Rejected, Then Reborn
Chapter 60

Lacy couldn’t sleep.

All of her nerve endings seemed to be standing at attention, fully aware of her mate’s presence in her house.

The human girl knew in that moment that anything he may have used to mask his scent from her had completely faded, because he was all she could sense.

She couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same for him too given that he had slowly started to sense her too even with Ace’s raging hatred towards her.

Over three hours had passed since her discovery of her loss of the weird gift as she had started to call it, and Lacy was pretty sure that it was way past midnight now.

If it hadn’t been confirmed then, you can be rest assured that it completely was now… whatever that short burst of foreseeing happenstances had been, it had certainly come to its end.

Lacy had tried everything she could think of, but nothing had worked. She had gotten no painful headaches, and neither had she seen any strange holes nor mirrors appear.

You know, at first Lacy had reasoned that perhaps the gift hadn’t been meant to make her see into the far future, because come to think of it, Alrik in his bedroom and Reed at her doorstep seemed to have had happened right in the moment after all.

And so with that new information, the human girl had decided to focus on her mate instead, thinking about his handsome face and what he was probably up to being all alone in his room.

But still, she got nothing.

Perhaps he was too close and the gift worked only with distance?

Reed had been outside the last time after all, and it took one quite a while to get to their front door given the mansion’s humongous size.

With that new development in mind, Lacy tried to focus on Alrik Hunter now, who she hadn’t spoken to yet since their date in case you were wondering.

No, no… it isn’t what you’re thinking.

Lacy was the one avoiding him, and not the other way round.

But in her defense, she didn’t mean any malice by it… she had just gotten a little too busy, that’s all. She was going to talk to him… eventually.

Wait, who was she kidding?

Lacy liked him, really, she did… and she was pretty sure they could be very good friends if she opened herself up to it, but what was the point anyway?

Her life as it was right now was already torn with her indecisiveness, did she really need to add any more problems to it?

Because, if she decided to go back to the Lyken realm with Reed, she was going to have to renounce all her family and friends… basically disconnect from everything and everyone that bound her to this place. She was equally going to have to do the same thing if she decided to stay here and give Reed up, so you see?

She had quite the decision to make, and she really did not have the time, nor the energy to be making things even harder for herself.

Lacy shook her head to clear away the thoughts, steering her brain back to thinking about Alrik and what he was possibly doing in that moment even as she shut her eyes and pursed her lips in concentration.

At first, Lacy thought she felt something… a slight ripple in her brain that filled her with hope.

It continued for quite some time, but save for a faint throbbing in her head, the human girl got nothing. And then just like the first time, that one too died out, and she was perfectly fine once more, all traces of the faint ache gone.

Lacy was honestly speaking a whole mixture of emotions that even she couldn’t begin to comprehend when it fully dawned on her that the gift was truly gone, because she hadn’t exactly been given the chance to really see if she liked or hated the strange ability that seemed to have come to her just out of the blue, and as such she felt slightly numb given that she wasn’t even fully used to it yet.

But just as equally, she missed the weird gift, (yes, searing pain and discomfort all included), and it wasn’t really that surprising, given that her life been kind of stagnant… quite boring until she had met Alrik and Reed had showed up in front of her house that is.

Lacy was really bummed out about the whole thing, it turned out, but there was just one person who would not think she was crazy if she spoke to him about it.

It wasn’t such a wise idea to go and see him by this time of night, she knew that very well… but in that moment, her need for companionship and reassurance cancelled all other forms of reason.

Lacy’s legs were carrying her out of her room and towards his door even before she realised it. It was so late that the entire mansion was quiet, so late that even Ramona, who was just as nocturnal as she was an early bird seemed to have turned in for the night.

What if he was sleeping?

Her subconscious was usually the brave, rash, cheeky one among them, but today the thought of going to their mate in their time of need was making it nervous.

With a deep breath, Lacy knocked two tentative times, her eyes widening slightly when she heard the muffled shuffling.

He wasn’t asleep!

When the door opened and he leaned against it, shooting her his lazy lopsided grin she was quickly becoming used to, a breath caught in her throat, even as her mind cast her back to that time in the castle when he had appeared at her doorstep drunk out of his mind wielding the s*x contract he hadn’t even used.

Boy how far they’d come!

“You couldn’t sleep too, huh?” He asked her huskily, staring absentmindedly at her lips.

Lacy couldn’t help it, she unconsciously licked them, noting with reverent awe just how quickly his blue eyes darkened.

This is your last chance to leave, Lacy.

Her now bad girl turned good subconscious warned her, but Lacy knew that it was already too late.

“I need to talk to you, Reed.” She said, willing herself to stay on track and not give in to the raging l**t simmering between them.

Her determination must have been pretty impressive because he quickly turned serious too, shifting to the side to let her in. “Is something wrong, Lace?”

Boy she loved it when he called her Lace, but that wasn’t why she was here, was it?

