Victoria's pov
"Everything."
He sighed as if gathering his thoughts, while I braced myself for the worst.
"Ella was my mate. She died a year ago" He whispered loud enough for me to hear while my heart broke for him.
I suddenly felt bad for resenting her so much, thinking she was a bad person for leaving her mate, when in reality she was actually dead.
"Luka you don't have to continue if you're not ready. Gosh I'm sorry I pushed it so much, I didn't know. Damn" I rambled out quickly while he just chuckled, shaking his head.
"It's okay Victoria. As I said, it was selfish of me to put you through that."
God what am I gonna do with this man?
"I met her when I was eighteen. I was thrilled and eager, so I took her home and marked her, claiming her as mine" He continued.
"What do you mean by you marked her?" Is that some kind of werewolf thing?
Oh my gosh did he pee on her?!
"A mark is a claim that a male wolf puts on his mate, to show unmated wolves to stay away, also mixing both of our scents" He explained slowly with a nervous look on his face.
"We do it by biting her in a very special spot on her neck" I winced as my hand automatically went to my neck as if I could feel it. "It hurts at first but then it becomes quite pleasurable" He added a little too quickly, as if he's trying to keep me on the positive side.
"So that's what happened to Ashley's neck?" I asked and he nodded.
I processed the new information then urged him to continue the story.
"She was my other half. I felt so complete and happy with her" He smiled and I felt a pang of jealousy run through me.
A very small part of me was actually glad that she's gone, and I felt like a bad person. ’Come on Victoria she's dead for Christ's sake have some remorse!’
"She was quite a character," he chuckled. "She was practically the opposite of you. Shy and collected, quiet and she was never the sassy type. Both your hearts are big the same though" He met my gaze and I frowned.
If she was the opposite of me, then I really had no chance with him. He is in love with her and her personality, so he would never feel the same way about me.
So why did Lincoln say I'm important to him?
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing" I denied quickly, giving him a fake smile. He didn't look convinced but he let it go.
"Anyways, I won't bore you with our love story" Bore me? More like torture me! "So I'll get right to it"
He paused, getting serious again. Why do I have a feeling this is gonna be bad?
"Ella was always into human things, so she would always come here to town and meet people, hang out and even just to get dinner. She was smart though, so she never risked our secret by befriending any of the humans. But one day, someone followed her almost half way into our territory" His jaw clenched and his eyes got dark.
I guess this was the hard part.
"I don't know how, but he already knew about us. So when he met her, he got suspicious about her and that's why he followed her. He somehow managed to mask his scent so she wouldn't detect him, and he saw her shift.
"Right then he made himself known and she was taken off guard by his presence, so she attacked him, knocking him out. She then brought him back to the Alpha house. She was crying so hard because she didn't know what to do. If it was any one of us, we would've killed him on spot given that he obviously had tabs on us. But Ella with her big heart..." He trailed off as he chuckled humorlessly.
I could see that he didn't despise her 'big heart', but I'm guessing he's thinking that if she hadn't been so nice, maybe she would still be here. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this man knowing about her was the cause of her death.
"She wasn't crying because he found out about us, she was crying because she hurt him and he was a 'nice guy' " He said with air quotes.
"She made us promise not to kill him, and she would take responsibility for him and ensure he doesn't talk." He sighed, shaking his head. I held his hand reassuringly and I saw him relax under my touch.
"She did a good job at keeping him quiet, but little did she know that he couldn't be trusted. They became close, and she started bringing him around more and more often. She showed him around the pack, she told him everything about us. After a while, we started trusting the guy too" He sounded regretful.
"I was never threatened by him. He was close to my dad's age, and he always considered her his daughter that he never had. She was happy, so automatically I was happy too. That's all I ever wanted for her"
By each second that passed, he got tenser and sadder, I could see that it was hard for him to relive it all. He was doing a good job keeping it all together, but I could see that it was hard for him.
So I did what he did for me when I was telling him about Sophie, I went beside him and cautiously eased myself onto his lap. He caught on and pulled me the rest of the way.
I leaned my back against the glass window and laid his head on my chest while I ran my fingers through his hair comfortingly.
He whispered a 'thank you' as he relaxed into me, and I waited for him to continue the story.
"One day, she went into town with him to grab some pretzels that she loved so much. Our stores in the pack doesn't sell them, so she always went out to get them"
I scrunch my nose up, as I thought about the snack that I hate so much. We really are opposites.
"A couple hours passed and she wasn't back yet, so I started to get worried. We can't mindlink if we're certain distances apart, and I couldn't reach her, so I knew she wasn't on her way back. I called her and the man's cell numerous times and there was no answer. I panicked"
His breathing was getting heavier and I knew he could break anytime soon.
