Chapter Two

I had to tell my father, tell him what would happen at the ceremony, what had happened in my past life, and pray that he would listen. I slipped from my chambers in a rush, gliding down the gilded halls of my father's kingdom. 

My father's kingdom, Evander, stood at the edge of four powerful supernatural clans. Each one had its strengths, but my father's kingdom had power and riches beyond the rest. That's why we were having this damned mating ceremony anyhow. 

Calista and I were each to be married off to a clan, and in exchange, Evander would keep growing. 

It had been this way for centuries. 

The clans craved human females to mate with, to conceive with, since their own females could barely fall pregnant. 

Just as soon as I rounded the corner heading for the throne room, I heard groaning, low and deep… then high-pitched and howling. Calista… and that deep dark groan, I knew it well. I had heard it for three years.

I peeked into Calista's chambers; the door had been left cracked as if they rushed in, having no time left to close the door completely, and I nearly gasped to see her and Theron atop her bed, naked, making love. 

I ran, hard and fast, as a sour feeling filled my mouth. I barely made it to the doorway that would lead me out into the courtyard when I lost the contents of my stomach, puking all over the pink pearly rose bushes lining the gardens.

"Odessa?" My father's powerful drawl filled the spring air as I wiped the mess from my mouth with the back of my hand. 

"Father," I swallowed, trying to clear my mind of the flashes of my sweet Locke still cradled in my arms. 

"I need to speak with–" My words were cut off by Calista's flowery voice fleeting through the halls. 

"Father!" Calista called, her porcelain skin glittering in the sun of the garden as she ran up to us. 

"I have news." She wrapped her hands around my father's arm, eagerly pulling him away from me. 

"Theron and I are in love, father. I humbly ask your permission to choose first in the mating union." My father studied Calista, his dark eyes roaming her every facial feature before turning to look at me. 

"Odessa must choose first; she is the oldest. However, you may persuade her to choose someone besides Theron. After all, I can smell that he has bedded you," My father looked at me again. This time, his brows knitted in thought."

"No other alpha will choose your sister knowing that Theron has bedded her. Perhaps you could reconsider your choice, Odessa. I know you have had your eyes on Theron for some time, but perhaps." He spoke in a tone that told me this was a command despite it being worded to sound like it would be my choice. 

Before either of them could say anything more, visions of my past life flashed again—this time of the day I chose Theron. Even then, his attention had been on Calista, but I was too blinded by the love I had carried for Theron to notice. 

"She can choose first." The words fell from my lips before I could think better of it. I would change things this time. I would do right by Locke; I would choose better for him… for myself.

"Good. It is settled then. Calista will choose mates first, choosing to stand with Theron." My father nodded, walking away, leaving Calista in my face with a wide, cocky grin forming on her no longer innocent face.

"Thank your sister, Calista. If she hadn't agreed to change her choice, you likely would be mateless." My father nearly growled the last word as he continued down the grand hall. 

"Thank you, sister." Calista wrapped me in a too-tight hug, an embrace that made my skin prick and burn. "Just think, Odessa. If none of the other alphas will have you, you could always be my scullery maid," she whispered in my ear, her tone dripping with victory.

I knew then, the moment she let me go with a wide birthing smile, that Calista had been reborn too. 

In the past, Calista was mated with Lucian, the vampire lord, because the remaining alphas wanted nothing to do with her. She assumed the same would happen to me in this life, but I was determined to steer clear of the vampire clan, almost as determined as I was to stay away from Theron.

A smile spread across my lips as she backed away. 

"So smug already," I asked, knowing she had no idea what she was about to step into. The fae clan looked like the best choice from the outside. They were powerful, loyal; the clan thrived even without Theron being made ruler of the clans those years after our courtship. But the truth of what swelled from the inside… was much uglier, much darker. 

Their loyalty lay only with their kind, and as a human, I was only seen as an incubator, nothing more. Calista will soon realize that too. 

In my last life, it had taken me time to fall pregnant. It had taken so long that Theron had called in his healers, their doctors, anyone in the clan that could perform magic, and day after day I was forced into rituals. At night, I was bedded by Theron until I couldn't talk the next day, only for it to all start over again by sunrise. 

"Don't be jealous when I fall pregnant first, sister." Calista glared; a devilish expression crossed her face as she turned away, her brown curls bouncing as she walked away from me. 

I turned my face to the sun, breathing in the warmth of the spring day.

When Locke and I were murdered, this feeling of the sun on my face, and of Locke in my arms were the last things I felt before waking up today, and as the sun warmed my face just like the morning I lost him, I dropped to my knees, the skirts of my dress the only thing between the flesh of my knees and the stones that tried to draw blood, and I grieved for my boy, for his sweet little button nose, and the way he suckled his lips even in his sleep. 

I wanted to rip Theron's throat out for every second I would be forced to live without my son. I wanted to avenge Locke… and in time. I would.