Page 15 of Reclaiming His Lost Mate (Secret Legacy #3)

S elina

The very moment my heart started beating again, it felt like I'd held my breath while sprinting to catch a hen on a scorching day.

Sweat formed in the cool evening air, trickling down my back, and my heart bounced like a pendulum between my spine and lung, racing from my ribcage to my throat, then thundering right on the tip of my tongue on taking in Alexis hand in hand with Mia. A wave of dizziness hit me to my core.

Five years.

Half a decade and all that time wasn't nearly enough because the maddening drag I felt toward Alexis right this moment as he stood below the steps on the porch of our cozy log cabin home was still as intense as the first time I saw him.

He looked even more handsome than I remembered, his features now more sharply defined and manly than they were before. And the mate bond…Goddess.

I hadn't been able to sever the mate bond after Mia's birth because her symptoms from the Warring Wolves condition started almost immediately after she was born.

Finding out that the dynamics between me and her father was a key cause of her sickness, I couldn't bring myself to ask Lyvia to perform the severance ritual.

The pull had lessened with the distance and time, but right now, seeing his overgrown black hair falling to his lethal apex predator face, his perfect Cupid lips, and sturdy body radiating nothing but primal dominant heat, I wavered on my feet, chastising myself from thoughts of tearing the sun-beat clothes off his body.

Alexis looked stunned, speechless, rooted to his feet as his eyes shuffled between Mia and me, and I saw the moment where it clicked for him—when he figured it out. My foundation teetered, and I hoped that the ground would open and swallow me whole, but that didn't happen.

Run. Run. Run. The words chanted in my head, but I couldn't move. He had Mia in his grasp.

How did Alexis find us?

My mind raced with a million and one questions, each intangible emotion threatening to send me dropping to my knees, but most paramountly, fear freezing me in place. I didn't realize when Alexis closed the space between us, his Adam's apple working in a thick swallow.

"Selina?" He breathed out in front of my face almost inaudibly, like he didn’t believe it was me, his ripped chest heaving and my heart bouncing in my throat. Again.

"A-Alexis," I strung out.

"This child," he voiced after a short pause, sounding croaked as he glanced down at Mia a second too long before his gaze settled back on me. "Is…"

"No!" I yelled in the nick of time, my voice shrill.

No.

I wasn’t going to let Alexis break me again.

Stretching a shaky, clammy hand out, I gestured to Mia.

"Come here, baby. Come on." I didn’t bother to hide the panic in my voice, so it didn't shock me when Mia's face contoured with confusion.

"Come here." Mia looked between me and Alexis, her smile faltering a little before she reluctantly unlocked her hand from his.

I saw the reluctance in Alexis's conflicted eyes to let Mia's hand go, but he did, letting his arm fall heavily to his side.

The time it took for Mia's small legs to travel the five feet between me and Alexis felt too long and torturous, causing the veins on my temples to pulse with blood, and once her hands touched mine, it felt like it was Alexis’s hand.

I closed my eyes, shaking off the shudder that ran through me, but I snapped them back open immediately.

"Get inside," I spoke to Mia, holding on to her as though if I let go, she would disappear with Alexis. I took three unbalanced steps up the front porch stairs, opening the door quickly and attempting to shuffle Mia inside the house, but Alexis sped after us immediately, startling us.

"No, don't leave, Selina, please." I whirled around, stumbling on my feet right outside the entrance door, and Alexis’s hand shot out to mine.

On contact, heat blasted up my arm, spreading through my chest and searing itself deep into my organs till it stuck there.

Alexis was too close now, and his scent stole into my lungs, distorting me for a good second as his familiar, natural, rare green tree smell hit me.

It was even more potent than Mia’s scent.

My wolf ran wild—for the first time in years—thrashing against my skin, looking for an out. A release. Him.

Alexis’s hand dropped from my arm, but he wrung his free hand with it, watching me with a slack expression on his face. He couldn’t possibly feel something now, right?

He spoke before I could think on it or react. “I can’t believe my eyes. Selina…Goddess,” Alexis began, and I shook on my feet, emotions rushing to my eyes, the back of my throat squeezing in pain.

