Page 19

NINETEEN

Lena

Lena didn’t look at Aditi when she accepted a mug with tea. “Thanks,” she muttered. She might be upset but that wasn’t a good enough reason not to say thank you for a cup of tea.

She took a sip, humming when it had just the perfect amount of milk in it. She didn't know why, but tea always tasted better when Aditi made it. Maybe it was about how long she steeped it, how hot she boiled the water. Maybe it was just because it was made with love.

"So you don't want to go into the lake?" Lena checked, deciding that there was no point in making idle small talk. This was something that they needed to sort out once and for all because it kept coming back to this.

Aditi was pacing back and forth in the kitchen. "I do."

"But not with me."

"No, I do want to go with you."

"But you don't."

"But I don't," she confirmed.

Lena rubbed her forehead, her fingertips warm from her mug. "This is giving me a headache, Adi."

"Take some painkillers then."

"Wow. Are those the same bed manners you use in the hospital?" It was an unfair remark but it slipped out all the same.

Aditi glared at her. "You know it's not."

"Sorry."

"I'm just tired of going round and round and round on this."

"Me too. That's why I'm trying to break the cycle. Let's just go into the bloody lake," Lena said, exhausted with the whole thing already. Why were all her answers causing a fight?

She refused to go. Fight.

She agreed to go. Fight.

This really was doing her head in and she wondered if the walls were getting tired of their arguing.

"See. This is why I don't want to go." Aditi pointed one slender but angry finger at her. "I don't want to go because you're just placating me. You have to believe we’re fated mates. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

Lena wanted to pull the hair out of her head. "I do believe it. I mean, if it’s not you, it’s nobody!"

"Really?" Aditi grew quiet and stopped pacing. "I thought you didn't want to go into the lake cause you thought we weren't fated."

"That's not it at all. I don't want you to be with me because you think I'm your fated mate. I want you to choose me because you love me. Me . Not your fated mate."

"And I do!" The intense fierceness in Aditi's eyes made it clear she meant it too. "I love you more than anything. The only reason I think we're fated mates is because I love you so."

"Then why do we have to go into the lake to prove it?"

"Aaah! We have been over this!" Aditi screeched and stomped her feet. "Fine, no lake! Let's just get mated and married. Screw fate. I don't care about fate. I just want you."

A warmth washed over Lena but it wasn't a gentle kind, more like a burning uncomfortable heat. "No."

"No?"

"No. I might not like all the traditions from our society but being mated is a big deal. You're a shifter, you shouldn't mate without anyone that's not your fated."

"I thought you believed that was you."

"I do." Lena sank down on her chair and practically hid her face. She voiced something that had been in the dark depths of her heart but she hadn't wanted to give power to. "But I'm scared I'm not."

Aditi's hand rubbed up and down her back. "Oh, Lena."

That was the second time that she needed Aditi to comfort her and it felt so good. The soft strokes of Aditi's hand were soothing and Lena hadn't realised how much she missed it, how nice it was to have someone who took off the sharp edges of her mood.

Aditi sat down, finally, and took Lena's face in her hands. "We don't have to go. We can just be happy together, you and me. Right?"

Lena didn't have to know Aditi so well to know she was trying to convince both of them in the same breath. Something really had changed in Aditi and she'd come to believe in this silly fated mate system.

She really should've known. All shifters eventually got that craving. Or maybe because they'd been alive for much longer, the beliefs of their society had become internalised. Whatever it was, she couldn't see that burning rebellion in Aditi anymore. Instead, there was just longing.

"We're going to the fated lake," Lena said firmly, quickly adding more on before the other woman could protest. "This isn't to placate you. We're going because I love you and you want this more than I don't want it. And I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? We'll break up?"

Aditi chuckled but there was no humour in it. "You're right. What do we have to lose?"

"Only each other and that's already happened." Lena took Aditi's hands in her own, marvelling as always by how much daintier they were. "Let's find out once and for all."