Introspect [The Mating Games #3]

ORION KALLIS

He fell into the water just as he wanted, but he didn’t hit any rocks. If he had, then things would have been easier for him. Far less painful.

But he should have known better than think that the Moon Goddess would favour him in that way. Or in any way, for that matter.

How could the Moon Goddess be so cruel? he thought to himself, that being the last coherent thought that he would have. Everything after that was a jumbled, incomprehensible mess until he felt a small pair of hands tugging on his arm. This continued for a few moments until she finally let go of him, allowing his arm to slowly drop back to his side – as if she had realised that he was far too heavy for her to pull out of the water alone.

Orion had been sure that it was the end before but now…now his mind was all over the place. Not only was he not so sure about what he wanted, but he was confused between whether he was seeing things or if it was actually real.

With how deep underwater he was right now, his whole body feeling so numb that he could hardly bring himself to move a muscle, let alone swim up to the surface, panic started to set in. Panic that it was too late for him. That he had made the wrong decision. That maybe, it hadn’t been a dream all along.

The panic all but consumed him until finally, he couldn’t feel anything anymore. Not even the small hand that grasped his shoulder, moving to wrap her arms around him.

When Orion opened his eyes next, he found himself to be back in his bed. The one in the hotel apartment, not his bed back in Greece.

“I waiting for you to wake up,” a small voice chimed from beside him. At the sound, he almost gave himself whiplash with how quick he turned his head to face her.

His mate.

“Phoenix?” Orion couldn’t help but question in a mixture of shock, fear and disbelief as he stared into the deep ocean blue eyes of his mate. When he blinked and she was still there, he could hardly believe his eyes. “You’re really real!”

“Of course, I’m real,” she murmured, her lips curled down into a small frown as she stared down at him. “What were you thinking, Orion?”

“I can’t believe you’re real!” he shot up in the bed, immediately moving over to wrap his arms around her. His mind was so fogged with the fact that all of it had been real all along, and imagining that it was all a dream had been the dream – or in this case, nightmare – all along, that he hadn’t even heard what she had said. “I just had the worst dream, angel,” he whispered, pressing his lips under her ear.

“Orion!” Phoenix huffed in anger, pressing her hands against his chest to put some distance between them. Distance that he found very offensive but couldn’t himself to protest about, not when she glared so sharply at him. “What is wrong with you? What were you thinking?”

“What are you talking about?” he murmured in a quiet, confused voice, struggling to understand why his mate was trying to get away from him. Maybe not all of the dream was a dream.

“You tried to kill yourself!”

In that moment, all recent memories came rushing back to him. Waking up alone, not finding Phoenix anywhere and then finally, jumping off the cliff.

For what was a life worth living if it was without his mate?

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Orion turned his head to face away from her, not wanting to talk about it even though he knew it wasn’t healthy to keep it to himself. Especially when he couldn’t bring himself to regret the decision.

“You can’t keep this to yourself,” Phoenix frowned, speaking to him in a small voice. She moved around on the bed until she was sat in front of him, forcing him to look at her. To face the truth. “You tried to kill yourself. We need to talk about that.”

“What’s there to talk about?” he exhaled and leaned back against the headboard even though he knew that she wouldn’t let this go. As much as he wished she would, he also knew that they needed to talk. If they didn’t then then this would continue to hang over their heads until finally, he broke down and spilled his heart out to her.

“What made you do that, Orion?” Phoenix sniffled, clearly battling tears as she demanded answers from him.

“I thought you weren’t real,” he shrugged, his head still bowed as he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. How could he when he knew that all he would see was disappointment? Pain and disappointment.

“What do you mean you thought I wasn’t real?”

“I woke up and you weren’t there. I looked all over the pack for you but no one had seen you. They all told me that I didn’t have a mate. That I had never had a mate,” his voice cracked at the end and he couldn’t bring himself to even try and recover from it. Instead, he continued speaking in this hoarse, gravelly tone. “After this past week with you, I can’t go back to a life without you.”

“Don’t say that, Orion,” she sniffled, shaking her head. When he didn’t say anything, she reached out to clasp both of her hands over one of his, enveloping his much larger hand in both of her smaller ones. Despite the size difference between then, suddenly he felt so small in her hands.

“But it’s the truth,” Orion whispered, finally lifting his head to stare his mate in the eyes. “I couldn’t stand the thought of living without you, Phoenix. Not even for a moment.”

“It kills me to hear that from you,” Phoenix all but blubbered as she squeezed her eyes shut, unable to hold back the tears anymore. “I wouldn’t be able to stand it if you were hurt. If something were to happen to you.”

“That’s exactly how I felt when I woke up without you,” he groaned, quickly wiping his tears on the back of his arm before reaching out for her. Before reaching out for his mate. “I can’t stand the thought of a life without you.”