Recovering quickly, I shoved Mia behind me, blocking Alexis’s view of her, and I spoke, cutting off his words.

“Before you start, I should let you know that this wasn’t another attempt by me to exploit you.

She’s mine, and I accept her as she is, so please, spare me the talk.

I am not obsessed with you like Marissa.

I did not and am not trying to defraud you by having her, and I need absolutely nothing from you.

Please, Alexis, leave us alone.” By the time I finished, my chest was heaving, the shield in front of my eyes hanging on its minutest shred.

Alexis’s eyes met mine, the stormy ocean eyes I never forgot, stealing the breath out of my lungs.

He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it.

He did it once more before he finally talked.

“No. I don’t think that. I’m not…” he shook his head, inhaling a dragged breath. “I’m so fucking sorry, Selina… ”

I gasped at the same time as Mia snickered, peeking her head from behind me to say. “Bad word. Mommy doesn’t like bad words.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexis rasped out, hands held out, and I shuffled backward, putting distance between us.

“I’m so sorry, Selina…I had no idea. I fuc…

I messed things up, and I’ve been searching for you.

I want to fix it. I need to, please! Please, I’m sorry, let me fix this,” he rambled on, the stress audible in his tone, a sag visible around his eyes, while my brows deepened.

“Let me make up for you. For us. And for her,” he said, whispering the last part, and my blood chilled.

A switch flipped in my brain, my eyes going wide with rage.

If I let Alexis go on speaking, he could ruin what took me five years to let go of and rebuild in seconds. I couldn’t have that. Not when Mia was involved. Bringing Mia in front of me, I covered both her ears with my palms, making sure she wouldn’t hear me.

Then, I lashed out.

“Don’t you dare come here and try to destroy the life I’ve built for my daughter because I will not let that happen, not on my life or even in death.

Stay the heck away from us, just like you wanted me to since the first day I met you.

Don’t let it change now,” I bit out, fighting the tears from falling because once they did, there would be no stopping.

I went on, the fear of my daughter’s life becoming even harder than it already was by Alexis waltzing in on us whenever he pleased, grounding me.

“To Mia, her father is dead! Long gone, buried, and nowhere but in her heart. Her life will not be disrupted, and you will not break her, Alexis. You. Will. Not.”

My eyes were brimming now, full to their lids, and when Alexis’s throat rumbled, sounding pained and wounded, the dam finally collapsed, starting with one, two, and then many streaks. I sniffed the tears back, angrily wiping a hand down my face, but that didn’t stop it.

“Selina,” Alexis said, pleading, but I shook my head, turning my back to him at once.

“Leave, Alexis.”

I thought I could handle seeing Alexis. I’d thought about it often, imagining that it was decades from now, but still, I thought his presence wouldn’t affect me this much. Yet, I did a terrible job even after he left the front of our cabin thirty minutes after I snapped at him .

It had been twenty-four hours now, and I still hadn’t been able to step outside the house, fearing that if I did, he would be there waiting again.

My herbal shop was closed since only I had the key.

I knew that I would be missing more customers than I should allow as a business owner, but I couldn’t help it.

A knock on my front door pulled me from my unmoving and aimless staring position on the couch the next evening, and I jumped in a scare.

Was Alexis here again? I instantly shot up on my feet, crossing the room to the wooden framed window to crouch and have a look, expecting to see Alexis, with guards from his pack, coming to bundle me and Mia, but I only saw a woman.

Her thick black hair was tied half up, half down, and her hands were freely clasped in front of her in a calm, composed grace.

Lyvia was a complete one-eighty from what I felt and looked like right now.

Shaking the worry off me, I opened the door, and Lyvia’s ever-discerning gaze traced me from head to toe, breaking down every mask I was hiding behind. I felt the urge to duck, but I fought it off. There was no need to because Lyvia could have as well figured it all out already.

“I thought I’d find you here,” she began, her voice soft and her warm, amber eyes regarding me.

“I assumed you weren’t going to open the shop today, seeing as he sought me out, and the turmoil I saw in that man could have only meant that he found you first.” Lyvia’s head lowered slightly, eyes never leaving mine for a second, as if she was daring me to dispute her.

