Once My Mate, Always My Mate

Sabrina’s POV

Happiness.

It is the feeling that has stuck with me since Xander and I decided to get back together and make it work. Happiness is how I feel when I wake up in the morning to see his face close to mine. Happiness is him talking to me with his morning breath and me, turning away in disgust but laughing my way through that horrible smell. Happiness is watching my chosen mate get my son ready for the day, playing around with him and just watching them run around this house, filling the walls with so much laughter.

Happiness is hearing my son laugh and seeing that he has not forgotten Xander at all. Even after the time that has passed with us being in this realm, my son still had the fondness for him. Happiness is seeing Xander be so happy, waking up every day just so happy, so jolly in all his actions.

I wake up to a big smile and a little one running in to our room, jumping on our bed, excited to start the day with Xander, their little crazy adventures always involve the outdoors and coming back home a mess but I can never get angry at them... not when my son looks so happy being reunited with Xander.

"Open your eyes beautiful, big man over here would like to show you something.” Xander says to me. I could feel his body standing over me and I hear a giggling Adrastos right next to him.

I keep my eyes closed, wanting to make them wait a little bit and pretend to still be asleep. Xander may not buy it but I know Drastos will and just like clockwork, my little boy jumps on the bed, landing on me with a piercing scream. My eyes shoot open, done playing games after that painful ordeal.

“What the...?" I say as the shock registers. My son jumped on to the bed, his body and clothes covered in paint and now my beautiful bed with its soft white sheets was a bloody crime scene. Drastos gets off the bed, running out of my room before I had time to react to him and my anger quickly shoots up to the adult, who appears to also be covered in paint.

Xander looks at me, puppy dog eyes on full display as he raises his arms in surrender. My body was boiling and he knew it, his messy paint-stained hand pulls me out of bed and I follow him out of our room.

We follow the laughs and giggles of a little naughty boy, all the way to his room and upon walking in, I see a mess but I breathe my way through it and through the room until we get to Drastos who was standing in front of a covered wall. Xander smiles sheepishly before removing the cover, which I think is one of the bed sheets in the house and reveals a mural.

Within seconds, my anger dissipated. A flood of emotions swooped up inside of me and I could feel myself on the brink of tears. Xander had painted us, all together as a family, my family. Xander on the left and I was on the right with little Drastos in the middle... A little down below the mural was my son's handiwork, which sort of clashed with Xander's work but he stood tall and proud, how could I not love it?

My boys had been working for days on this, telling me to never uncover this wall until they said it was time. This is what they were working on... I never even knew my Xander could paint.

“I don't know what to say.” I say to my boys... feeling so blessed to have been blessed with such wonderful people and the feeling Is short-lived when Josey runs in to the room covered in blood stains.

"We have a problem.” She says and we all just look at her, dumbfounded.

Xander reacts first and throws her a towel to wipe off the blood stains on her face. She wipes off those that can come off, the rest having dried off on her...

"What problem?" Xander asks and Josey closes her eyes for a second before they land on me.

"The humans. We, well you know, Cayden and I are trying to create a new world of vampires seeing as you killed the last of them but you know baby vamps and the thirst.” Josey tries to casually say to me. I walk closer to her.

"What about the humans?” I ask in a serious tone. Mind linking the elders and Evan to meet me in my office in ten.

"They have come for us and they have captured Cayden. They had me too but I am part wolf and gifted so I drowned the suckers. Cayden did not get enough time to react, he fought them long enough for me to escape. I need your help." She says to me and I groan out loud.

"How many men do you need? I can send my men to help rescue your boyfriend.” Xander offers but I shake my head no.

"We don't want to alert the humans on werewolves in case they had no idea. Does brother know about this? He is the werewolf king and supernatural's being hunted is something he should know about.” I say, Xander agrees with me.

"I had no time, okay? It was fight or flight and I did my fighting so it was time to take flight." Josey says to me.

"Hunters?" I ask and Josey shakes her head no.

"With the weapons they were using, that is what I thought at first but the way they were just shooting at us and fighting us, they lacked training. Maybe some of them are hunters but not all of them." Josey says.

"We need to get dressed." I say to Xander, mind linking Drastos nanny to come and take him outside.

"Josey, you go get Anthony without alerting mom and dad about this. We are adults, we will handle this ourselves and then we all meet in my office as soon as possible. I will send Evan to get CJ, we need to put our heads together and finish this as quickly as possible before it escalates.” I say and Josey nods her head before running out of the room.

Drastos tries to run after her but he bumps in to his nanny on his way out and they leave us alone.

"Cayden..." I say, rolling my eyes and turning to walk away but Xander stops me with a kiss. We pull away and he turns me around to face the mural once more...

"Let us take a minute to enjoy this before going off to war.” He says to me, hugging me from behind and I rest my head on his chest. We looked happy, our faces on the wall. My son will wake up to our happy faces every day to start his day..

I pull away, feeling the time pass us by and thinking about the elders waiting for me. We go into our room to freshen up and get dressed, combat style before heading to my office to see the elders. Walking in, I immediately ask Evan to bring CJ here and he leaves the room.

The elders stand before me, each carrying a scroll type paper in their hands.

"We think we know why you called us here and our advice is to not involve the werewolves in this. It is a war created by humans and vampires and as long as hunters are willing to keep the werewolves a secret, I don't see why we should kill their own, breaking that truce and creating a war that could go on for months.” One elder says to me. "Yes. You make a good point.” I say, "Although, the plan was not to involve the wolves but to go in as a family. Under no circumstances are we to shift and the plan is to handle this as swiftly as possible.” I say, as Josey walks in with Anthony and Evan with Cj right behind them.

"May we ask what your plan is Your Serene Highness?" The elders ask me.

"The plan is to rescue Cayden and give him one hell of a beating for starting a war two fucking minutes in to his new life with Josey." Cj says and Josey growls while we all laugh.

"No, seriously guys. How the fuck does one get themselves in to this shit being so old. I mean this guy has lived longer than any of us and yet here we are about to save an old timer.” CJ continues to rant.

"He should be teaching us how to continue living just under the human's noses, not the other way around and isn't this guy crazy strong and able to freeze a room with the people in it? How was this man captured?” He asks, we all turn to look at Josey, she can better explain this because that is a valid question.

"They had this weapon thing. I can't describe it but it put my vampire to sleep.” She says to us.

"And when were you going to share this information? Before or after we mistakenly reveal our wolf forms to the humans and have them create a weapon that puts the wolf to sleep?” I ask her. One elder jumps in right after me.

"Who says they haven't already and you all walk in to your last days? They could keep you all as lab rats for future testing and our moon goddess will aid them in finding a scientific discovery- Human girl with crazy strength and magic abilities. They would study her for centuries to come." The elder says and I roll my eyes at that.

"I think I can handle my own but that is also a good point. Josey, just how careless were you and Cayden with turning humans in to vampires? Please tell me Cayden did not go feasting on humans the minute you both got to earth?” I ask and she does not meet my gaze. "I say let us scout the area and count the men or women responsible for capturing Cayden. As soon as we know where he is and how many men we will have to fight, we can go in through the front door.” Anthony says to us.

"Let's just go scout the area first.” I say and we all head out, leaving the elders behind. Something inside of me was trying to tell me something... Like something was off about this but because this was my sister's lover, I tuned it out and followed my family to what could potentially be, another bloodbath.