Betrayed Heiress: My Second Chance Mate is A Lycan King

Aira’s POV

“There is nothing wrong with her.”

“What do you mean there is nothing wrong with her?” Alex snaps, holding me closely to his chest as a mother trying to protect her child from high school bullies would.

I wanted to tell him that there was no need for that, but I actually secretly liked it.

“Her eyes turned pitch black, and she was shedding blood instead of tears!”

The pack doctor sighs as he puts his stethoscope into his bag. “I am aware of that, your majesty. You said that three times before I even began to examine her. but I am telling you now that there is nothing physically wrong with her. She is as healthy as she can be. Perhaps this is something more than her physical form. I suggest she visit Moriah for further checkups.”

My eyebrows crease. “Who is Moriah?”

Alex sighs and massages his temple. “Moriah is my pack priestess. She has been for over eight decades now,” he explains, and I wonder why he isn’t happy about that. “I don’t know why the old hag has refused to die,” he mutters beneath his breath, and my eyes grow as wide as saucers.

“Alex, why would you say that?” I screech, and he scowls.

“Moriah isn’t exactly the easiest woman on the planet. But since she is our pack priestess and the most powerful witch around, she is needed. But if she dies, that power gets transferred to someone else,” he pauses, then purses his lips. “Hopefully to someone much more tolerable.”

“Well, Morriah is the only one most likely to figure out what is wrong with her and cure her,” the doctor says, and Alex almost looks like he would rather let me die than let us visit this Moriah lady. But when our eyes lock, he sighs in defeat.

“Fine, we will go,” he says, muttering something beneath his breath as he goes to grab his knees.

The doctor smiles at me warmly and pats my head. “Do not worry; I am sure whatever happened to you last night isn’t as bad as you think it is.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

“I hope so,” I say quietly. He offers me a reassuring smile before leaving. Alex appears shortly after.

“Let’s go,” he says, and I nod. We head out of the palace, and he helps me into the car. Once we are both in, he fires up the engine and drives down to what I suppose is the priestess’s place.

The drive is spent in silence. And I do not like it.

After Alex found me in the graveyard last night, I passed out. I woke up to find him watching me closely in our bedroom. Judging by how disheveled he looked, I could easily tell that he had not gotten much sleep last night. He almost looked too scared to fall asleep.

He said he couldn’t sense me leaving, and I couldn’t remember doing so either. Plus, the fact that none of the guards or servants saw me leave or that there was any sign of me leaving at all only added to his worry. And of all places I could have slept, why walk to a graveyard?

Honestly, I was starting to think that I might have teleported there.

There really was no other explanation. I can only hope that this priestess can provide answers to all of this.

There are times I feel Alex’s eyes on me, yet he doesn’t say anything. It was driving me crazy. When I felt it again, I met his eyes and snapped, “I am not a ticking time bomb about to explode, you know?”

“I am sorry,” he says quietly, tearing his gaze away from mine. “I just want to make sure you are okay,” he says, and I feel sad for yelling at him like that.

“I am sorry.” I sigh and run my hand through my hair. “This is all just a lot to take in.”

He nods in understanding and says, “I can imagine. You really don’t remember how you got there?”

“No, I don’t. The only thing I remember was that strange dream I had,” I tell him, and he hums.

“What was the dream about?” he asks.

“I don’t know… I can’t really make sense of it. Back at the art gallery, there was this woman. I thought she was one of the tour guides, but it turns out she wasn’t. But she led me down to that private section, and I saw a portrait of a girl in a graveyard on a full moon,” I say, and his eyes snap to mine.

“Just like you last night?” he asks, and I nod.

“Yes, exactly. And it said the painter was me. but after the other tour guide came, the painting completely disappeared. I just… I just didn’t understand. I thought all I needed was sleep,” I explain, and Alex purses his lips. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and I desperately want to know exactly what is going through his mind.

“You were crying last night. You were shedding blood; were you in some kind of pain?” He asks me, and I think back to that moment, but it is all foggy.

“I really don’t remember.”

“We really do need Moriah then,” he sighs, and I place a hand over his on the gear.

“You don’t seem to like her very much,” I tell him, and he nods in agreement.

“There was a time I needed her services in tracking down some cloaked rogues that were terrorizing our kingdom. The spell she placed wasn’t exactly what I wanted, and I got upset,” he says, but I knew that there was more to the story.

My eyes narrow into slits, and I ask, “What did you do?”

He clears his throat and scratches his nape. “I may or may not have killed all of her cattle and destroyed her farm.”

My jaw drops, and I shoot him a disbelieving look. “How could you do that to an old woman?”

“Hey, those rogues were really stressing me out, and I was really temperamental back then,” he defends.

“You still are,” I state, and he gives a grunt as a response.

