and never beyond the privacy of our walls. No stranger should have known it. More troubling still, Nadia had spoken the name with the ease of someone recalling a place she had once called home. Celeste, however, seized upon an entirely different part of the story with the precision of a starving wolf discovering exposed meat.

"So Mother truly finds love?" Despite the horror lingering in the room, her eyes brightened with delighted vindication.

"I always knew she would."

"Celeste." I sighed with a face palm. She ignored the warning with the reckless confidence of someone who had survived me for far too long. Rowan looked toward her, and despite everything, a faint smile touched his face.

"Yes. Her mate is extremely possessive of Mother. She fights you almost every day over who has the stronger claim." Celeste gasped in pure delight.

"She fights me?"

"Daily." Celeste turned toward me with sparkling eyes.

"Mother."

"Shut up." I've lived with her long enough to understand where this conversation is going.

"But that means…"

"It doesn't."

"But…"

"I will throw you into the ocean."

"You would fish me out."

"Do not test that theory." Nadia's expression softened with a familiarity I found immediately unsettling.

"And yes, you belong to her." My attention snapped toward her.

"I belong to whom?"

"To your mate," Nadia repeated, as though the answer should have been obvious.

"Quite willingly, I might add." The words slipped beneath my defenses and lodged somewhere behind my ribs. Quite willingly... What in the world is this girl spewing? The idea should have been impossible. Ridiculous, even. And yet a small, treacherous part of me refused to dismiss it completely. I hated that part immediately. A small, sad smile touched Nadia's face.

"She softens your colder edges considerably." Celeste released a sound that bordered on religious ecstasy.

"I knew it."

"Celeste."

"I knew it." She continued on. Aura frowned as she looked between us.

"Master belongs to no one."

"That sounds far more accurate." Rowan looked toward Aura with a grief-stricken fondness that made the dragon's possessive expression falter.

"You used to say the same thing." Aura froze. I leaned forward slightly.

"How did I meet this supposed mate?" Nadia and Rowan exchanged a glance before Nadia answered.

"You fought her." Of course we had met through violence. Celeste immediately seized upon that detail and proved, once again, why she remained the most exhausting member of this family. I refused to reward her commentary with a response.

"She came looking for you after hearing rumors of a primordial vampire ruling over the Vaust Royale," Nadia explained.

"Whether she challenged you or you challenged her is one of the details we no longer remember clearly, but everyone remembered the fight. It lasted for more than twenty-four hours." Malcolm stared at her.

"They fought for an entire day?" Rowan nodded.

"Miles of coastline were destroyed before either of them stopped. Half the old cliffs collapsed into the sea, and Vera claimed Vesper refused to go anywhere near them after the tenth hour." Vesper answered with an indignant caw from Vera's shoulder. Vera glanced toward the familiar.

"Do not sound so offended. That is entirely believable." A faint smile crossed Rowan's face before his expression grew serious again.

"When the fight finally ended, Akane imprinted on you almost immediately." My eyes narrowed.

"What exactly do you mean by imprinted?"

"Some fox beastkin can form a permanent bond with the person they choose," Nadia explained.

"Akane was far from ordinary, though, so none of us could tell whether the imprint came from her instincts, her power, or something unique to her. Whatever its source, once she chose you, she never questioned that choice." Nadia hesitated before adding, "From that moment onward, she considered you hers." Beside me, Celeste clamped both hands over her mouth, but the shaking of her shoulders betrayed the laughter she was desperately trying to contain. I slowly turned toward her.

"Are you laughing?"

"No." Her answer emerged strangled.

"You are."

"I'm being emotionally supportive."

"You're about to say something."

"I would never." After calming myself down I returned my attention to Nadia and Rowan before Celeste could turn the situation into a celebration.

"What was her name?" Celeste inhaled sharply. Without looking toward her, I raised one finger.

"Do not."

"I said nothing."

"You breathed too happily." Nadia's expression softened into something close to reverence.

