Chapter 242: Grace
“Well, I don’t really remember.” I answered after a long moment. “I thought it was just a weird dream, but parts of it still come back to me. I was in this house that was huge, honestly, it kind of had the same vibes as this castle now that I think about it. Anyways, I met with this woman... She had red hair and was quite blunt. She kept talking in cryptic sayings, and I remember feeling lost... Then she showed me, I don’t know what it was, maybe a memory? Her memory? Someone else’s? I’m not really sure, but I digress. I was thrown into this memory, and there were two girls talking at this party. And they said something about the um, I don’t remember exactly what they called it... The chooser maybe? But they said it fit the prophecy, no one had ever done that before. And then I was thrown back to that table with that woman, and she asked me if I got it yet, and I told her, no, I didn’t understand any of it. But she just told me I would and called me the same name the girls had been calling someone. And that’s really all I remember.”
I wrung my hands nervously as I waited for Rhys to say something... Anything. I didn’t want him to think I was keeping things from him either. I had just thought it was a dream until recently. In fact, I hadn’t really thought about it, at least not till I was trapped in prison with nothing else to think about. A lot of crazy things had gone through my mind, and this story made me feel crazy.
“The Chooser?” Rhys questioned, his brows furrowing with his thoughts. “That’s what they called you?”
“Something like that, yea,” I answered. “I don’t remember the exact word, but it was close to that.”
Rhys’ frown deepened as he processed what I had said. I wanted to know what was going through his mind, what it was that he seemed to know about the prophecy.
“What do you know about the prophecy?” I questioned, surprised by how tired I felt.
Rhys sighed and I knew he felt the same heaviness I did. It had been a long day travelling, and the last thing he really wanted was to be having this conversation, and I agreed. I didn’t want to be having this conversation either, but we needed to, and that was enough.
He then began to recite:
“Once upon a time there was an Alpha, whose mate was special. She had magic in her veins, and they all feared her. She could rain blood on them and turn the sky dark with only a flick of her hand. She was kind, but the world made her cruel. The Alpha had to choose whether to save her or his pack. The prophecies told of greatness in their reign. But the Alpha broke her instead, and the Alpha’s choice was made.”
My confusion grew. “What?” I questioned. “What is that?”
“That is the “prophecy” I found, well, Leon found, but all same. It was in children’s book. Could be just a warning, but it felt a little too on the nose.” He answered uneasily.
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” I asked him a little nervously.
It was his turn to look surprised, and I could feel his nerves through our bond.
“What do you mean?” He asked, but it wasn’t nearly as steady as he usually sounded.
“You don’t think you’re going to break me, do you? Because babe, I’ve been through hell and back. I’m not afraid. I don’t think you can break me any more than I’ve already been broken. In fact, I came to you broken, and you loved me anyways.”
“There is more than one way to break someone.” Rhys answered quietly. “And you are magnificently everything you need to be. You have so much power, I never want to be the reason your light dims again.”
“Then don’t be.” I answered, climbing onto his lap, so that I was straddling his legs before leaning in and kissing his lips.
“I will choose you over my kingdom, any day.” He promised, and I kissed his lips again, silencing him.
I didn’t care. He could destroy me. I would let him. He couldn’t choose me over the pack, and that was okay. I knew how much that must have been weighing on him. From the time I had first met him, he had changed so much, just like I had. Or maybe changed wasn’t quite the right word, maybe grew was a better one. Because this was who we always were, it’s just that it was buried deep in the hurt we had both accrued over time. And I knew that Rhys loved me, even if it was hard to believe sometimes. He had done everything possible to prove it to me, and he had done well. But when it came down to it, I hoped he’d choose his pack. I was just one person, his pack, his kingdom, thousands relied on him, and I was no more important than the next, even if he didn’t see it yet.
“If you keep going, I won’t be able to stop.” Rhys said, his voice husky.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I answered, using our newfound mindlink connection.
“It’s not. I just don’t know how much time we have.” He admitted.
“True.” I responded with one more kiss. “But later, we will be finishing this.”
He smiled and pecked my lips, and I got off his lap.
“So, how do we think this dinner is going to go?” I asked, dropping the prophecy talk for now. We could dive deeper into that later, but for now, we had to change gears and focus on what was in front of us: The vampire dinner.
Rhys laughed as he grabbed a suit out of the closet. It was a deep blue that really made his olive skin stand out and his eyes pop. Goddess, he would look gorgeous in that, and he hadn’t even put it on yet. He then grabbed a strapless navy dress that almost matched his perfectly and handed it to me.
“Dinner is going to be a shitshow.” He said, still laughing. “Be ready for anything.”