Chapter 38 Done fighting fate
Celine’s POV
Bloody pool.
No—there was no blood. Just water. Just me.
But their needles glimmered above the surface, sharp and patient, waiting for the first touch. Even without contact, I felt them already—like invisible teeth sinking through my skin.
My throat locked. The thought of screaming felt pointless.
Who would even hear me here? Who would care enough to try?
“Ahh.” I tried.
It was just an inaudible sound.
“Celine.” One of them called.
And his eyes… those same eyes that had been so intense on me. The same moment he was looking at me, the needle hovered close to my skin. They had paused, as if he were caught in the moment, taking me in.
I was without clothes. What? I didn’t realize that!
I tried to cover myself with my hands but could barely hide my chest.
Then the needles touched my skin. I forgot everything else.
“Please don’t!” I screamed. “Don’t do this!”
A click echoed in my head. This was a past event, wasn’t it?
The memory of this same moment flooded in. I was just reliving a memory. Yes—a past memory that felt too real. It was happening again.
The tips of the needles brushed my skin.
I lost the strength to speak.
The werewolf—the man with those intense eyes—hadn’t stopped gazing at me.
I pulled my head up from the bathtub.
“Lila… Lila.”
I crawled away from the mirror, staring at it like it was alive.
“Celine.” She grabbed my arms, pulling me from the floor.
My eyes were wet, staining her dress.
“I’m sorry you had to do that,” she said softly.
My tears fell in sync with my heartbeat, and a strange heaviness consumed what little strength I had left. Or maybe I had no strength at all—it was feeding on my future strength instead.
Seth hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d been standing. His hands remained at his sides.
“I’m never looking into that mirror again…” My finger pointed at it, though my eyes refused to.
“You’re not going to,” Lila said, brushing her fingers through my hair.
She led me away from the mirror’s reach, holding my trembling body.
“Lila,” Seth’s voice came faintly.
“She shouldn’t have tried a second time!”
Lila helped me sit on a chair a few steps away from the mirror.
Seth walked over, wiping the damp surface with his bare hand. His eyes didn’t leave me. I could tell. Every time I looked up from Lila’s shoulder, our gazes met.
I couldn’t classify his look. Curiosity?
That didn’t seem likely. He already knew more about me than I did about myself. What else could he want?
But he was still looking into the mirror.
I hadn’t thought he could access those past events—the ones the mirror forced me to see.
“I never said it would be painless, or without fear, or without breaking you down. I said none of those things,” he said, sounding almost gentle.
“She’s already going through enough grief!” Lila said sharply.
“I know that.”
He turned toward the mirror again. “But that was key. That was important. If…” His eyes met mine once more. “If she could look again.”
“No.”
“You know—”
“She can’t.”
“Why not ask her?”
“She doesn’t want to.”
Seth let a minute of silence pass before saying, “Just ask her.”
Lila sighed. “Celine.”
“I’m not going through that again.”
And that was it. The argument ended.
I didn’t know how long I sat on that chair—an hour, maybe more. Everything about me was fuzzy. My mind, my body, my sight… all of it.
Silence filled everything. For a moment, I thought I’d gone deaf.
“It might help her relax, and wash off the fatigue,” Seth said finally, breaking the quiet.
I stood a few steps from a pool. I feared I’d slipped into another memory walk, but Seth assured me it wasn’t. The pool looked similar, though. The only thing that convinced me otherwise was Lila’s presence behind me.
“It’s warm, not cold,” Seth said.
“How would that make me relax?”
“It’s in the same category as the mirror, but meant to pull your mind together,” he explained.
“Pull my mind together…”
“Yes. Just think through it—all your day’s activity.”
A few steps closer, I took off my dress. I was naked. Seth and Lila still stood behind me, but I didn’t care. I didn’t mind.
My left leg slipped into the water first. The warmth tingled against my skin. Then my right leg followed, and soon I lay flat in the pool.
Tristan.
He wouldn’t leave my mind.
And yet again, the memory of him coming to my room stirred guilt in me. Wait—guilt?
Guilt for what?
For refusing to talk to him and asking him to leave?
Or for appreciating that I was a prisoner and he was trying his best to treat me kindly?
Everything felt tangled. Chained. Connected. It didn’t make sense that guilt was part of it—but it was.
The water caressed my skin, and my head grew lighter.
His hands had caressed my skin once, and I felt more than lightheaded then.
“Celine, are you… okay?” Lila asked from a distance.
I didn’t answer at first. When she came closer, I whispered, “Yes.”
I shut my eyes.
His darkness. Tristan’s darkness. It felt strangely tied to mine. But there was no proof—only instinct. And instinct wasn’t enough to decide anything.
He called what we shared a mate bond. Maybe I should believe him.
“Celine,” Lila called again. “We have to head back.”
I rose from the pool, and she quickly draped my dress over me, shielding my nakedness from Seth’s eyes even though I didn’t care.
“Lila…” I hesitated. “About Tristan.”
Her expression tightened instantly, every line on her face whispering caution. “What about him?”
My heart beat once. “I think I want to believe him. Everything he said.”
“Believe him?” she echoed, eyes narrowing. “Celine, what are you saying?”
I met her gaze, my voice trembling between surrender and defiance. “That I’m done fighting it. I think… I’m ready to accept being his mate.”