Finding My Mate.

I go to the best hotel I can find for cheap. I couldn’t face my mother yet…

When I arrive there, Sapphire is immediately on edge. It's odd.

‘What is it, Sapphire?’ I ask her curiously, wondering what could be rattling up my dragon.

‘I smell those men from earlier. I think they are on the same floor and we need to be careful.’ She replies quietly, curling into herself slightly as she speaks.

I nod my head in acknowledgment and sneak into our room for the night.

Trying to keep myself hidden.

I stay up most of the night just trying to listen and see if I can hear anything going on. For the most part nothing happens, until I start falling asleep.

Suddenly, I hear one man start talking about my Ma, Athena.

Making me jump up out of my sleepy haze.

“If we don’t find them by tomorrow we’re dead, man. He told us we had to find them or he’ll have our heads!! I’m fucking scared man!” the one guy yells, sounding genuinely nervous.

“Yeah, yeah. I hear ya. All we can do is keep looking, okay?” Another one replies, annoyed.

I keep listening to their chatter, just saying they are looking for me and Ma.

How is my father alive? I don’t understand how he’s alive. Ma said he died when I was four years old.

I honestly don’t understand how he’s alive and he's looking for us too. Why would she have us in hiding from him? What did he do to her? To us? I try racking my brain with anything, just one small memory and that’s when it hits me.

‘You are so fucking useless Athena!! You can’t even give me a baby after all these years we’ve been together and tried! Four fucking years, you worthless bitch!” My angry father screams at my mother, kicking and throwing stuff around in his rage fit, ‘We’re fated mates so I thought you’d give me strong heirs but no, you give me nothing! ‘

You can see Ma sobbing silently at his mean words. She is holding a pregnancy test in her hand, trying to tell him she’s pregnant with me.

But he’s too angry to listen to her.

End of flashback.

I don’t understand at first how I’m seeing this but it doesn’t matter. I’m seeing it and need to see it for some reason.

He keeps hurling insults at Ma saying she’s a disgrace and useless. He tells her she should leave and never come back. And that’s what she did. When he left, she packed everything she could take with her, left and never went back.

And that’s how we are here now.

But why do I remember him being around until I was four?

Did she make my memories this way?

What else did she manipulate?

‘What the actual fuck Sapphire. Why did we see that?’ I ask, feeling my skin prickling with goosebumps.

‘It’s one of our many powers Lily. You reached out to the past to see what happened and you retrieved it. ‘ Sapphire answers casually, her big taloned claws crossed over each other.

What the actual fuck. I am never going to get used to this.

I keep thinking about my father and how cruel he was to my mother…

All I can think is how glad I am that she left him. I have always longed for a father growing up;thinking how amazing he’d be and how we’d be so close, doing everything together. Now, all I can think is how grateful I am not to have had that angry and insolent man in my life growing up.

I wonder how badly he would’ve treated me too.

Sapphire and I talk a while longer about everything and she tells me how we will slowly get to understand and control our powers with time.

How it’ll be random for the most part, and sometimes it's just gonna happen but we need to train and practice so we’re skilled and careful.

She keeps repeating to me that no one can know we are the last female dragon, absolutely no one.

She mentions that humans apparently don’t know that supernatural beings exist. For the most part.

No werewolves, no vampires, neither witches nor dragons. So, no shifting or magic in front of them.

It’s gonna be tough.

All of a sudden, Sapphire gets really quiet… and I can smell something and it smells fantastic..

‘Not something Lily.. you smell him:Our mate. He’s working for our father but he doesn’t know we’re mated. If we don’t leave now he’s gonna find us.’ Sapphire says, hesitation on her tone.

I get up,grab the bag I had with me and start for the back door of the hotel room. I don’t get far before I hear voices.

‘Lily we have to act happy to meet him, it’s the only way of getting out of this situation, trust me. ‘ Sapphire says, ‘with time you’ll learn why he has to cross our path.’

“I smell her! My mate is here boys!” A throaty voice yells.

My heartbeat picks up at his tone, at the way he speaks.

‘Now is not the time, Lily. Plus, he’s a wolf,’ Sapphire says, ‘I’m not even a little bit interested in him. Mask your scent to smell that of a wolf, Lily.’

‘How am I supposed to do that!’ I legit have no idea what I’m doing, zero. I don’t understand how I’m supposed to just magically mask my scent.

‘Just picture us smelling like a werewolf, like Raya. Imagine being one, smelling like one. It should work,’ she explains casually, acting as if it’s easy.

I imagine what she’s telling me, feeling like a wolf and smelling like one too.

‘Picture your image as someone else as well, we can’t have them see our real face, they will recognize us as your father's daughter.’

