The Game Of Quadruplet Mates
Chapter 43

When my eyes fluttered open, the immediate need to scream went through me. Everything hurt. Absolutely everything. My hands in particular felt like I had touched a very hot surface, but instead of pulling away like I should have, I kept my hands there until I got blisters and then still kept my hands there as it burned away layers upon layers of my skin, leaving only tender flesh and bone. And then, my body. It was so painful. Everything felt so painful. It's excruciating, a constant pain that throbbed from head to toe, rattling my entire body. I could still feel the ghost of the burning from deep within. Did I bathe in acid?

Because that's what it felt like.

Like I've jumped into a bath filled with acid and stayed there, letting myself melt.

My skin felt raw, my body ached and when I put my hands up they were red and trembling. The sight of my disfigured skin made me unsettled. It was tight and scarred, a deep burn mark, leaving no spot unsoiled by the silver. The worst part of this was that it was permanent. Damage done by silver is instantly permanent and will never heal completely.

It didn't take long for everything to come back to me. The small garbage chute that we squeezed ourselves in and slid down from, the torturous fifty floors that went by as we made our escape. Konstantin and I fell from so many floors above before skidding to a stop, using our hands and backs to keep us from falling to our deaths and then came the pursuit, running in the deep sludge of sewer water as our bodies burned and protested.

Konstantin and I couldn't stop, not when we were so close to our escape, but we were surrounded by so many and he tried to protect us, but there was just so much... too much for us to handle. He was being ripped apart by his own people, tearing through him. And I shifted, for the first time in such a long time, fighting back and taking as many city pack wolves as I could before exhaustion pulled at my soul, my vision hazy and my legs trembling. But he came to save me.

As he always does.

"Ajax," I croaked, my voice shaking and choked up. With my vision still blurry, a figure hovered above me. Tall and strong and the warmth that came to me as he leaned closer was instantaneous. I knew it was him.

I would know him even if I were blind.

A soft kiss was pressed against my lips. "My little mate,"

My entire body lit up with warmth, like a cozy fire on winter nights. I waited for my eyes to adjust, enjoying his warmth as much as I could. I saw him little by little. Part by part. The amber eyes, the dark hair, the sharp jaw line and plump lips. My mate is handsome, towering over me with his incredibly muscled body. "Hi,"

His lips looked to be quivering before he wrapped me in a tender embrace. It was as if the last of his control went out the window because everything seemed to spill out from him like he had been keeping everything in for so long. "Don't you ever do that to me again. Don't ever leave me. Ever. Please. I was a hopeless mess without you. And I just can't... I can't live without you, June."

"I'm sorry." I whispered, holding him tight even if it hurt to do so. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Ajax shakes his head and I swear my shoulder became damp... was he crying? "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have left you. I knew the risks..."

Remembering how we last ended it, I pulled away, my chest tight as I swallowed. "I need to tell you something before we continue."

My mate peers down at me, his eyes slightly red, but it was probably just my imagination. "What is it?"

It was my turn to explode with words, babbling on without stopping to breathe. "Jeremy and I... it sounds silly but somehow we're destined mates, fated, and it means nothing but that's what I've been keeping from you and I feel awful for doing that. I'm sorry." I reached for his cheek, running my thumb over his soft skin and the slight bump of stubble. "I'm so sorry."

His eyes fluttered close and I feared the worst.

"I just didn't want to believe it at first and when it was confirmed, I didn't know how on earth I was going to bring it up to you. Saying it now already has me uncomfortable but here I am saying it in the worst possible way." I sucked in air through my lips, my long monologue making me out of breath. "I just want you to know because I don't want you to think that I'm keeping this secret to hurt you. I was just so confused about everything and it was all going so fast, but seeing you in my wolf form and when there was only ever you just proved to me that you are all I want and you are who I want to be with. Forever."

Ajax has chosen me every single time without fault and I didn't know how to word that out but he has chosen me and I chose him.

I took his hand and pressed my lips against his knuckles. "It's us. And I wouldn't want to be with anyone else but you."

As if merely waiting for my babbling to finish, I flinched back, dropping my hands from Ajax as I winced and groaned, feeling the tight skin stretch uncomfortably.

Some of the scars on my hand broke skin again, blood gushing out of my palm and fingers. It was a scary thing to see but I was too overwhelmed to notice too much.

Another figure joins us in this... I looked around now, only realising that I was on a bed in what seemed to be a flimsy tent. "I will bandage your hands in the meantime, Luna. They're still healing."

