311- Claimed by the Scent of Fate
POV Viktor Averwyn:
She was already grabbing a plate and filling it with food. I sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing. I sat at the table.
“Where’s Adelina?”
“She’s already gone to her room, complaining that she’s going to die a virgin and alone. Twenty-one years old, centuries ahead of her! And desperate like that!” She placed two ladles of polenta with meat full of broth on top. “Do you know what that’s called? A pussy in fury! Her hormones are all there, screaming: fuck me!”
Even with my bad mood, I had to smile. Daciana had no filter.
“Go home. Florian and your children must be desperate, without food.”
“Don’t they like that garbage of hot dogs and hamburgers? Let them choke on it, so they learn to value the wife and mother they have! They keep mocking me because I’m always ready, always worried. You’re the only one who praises my efforts. I’m tired! I’m telling you: I’M TIRED!”
I said nothing, used to her dramas. I poured myself some ţuică, letting the drink open my appetite even more. Then I tasted the food under her watchful gaze.
“It’s very good, as always.”
“Great!” She gave a wide smile, pulling off her apron in a hurry. “Now I’m going home before those big dogs eat each other’s asses! I swear, they don’t know how to manage without me!”
I thought she was bipolar.
She passed by me, kissed my cheek, gave me instructions not to leave anything on the plate, and left. Silence fell over the kitchen.
In a way, Daciana was the only person I obeyed. So I ate everything, drank another full glass of ţuică, and leaned back in the chair, still worried about the meeting in Noctheria.
There was no way I would hand my daughter over to that psychopath Lucian. But I had to think about how to turn those two weeks to my advantage.
I went up to my suite thinking about it. I brushed my teeth, got ready for bed, but it was still too early. I went to the window and the scent of lilies hit me again.
I cursed half a dozen times. What the hell was that perfume doing clinging to Konrad? Could it be one of the females in his pack, newly arrived? Would she attend the next Lust party?
My animal side felt like howling. The human side weighed the possibilities. They weren’t good. I was already at odds with Lucian. All I needed now was to end up fighting with Konrad too, which I couldn’t stand.
Somehow, I thought of the black-haired woman for whom I had feelings like a son’s. She is human. She comes from an ancient people, with magic. Fuck, there was a cemetery to prove she was wrong! And a deception that cost an innocent life.
I thought of the gypsy village, which I hadn’t visited in over twenty years. That place had always attracted me, without me being able to explain why. What if that scent came from there?
Calm the fuck down!
I rebuked the urges that had been tormenting me for days. I was tired of resisting. I would find out once and for all where that perfume came from.
I left the house, instructing the guards to remain on duty. When I crossed the gates, I shot through the dense forest. I ran freely across my lands, jumping over traps. So fast that not even lightning could stop me.
I felt the scents of the forest, the startled sounds of other animals. I was fed, I wouldn’t hunt them. I was searching for something else. Answers.
I crossed the dense woods, passed through shallow streams, moved around small towns down the mountainside. I skirted Sibiu, never leaving the shadows of the trees. And the scent grew much stronger, to the point of destabilizing me.
Before reaching the gypsy village, I stopped among a cluster of trees and composed myself, adjusting the blood-red coat with embroidery on the collar, the black clothes underneath. I pushed a strand of hair back and began to walk. My breathing already steady.
Anyone who saw me would think I was some citizen of the Middle Ages lost in the middle of the vegetation.
The perfume came so strong that I lifted my face, sharpening the air, my nostrils flaring. Mixed with the smell of burnt wood. From that same place came the sound of some ancient chant, in the Romani language. And a mournful viola.
I reached the edge of the forest and stood still in the shadows, watching the movement in the center of the village. On the ground, a tall bonfire burned, where people threw clothes and objects, women crying, men playing and singing. All dressed in black, making it clear it was some kind of funeral rite.
I had lived too many centuries not to know a bit of that people’s culture; I had been married to a Romani woman. The family bond, the reverence for the dead, the dramas almost as evident as Daciana’s. She would have made a perfect gypsy.
I observed the surroundings, inhaling the air and the perfume. My eyes attentive to each of those fragile, foolish humans. Very easy to seduce and surprise.
Memories enveloped me. The romantic ones falling in love at the sight of me, begging me to take them with me. My ideas of destined mates, my desire for a family. Like those I once experienced. Even if only in my visions.
I took them. One by one. Fragile, giving in at some point.
Until I became enchanted with the damned one. I didn’t want to remember.
I almost turned around and went back home. Then the scent came in full force, a blow of lilies with that spicy note, making me dizzy. I sniffed, looked. And I found her.
She was descending the steps of a veranda. The same blue house that, twenty-two years earlier, I had been compelled to visit in my lupine form. A coincidence that only didn’t affect me more because I lost all sense the moment I fixed my eyes on her.
Small, delicate, beautiful. Hair in a profusion of reddish curls almost down to her waist, contrasting with her pale skin and black dress. A sad little face, full lips slightly parted. And, fuck! That scent driving me insane, out of my mind.
Even breathing was difficult, as if I would go mad if I did.
Motionless, I followed her with my eyes. Circling the bonfire, watching the flames. Light and silent, each step a pounding of my heart.
I had never felt like that before, rooted to the ground, unable to act.
Some people appeared, stepped in front of her, hugged her. A fragile smile. More steps. The perfume nearly drugging me. And there I was, paralyzed by her.
The song grew more emotional in the viola that released sounds like crying. Women kept throwing things into the fire. She stopped, looking at the flames, eyes full of tears.
I took a few steps forward, my heart galloping and then tightening. Needing more.
I stepped out from the shadows of the trees. Then, suddenly, she raised her light eyes to me. And she didn’t move. Still, motionless, focused.
They could say whatever they wanted. My destined mate could not be human, they would die. Only when the she-wolf became pregnant would I know. But there, none of that mattered. I wanted her with a force beyond any understanding.
She would be mine.
Alive or dead, she would be mine.