Dear Enemy, You're My Mate

Chapter 67 **

Maya

I limp after Arvin, ignoring the burning pain between my two legs. Blood is trailing down my inner thigh, and I pick up my tattered, frilly dress in a rush. I don't care if it's ruined, and without a second thought, I wipe the red liquid from my leg and then struggle to get my head through the hole of the half-massacred fabric.

"Are you coming?" Arvin asks.

I press my lips together. The fight is no longer going on outside in the ballroom. I'm assuming Arvin's pack chased out the other werewolves from their territory, which means I have to listen to this bastard if I hope to survive.

"I'm right behind you!" I chirp.

I speed up my pace, only for Arvin to smack me across the face with a haughty expression the moment I'm next to him. "Who gave you permission to speak?!"

Slowly, I touch my cheek for what seems like the billionth time today with shaking movements, knowing there will be a scar there tomorrow. Arvin appears to be a man who loves to cause injury to others. He is genuinely a rotten man, scary and foul.

I lick my lips. "I didn't think-…"

Arvin slaps me again. "Shut up!"

Anger courses in my veins, but this time, I hold my tongue when Arvin's searing gaze clashes with mine. For a fleeting moment, we are testing each other by competing in a silent, staring contest. None of us are willing to give up. We stand there like two fools refusing to blink.

Eventually, Arvin smiles in his slimy way. "Impressive! You're learning things quickly, darling."

Ugh, does he have to call me his darling?

I think that, yet, miraculously, I don't open my mouth.

Somehow, I follow Arvin like a good little girl, without even attempting to jump at his throat. The idea of running over his wriggling body with a train while he is tied up with rope is something I find entertaining. Sadly, Arvin is too powerful for me to murder.

"Here we are."

Arvin leads me up to an altar table. An older woman is sitting in a chair, watching us with an evil smile. A cat is rolled out in her lap, and her white curls seem to have once been blonde.

"Visitors..." She cackles.

A shudder travels up my spine as I listen to her voice. The wrinkly lady might appear harmless, but something about the atmosphere around her tells me not to underestimate her for a second.

"Arvin, is that you?" The elderly lady asks in a hoarse voice and turns to face us even though her eyes aren't open. "How nice—you brought a friend over to play."

I notice the older lady has sharp vampire teeth when she smiles, which I find confusing—her kind isn't supposed to age; even hybrids are supposedly forever young.

"Mother," Arvin bends forward to kiss her cheek before turning to face me with eyes gossipping about his wickedness. "This is my mother, June. As you can see, she is dying—the only way to keep her alive is to let her drink human blood every night."

Did he say June?

Every limb in my body turns tense until I become entirely paralyzed. I've heard of June before. She is the hybrid my parents claimed had died in the war against the Summerburst pack in the past. June is evil and cunning, and I have no clue how she can still be alive.

Noticing my bafflement, Arvin smiles. "My old mother June survived by devouring a tiny piece of another Dior's vanishing soul, but she knew it wouldn't last her long. She needed something stronger to give her strength, and luckily, the witches were there to help her. They gave her a crystal orb with a wolf's spirit."

I lose the ability to breathe. The witches, the ones who my family always considered their friends, they are the bad guys? I'm in deep shock. Holy hell, Rebecca helped deliver my sister and me to the world, which could mean—Jesus Christ, is the wolf spirit mine?!

Arvin continues talking, oblivious to my inner panic attack. "Of course, we still have no clue how to use the wolf spirit properly, or else my mother wouldn't be aging. For the moment, we have to keep feeding her blood while the orb is close to her, but perhaps you can change that?"

The man is studying me with expectant eyes. But I barely even listened to his spoken words. My head is a fucking mess.

All this time and I've secretly been missing my inner wolf?

My mind is spinning in circles, replaying the memories of my past, the pain, and the misery. For eighteen years, I've suffered and assumed I was a human, and now it turns out someone stole my inner wolf!

I'm standing there, shaking and not knowing what to believe, when Arvin grabs a crystal orb from the altar table. He lifts it to my face, laughing at my widening eyes.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

The crystal orb is glowing, and within it, there are moving clouds, revealing the angry face of a black wolf. The creature has red eyes and fur shimmering like the feathers belonging to a crow.

My lips part. I can immediately tell it's a female wolf and that she belongs to me, that she is part of who I am, but the wolf doesn't seem to recognize me—her hackles are raised, and she inaudibly growls at me like I'm yet another enemy.

"How amusing—the wolf isn't accepting you either," Arvin removes the orb from my face, making me jump at him, but of course, I'm not tall enough to steal it from him and land on the floor with a thud. "Rebecca told me removing a wolf from its host is hard, but babies," he winks at me. "Baby werewolves are defenseless."

I lift my chin despite the pain shooting through my body and snarl at the tall, wicked man. "Give her back!"

"This little thing?" Arvin is mockingly holding up the orb and smirking at me with his shoes up in my face. "I'm sorry, but I need this to ensure you won't flee from here. You see, if this thing breaks, then you will die, Maya, and you're not allowed to die before I've found a way to insert your wolf into my frail, old mother."

My eyebrows furrow. "But that wolf is part of my soul! Why would you insert it into your mother?!"

"Oh," Arvin smiles. "I'm aware half of your soul is in the palm of my hand, and that's hard of any concern. Your soul with merge with my mother and create an entirely new being—a perfect mate."

Incest?!

A scream rises in my throat. "You're sick in the head! Who in their right mind would want to be mates with their mother?!"

I push myself up from the ground, about to attack Arvin, but two guards step out from the shadows, seizing me. I kick, and I flail, but my attempts are futile—I'm like a kitten trying to fight two rottweilers.

And since I can't move, I open my mouth. "I hate you so much! Once I break free, I will murder you! I will fucking kill you with my own hands! You're dead, Arvin!"

Arvin watches me with tired eyes and then speaks to the guards who are restraining me. "Lock her up in the basement for when I might need her again. She might be a wildcard right now, but with a little violence, she will soon learn that I'm her master."

My lips part again, but the guard presses a cloth to my nose this time, making me pass out.