It was a pack doctor. A female one and despite the pain, I couldn't help but smile. Ajax really got me a female pack doctor like he hoped I would.

But Ajax was not at all happy, his frown deep and for a while I thought it was because of my confession, but instead he said, "I hate to see you unwell, June."

His burning gaze fell on the pack doctor gently wrapping my bleeding hands in white bandages.

"Don't mess this up or I will have you killed. Do you understand?" He threatened seriously, sharp teeth coming out from his lips. "Take away her pain. Quickly. She's hurting."

I didn't know whether to be relieved he wasn't mad about what Jeremy and I are or amused that he was fruitlessly trying to protect me from a doctor that he chose for me. "Ajax, please stop threatening the doctor. She's doing her job."

"She needs to do a better job then. You're bleeding." Ajax shoots back, his eyebrows furrowed unhappily.

"Ajax, please," I whispered, gesturing for him to come closer. "You didn't even react when I told you about Jeremy and,"

When his amber eyes locked with mine, I lost the ability to breathe all over again. "Jeremy had already told me. That's how we found you."

Just when I thought I could easily read my mate, I was met with a thick wall of an unreadable expression on his face. I did not know what to say, but I felt like I should apologize, so I did. "I'm sorry."

"Say it again," He says suddenly.

I blinked, confused. "Say what? I'm sorry? I'm sorry that I'm-"

Ajax stared into my eyes, melting everything away, leaving only us in this tent, the doctor vanishing as did all the pain that was crippling my hands. "No. Say that you love me again."

I was brought back to the farm lands where I told him I loved him when I had never said that no man before him. How true the words were, how deep that emotion, that realization burned me. How it burned when he was away and how it burned more when he's close.

There's an ever growing wildfire in my chest, consuming my entire body, consuming my mind and my heart. With Jeremy I felt comfortable, I felt calm, but with Ajax it was a raging storm that would never settle, a raging storm that never calmed and it only grew stronger by the minute, by the second.

And even though I know I have a fated mate, someone made for me and destined for me, my heart has already been taken completely by someone else.

"I love you." The words came easily like they were always supposed to be that way and to my surprise, my neck did not cause me any pain like it did before. "I love you so much, Ajax."

He had me in his arms in the blink of an eye, holding me gently but tightly, holding me close like he's never held anyone before. "I love you more than life itself, my June, but you already know that. You know the lengths I would go to have you safe in my arms." "Seventeen years?" I softly teased, holding him with my bandaged hands. "It took us seventeen years for this."

"I would have spent another seventeen more just to look for you. And more." He admits, pressing a kiss on top of my head. "There is no one else for me but you, June."

We held each other for a long time, soaking in the feeling of us together again. We were separated for all but two days and a half of that I spent sleeping, but it felt like forever without Ajax.

It felt longer.

Much longer than it seemed.

My eyes widened, suddenly remembering. "Where's Konstantin? You didn't leave him, did you? Because you promised. You swore to me that you wouldn't hurt him. He did his best to protect me. He showed me how to escape and-"

"He's safe." Ajax cuts me off from my panic. "He's being treated in another tent. His injuries are severe but he will survive. But I think you should see someone else first. He's been worried about you."

I wasn't all that surprised when Jeremy went into the tent, hesitant and looking everywhere but at me, even when I knew that all he wanted to do was look at me. I waited for my neck to hurt at the sight of him so close yet far enough away that I couldn't touch him, but there was nothing even when I stared at him, even when his eyes finally met mine.

There was nothing.

Nothing at all.

And for a few seconds, I felt like I might cry because that meant our tether that connected us as mates was now gone. Completely. With just one look, I knew he felt the same. I know that he knows he felt nothing too. Ajax didn't stand around, giving me one last glance over his shoulder before leaving the tent until there was only Jeremy and I.

"How are you feeling?" Jeremy started, swallowing nervously, keeping his eyes on my hands.

"Better." It was not better, but I didn't want him to worry. We had enough things to worry about. My wrapped hand reaches for my neck- for my mark, to try and feel anything, but there was yet again nothing. "What..?"

"I don't understand it either, but it seems that after you shifted into your wolf, you've decided on your mate because I can't feel anything as well. The moment you saw Ajax, I felt something cut you from me. And I think it's permanent." His eyes were sad, sorrowful, but they were not in pain anymore. Not like before where Jeremy just looked like he was always suffering. Now, he was free, free of this invisible connection that bound us together. "Are you happy with him?"

