Chapter 3

(Theia’s POV)

I typed furiously at my keyboard, allowing the words to flow through me as always.

[ “Mate!” he said as he realised that the woman sitting a few tables down was the reason for the intoxicating scent. Even now, as he stared at her, unable to drag his eyes away, he could see the subtle differences in her hair. It wasn’t just blond, it held strands of pure gold and honey gold. Her skin appeared to glow with a radiance that wasn’t there a few moments before. 

What he couldn’t understand was that although he scented his sweet mate as soon as he walked into the cafe, it wasn’t until they made eye contact that he realised that she was indeed his fated mate. Even somewhere deep down, back at the office when he had the urge to come down to the cafe, there was that pull to find her. Like he already knew, or some part of him did and was guiding him to her. 

“Well duh,” he heard the inner rough voice of his wolf in the back of his head, “Now go get mate.” The Alpha rolled his eyes at the impatience of his wolf.

“It’s not as easy as that,” he replied in his head, “Take her scent again,” He made a point of breathing in her deep alluring scent, the lemon played against his senses like a fresh wake up call and the honey wrapped around him like a home he never knew before today but couldn’t imagine ever not knowing again. But under all that was the scent that broke his heart a little.

“She is human,” he said to his wolf, the sadness in his tone.

“So,” the wolf scoffed, “I don’t care, I want mate,” and the alpha shook his head

“You know as well as I do that we can’t take a human to be our mate,” 

“Don’t care, want mate,” the wolf responded. The Alpha knew that he wasn’t going to convince his wolf. The wolf was always single minded when it came to finding his mate, even if said mate didn’t have a wolf. 

Everything was forgotten at that point when a movement from the table where the trio sat drew the Alpha’s attention. He watched from the corner of his eye as the three women stood up and the two other women took their turn to hug his new mate. She looked stressed as she spoke to the other two women and kept rubbing her head with her hand and closing her eyes. The Alpha wondered if she had a headache. Come to think of it, she did look kind of pale, or more pale than she did before. He couldn’t keep his eyes or his concern from her as he watched as she gathered her bag and phone and pushed her chair in. 

“Mate leaving, stop her!” his wolf urged in his head and he felt the feeling of panic in his stomach, like something bad was going to happen.

“Stop her now!” his wolf was getting irritated and he could feel as he paced within his head.

“Okay, Okay,” the Alpha gave in, not just to the wolf but his own urge too. He stood up from his seat and noticed as his mate glanced over with a slightly surprised but also curious look. He allowed a half smile to form on his lips as he mirrored her actions and headed towards the door. 

She kept glancing over, trying to be subtle, but the Alpha could see the nervousness in the way she moved. Did she know? Could she feel the mate bond? Humans rarely felt the bond because of the very limited amount of supernatural essence in their system. Once in a while, a human had enough essence in them to give them an edge above other humans, and that was when you got your mediums or tarot readers. They were nowhere as powerful as a true supernatural psychic, though. The Alpha made it to the door a second or so before his human mate and turned as he opened it with the intent of holding it open for her and using that as an excuse to introduce himself. But the look of confused fear on her face stopped his voice in his throat. He saw as she looked down half a second before her foot caught on a chair leg and she went flying straight into his arms. 

The Alpha caught her before she crashed to the floor, his hand holding her bare arm to steady her. He knew in the very moment that his skin touched hers that it didn’t matter what she was, or who she was. All that mattered was that she had to be his. He smiled down at her with his most charming smile.

“Falling for me already,” he said with a wink, “At least let me introduce myself first.” He held out a hand as she looked at him with disbelief in her eyes, “My name is-” ]

BEEP BEEP BEEP

I jumped as my alarm went off on my phone and I scrambled to turn it off. I glanced at the display and saw I had a text message from my friend Harlow reminding me of our planned meeting today. Of course, that was why I had set the alarm, to make sure that I didn’t get sucked into hours of writing and forgot our plans again. I quickly glanced over at what I had just written and shook my head. I honestly wasn’t sure where half of this stuff came from. Supernatural Conclave? Alchemists? I thought alchemists were those medieval guys that changed lead to gold or something. But there was something different about these guys. I shrugged. It would come to me, it normally did when the time was right. That was how most of my books worked. Didn’t stop me from still being surprised every time I realised. 

I glanced at the time again. I still had a little time, so I made a few quick notes. I needed a name for the characters. I couldn’t keep calling him The Alpha. Or her, his mate. And seriously, she tripped up and fell into his arms? I rolled my eyes. How cheesy was that? My readers would have a field day on that one. I wondered if I could edit that bit out and make it a little more plausible. I mean, I knew it was a paranormal romance, but there had to be some reality in there. But it would have to wait for now. I sighed and shut down my laptop. It was a good solid amount of words that I had written, but I felt like there were more bursting to get out of me. I suspected that I wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, or not until I had written what needed to be written. 

