Falling in Love with the King of Beasts

ELIA

"So the night my father had a coughing fit that left him bloodied, I went. I packed a bag, let my mother give me quick advice, things to remember since it had been so many years since I was there. And I went. Alone."

Elia waited, but he seemed reluctant to go further. "What is it?" she asked.

"I fear your anger," he said simply. "I want you to remember, I was young, and hadn't prepared, and I had many, many things on my mind at the time. I didn't see everything through the same eyes I would now."

She nodded. "I will, Reth. I promise."

He took a deep breath. "I found you the second day. You were still in that town, which pleased me. You weren't hard to find. You'd moved houses, but not far. I suppose you were still in school, but the weather was warm and I remembered that school stopped during those months. Anyway, when I found you… it was night. You were in the backyard of your home, and you sat in front of a firepit and you looked… beautiful," he said, hushed with awe. "Until that moment, I'd been looking for my childhood friend, wanting to find out who she had become, if she still made me feel so sure and comfortable. But when I saw you there… something opened up inside me, Elia.

"I had been hiding in the parklands that bordered your property, and when I saw you I was so overcome I stood straight. Had you been looking, you would have seen me. You were lit by the flames and you had a blanket wrapped around your shoulders and… I almost gave the mating call, and it startled me so completely, I dropped to the ground. I was afraid and confused and suddenly needy. I didn't know what to do. I'd never experienced that before. I crawled a short distance away and sat there for quite a while getting myself under control again. I resolved that I would go speak with you and see who you'd become and perhaps…"

"Perhaps what?" she breathed.

"Just perhaps. I didn't know. But I knew I had to see you, had to talk to you, hopefully touch you. So I hid my things and readied myself. But when I went back, you weren't alone any longer. A male had joined you, and the two of you were… cuddling." He said, his voice flat for the first time since he'd started talking.

Elia bit her lip—disturbed, but also touched that he was so obviously unhappy about the memory of the teenage Elia snuggling another man under a blanket. And her eyes welled, because she knew the summer Reth was talking about. She remembered the guy—a year older, a year further ahead at school. And he wasn't important. Not at all. But for about three weeks she'd been enthralled. Completely obsessed with him. They'd dated for two months and by the end of it she'd realized he was a pompous ass. But that first month… it had seemed like heaven to her sixteen year old self.

Reth had to have shown up during those weeks when there was nothing and no one else she could think about.

"It was obvious you loved him. You never took your eyes from him. And your scent…" Reth grunted and turned away and Elia wanted to laugh.

"Reth, he was a high school crush. We dated for two months. We barely more than kissed."

Reth nodded. "I can see that now. But you understand, at that point I'd been putting off mating—not the relationship, but even the act!—for years. To see you that way with him, and so focused on him… I saw it through Anima eyes. It seemed clear that if he asked you, you would have mated him, and I thought… I thought you'd forgotten me. I thought I was the stupid one who hadn't let go of a childhood friend. But the problem was, you were… so beautiful, Elia. I wanted you desperately."

He looked down, as if in shame and she put a hand to his chin and pulled him around to look at her. "I wish you had come and talked to me," she breathed. "I wish I'd had that choice back then. Reth, once I got over the shock, I would have followed you. If I'd known." Which made the anger spark in her chest. "But you didn't tell me. You didn't even let me see you!"

She knew there was a fierce light her eyes, but she was so angry! Why had he waited? Why hadn't he fought? Wasn't he all about dominance? If he'd shown up and chased that guy off, she would have been overjoyed!

She tried to imagine a teenage Reth, full of his newly found manhood, and how her sixteen year old self would have fallen over backwards to be loved by someone like that. Instead of the ungracious pawing and slobbering of her high school dates.

The few that there were.

Reth stared at her. "I thought I was too late," he said simply. "I stayed in your world two more days. I watched your home. Though he didn't stay with you, he was there much of the time, and you always smiled more when he was close. You hummed after he left. To my young eyes, you were… happy."

"Reth—"

"Do not deny your attraction to that man, Elia. I could smell it on you."

"He wasn't a man, he was a boy. He wasn't trying to be my mate, he just wanted to get the mating on," she said dryly. "I was obsessed with him for a few weeks, but then he showed his true colors and we broke up and… I wasn't happy, Reth. I was sad, and lonely, and… I wish you'd come just a few weeks later."

"A few weeks later I was back in Anima. I was King. My father was dead and my mother was wasting away. I was convinced I'd never see you again, but you'd somehow become the measure by which all other females must stand. And none of them did. None of them warmed my chest like the moment I saw you. I didn't catch myself smiling when I thought of others. I didn't… yearn."

"How, though?" she asked. "If we hadn't spoken… how did you know it would be like this?" she waved a hand between them.

"It's the call of the true Mate," he said and put a hand to her face. She stared up into his fierce eyes and her heart flipped. "The act of mating is nothing to the Anima, Elia. I gave up avoiding it after that. I hoped that if I joined my body with other females, my heart my follow. But it never did. After years of taking any woman that offered herself, I… stopped. I was hollowed out by it all—my heart calling for you. When, despite all the mating I still hadn't taken a mate, a wife, the people called the Rite. They demanded that I find my true mate from among their ranks. And I… I didn't have a choice, truly. But even in my heart… I walked into that night seething. I hate the blood rites, the brutality of them. I hated the idea of giving my heart over to someone who had killed to get it. But I couldn't see any way around it. You were gone. I had a responsibility to my people… and then, somehow, impossibly, you were there…" His voice had dropped to awe again.