It was such a fleeting question, a soft one that was heavy with meaning.

The tether connecting us was long gone, but this question only proved that he still loved me despite it all.

Jeremy still felt something for me and if I answered this question that hinted at my feelings for him, he was finally going to choose me.

For the first time.

I thought long and hard about my answer, not because I didn't know what to say, but rather, I wanted to test myself if I was going to waiver, if I was going regret or have those phantom emotions surge through me but there was nothing of the sort. Only a steady heart that beats for one. "I'm happy with him. Really happy."

"And I'm happy for you." Jeremy's expression was a mix of both genuine happiness and hurt, as if his mind was truly happy for Ajax and I, but his heart broke for it all the same. "He always put you first, above everything else, and you deserve to always be first." My lips shook. "I want you to be happy too, Jeremy."

He sucked in a breath, his blue eyes closing and when they opened they were no longer sad. "I am happy. I found someone."

I couldn't help but laugh, surprised but strangely excited for him. "You replaced me that quickly, huh?"

"Not in the way that you think," Jeremy mused, the brightness back to him, that same brightness that pulled me to him during the Games, but instead of wanting him like before... I just felt contented to hear more of this story, a friend listening supportively. "For a very long time, I was lost like a piece of me was missing."

"She must be quite the girl." I teased, wiggling my eyebrows.

Jeremy laughs along with me. "He's a boy, June."

I shrugged, getting comfortable in bed. Outside, I could hear a lot of movement like an army was setting up. "Who am I to judge who you love?"

"It's your father." He adds like it was an afterthought.

My mind raced with confusion and things I shouldn't think about. "Please explain faster because this doesn't sound as good as I thought it was."

"It's a long story but I found out that my father, who was killed by the city Alpha when my mother was pregnant with me, had a brother and it turns out that he's your father." Jeremy is quick to rebound on that. "At first I thought, holy s hit, I'm fated to my cousin but he assured me that we are very much not related."

This time, I really did laugh out loud and as much as it painfully pulled at my skin, I was so happy that I didn't really care. "No. We are very much not related in that regard. He found me in the woods when I was three."

Jeremy looked to be in deep thought, a conflicting expression on his face. "You don't remember your parents?"

"Not well." I noticed his hesitation, his slight unease when his eyes met mine. "What is it?"

"You're not from the farm pack." He simply says, thinking hard. "Your wolf is light colored. Too light colored. A trait only one pack has."

One pack.

His old pack.

The famous city pack that prided themselves on their light fur and how they considered it purity to have such a coat.

I had never really thought of it since the only other times I shifted, I was dirty and malnourished, and didn't look like much.

But now...

"Maybe it's nothing then." Jeremy quickly says when he notices my horror. "I'm probably just wrong."

Why did I feel like he was not wrong?

For Jeremy was raised with the city pack and he knew what they all looked like in wolf form. But surely there's just a mistake-

"City pack incoming!" A scream went through the area, making me wince as Jeremy and I ran out of the tent. I was limping, cradling my hands to my chest, but I pushed on.

Once outside the protection of my quaint tent, I realized what I had just gotten myself into. The noises from outside the tent that I heard not a few minutes earlier, the slight tremble on the ground, it was all from the thousands upon thousands of werewolves that surrounded us in this war encampment. All around us were supplies in crates, bonfires lit high above the sky, sharp wooden fences erected and pointed outwards to prevent enemy wolves from jumping over and... and just this massive army that has gathered. Every single nameless pack was here with Ajax's Delta shouting orders to all of them and there were others too. From the smell I could catch scents of the sea, of the farm, of the valleys and the mountains... all had gathered for this.

For the destruction of the city pack who loomed over us.

Right in the middle of all this chaos was Ajax standing tall and proud as he stared at the trees until a woman stepped forward, surrounded by an army of her own, all shifted werewolves and all smelling of the city.

But as she got closer, as I got to see her clearly without the shadows of the night, I felt my heart fall to my stomach. Because I know her.

Because I have had many nightmares about her.

I thought I still might be dreaming, like none of this was really happening, that I was in some way still in bed, but there's no denying it. It was her. It really was her. I remember that face, the face that abandoned me. It couldn't be because I thought I would never see her again, but it was her.

It was really her.

In front of me.

In front of Ajax, grinning wickedly in the same way I remember her.

"Mom?"

But it wasn't me who called her that.

No.

Because Jeremy walked forward, staring at my mother with a look of utter devastation and hatred. "What are you doing here, mom?"