5

“Elelira? Ela!” Mimi calls out to me, snapping me out of the memory. 

“Yes?” I met her eyes in the mirror as a look of concern masked her face. 

“Are you alright, child? Is something not to your liking? We can change the accessories if you-”

“No, no. It’s fine,” I smiled at her. 

I take in my appearance; my youthful face, no longer containing the heavy bags under my no longer dull eyes from all the nights of fretful sleep. My glowing skin, unmarred by the harsh elements that I had to battle daily the last year of my marriage to supply my own firewood, food, doing my own laundry in the stream a mile inland so as not to disturb the maids. Lachlan made it clear I was not his true Luna and could not order his staff as I pleased. I hated that trek to wash my laundry. Without proper shoes to travel across the rocky landscape, my feet would be blistered and bleeding as I came back every time. 

Mimi would take care of all that for me when she was alive, being able to order the maids and staff as she pleases. I did not have that ability. After she died, I was truly on my own. 

“Do you have to do this again, Ela?” Val asked me. “Can we not just run away?”

“If we leave now, where will we go? Without our fins and our gills, we would be stuck on land and could easily be captured and returned to Lachlan, or worse, my uncle. Also, we need to reject him, Val. If we don’t, we could be living our entire lives with the pains of betrayal. We know he won’t touch us, and no one else will during our time here. We could face worse out there.”

“There has to be a way to attain your fins and gills before your magic comes in. If not, how do siren children survive?”

“They are born from siren mothers, so are born in their siren forms. We had a Lycan mother. We can’t access that form until our seal is broken.”

Val whimpers, not wanting to face the endless rejection of her mate again. It hardened my heart, but hers is still longing for the one she was fated for. She never met Lachlan’s beast. She doesn’t hold the same closure I was able to attain in the rejection. 

This will be the first night the pain begins. Our wedding night was his first act of betrayal. 

I waited for him, hoping he would come, only to be struck by the greatest pain I had ever felt up to that point while he entertained himself with another woman that night. 

This night will not be any different. 

No, there will be a difference. I have known greater pain than he could ever give me. I have been subjected to far worse than betrayal. 

I will not wait for him. I will not long for him. I will not let a single tear fall from my eyes as my chest burns and throbs for hours on end. 

My heart is already closed off, and there is no hope for me in this marriage, fated mate or not. I will just endure once again, biding my time until I can finally be granted my freedom.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Lachlan POV

It’s the day. I’ve been fighting and longing for this day for so long, and today has finally come. The day I see her again. My restart, the reset I've fought for. I've killed for it.

I couldn’t believe it had worked. He told me he could do it, but I had my doubts. The incessant demands and the rules he set made me believe that he was full of it. I expected him to bring her back, then keep her for himself. 

When I awoke in my own bed, feeling unchanged, I thought that he had deceived me, but then the omegas started pouring in to ready me for my wedding day. 

Seeing my appearance, the younger face, without the worry lines and wrinkles, and with no beard laced with gray from the months of constant stress and regret, I knew it had worked. He had fulfilled his end of the deal, and now I must fulfill mine. 

2 years. 

I have 2 years to make her fall in love with me, which shouldn’t be hard considering she is my fated mate. 

I remember the look on her face on our wedding day the first time it happened. I remember the awe and the longing.

She knew. 

She knew the moment our eyes met that I was hers, I was just too stupid to realize it. She could have been mine on that night, but I fought my urge to go to her and take her, and spent the night in the brothels, fucking through a series of women with the image of her beautiful face haunting me the entire time. 

I should have known she was a siren. Everything about her called to my soul, but I spent the whole two years of our marriage fighting it. Now I know why, and I will not make the same mistake. 

“You better not. If you hurt her in any way ever again, I will end us. I would rather kill us than let her ever feel that pain again.”

The betrayal pains we felt changed my beast. The realization and physical reminder of the pain she always felt from us made him go mad for some time. It took feeling her death for him to give me back control. 

Worse than the pain of betrayal, the pain of her death, and the final tether holding our souls together was too much for him. It broke him, and I know he would go to any lengths to prevent her from hurting ever again. 

We both went through great lengths to bring her back. 

Now that we have got our second chance, I will not ruin it. She will be showered with my love and admiration from the moment our eyes meet in the ballroom. 

I will let myself be enchanted by her beauty, and tonight, I will fulfill the bond. 

One of the rules that was set was that I can not reveal that I was the one who brought her back. I can’t say how I know that we are fated mates or let her know the lengths I had to go through to bring her back from the dead. That will not matter, though. She wanted me on our wedding day. I was the one that ruined the special moment we should have had. 

