Chapter 32

I felt sad, the joy I had been feeling earlier with this night's run suddenly disappeared, as if it was all about this man.

As if the river doesn't look fascinating anymore, and my whole point of coming here felt useless.

With slow steps, I drew closer to the river, to the same spot where he sat and enjoyed the view, and all I could think of was his image in my head. At that long moment, our eyes locked, and everything seemed to disappear around me with just him existing.

It felt like he was created to seduce me to my knees, explaining why he gazed at me that way—such a way no man had looked at me before.

Is this love at first sight?

Before now, I could swear such a thing didn't exist. I had lived all my life wondering how I would give my heart to a man, unsure how possible that would be because I had a lot going through my head.

The responsibility of destroying the vampires who took away my mother and would have killed me if she hadn’t hidden me properly. All I did was train intensely, waiting for the day my father would take me back home.

My hope was the mate bond, which I believed would melt my heart and make me love a man. I found Jaden, and the moment I rejected him, I came to accept that I would never have a lover.

This young man wasn’t even my mate. One look, and he pulled the strings of my heart like a masterful puppeteer — I didn’t stand a chance.

Why did he do this to me and disappear? What was that frightened look on his face as though I was someone he should avoid?

God!

I am thinking too much!

A loud hiss slipped through my lips as I dipped my legs inside the river and found myself doing the same thing the handsome man was doing before I met him.

But how was he that intensely handsome? Do we have such men in this pack? How many girls would be in his life looking to have a chance?

“I hope he also feels the same as me, because the next time we meet, he won’t have the chance to run, and no girl will take him from me.”

Fuck!

I cursed under my breath, hearing these words come out of my mouth.

Was I just claiming him as my man?

I washed my face and lay down on the shore, staring up at the sky with the breeze slapping against my skin.

That guy really has the same taste as mine. So therapeutic and warning to spend some time alone here with nature.

But it would have been the best if we lay here together and talked about anything.

I stood up after I began to feel sleepy and picked up my phone, but then my eyes caught something else. A bracelet.

It was a matte onyx beaded bracelet, so beautiful, and it seemed to gleam under the moonlight.

I picked it up, and the smell was exactly that of my crush, who had just disappeared. A little smirk appeared on my face as I finally realized I had found a reason he would return here.

He surely would have known I had taken this and must come back here tomorrow to ask for it. I will be here patiently waiting for him.

With a heart full of joy, I dipped it inside my pocket and ran back home.

Meeting him was the whole point of the sudden attraction towards the river this midnight. His presence had beckoned to me, and I was wrapped under his spell, unable to fight it back.

This must be the second chance, mate, I have read and heard about.

Liam’s POV

She has arrived in the pack.

'Our target.'

This is the news King Zaiper had always wanted to get from me since he sent me on this secret mission, which even his son, Leo, didn’t know about.

I met her today and was so sure it was the same face in the picture, only more mature and unarguably ‘gorgeous’. I shouldn’t be using such a word, though.

As I entered the vampire kingdom, I didn’t even wait for the day to break before heading to the castle to deliver this news.

It was a bit of a relief to the king, as he had thought Alpha Kane wouldn’t bring back his daughter anymore after Leo’s failure in the mission that exposed him as a vampire.

But it seemed the Alpha underestimated us and didn’t think we had what it took to capture his daughter.

I am Liam and was once a personal guard to Leo. We both trained together years back and became close friends even though we never showed a public display of our friendship.

He gave me special treatments that made me loyal. Leo thought I was out of town just like everyone, but I was on this secret mission.

Every lie he told his father about his mission was believed simply because I approved it to be true. From the day he entered that club and met that girl, Diane, I had been watching him as much as I could.

He didn’t complete this mission because of love, but I can’t tell his father that. Diane will be killed, and that would really shatter him. My heart can’t allow that.

As I approached the castle, my eyes glanced down at my wrists, and it was then I realized I hadn’t put my bracelet back on.

What the fuck!

I cursed in frustration, my mind flashing back to the moment I kept it beside the rock I sat on. The rush of adrenaline of delivering this news to the king had really made me leave in a rush that I didn’t remember this.

More frustratingly, the alpha’s daughter, who had met me there, would definitely have seen it and picked it up.

Gosh!

What the fuck!

The bracelet was from my grandmother, and she told me I should only give it as a gift to the woman I love. The one who I won’t mind spending the rest of my life with.

This is crazy! I hope she doesn't take my stuff!