After she says that and now that I have seen him in the flashback I accessed,I realize I am a spitting image of my father. I do as I’m told and put my trust in my dragon to not let me down. I look in the mirror by the back door and see my hair colour turn red and eyes brown. Okay then. I guess this is really happening right now.

‘Our name is Chloe now, okay Lily? This will all be over soon,’ Sapphire tells me, sounding so sure, so confident.

Okay I can do this. I got this. I open the door and bump right into my “mate”.

“Woah, I’m so sorry about that. I’m so clumsy,” I say to him as I laugh sheepishly, putting my hands over my heart.

He gives me a devilish smirk before saying, “Well, hello darling, my name's Alexander but you can just call me Alex.”

He looks at me confidently, the smirk on his face never leaving.

“Well, hello, Alex.. my name's Chloe.. and it looks like you’re my mate,” I say casually, playing with a few strands of my hair, trying to play it cool.

His smirk gets bigger. And my heart begins to beat faster.

“Yes, it looks like we are, my little mate. How about we go and get to know each other? I’m the alpha of my pack, I think you’d feel safe there Chloe. I am needing to settle down and have an heir you know…”

We size him up and notice that he’s got blond hair, blue eyes and a slim build. No muscles on this man at all. But isn’t he a werewolf, Sapphire scoffs at him in my head, like aren’t they all supposed to be huge and hot?

Whatever, we will not be stuck with this guy just because someone or some “god" said we should be mates. I can feel her disinterest oozing onto me.

“I’m sorry Alex. But the only reason I'm here right now is I was mad at my mom because we had a huge fight. Now I'm worried about her. I need to get back home to her. I've never strayed this long before. I know she's super worried about me right now. I hope you understand. I will give you my number so we can get together tomorrow after I tell her the good news of meeting my handsome mate!” I say, trying to sound nervous and scared.

Sapphire rolls her eyes. She's definitely not up for this. But, I have to play along.

Needing to clarify, I also say, “I’m also only seventeen Alex. I'm nowhere near ready to settle down and have kids, I hope you understand that.”

Just saying that makes Sapphire want to cringe with disgust. Sapphire said she didn’t even have any interest in this guy cause he’s a werewolf so… I don’t understand why we’re even “mated” to each other like that.

“Okay darling, as long as you give me your number and promise to get together with me tomorrow, I’ll allow you to go home,” he says with a creepy smile on his face.

Gross! Sapphire keeps cringing inwardly. Who says that shit. ‘I’ll allow you to go home’ Is he my boss? Fuck this guy.

“Okay Alex, here's my number, it's 1234-546-7868. I really need to get going now.” I tell him and start walking away, not wanting to look back.

“Hold up doll face. Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?” He says cheekily like that’ll make me want to or something. Again, this guy’s gross.

Sapphire’s reactions are killing me.

She’s growling and crawling at me on the inside, screaming at me to keep going.

“I’m sorry Alex but I’m not ready to do any of that kind of stuff. You’ll have to wait for a little while before I’m ready. I haven’t done anything like that before and would like to wait,” I say, acting shy while playing with my hair.

‘I mean,’ Sapphire says to me, ‘we are not technically lying. We’d like to wait since we haven’t done anything like that before.’

“Okay, doll face. We can wait and once we mate and mark each other, it’ll be amazing. Trust me,” he says while looking me up and down, making my insides turn.

okay, even grosser. Sapphire is getting frustrated now. We're definitely not mating with this guy, ever.

I wave at him and start walking away again, wanting to put as much distance between us as possible.

When I’m away from them, I start running as fast as I can. Sapphire urges me to keep going and not to stop.

Once I’ve arrived back home, I run through the door, slamming it shut behind me.

As I catch my breath, I see Raya and Ma sitting at the kitchen tables with very scared looks on their faces, as if they didn’t know who I was…

“Who the fuck are you!!” Raya hisses while getting into a fighting stance. Wow, this here is supposed to be my best friend but yet I feel like I know nothing about her.

“Yeah! Who dares storm into my house unannounced like this!” Mother yells darkly, she actually even looks a little scary as she glares at me.

“Cut the shit. It’s me, the daughter who was kept in the shadows and never told a thing about who or what she really is.” I say simply.

‘Just imagine being back to your normal self Lily, your beautiful blue eyes and beautiful light brown hair, your perfect eyebrows and sharp jaw, turn yourself back into my beautiful human,’ Sapphire basically purrs out.

I do as I’m told and imagine being myself again. I hear gasps from both ma and Raya before I open my eyes and look at them. Raya’s mouth is wide open and so is Ma’s looking absolutely flabbergasted.

“Lily!! What the actual fuck! How the hell did you do that!” Raya yells at me before trying to run to me.