I won’t make that mistake again. 

“Alpha?” Nilo opened my bedroom door. The omega’s making last-minute adjustments to my clothes start working faster to finish. Last time, I did not care how I appeared at the wedding. I just wanted to get it done. This time, I wanted to take her breath away. I want her to be so enamored with me that fulfilling my end of the deal that I struck with her father would only take a day. A single night. Our wedding night is all I will need. 

“It’s time, Alpha. Everyone is in place and the officiant has just arrived. I received word that Elelira is ready herself as well.”

“Good, good,” I smiled at my Beta before turning to check my appearance one more time. 

Everything is in place, my outfit accentuates my physique, and my face is radiant with the joy I’m feeling, knowing I am about to come face to face with my mate once again. I am being given the chance to do everything right. 

“Let’s go,” I told my Beta, waving off the omegas and righting my collar around my neck. 

Before, on my wedding day, I wore black to match the mood and my emotions. This time, I had them change my undershirt and my accents to gold, to match the color of her hair, and the rings we will exchange are adorned with green emeralds to match the color of her luminous eyes. 

When I told the staff to fetch me a jeweler to purchase the new rings the first moment after waking up, they thought I was mad. I had already had plain gold rings, thin and fragile like our original marriage prepared. 

That wouldn’t do. 

This was to be forever, and the rings needed to reflect the eternal love I would shower her with from this day forward. 

It was expensive, but she is worth it. She will be worth all the treasures in the world, and I plan on giving her it all. 

My fingers traced over the box with the rings in my pocket, a smile playing on my lips. 

“Are you sure about this, Alpha? I do not trust Wayne, and this seems too forced for a marriage alliance. Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Nilo asked as we walked together towards the ballroom. 

“I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life,” I grinned. 

He eyed me speculatively. “You sure changed your tune. You were dreading this just yesterday. You told Yasmin not to worry and that you would be back to see her tonight.”

I cringe internally. I forgot about Yasmin.

“Forget about her again. Forget about all of them. You will not be hurting her,” Killian growls at me. 

“You have nothing to worry about. I will never lay a finger on another woman again.”

“I know you won’t. I won’t let you,” he snarls. 

Like I would ever ruin this chance. It hurts to even think about the day she rejected me, and all the pain and heartache that came after. 

I took my place proudly at the front of the hall, Nilo at my side, and we turned to face the doors my bride and mate would soon emerge from. 

It is only minutes, but the wait is excruciating. My longing for her is almost too much to bear as the moment of our first meeting draws nearer and nearer. 

I breathe deeply, readying my heart for that admiring and awestruck look that will come over her face when she enters through those doors. I plan on pouring every bit of my love into the gaze I return back to her. This is the moment I will remember as the moment our love began. 

When the doors finally start to open, my heart starts to beat out of my chest and I forget how to breathe. This is it. This is the beginning of our….

Wait..... 

Everyone turned to stare, whispering among themselves, no doubt as amazed at her beauty as I was the first time my eyes met hers. 

This time, though, her eyes are trained on the ground, her face blank and uncaring. When she does look up, her eyes don’t go to mine. They are staring straight ahead, cold and distant. 

The hold she has on her uncle seems forced. His smile is cruel and calculated, as it usually is, but hers is much different from what I expected. When I remembered this moment the first time it happened, I had always longed for a redo; to go back and accept her from this moment, to change the course of everything. 

There is no emotion to connect with this time. She looks as if she is marching to her death, dreading the marriage and everything about it. 

She doesn’t want this. I can see it on her face. She doesn’t want me so much, to the point she won’t even look at me. 

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Killian roars in my head.

“NOTHING!” I exclaimed, “I haven’t even seen her yet. The last I saw her was the day she rejected me, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Killian was silent for a moment, and so was I as we raced through what could have changed this time around. This should be a fresh start. This should be exactly like it was in the….

“Wait. Would she still have her memories from before like us?” Killian asked.

Could she?

She is directly in front of me now, and her uncle is ready to pass her off, but she still won’t meet my gaze. 

My heart shatters, its shards stabbing straight through to my soul, Killian howling in pain, not knowing what to do. 

We got our redo, just like he promised us, but the task of making our mate fall in love with us will be impossible if she remembers the mistakes of our past; of our future. To make matters worse, we can’t reveal anything to her. 

When her eyes finally do lift, meeting mine only momentarily, I feel it. Her hatred and her rejection, like ice being thrown over the fire that was burning inside me.