Their Burning Touch on my Skin

EMMA

A gasp resounds in the crowd as Ace looks down at me wide-eyed. 

Holding my arm, I keep shivering as the adrenaline pumps through me. 

"It's nothing," I say, my voice shaking as I hold my burned forearm, the blood dripping through my fingers. 

His worried face suddenly shifts, his caring expression morphing into a frown. "How the fuck can you tell me that it is nothing?!" 

My heart squeezes, making me open my eyes. 

I must have fallen asleep during the ride. 

Staring outside my window, I watch the trees pass by, the landscape slowly transforming as we are nearing the royal pack's territory. 

Serena has fallen asleep as well. Her head leans against my shoulder, and I take a deep sigh, getting Kai's attention on me. "Everything alright? That was a deep sigh for someone just waking up from a long nap."

I force up a smile at him. "Everything is alright. Just had a bad dream." 

"A nightmare or a ghost from the past?" He asks, his eyes already directed back to the papers in his hands. 

I lower my head, removing invisible lint from my dress as I change the subject. "What are you looking at?" 

The ghost of the past, as he calls him, is quite a sensitive subject for me. 

Kai and I share a special connection, even if I'm two years older than him. We haven't talked about it properly as we are both too shy to address it, apparently, but we have spent our entire life together, and we are actually just waiting to find out that we are mates to finally get over with it. 

It is totally different from how it was with Ace. 

With Ace, it was like sailing through a storm. 

A gorgeous storm you would watch with your jaw on the floor and your heart beating in your throat, but still... 

For him it was just natural to tease me, compliment me and as soon as he had the opportunity to, he stole my first kiss, and it didn't take him much longer to get my innocence too. 

That night, I thought, was the best of my life, and he promised to make me his Luna, even if we would find out that we weren't fated mates. 

But just a month later, he was gone. 

So much for promises. 

A bit more than five years have passed since that moment. I had often dreamed of being the mate of both of them. Aunt Artemisia had five, so I prayed so much to the Moon Goddess for having just one more mate as I couldn't decide who I loved more.  

But it's just typical that for us it is more complicated than for everyone else. 

Usually, we find our mate as soon as we turn twenty years old, and as I'm already twenty-five, the Elders are confused about why my wolf hasn't resurfaced yet. 

Well, they are confused about it just like they are about everything else. 

But complaining is useless, I am just exhausted because of all the testing, but I'm doing my best to grit my teeth to keep going as Aunty Artemisia is going through much worse as she shields me from as much as possible. 

"The documents the High Court sent us. Hendrick wanted me to study them before we meet the Judge because of Serena," he looks at the ceiling as he throws his head into his neck. "I can't believe he did that to us. He knew I never wanted to be an Alpha." 

"Did you talk to Cayden?"  I ask him, tilting my head. "Maybe Ryder could take over. He did turn twenty-one, didn't he? He would be old enough to start the Alpha training." 

He sighs exhausted, closing his eyes. "Ace was the strongest among all of us, and cocky enough to want the title. Ryder, just like me, has always had the idea that Ace would become the Alpha. None of us wants to take that from him." 

"I understand. But he has gone. He has left us, so you don't need to have a bad conscience for taking a potential title he was trained for," I say, looking back out the window. 

Serena stirs, stretching herself as she follows my gaze with sleepy eyes. "Are we there yet?" 

"Not yet. But it won't take any much longer," I say, caressing her head. 

She looks up at me, her dark eyes with the red speckle boring into mine. "My butt hurts." 

We crack up while she sulks and I hug her close. "I'm so sorry, Sese. I will ask them to make us go on a stroll before they have us sit down for dinner."