“And I, you,” she whispered into the crook of his neck, holding him tighter than she had ever held anyone before. “But that doesn’t mean you can just jump into the ocean like that.”

“As long as you’re here with me, I promise I won’t ever do that again.”

“You need to promise to never do that again, even after I’m gone one day.”

“Why? Do you have plans of leaving me?” he chuckled, his lips curling up into a teasing smirk as he stared down at his beautiful mate.

“No,” she huffed, swiping fingers across her cheeks to wipe away the wet tears that refused to stop. “But one day I’m going to die. Just like everyone else.”

“I’ll probably die before you since I’m twenty years your senior,” he murmured, wounding his arms around her waist once again, reeling her into him.

“But werewolves have a much longer lifespan than a witch.”

“How about we cross that bridge when we get there?” he chuckled, half because he found the petulant expression on her face adorable and half because the thought of his beautiful little mate passing away made him feel sick in the stomach.

“How did you know where to find me?” Orion asked, rubbing a soothing hand down his back as he continued to hold her; console her.

“I don’t know,” Phoenix murmured into the crook of his neck, refusing to let go. “Just like you, I woke up and you weren’t there. I know that we didn’t sleep in the same bed or anything but all of a sudden, I just knew that you were gone and that something was wrong.”

“What did you?”

“Again, like you, I searched all over the island. I couldn’t find you anywhere and when I ran into Denver, he told me that you were back at your pack. He said that you had been kicked off the island and could never come back.”

“Why would he do that?” Orion couldn’t help but fist his hands against her back, having found yet another reason to dislike the steward.

“I don’t know but looking back, I don’t think that was really Denver,” she murmured. When she noticed the questioning look on his face, she was quick to explain, “I think he was part of the task: the final test. Whatever that means,” her lips turned down into a deeper frown. “I don’t think he was real. Just like how you imagined that I didn’t exist, I think I imagined everything. Including Denver. Anyway, he told me that you would never come back to the island so for that, that only meant one thing.”

“You transported yourself off the island for me? Even though you knew your life could be in danger?”

“I would do that a million times over and so much for you, Orion,” she sighed, reaching a hand up to play with the soft wisps of hair at the nape of his neck; comforting them both. “I don’t know how it happened since I didn’t do the transportation enchantment but I wished it and there I was. Except, imagine my horror when I find myself in the middle of the ocean and with you drowning yourself underneath me.”

“Couldn’t have been the most pleasant sight,” Orion murmured in silent apology, turning his head to press a kiss into her ear.

“You could say that again,” she snorted, the sound more strained than malicious.

“How is all of this possible?” he asked in a quiet voice, struggling to wrap his head around everything that had happened. Or rather, everything that had not happened as technically, it was all a figment of their imagination.

“Magic.”

“What?”

“The coven has been helping out the Royal family for centuries now, especially during the Mating Games. On the seventh day, it’s always the final test.”

“And you guys concoct these fake scenarios as part of the task?”

“Yes,” Phoenix sighed and nodded. “Now that I’m on the other side, I’d like to say that I’m not proud of it.”

“But the game is the game.”

She exhaled and nodded her head in agreement.

There were so many things that Orion and Phoenix needed to talk about. While she had clearly conquered her fear, he had not only succumbed to his but had allowed it to consume him. He had tried to kill himself and that didn’t settle well with Phoenix in the slightest. However, it was not something that they could resolve in one sitting so for now, she settled for holding him like her life depended on it. Because it did.

Her life depended on his just as much as his depended on hers. And neither of them would wish for it any other way.

“What is this doing here?” Phoenix called out curiously after several moments, glancing over at the bedside cabinet where she had spied something shiny from the corner of her eye.

“What are you looking at, angel?” he called out to her, gently stroking the smooth skin of her back. Even before today’s task, he wished to never be away from her but now, all of that was just magnified.

“it’s a badge,” she murmured, turning around to show him her outstretched hand.

There was just one badge.

“It’s for you,” he said with the utmost conviction, reaching out to curl her fingers around the small piece of metal.

“It might be for you,” she murmured but she didn’t sound all that convinced.

“It’s definitely for you, angel,” Orion leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead. “You did so well today. I’m so proud of you, and this badge is definitely for you. You deserve it, not me.”

At his sweet words, her lips twisted into a bright smile. She quickly turned around to place the badge back on the bedside drawer before returning her attention to him, moving to lay herself on his chest.

Orion didn’t care that he had barely passed the Mating Games, or that Phoenix now had more badges him than him. All he cared about was having Phoenix back in his arms, and himself back in his arms because that was where the both of them belonged.

Those moments without her, believing for all of it to have been a dream truly was cruel, and he would never wish such a fate upon anyone else.

Yet now, with his mate gazing down at him with such love, peppering sweet kisses all over his face, nothing else mattered.

It all simply faded away.

-

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Layla Knight

22.06.2021