Chapter 5

RILEY'S POV

Prince Norman Edelman my fated mate? Or should I say, second chance mate?

How was it possible?

His proximity knocked out every breath in me. His words had the worst effect on me. I gaped at the man towering before me in the plush bedroom he offered me to stay. My destiny couldn't get any messier. Any funnier.

I dared not laugh. This man wasn't the type to appreciate humor. Definitely not the type to settle for a wolfless girl. If Alpha Nate could reject me then this great Lycan Prince certainly won't miss a beat.

Maybe my destiny was to pine away all alone like the rest of the Wyels without gifts.

I shook my head at his last question. Never in the world would I have imagined this breathtaking Prince was my second chance mate. The mate bond was hard to recognize, his scent, hard to tell. It would've been different if I had a wolf.

The same vagueness when Alpha Nate popped out of nowhere to declare himself my mate seized my mind as I remained transfixed before Norman.

His dark gaze, void of any emotions pinned on my face. He trailed a lazy finger along my jawline, and my skin prickled at the touch.

"I want you to meet your family," His deep velvet voice sounded rather husky.

Family?

"I have none," I said automatically to counter his words.

He didn't know who I was.

The Northerners were known for brainwashing, hypnotizing, and blaspheming. I was the only one of my kind. I couldn't let him fill my head with things that could never be.

"My family's in HornSide Pack and they are no more." I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue and grew silent.

His gaze fell on my lips and lingered there. His hand ventured from my jaw to my heated cheek, his thumb grazing the soft contour of my mouth.

"None of the Wyel bloodlines around possess this gift, but at least, they possess strong wolves." He continued, regardless. "Why then are you giftless and wolfless?"

The moon goddess was in the right position to answer this question.

Whatever I had to say instantly dissolved in me as soon as his hand dropped from my face to softly settle on my waist, pulling me against his chest, his breath ghosting over my face.

"Do you understand what your destiny is? Runt?"

He didn't just call me a runt, but I nodded rather clinically. "To live in desolation."

HornSide Pack members never passed up the opportunity to remind me I was a waste of Pack space. I didn't fit in anywhere except in my little solitary mold.

His hands unexpectedly hoisted me from the floor in an unexpected move to match his towering height, securing my limbs tight around his waist.

"What the fuck? Who fed you that crap?" He muttered.

A knock on the door peeled my eyes from his lustful gaze to the door. I dropped from him and started towards the door, my hands stiffed by my sides, shoulders slumped forward.

Mr. Chadwick was by the door in a nice shirt. His eyes perceptibly wandered my entire frame before he let out a groan.

"Do you understand what happens if we get late twice in a row?" He looked pretty pissed, "Prince Norman is waiting, I told you to get ready, he's taking you along to the all-exclusive meeting with the Pack elders."

He ranted as though reprimanding a kid. It was hard to speak, not when my body was yet to recover from practically being in Prince Norman's arms.

"Get moving!" He snapped his fingers before my eyes as though to snap me from my thoughts and have me go change into something nice, "I saved your ass the last time, this time I'll sit out and watch you face the Prince's rage all by yourself!"

"Give her thirty more minutes Chadwick," Norman stood behind.

I stepped aside so he could walk out of the room. Chadwick didn't understand what just hit him. His mouth fell and hung open, his confused gaze roaming my face before he gulped, nodded, and followed Norman down the hall.

Forty minutes later, I sat in the backseat of a different car from the one we were in the previous day. Norman was on his phone speaking with a grim face to whoever was at the other end of the line, Chadwick talked lightly about what I was going to see and do in the meeting.

The car pulled up in an antiquated building in the middle of nowhere.

"Come with me, Riley." Norman's authoritarian tone commanded.

I obliged. Followed him closely as he walked through the rusty gate into the ugly-looking building. Just then, I glanced over my shoulder to see different sets of cars pull up outside the gate.

Norman instantly hardened, his sharp jaws tensed visibly, the features on his handsome face became an effigy of contempt. His unwavering glare held in place the other parties joining us on the lawn of this building.

"Long time no see, brother!"

The man amid the security guards in nice suits and ties spoke with sheer smugness and humor.

I instantly knew who he was. His jet-black hair, the scar along his cheekbone on his face identical to that of Norman's, and his handsome features matched those on the TV screens making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Raids, captivity, and power.

Damon Edelman. The first of the triplets.

His dark eyes instantly shot my way and the smugness dropped off his face, replaced with confusion. He walked closer to us tilting towards me as though to get a brighter look.

Norman possessively stepped in front of me as though shielding me from this brute-looking man.

His scent wafted up my nostrils, sweet sandalwood and I wasn't sure what this excitement billowing inside of me was, or what the curiosity in his eyes was as they met mine.

My fingers trembled, his aura was overwhelming just as Norman's had the first time I met him but this was quite different in a raw and wild type of way.

Damon took another step closer and I could hear Norman mutter a curse.

"Step the fuck back or I break your goddamn neck!" Norman's claws were out.

This wasn't a mere threat. For the first time, someone actually defended me. But I was too vested in this inexplicable excitement in the pit of my stomach, flooding heat in all the right places, making it hard to breathe, hard to move until the word fell out of my lips.

"Mate!"