"Akane." The name settled over the room. Akane… I repeated it silently, then once more. The name settled strangely in my mind, carrying unfamiliar warmth beneath its sharper edges. Akane… I knew nothing about the woman behind it. I had never seen her face, heard her voice, or witnessed the way she smiled. Her laughter, anger, and the weight of her gaze should have meant nothing to me. Yet her name refused to fade. Akane, it echoed within my mind. The fact that I wanted to repeat it again was deeply irritating.

Beside me, Celeste looked ready to combust with delight, so I refused to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging her.

"What did she look like?" I couldn't help myself but ask. Apparently, I had decided to continue being foolish. Rowan considered the question before answering.

"She was a nine-tailed fox beastkin, though that description never felt entirely accurate. Akane was closer to a demigoddess wearing a mortal shape, with long dark hair, fox ears, nine tails, and eyes that burned like molten gold whenever she became angry." Distant warmth entered his expression as he remembered her.

"She possessed enough power to frighten nearly everyone who crossed her path, yet her beauty could leave those same people struggling to speak."

"Akane destroyed her core to send us into the past," Nadia added, her voice tightening around the memory.

"She didn't know whether she would remain the same person in this timeline or how deeply the sacrifice would change her. None of that mattered to her. She was willing to give up everything for another chance to find you." The weight behind those words settled uncomfortably.

"Where is she now?"

"We believe she's recovering," Rowan replied.

"She may be sleeping, healing, or rebuilding whatever was broken when she destroyed her core. We don't know how long it will take, but she promised she would come for you when she was ready." Silence settled over the room as the full cost of Akane's sacrifice became impossible to ignore. Even Celeste resisted the urge to speak, which might have been the most convincing evidence yet that the situation was serious. Nadia lowered her head.

"She gave us two messages for you." I should have stopped indulging them and demanded proof. Every inconsistency deserved to be pulled apart until nothing remained but truth or madness. Instead, I found myself asking the next question.

"What messages?" Nadia's eyes filled with tears again.

"She wanted you to know that she loves you with all her heart." Her voice trembled.

"She also asked you to wait for her to find you." A faint twitch pulled at my cheek, subtle enough that anyone outside this room would have missed it. Unfortunately, everyone present was either family, a dragon, or far too invested in my future romance, so not a single reaction escaped their notice. Celeste looked ready to burst with delight, while Aura appeared offended on my behalf despite clearly having no idea what love had to do with any of this. Adrian remained wisely silent.

Vera's expression softened and Malcolm rubbed the back of his neck as though avoiding eye contact might spare him from becoming involved. I forced every trace of emotion from my voice before asking the next question.

"What was the second message?" Rowan answered this time.

"Travel to the Demon Continent with Aura as soon as possible. In our timeline, she carried people across the ocean. You must find the first Demon Spire and destroy it. There are six scattered across the continent, but the first is the only one whose location we remember clearly."

"Only the first?" Adrian's suspicion sharpened the question. Nadia nodded, shame clouding her expression.

"Our memories did not survive the journey intact. Some return only in fragments, while others are simply gone. We still remember the invasion, your death, Akane sending us into the past, and a handful of moments that carried enough weight to remain. Everything else is blurred or incomplete." Her fingers tightened around the fabric of her dress.

"Some memories only returned after we reached this city."

"That's convenient," Adrian observed.

"It's also suspicious," Vera added quietly. Rowan nodded.

"We know, and I would think the same in your position." At least Nadia and Rowan did not bristle at our suspicion. Their willingness to accept caution made them slightly less irritating, though only slightly. I crossed to the nearest chair and lowered myself into it before my legs could betray the strange weakness threatening to settle into them. Not actually weakness, of course. Gravity had merely chosen an inconvenient moment to become unusually demanding.

One hand rose to cover my face as the impossible details crowded together behind my eyes: Silas Vane and Elias, Aura and the Vaust Royale, Akane, the collapse of my bloodline, my death, and the Demon Spires waiting somewhere in the future. Each revelation was either an elaborate lie or proof of a future I had no desire to accept. Apparently, I had a lover. A mate…

A woman named Akane had fought me for more than twenty-four hours, formed some permanent bond with me, claimed me as hers, loved me enough to shatter her core, and sent two children of a dead timeline bleeding backward through time. The absurdity should have made the entire story easier to dismiss. Instead, it made the fear beneath my ribs harder to ignore. Before I could decide which part of the catastrophe offended me most, Nadia and Rowan exchanged a glance and began moving toward me on their knees. I frowned.