It was a nice day out, so I decided to forgo a jacket and enjoy the feeling of the sun on my skin for the walk over to the cafe. It would only take me about five minutes to walk slowly over. I wanted to tie my hair up out of my eyes but I could still feel the headache that had started earlier on today. I grabbed one of my many medicine bottles and pulled out two pills and swallowed them down whole. After life long medical issues and at twenty-six I was pretty much well used to the many combinations of pills that the doctors had tried in the attempt to stop the seizures. I silently hoped, as I left my apartment, that these would work long enough for me to meet with my friends and get back home for a nap before I started writing again. 

I thought back to what I had written on my walk over to the cafe. That one line hit me quite hard.

“He knew in the very moment that his skin touched hers that it didn’t matter what she was, or who she was. All that mattered was that she had to be his.”

I felt that somewhere deep inside me. After years of failed relationships, thinking that this one was different. Only for them to disappear or tell me that me and my mass amount of illnesses and stuff was too much to deal with, then the idea that someone would just want me despite all that ran deep into my core. But that was the beauty of fiction. You could make up the perfect man and fall in love with him as many times as you read the book he was in. The modern day world where a girl could have as many book boyfriends as she wanted. I sighed sadly. It was a shame that none of them could cuddle up with me and hold me whilst I cried against the pain coursing through my body. Or made love to me and took me to great euphoric heights, hell I would settle for cuddling on the sofa and watching a cheesy movie nowadays. 

I sighed again as I arrived at the cafe and shook myself out of my pity party. I couldn’t walk into there with my eyes all watery again. The girls wouldn’t let me rest until I told them what was wrong. And the one thing worse than self pity was the pity on the face of your friends. I smiled and opened the door and walked into the cafe. A quick look around, and I saw Harlow and Naya sitting at one of the tables. They both smiled and waved, and I waved back as I headed over to them.

“Sorry I’m late,” I said as I sat down and Harlow laughed. Her grey-green eyes sparkled in amusement and she ran her fingers through her dark brown hair as it fell against her dewy blush skin. 

“Did you think we would expect any different?” she said cheerfully, “Get caught in a writing sprint again?” and I nodded, feeling a little guilty.

“Anything good?” Naya asked, looking up from her phone putting it down long enough to pull her black hair back, exposing her rich tawny flawless complexion that guys just fell over themselves for. Both of these women had been my backbone over the last year and despite the three of us being so different, the one thing that brought us together, our writing had helped form the unlikely bond between a housewife and dedicated mother of three, a graduated with honours student from California and a pasty singleton. We had met at a writers conference and after realising that we all lived so close to each other, decided to support each other as we attempted to make it in the brutal world of writing. 

“Earth to Theia,” Naya waved her hand in front of my eyes and I smiled at her, not realising that I had fazed out again. Hmm, maybe those pills weren’t going to last very long at all. One of the sure telltale signs was me slipping into a dissociative state. I could tell by the look on both girls’ faces that they had caught my slip and were concerned. I smiled brighter in hopes of dispelling their fears.

“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” I asked.

“I asked if you were writing anything good,” Naya said with a glance at Harlow. I nodded my head with a sudden spark of excitement.

“Actually, yeah,” I said, “I think it might have some potential. It’s still early days, but this one is a werewolf that falls in love with a human. I don’t know much yet but I do have around four thousand words written so we will see how it goes.” 

“Ooh, can you imagine,” Harlow said excitedly, “Having a werewolf as a boyfriend, I bet those beasts could have you all night and still not get tired.” she had a sparkle in her eyes as I blushed in horror,

“Harlow!” I exclaimed, and she laughed. She was in the middle of a rather saucy book herself and often told us about her friend who was feeding her information about the kink scene for her research. I hadn’t heard of most of the things and always ended up blushing at the thought of it. 

“Oh, you don’t know what you are missing until you miss it,” she said with a wink and I blushed again.

“So it’s a romance then?” Naya asked, and I shrugged, glad she changed the subject back to books.

“I’m not sure. There is this whole thing with these super powerful supernatural types that I still haven’t figured out yet. But it could be a good standalone,” I said, and both girls burst into laughter. I couldn’t help but smile along. My last two books were meant to be stanadlone’s, but they had grown into these massive worlds that all seemed connected. I went to say that there was still a chance, when the door to the cafe opened and a breeze ruffled in from behind me. I froze as I swore for the quickest second that I got the whiff of old leather books and fireplace fire. It was strange and kinda specific, but comforting for the time it was there, but it was gone as soon as it had arrived. I couldn’t help but glance around at the door quickly and saw a guy standing looking around as if he was looking for someone. I couldn’t say why, but I got the very sudden feeling that I knew him, like there was something familiar on the edge of my vision that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I shrugged, sure that it was nothing, and turned back to the girls and back the conversation about books.