Chapter 21 One Thing She Could Do

The red glow was imminent over their heads. She felt an unnatural feeling settle inside her. Unlike while she was in Jave, she was weakened. But in this room, she felt the surge of wild magic in the air. It was distinct from the suppressive defense magic lingering in the atmosphere of Jave, that quashed her wolf powers.
The truth had been clear to her since some days back. Nat, being a child of mixed heritage and a descendant of a bloodline of witches and wizards, yet was that forbidden mate a werewolf of the Crimsoncrest Pack was forbidden to have. Similarly, Nat detested werewolves to the core.
His original love for Regina, knowing she was a wolfless werewolf, was beyond her. Perhaps there was something more to their relationship. The fact they had known each other for a long time was a factor for his admiration for her, but she wasn’t assured of that yet. She didn’t quite understand human relationships. If he genuinely loved her, there wasn’t any reason for him to become a gigolo even with the excuse of having to earn for them.
Now, it all didn’t matter anymore. All she wanted to do was to leave this place and return to her pampered life as the CEO of AD Systems, so what else did he want with her that he had to keep her at Jave and make her undergo the rites of marriage with him?
Once that happened, what was going to become of her life and his, and him and Regina?
As much as she didn’t want to concern herself with Nat’s other woman, she had reached a point that she could no longer pretend Regina didn’t exist. Day after day, the mate bond would get stronger, and the need for her to do the deed with Nat would persist inside her, until she lost control. Every single touch from him made her yield to the carnal desire inside her to be satisfied.
And now, in the dimly-lit room, she felt her abilities returning to her body, not slowly but a sudden gush of power. Nat, on the other hand, seemed relaxed, but as soon as she felt herself return to normal, he just blinked. The red tinge in his eyes seemed to have intensified, and she could even feel that his power had grown. It wasn’t just her; Nat appeared to have reaped the effect of the wild magic present in the room.
As Jave was a very primitive place hidden away from the knowledge of the entire city and entry to that place was not possible, she guessed that ancient magic likely still existed there.
Though she being that spoiled ‘princess’ with alpha blood, hadn’t been trained much on the ways of the werewolves, knew the techniques of what to do in an emergency. At that moment, that situation before her was calling on her abilities to defend herself with all the power she could muster.

Nat walked nonchalantly into the middle of the room, leading her effortlessly. The force of the wild magic got stronger as they approached the centre. She could hear her wolf Aria calling to her earnestly.
“....Aly, you can’t let Nat know about us! Now is not the time…. Or hell will unleash…. Get a hold of… yourself….”
Aria warned Alyssa how she could not allow her true identity to be exposed, wailing and imploring her to take control over herself, but that connection was momentarily disrupted. She realised how the power surging in the room was highly unpredictable right now. Compared to how she felt earlier, at times, she would feel strong, then the next moment, completely weakened. A glance at Nat confirmed it.
“This is the Summoning Circle. Ignore the word ‘summoning’, it’s not what it means. It’s the core of magic within Jave,” Nat whispered. “It’s where the citizens of Jave get their power. Including me.”
She sensed the urge to shift arising tremendously in her. It reminded her of her younger days, when she shifted for the first time. At that time, she was dismayed to realise how small she looked as a wolf albeit that she already turned fifteen. Fortunately, it happened in an area in the wild secluded from her pack’s territories. She couldn’t imagine her own parents and close relatives’ disappointment, or how others would have laughed at her.
Thinking back then, she was a skinny wolf with a red furry chest, but the last time she shifted again, she could see herself as a wolf that had grown slightly. A prominent tinge of red marked her fur, making her distinct from the wolves of her pack. It was those red markings on her that defined her significance. The same tinge of red also became her dominant hair colour. She would often disguise it at work, but that night when she solicited Nat, he had witnessed her true hair colour.
After that, when she went out as “Ari Donna”, she had always allowed her true hair colour to shine…..
“Aly!!” she heard Aria’s voice cry out to her again, breaking her out of her thoughts. She actualised how she had again allowed her memories to distract her, quickly focusing to retract the wolf tail that partially sprouted behind her. Fortunately, that was all of her transformation, before she felt the power again diminish.
She scouted the room for Nat, who had strangely vanished out of her sight. At Aria’s whisper, she found him standing behind a mysterious gem in the corner of the room, and she heaved a sigh of relief that he had not gone and left her alone. Nat’s eyes were completely fixated on the gem, and he was apparently mumbling some words, partially inaudible to her, that seemed like words of a mantra. She could barely pick bits and pieces of what he was saying.
The fact that the gem had his interest piqued her curiosity. Up to now, the man was an annoyance but also was a weakness of hers that she could not get rid of easily, even if she rejected him. He knew too much about her, that she could have sworn he would not let her off even if she tried rejecting him.
Rejection was out of the question for her, anyway. Different packs had their rules, and the shamanic spells that her pack was concerned with, would be disastrous if she called on the gods to end their bond. She decided to bear with it for now, watching him inquisitively as he appeared to draw on the strength of the gem.
The longer he muttered his incantation and did what he was doing, the more it looked like something was due to happen. She leaned back and watched him, maintaining her calmness. Now the wild magic seemed to have stopped, and she felt weak as she was before, but Nat was a different story.
His eyes, red earlier, were now flashing with a series of alternating colours distinct from each other. It was an amazing sight, that she couldn’t find the right words to define them in her head. Instead of interrupting him, she just continued watching him, as if she was waiting for something unexpected to happen.
Alyssa heard Aria’s kind voice telling her to be careful, but to her, she thought, What danger could there be with a human wizard messing around with a magical artifact? Greed to her was a common sin, and the fact Nat had coveted his village’s treasure meant nothing to her. He had already brought her with him as an accomplice, and stopping him didn’t leave her any benefit. In fact, she just wanted to see what would happen next, be it good or bad.
Alyssa was a person who lived without consequences. The same attitude she had brought into the club when she looked for a gigolo to end the days of her virgin status, and now, even though she knew it was wrong, she couldn’t even bother about preventing Nat from usurping more power from the gem. Goodness knows, he might even have brought her to Jave on the pretext of seeing his grandmother, but truth was that he was after the forbidden power of Jave’s treasure!
At that juncture, she began to feel that she didn’t know Nat much at all, but the next sight she saw triggered fear in her. Nat’s lips had turned absolutely purple, and he slumped down on the ground, unconscious. His clothes were charred in some spots, invoking her worrisome thoughts as she rushed over to him panicking.
“Nat… Please!” She regretted deeply how she had neglected her wolf’s words earlier, but no amount of shaking his body was ample to wake him. His eyes were calm and closed, and he remained in a deep sleep.
“Nat, please, wake up,” she coddled his body tightly and wept in his embrace. She hadn’t even cried when her parents had died. Even when people knelt before her and begged, she wouldn’t even blink an eye.
But just seeing Nat this way had brought her so much pain that part of her wished she died. In the serenity of the secret chamber, she could hear his heart still beating.
Suddenly, it dawned upon her that there was one thing she could do to save him, even if she couldn’t bear the consequence of it failing.