“Well, the problem is that ever since then, she has refused to help me at all. Even when I send my subjects or some nobles, she still rejects them as long as she knows they are from me,” he finishes, and my mood dampens.

“So that means she isn’t going to help me,” I say quietly, and he stays quiet for some time.

“She has to.”

The rest of the ride is spent in silence. My mind seems to be working five times more than it usually does. I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if this witch actually refused to help me. What will I do then?

Will I continue sleepwalking to graves and seeing weird paintings of me? Will it ever get better or worse? This stuff has never happened to me before. why now?

It takes us about fifteen more minutes before Alex finally stops his car in the middle of nowhere. I look around, and before I can ask what is happening, he says, “We have to walk from here.”

He gets out of the car and opens the door for me. He helps me out and doesn’t let go of my hand as he locks the car. He leads me into the thick forest, and the deeper we go, the chillier the air becomes.

“Why is it so cold here?” I ask, using my free hand to rub my arms in order to provide some sort of warmth for myself.

‘What are you talking about? It’s hot as fuck here. The sun is literally frying me,” Alex says, and I rear my head back.

“You are joking, right?” I ask him, and he shoots me a look over his shoulder that suggests that he isn’t in the mood to crack jokes right now.

A shiver goes up my spine, and that is when he stops walking. “Your hand is incredibly cold,” he notes, staring at our hands, which are joined together.

“It’s not the weather that is making her cold; it is the power.”

A scream leaves my lips, and Alex goes into full defense mode as a voice suddenly speaks from behind me. spinning on my heel, I come face-to-face with an incredibly short woman. She appears to be exactly five feet tall. Her gray hair flew in all directions, and she had some dark coal smeared all over her face.

She had nothing but a black material that wrapped around her body like a towel. It stopped just below her knees, and the tattoos on her arms and legs were written in a language I did not understand.

“Moriah, how long has it been?” Alex says, plastering a smile on his lips and coming to stand between the witch and me.

The woman scowls bitterly at him. “What do you want, you demon?”

Alex places a hand over his chest, pretending to be hurt. “Me? a demon? Don’t tell me you are still mad at me after what happened last time, are you?”

The woman’s eyes grow feral, and there is a sudden gust of wind. It is heavy, and its whistle is loud. It blows our hair and the trees violently. The sky began to darken, and I knew that a great storm was coming.

My mouth falls open, and the chill I felt earlier grows stronger.

“You killed Trevor?!” She snaps, and the strength in her voice frightens me. It is as though ten other people were speaking along with her.

“Oh, you mean that cute little cow that followed you everywhere? I said I was sorry; I even got you cattle twice as much as the one you originally had,” Alex says, and an earth-rattling thunder fills the air.

“None of them could ever replace Trevor?!” She screeches, her voice coming side by side with the thunder. “Get out! I swore to never help you after killing what I loved the most.”

My eyes widen when Alex snarls at her. He was getting angry.

The wind becomes stronger, and my heart rattles in my chest when it knocks down a tree in the distance. This isn’t going to end well.

My grip on Alex’s hands tightens, and his Lycan eyes meet my pleading ones. His eyes slowly turn back to normal. I step forward until I am right in front of Moriah. She looks at me with narrowed eyes, and it looks like she was prepared to strike me down if I even uttered the wrong words.

“Miss Moriah, my name is Aira Kingston, and…”

“I know who you are,” she cuts me off bitterly. “I know that you are that demon’s mate. And you are also the daughter of Marco Kingston. You have been experiencing weird dreams and woke up in a graveyard last night.”

My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets. “How do you know all of this?”

“I know everything that goes on in this kingdom. And I know exactly what is wrong with you. But because you are the better half of that demon, I would rather die than help you,” she says, and I glare at Alex, who looks away shamefully.

Taking a deep breath, I try to search for the right words to say. “I understand how you feel. Alexander is one of the most wicked, impulsive, evil, reckless, and selfish.”

“Where exactly are you going with this?” Alex cuts me off, and I can feel his glare at the back of my skull.

I completely ignore him and continue, “But I have seen it. He is changing. I have lost something very important to me because of him,” I say, and I watch her eyes soften. She already knows what it is if she really is as powerful as she says she is. “And I have as much reason to hate him as you do. But as painful as it is to admit, he is the alpha of this pack. And we can’t stop helping him; otherwise, this pack will turn to ruins and everyone else’s lives will be messed up. So please help us.” I dare to take another step toward her and take her hand in mine. “Please.”

The wind seizes, and the sky clears up. The chill I feel subsides, and she sighs. “You have a wonderful way with words.” She takes a deep breath, then meets my eyes.

“This thing that is worrying you is not a curse, but a blessing. The strange things you have been seeing are visions; they are your ancestors trying to reveal your true self to you. And that is because you are a descendant of the moon goddess herself.”

Well, that didn’t sound like a cold that could be cured with some medicine.