Chapter 72 - Destiny!

Samantha

I woke up feeling more depressed than I ever felt before. My wolf wasn’t speaking to me, and as soon as I walked into the kitchen, my parents were glaring at me. They wanted to know why I wanted to leave so quickly and there was no way I was going to tell them the real reason. I loved my parents, but I knew they would jump at the chance to be in the good graces of the royals again.

The queen had been kind under the circumstances. She could have stripped us of our titles completely. She could have taken our land and money and everything else we owned. She could have left us to beg just to survive. Images of my parents begging for scraps flashed through my mind while my mother kept on complaining that we had to leave so early.

I had to fight the urge to shout. I really wanted to tell them the truth, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t going to be that girl. I wasn’t going to become the queen just to save our family from humiliation! I was probably being incredibly stupid. Fine, not probably. I knew that I was being incredibly stupid, but I didn’t care. The moon goddess made a huge mistake. I was sure of it.

She would fix it and I would be the one left red-faced and humiliated. Or the royals would use our family history as an excuse and the king would reject me, humiliating us in any case. No matter which way I thought about it, I couldn’t see it working out. My mother started breakfast and my dad mumbled as he disappeared into his office.

I knew he was relieved to just get out of the kitchen before my mother put him to work. That was something we did lose. We lost most of our servants. The queen allowed us to keep one male and one female as servants, but my father had to pay them a proper wage that had to be approved by the queen. I busied myself by cleaning the room I planned on cleaning, but my mind kept drifting to the king.

By the time we sat down for breakfast, I was tired. I was developing a headache and I felt as if I could just crawl into bed and disappear forever! How on earth was I going to survive this?!

Adam

I had no idea what she looked like or who she could be, which made things really difficult. My mother suggested that we invite all the single females to the castle. She wanted me to spend some time with each of them to try and find my mate, but I couldn’t imagine all of them coming here. I had a tour of our kingdom coming up, so it made more sense for me to go through all the towns and look for her.

I believed I would smell her as soon as I was near her. My parents agreed, and we took care of the last details before my departure. In the early hours of the next morning, we set off on my tour of our kingdom. It was a tradition that my mother started, and I intended on continuing. She visited everyone in their homes and I believed, like she did, that it was what made a huge difference to our people.

They didn’t see the royals as this high and mighty group of untouchable people. We were normal people just like the rest of them and this tour showed it to our people. For three days, we travelled from city to city, and I was beginning to think I imagined smelling my mate. I had met so many single females that their faces were starting to melt together, and they were all starting to look a lot alike!

After two weeks of touring, I returned home empty-handed and convinced I had imagined it all! I was sure I had met every single female in our kingdom and a couple of ones that weren’t from here. My parents could see my frustration, and they were trying their best to help me, but there was no hope. My mate was gone, and I was more convinced than ever that I would never find her.

I had one last part of my tour left and on the last day, as I stood in front of the mirror looking at myself, I sighed deeply. The only single females left to meet were the ones in our very own town. I wasn’t convinced that I would see her today. I hadn’t had any signs that she even existed since that night. Why would I be lucky enough to find her today?!

I walked through the castle gates into town and the people lined the streets. This was a very special moment in our kingdom. It was another tradition my mother had. The royals walked around town with the regular people. We spoke to them. We actually listened to any issues they might have. It wasn’t a pompous royal event.

It was just a normal day out. I had been looking forward to this day. I hoped I would share it with my mystery mate, but it was what it was. I was walking through the crowd smiling at something one of the little ones said when that scent struck me. My eyes grew wide and I growled. All around me, people stopped walking. Nobody dared to move. My eyes scanned the crowd but no matter how many eyes I looked into, I didn’t see her! Then a young woman turned around. She bit into an apple and our eyes met. It felt as though lightning struck.

“Mate!” I growled, noting the sheer shock in her eyes. People moved out of my way as I made my way to her, and she looked like a deer about to be devoured. “Hi, I’m Adam.” I held out my hand and only then realized that she had the apple in one and her other hand was holding onto bags filled with food!

“Hi, I’m … Uhm …” I tried to take the bags from her while she introduced herself, but one of the bags popped open, and before I could get her name, food went flying everywhere.