"Lincoln and I went into town to see if we could find her. When we reached the store that I knew she shopped at, I caught a whiff of her scent and relief flooded me, but we entered the parking lot and her bag that she carried everywhere and the pretzels were laying there as if she dropped them while trying to escape. And that's when I knew, he took her."
I gasped. How could a human kidnap a wolf?
"We spent two months trying to find her, but even our best trackers couldn't find her. It was like she disappeared from the face of the earth. I didn't sleep or eat. I was just a mess" He sighed and I held him tighter.
"I would spend days and nights looking for her. I even asked humans if they knew where he lived, but it was useless. I knew she wasn't dead because I didn't feel the mate bond break, so I always had hope."
I had a gut feeling that the story was about to get worse.
"Then one night around eleven, we heard a loud siren from outside the Alpha house. When we rushed to see what happened, it was her" He said as his voice cracked.
"She was wrapped in a white cloth, unconscious. The siren had a timer on it, so the bastard left her there and gave himself enough time to escape before we could catch him. We wondered how he managed to get in and out without being spotted, but when she finally woke up, it all started to make sense.
"He used wolfsbane to mask his scent. That's how he followed her that day, and that's how he got away that night. The day he took her, he injected her with it, so it weakened her and made her wolf dormant, and she couldn't shift.
"She said he used it on her everyday for the whole two months, because he wanted to use her blood to try and change himself. Apparently, a lot of years ago he saw a wolf and dedicated his life to learning about us and he was obsessed with being like us. So when he got the opportunity, he used Ella."
And that was it for him. He started spilling the tears I knew were bound to come soon. I hugged him closer as I hushed him softly.
Luckily the diner was empty. Kera came out once and saw the seriousness of the situation, so she silently went back inside the employee's lounge, successfully keeping Nick and Charlette in also.
He wasn't crying loudly, they were just quiet sniffles here and there as he hid his face in my chest more and more.
"She said he would fail all the time and blame her, but she convinced him that she's an Alpha blood, and any other wolf that he kidnapped would give worse results than her." He continued after gathering himself a little.
"She was protecting other wolves from going through what she was going through" I mumbled in amazement. She really sounded like a good wolf.
"That's exactly what she was doing," Luka agreed. "She knew he wouldn't stop until he had what he wanted, but he just wouldn't let her go, no matter how much she pleaded"
That man was psycho. Who spends their whole life trying to be a wolf? I mean, werewolves seem awesome but damn.
"When he finally gave up on her, she said he took her blood and said he was gonna try using it on a new-born child. The lunatic was gonna kidnap a female baby" He shook his head in disbelief.
"He was gonna steal a male baby wolf too, so he would grow them as his and make a pack somewhere across the world. Ella wouldn't have this, so she told him that if he let her go, she would get pregnant and promise the child to him. Since we're both Alpha bloods, the first child would most likely be a male."
"So she gave him the baby?" I asked, baffled.
"No no no" He clarified, laughing a little. "The idiot was so desperate, that he fell for her lie. He was happy since the pup would be a full bred Alpha blood, and that's when he brought her back, making her swear not to tell us anything."
He looked sad again and it hurt my heart that he went through this.
"She was weak, malnourished and sick. Being injected with that poison will kill us slowly if it wasn't flushed out of our system, but she begged us to go stop him before we take her to the pack doctor" His grip on me tightened and I knew he's about to break down again.
"She gave us his whereabouts and asked us to stop him before he could steal the female human baby. I didn't want to leave her side, but she made me go. I knew she was withering away, the idiot knew so much but didn't know that the wolfsbane would kill her"
I don't care if she was the mate of the man I'm falling for, but this woman was a hero.
"I arranged for Emma and others to take her to the pack doctor, while a group of us went to the location she gave us. When we arrived the place reeked of wolfsbane, and that's why we couldn't track him.
"It was a cave a little out of town in the woods. It was creepy and had all sorts of things wolf related, then we saw that he grew the poison there too. The stench alone could weaken us so we had to move fast." He gritted out.
"We found him reading some books in the old messed up place. Some of us were already shifted so we attacked him before he could retaliate. We injured him enough to get him to talk. Luckily, he wasn't working with anyone and he hadn't kidnapped the child yet. So, I ripped him apart slowly, ensuring to inflict pain as much as I could."
If it were any other circumstance I would've cringed, but after what that freak did to them, I would've done the same thing.
" I left my men to gather his remains and burn the damn cave from inside, ready to tell Ella the good news" He sighed.
"When I arrived, everyone looked sad. The doctor said he did as much as he could, but the poison had already caused damage to her organs. She was content when I told her that he didn't get a chance to get the child." His arms wrapped around my waist tighter, and I tried my best to stay strong for him.
