One Bite

Chapter 5-7

Caleb's POV

The first time I saw Zara Accalia Lykaios was a wrinkled, crumpled up, printed photograph of her lab ID that Solomon had swiped from the Western Territory. A stroke of luck, combined with Sol's horrible sense of direction, introduced us at the Southern border seven months ago.

I stumbled on Sol, bored out of my mind while pretending to work patrol. Our instant connection was so strong that my wolf Aquilo, successfully kept hidden for five years, attempted shifting.

Within one introduction, a handshake, all the question marks in my life dissolved. The detachment and indifference I grew up with melted into nonexistence, replaced by a new purpose in my life. Every doubt, insecurity, and worry that I kept to myself growing up different in the Southern territory made complete sense.

That wrinkled, faded picture was the last piece to a puzzle I wondered about as long as I'd wondered about anything. One look and I knew, deep down, that my and Aquilo's five-year wait for our mate ended. A primal instinct ripped through me, I promised Solomon to do whatever was needed to keep her safe, and we formed our plan for rescuing her.

Without knowing if she needed or wanted to be rescued.

Before we met, I saw Zara through so many pictures that I felt like I knew her. Despite her father's wealth, she flashed a polite, guarded smile. Hiding behind her mask, we didn't know which side she was on. She spent a lot of time locked down but when she was permitted outside Cassius' remote island packhouse, she wore a distant, wistful look like she knew more was out there. Even Lumi sat on the banks of the water and stared in our direction across the border. Little did they know how close we were, how much we wanted to take them home.

When I first met her in person, even dirty, tear-stained, and imprisoned, I couldn't speak. My breathing labored, so I pretended to pass out. My eyes weren't closed, they couldn't tear away from her. Even with her back to me, moaning and flustered with heat, sweat soaking her long, light blonde hair to her neck and back, she was beautiful.

Aquilo scratched and clawed at me until I had an internal headache. Sol and I weren't sure how much of Cassius had been brainwashed into her. My heart exploded with pleasant surprise and relief when I found none of his traces in her spirit.

Where he's cold, she's warm. Where he's harsh, she's soft and kind.

Solomon warned me she was sheltered but Zara's naivety was on a whole other level by itself. I laughed until my sides hurt when one of the Southern patrol guards told me she stopped with Cole and rescued a turtle in a thunderstorm.

If I needed a specific example of how she's not Cassius' daughter, that was it.

I was glad that not all of that beautiful innocence was stripped away one silver lash at a time by her sham of a father figure. If I hadn't been bound head to toe in silver then I would've shifted and Aquilo would have ripped any and all throats for her. But, like Solomon, I was a trapped bystander, forced to watch my little mate beaten and bloodied until she passed out.

'You should tell her,' Aquilo pushed me.

He pushed me all the time with Zara. Lumi was a next-level problem. How the animal wanted me to mark her upon sight annoyed me to no end. He flooded my mind with suggestive images of us together, stirring interest in my loins with each possible chance. My dreams were wet nightmares, leaving me tossing, soaked with sweat, and hard as a brick. It didn't stop when we were awake, disappearing only when I insulted or pushed her away, turning Aquilo's anger on me.

Nothing could have pushed me away when I saw Zara at the top of the stairs before the Southern territory's fake ball, a smokescreen social event to give the warriors a chance to say goodbye to their mates. Her long hair was pulled back off her face, curling down her back. Her feather-delicate features and curves were on display with her strapless, torso-hugging dress and the same wistful, faraway look cast over her icy, blue-green eyes.