22. Twist Of Fate

**XANDER**

The pain of a wolf was nothing compared to the pain of a human body, and here I was—trapped and compelled to my human form for my mate. The wolf in me was howling in full rage, wanting to rip apart the human whose scent I caught on Maeve.
But, right now, my mate needed me more than her vengeance.
I have drawn to her by desire, in love, and in pain, the all-consuming hunger rippling through me in waves. The desperation to wrap her into my arms surged like a giant swell and almost drowned me in it.
However, her words almost split me in half.
“You are not the only one with secrets, Xander. I have mine too.”
I regarded her with pulled eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”
Maeve sighed, averting her eyes. “No one does, that’s the problem.”
I quickly caught chin, as gently as possible and turned her to me. “Fates, would you stop speaking in riddles?”
“Do you recall when I said that I am a little crazy and awkward and you thought I was being hard on myself?”
“Perfectly,” I nodded, remembering how I despised her putting herself down. “I have an excellent memory.”
“Well, here’s the crazy part,” she revealed. “I get visions. Visions of random strangers, and especially the ones in pain or suffering. My foster parents thought I indulge in substance abuse and my psychiatrist thought meditation would just make it go away. Nothing helps, ever.”
The lines of real and surreal blurred, and the realization that Maeve was indeed the right mate for me dawned over me. Everything started to get intense…the pieces were falling right into the gaps.
“I know, I know...it’s a little unbelievable,” Maeve went on as I kept looking at her in dazed eyes. “And I don’t know how or why it happens…it just does. I have no control over it whatsoever.”
“*A psychic*,” I whispered as the words just rolled out of me involuntarily.
A fable that was more than a thousand years old and narrated to us as a childhood story. It was so ancient, and the facts were deeply crooked that I never paid much attention.
“Yeah, right. Total psycho thing,” Maeve dismissed, waving a hand like it was nothing.
The little did she knew it was something rooted in *our history*.
Shaking my head, I immediately contradicted. “No, I mean, you are a psychic. It is not a bad thing, Maeve, it’s a gift.”
Just like the witches had gifted power, psychics had their power too. In fact, they were the reason that power existed in the first place.
Maeve huffed a small, joyless laugh. “Watching others in pain and suffering is a gift? On which universe?”
For my part, I was so lost in discovering her identity that I couldn’t believe my ears. Maeve was no ordinary human! My mate was special. My wolf howled inside my head, wanting to rip out of my skin.
“I can’t believe this,” I exclaimed in momentary happiness. “Now it’s starting to make sense!”
“Xander, if this is some kind of wolf language, I do not understand. Now you are the one who is talking in riddles,” she complained.
The beast in me was fuelled by passion and took her face in my hands. Careful as not to hurt her, I quickly kissed her lips and entwined her fingers with mine. With the blessing of the Goddess, I have an eternity to explain her the nuances of the supernatural world, but I could not possibly do that in that hospital where she was assaulted.
“I will explain later. But first, I need to take you home.”

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The drive back home was quieter than I expected. Maeve bundled next to me and wrapped herself in one of my jackets. And every time I glanced at her, the visible redness and wounds stabbed me in the heart.
Fates, I wanted to tear apart that human alive. The basic instinct was to go for the kill, but the rage simmered a bit as I sat with my mate down in her home.
“Maeve, tell me about your parents—your lineage,” I asked, gently tracing the slope of her jaw. Her skin was nothing but silk under the rough pad of my thumb.
“There’s nothing to say,” she shrugged. But the underlying hurt in her voice was palpable.
“Anything about your birth parents…” I probed. I had a feeling that the root of her ‘secret’ was connected to her blood relations. It has to.
“There was no mention of a father in the birth certificate and by the time I was born, my mother was chronically ill. I have been told that she had brain tumour and she died when I was about a year old.”
“What about your grandparents?”
Maeve sat up, facing me, and slowly shook her head. “They broke ties with her years ago, so my mother was practically on her own. But why are you asking me so many questions?”
“Because psychics are rare,” I told her. “I mean, witches are still found in our world but not psychics.”
By the look of her face, it was evident that she had no clue whatsoever. “Will you please explain a little more clearly?”
My palm rubbed up and down her arm, reveling in the softness of her touch absentmindedly. “I have very limited knowledge of witches and their covens, but from what I have heard growing up is that psychics existed centuries ago. They were the first of the supernaturals, and witches came from their lineage. In fact, the world of supernaturals were their creation to wage a war against the mortal humans.”
“So, the witches made you…like this?”
I nodded, digging deep into the mind for the childhood stories. The Elder would narrate the fables during the bonfire full moon night. Never did I think that the information could be of any use. After all, thousand-year-old tales consisted of various fabrications. No one lived this long to support the facts.
“Yes,” I replied, acquiescing whatever little I knew of. “The spirit shifters and dead beasts were the making of psychics.”
Her bros shot upwards. “Dead beasts?”
“The vampires,” I clarified. “Some say that they have been extinct by the witches’ themselves, while some believe that vampires still exists. The history is long and complicated.”
It looked like Maeve was slowing, absorbing my words, wrapping her head around shifters, witches, and vampires. “Do you think I am a part of your world?” she whispered, almost incredulous.
“Possibly, yes. All the more reasons that the Moon Goddess chose you as my mate. Because a human mate is something that one has never heard of.”
All the more reason, it took me so long to accept that the Moon Goddess has chosen her for me. I was fighting my feeling on the knowledge that Maeve was human.
And then another memory struck me harder.
“Moreover, Blaize told me something about you,” I mused, reclaiming the conversation I had with him at the Club after Maeve brushed our connection aside.
“What did he say?”
“That you don’t smell human to him.”
Maeve tried hard not to smile, yet it just peeked out. “Okay, that’s not creepy at all.”
“Sorry,” I chuckled. “It’s just a wolf thing.
We talked a bit about all the stories and how the pups were brought up in the world of shapeshifter, the power of full moon over us, and all such details she was unaware of us. Maeve was utterly lost in herself for some time.
“You are too quiet,” I whispered, slowly caressing her skin.
“I don’t know what to say. Everything feels like a cloud of smoke, and if there is any thread of sanity in my life right now—it’s you. Ironic, but true.”
My heart broke at the melancholy of tone as I quickly pulled her into my arms. Fates, I could hold her all day and yet never get enough of her.
“Talk to me, Maeve, if that makes you feel better.”
“All my life I have been trying to fit in somewhere where I belong, but I was not welcomed anywhere. I don’t blame the people if I am weird. I mean, the visions tormented me day and night, snatching away whatever little happiness I had.”
She nuzzled her head into the crook of my neck as her warm breath fanned my skin.
“I am sorry, kitten,” I crooned. “I am sorry it took me forever to find you.”
All of a sudden, Maeve jerked up and looked straight into my eyes as if she was searching for something. “Maybe not…”
“What are you saying?” I asked, confused.
“The vision…the night I had fainted on the side of the road. That brown fur under the moonlight,” she kept mumbling under her breath and gasped. “Oh, my God, Xander. It was you. *I saw you in my vision two years ago*.”
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***About updates: I know some of you are asking for more than one chapter a day, and I will try to provide that on weekends. Otherwise, it will be one update a day. Thank you for understanding.
Do you Maeve is ready for the supernatural world now?***