Wordlessly, I shuffled to the side, letting her walk through to the living room, which usually felt cozy and warm but felt like an escape room to me now.

Only then, realizing that my lips and throat were dried from hours without hydration, I moved to the kitchen for some water.

Lyvia sat, quietly watching me from the living room as I filled a glass by the sink, emptied it, and returned the glass cup to the cupboard before coming back to join her on the couch I’d sat on for the last hours.

A second after I dropped on the couch, she asked, "How do you feel?" A small, empathetic smile played in her voice. I sighed hard.

“I don’t know how he found us. I do not know what he wants, and it’s scaring the hell out of me, Lyvia,” I confessed.

That was the only thing I could say without confronting the multitude of emotions that were running through my mind.

“He saw Mia, Lyv. He came home with her yesterday evening. I do not know what he wants,” I repeated, crossing my legs under my butt and letting my back slump on the backrest. Lyvia just stared at me quietly, and when she pressed her lips together, expelling a small sigh on release, I knew that Lyvia knew something.

I sat up. “What is it, Lyvia? What did Alexis say when he consulted you?” I asked, now recalling Lyvia's first words when she came here.

“He came asking me to break a spell for him,” she said quietly.

My breath seized, confusion lacing my eyebrows together. “A spell?”

Lyvia nodded. “Marissa, your stepsister, cast a love spell on him weeks ago, forcing him into marrying her and making her his pack’s Luna.

Kyle and Leah had told me that Marissa and Alexis had never married, but Marissa had been so set on having him that she’d used dark magic. Once again, the lengths that my sister would go to appalled me.

“Through sheer strength of will, Alexis escaped and journeyed here to break the magic and the mate bond,” Lyvia said, explaining.

“I was able to confirm that the vow he made to her wasn’t sanctioned by Igaluk as it was made under the compulsion of dark magic, so their union will be void once he returns to his pack. ”

I sat in shocked silence as I digested all that Alexis had been through to undo the vile magic Marissa had wrought on him.

Lyvia’s voice sounded again, bringing me out of my reverie. “He didn’t come here looking for you two, but it may seem that Igaluk has her ways.”

“What does that mean?” I shook my head.

“Alexis had initially met the witch, Suzanne, the head of a small but strong coven two towns away from Matsuna. But even she could not help him break it because it would have killed her. It was the darkest of spells, Selina. He was bound to her by blood and a customized artifact, and you may not even be able to fathom the kind of willpower it took for him to escape from under Marissa’s nose and still sever their alliance,” Lyvia said, an eyebrow furrowing, face drawn together in disbelief.

My mouth dropped agape, shock running through my veins.

Was Marissa so desperate for the title to still go after Alexis with dark magic five years later?

I tried to imagine the trouble Alexis went through to find Lyvia and how hard it must have been for him.

Lyvia, too. If the head of a coven could not break Alexis’s spell, it must have taken a lot for Lyvia to do so.

“Are you okay, Lyvia?” I asked through a thin breath, forgetting my problems for a moment. “That must have taken up your strength…breaking the spell for him.”

Lyvia’s face softened, a smile lifting her beautiful face.

“You don’t worry about me, okay? I’m a little spent, but I had to make sure you weren’t driving yourself crazy with thoughts.

I’ll connect with the earth once I get back home, then sleep it off,” she said.

“He may not have come here expecting to find you and Mia, but…” Lyvia spoke again but paused halfway, and my heart missed a beat.

“But what?”

“But like I said, the look I saw in the man’s eyes tells me that he will not be leaving Matsuna for Shadow Moon Pack anytime soon, and I reckon you know why.”

The memory of Alexis’s conflicted reactions from a day ago surfaced in my mind, and I recalled him saying he wanted to make up for things.

But as soon as that memory sprung, a memory from five years ago flashed in my head—the one where Alexis constantly humiliated me just because he felt a pull to me.

The one where he stormed out on me after our night together, accusing me of drugging him without a chance to explain and threatening to ruin my life.

If I gave him a chance again, Alexis was sure to disrupt our peace and destroy both my life and my daughter’s, just as he had five years ago.

Determined to keep my family of two together, my resolution built, unyielding.

I was not going to forgive Alexis. Not now, not ever.