"Do not do that." They stopped, though only barely. Nadia bowed her head.

"Please." Rowan's voice roughened.

"Turn us again." The entire room seemed to draw tight around us. Celeste's smile vanished, Adrian's eyes narrowed, and Vera and Malcolm fell completely still. Aura's confusion lasted only a moment before instinct took over. She pressed closer to my side, her small body tense with protectiveness as Nadia lifted her face, tears spilling freely down her cheeks.

"We were your children once. Perhaps not in this timeline and not yet, but we were. We felt your bond and served House Vaust." Rowan swallowed before forcing the rest out.

"We lost our home, our family, you, and Akane. She sent us here because she trusted us to reach you." His golden eyes fixed on mine.

"Please allow us to stand beside you again." I studied them more carefully, searching their faces for any sign of deception. Those broken threads still lingered inside them, severed bonds reaching back toward a version of me that no longer existed. Whenever I focused on them, they ached like old scars being pressed from within. Whatever else Nadia and Rowan might be hiding, that part was real. Unfortunately, truth did not make them safe. It made the danger surrounding them far more difficult to dismiss.

"No one will be turned tonight." Nadia's breath caught, and Rowan lowered his head.

"But neither of you will be thrown out." Celeste relaxed slightly. Adrian's posture remained unchanged, though approval moved faintly through our bond.

"You will remain under guard for the time being. Food, medical care, and rooms will be provided, but once you have rested, you will recount everything you remember in full and without omission. Should either of you lie to me, I will uncover it eventually." Rowan nodded at once.

"Yes, Mother." I pointed toward him before the word could settle comfortably between us.

"Do not call me that." He dropped his head. Nadia corrected herself immediately.

"Lady Vaust." That was better.

"As for joining this family again, we will discuss that after I see the first Demon Spire with my own eyes." Fragile hope widened Nadia's eyes, while Rowan exhaled as though he had been holding his breath since entering the city. Adrian gave a single nod.

"That's the correct first move." Vera looked thoughtful.

"If the spire exists, it proves enough of their story for us to act."

"And if it does not?" Malcolm asked. A faint smile touched my lips.

"Then someone has gone to an extraordinary amount of effort to irritate me." Aura moved closer.

"I can fly us there."

"Yes. Apparently, that's your assigned role in this catastrophe." She puffed up with pride. Celeste leaned toward me and whispered far too loudly.

"Future Mother has a fox mate named Akane." I closed my eyes.

"Celeste."

"She fights me every day for you."

"Celeste."

"She imprinted on you."

"If you continue speaking, I will allow her to win." Celeste gasped with delight.

"That means you believe she exists."

"No. It means I believe she has excellent taste in targets." For reasons beyond my understanding, that made Celeste even happier. Rowan watched the exchange with a faint and aching smile. Nadia wiped the tears from her face and drew in a steadying breath. Aura stayed pressed against my side, her small horns glinting beneath the lamplight. Adrian watched the door while Vera held Malcolm's hand. Vesper stared. I sat at the center of them all, feeling the future reach backward with bloodied fingers. Akane…

Her name drifted through my thoughts once more. I hated how much I actually wanted to see her. Meet this female who'd claim me as hers. It sounded ridiculous.

"Start from the beginning. Give me the precise location of the first spire, and then tell me everything else you remember." Nadia and Rowan straightened.

"Choose your words carefully. I'm already in a poor mood." Celeste, still smiling like an idiot, murmured beneath her breath.

"Because she discovered someone loves her." I refused to look at her.

"Because apparently, tomorrow I'm traveling to the Demon Continent." The room fell silent once more, though everyone seemed to take the news differently. Aura's tail began to sway with growing excitement, Celeste's smile widened into something deeply concerning, and Adrian released the weary sigh of a man already calculating how much trouble awaited us. As I looked around at the family gathered around me, one miserable truth became impossible to ignore.

After centuries of carving my own path, my life had once again become the fulfillment of someone else's prophecy.