“Let’s sit.” He said before she said anything, wisely steering her to the only armchair in the room, settling on the bed instead.

His self-control was really in a fragile state right now, and he didn’t want to break it by seeing her on his bed… the very one he had been on stroking his c**k to erotic thoughts of her a few hours ago.

The sound of her throat clearing snapped him out of his thoughts, and then when she was sure she had his full attention, she opened her mouth and spilled everything to him.

The ruthless Alpha King of the B***d Moon Clan stared at his mate for a while when she was done, processing all that she had said, which seemed like a whole lot.

What had Lacy been thinking coming to him with this?

That he’d think she wasn’t crazy because he was used to supernatural nonsense like that?

Well, she had sorely been mistaken, it seemed.

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you, Reed?”

His eyes widened at her statement. “Of course not, Lacy.” He sighed, “I just had to take it all in, because the fact that you’ve been able to do this for a while, no matter how short really puts a question on your humanity.”

“Are you saying I may not be human?” Lacy was incredulous, unable to believe her ears. “What are you even talking about, Reed? Of course, I’m human, I was hoping you were going to give me a better explanation than that!”

The Alpha King closed the distance between them and pulled her to the bed, “Listen, I cannot explain what is happening to you, because I haven’t really come across something like that.”

“You haven’t encountered any humans with this same problem?”

Reed looked guilty. “Let’s just leave it at no human ever lived long enough for us to determine.”

Lacy shot him a disappointed look.

She knew it was all in the past and that he was taking steps towards becoming a better man, but being reminded of some of the atrocities he had committed just made a shiver run down her spine, and made her b***d chill in her veins.

It was a part of him she never completely wanted to know about.

“Look Lacy, the Mother of Thorns is going to be your safest bet to getting the answers you need.” He told her solemnly. All traces of the l**t charged air had fully dissipated now that there were serious matters to discuss. “We could summon her here, but Synn’s growing really old, coming here could kill her. We’re going to have to go through the dark forest like when you came here with Ash.”

“What?”

Not that scary forest!

Lacy had been having nightmares to date about the place, and now she was going to pass through it again? Like hell if she was.

“Is there no other option?” She pressed. “Uh… how did you come here?”

“Synn created a two-way portal for me to make the journey.” He admitted uncomfortably, but Lacy was oblivious. “So why don’t we just use your return ticket—if I can even call it that—to go back?” She asked.

“We just can’t, Lacy. Synn made the portal in such a way that once you return… you can’t leave, and I know you said you wanted time to figure things out—”

“I choose you, Reed.” Lacy cut him off.

“Wait, what?”

“I choose you.” She repeated.

“And you’re not saying this because you desperately want to talk to Synn?”

Lacy laughed softly at him, realizing that his insecurities were very much justified. What was she thinking blurting it out like that?

“Oh Reed,” She caressed his chiseled cheekbones softly, relishing in the way he leaned into her hand with a soft sigh and shut his eyes, like he was exactly where he wanted to be all along, “I chose you the moment you arrived at my doorstep. I chose you the moment you told me you loved me… it—it has always been you, Reed.” She wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning into him, feeling his heart beat against her cheek through his shirt even as his hands softly caressed her dark curls which fell down her back in soft waves.

“Lacy,” The Alpha King swallowed hard, unable to comprehend why after all her vocal admissions, he was still fighting this.

I guess when it came down to it, he didn’t really think that she understood the gravity of the situation. “Lacy, once I activate the portal and we step into it, no one we have interacted with, no one you have interacted with will ever remember that we were here. They will assume that you’re still missing, and eventually, they’d find closure by thinking that you’re dead. Is that really what you want?”

It was infuriating what he was doing, but even Lacy could see where he was coming from with all of this, and so taking a deep breath, she smiled happily and looked up at him, her eyes glistening with unshed tears of sadness, emphasizing how hard this decision truly was. “It is what I want, Reed.”

He pulled her close and pressed his lips softly against hers, and then he pulled away, “I will never let you regret this decision, Lacy.” He swore solemnly, tugging on the rope necklace on his neck.

For a pendant, there was a weird cowrie-like shaped thing. The Alpha King unfastened the peculiar thing from the necklace, rubbed it in his hands for some time and then tossed it on the floor.

A hologram like green light appeared, startling the s**t out of Lacy, but the Alpha King only smiled warmly at her, stretching his arm out and asking for her hand, “Let’s go home, Lacy.”

In that moment, the human girl’s slight sadness seemed to have ebbed, a weird feeling of calm and relief coursing through her veins instead of grief.

She was going to miss her family, that much was for sure, but she knew that they were doing alright without her, and that she was going to always be remembered in their hearts even when they assumed that she was dead.

She was one hundred percent okay with that.

And so, standing up from the bed, she smiled back at her mate, placing her hand in his, and together, they stepped into the portal.