"I sometimes wonder how she did it. She was basically dying and her mind was on a child that she didn't know. I apologized for failing her, but she said I didn't fail her and that I was her hero. But I knew she only said that so I wouldn't feel like shit. I failed her Victoria."
His voice was even sadder as he reminisced on the last moments with his mate. I never knew I could feel this much pain for another individual. It hurt me to see him hurt.
"Hey look at me" I urged, holding his face. "You didn't fail her Luka. After everything I've learnt today about Ella, I knew she meant what she said. You hear me? You did not fail her. You did the one thing she wanted done before she left. You did that for her, and she'll love you forever for it okay?" I ended and he nodded, giving me a look that I knew meant that he believed me.
I believed it too. She wanted him to stop the asshole and that's exactly what he did.
He rested his head on my chest again and I softly kissed his hair. I used my thumb to caress his hand while I massaged his scalp softly with the other.
"She died that day" He whispered. "The last thing she told me was to be happy. But I couldn't, I went into a state of depression. I was unstable and my wolf was always acting up. The moment she died, it felt like I was dying too. The pain of the bond breaking was unbearable, and after that I felt empty."
I couldn't imagine how that must've felt.
"Caleb was basically my rock after I kinda pushed everyone in my family away. Sometimes I felt like I was gonna make it, but sometimes I felt like it was never gonna get better. Sometimes it hurt more than usual. Like on her birthday and on her death anniversary" He sighed, as if remembering something.
"Her birthday wasn't that bad, but her death anniversary was awful. Caleb took me out that day to forget about it and I had fun, but I still was hurting too much so I tried to get rid of all the hurt and memories of what happened a year ago"
"That's the day you jumped off the cliff" I said more to myself as realization kicked in.
That's why he tried to kill himself. It was the day his mate died and the memories and hurt were too much for him. It all made sense now. Well at least I'm not the only one who dreaded the cursed day.
"Yes that's the day you stopped me from doing something I know wasn't the answer. And I'm glad you did." He admitted, meeting my gaze.
"That night when I saw you, my wolf felt woken up again and I didn't know why. I came up with all the reasons why he liked you, but I couldn't put my finger on it. But then I realized I couldn't stay away from you. Somehow you made me feel life again" He whispered as a stray tear rolled down my cheek.
"Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not hurting for Ella like I always did. But then I realized this is what she would want. This is what she meant when she said I should be happy" He said the last part more to himself, then met my intense gaze again.
"For the first time in a year, I feel at peace and it's because of you Victoria" He whispered, holding my cheek in his large hands. More tears fell from our eyes as he continued.
"You may not know it yet, but there's something about you that makes you very important to me. And I'd be damned if I lose you too."
"What makes me so important to you?" I asked, wanting to know what everyone meant. He looked hesitant to tell me, but when he was about to say something, Charlette interrupted.
"Closing time kids. I'll see you Friday Victoria darling! " I didn't even notice how the time had passed. We sat in the booth turning away from her, so she wouldn't have seen the intense moment that she just interrupted.
"Come on. I want to bring you somewhere" Luka said, while he lightly pecked my lips.
I felt so happy, relieved, conflicted and pained all together, as he led me in my car and drove to a place I knew so well.
***
"You know, I called this my spot for a reason." I teased with a smirk as we sat at the edge of the cliff.
"I know, but I wanted to bring you here. This was Ella's favourite spot"
"Well I guess we do have something in common then" I laughed and he joined.
We sat in silence for a while, just enjoying the cool autumn breeze and each other's company.
"Hi Ella," I heard him say, and I was about to get angry at him for calling me Ella again, but then I caught on to what he was doing.
"This is Victoria" He said with a smile as he glanced at me. Awe he's introducing us.
"Remember the last time I was here and was about to end my life? She's the one who saved me, and has been saving me since" My heart jumped in joy as I listened to him.
"I miss you and it hasn't been easy, and I know you could see that it wasn't. So if you're the one who sent her, thank you" He held my hand as he looked off in the distance smiling.
"She's my angel Ella. Victoria is my angel," he whispered.
Another tear fell from my eye and I quickly wiped it away before I ruined the moment. When did I become such a cry baby?
"Continue to look out for us, and know that I'll always love you" He looked at me as he said that, and I gave him a reassuring smile.
I knew he still and will always love her; I'm mature enough to understand that.
"It's nice to meet you Ella. And by the way, you sound like a wonderful person. I'd totes do you if I was a male" I joked, causing Luka to laugh lightly. The beautiful hint of a dimple in his cheek, and the evidence of joy swirling in his gray eyes were enough to make my whole day.
We sat for another hour or so, just randomly talking or sitting quietly.
Suddenly, Luka jumped up with a playful look on his face, causing my own excitement to bubble.
"You wanna meet my wolf?"