Prologue
Gideon
"I'm sorry, she's gone. There was nothing I could do." The doctor says to me.
"Nothing! There's nothing! Bring her back!" I scream with every part of my being. I knew before he said anything. I felt her in my heart say goodbye and let go. At that moment, an unimaginable pain radiated to my core.
"I wish I could, but she's already gone. You know she is. Right now, you don't have time to grieve. They need their dad." The doctor directs my attention to the two newborn baby girls also screaming at the top of their little lungs. How am I going to do this alone? In an instant, my world changed but not how I had seen it happening. My mate died giving birth. She had pre-eclampsia and couldn't hold on after the birth. She gave me two beautiful baby girls, Rose and Daisy, smiled at them then left this world.
I still remember her lovely dimples when she smiled and her loving gaze when she woke up. I still remember her imposing demeanor as she followed me around in my pack of the Druit Guard. But I will never see the person who was once so close to me again. She left me, forever. And the only thing supporting me now is the thought of raising these two sobbing baby girls.
They were all I had left of my mate, my last connection to my love. I could not blame them for what happened, but I wanted to. I was hit again with a wave of sadness as I realized these two beautiful babies would never see their mother smile at them. They would never hear her voice reading them a bedtime story. They would never listen to her laugh at their silly antics or feel her warm embrace. I stroked their little heads, and all I was able to do now was to take special care of them to appease my late mate.
With the help of the nurse, I picked up my tiny daughters. I gave them each a kiss. "I promise to give you all that I have. I can't promise I will be perfect, or I won't make mistakes, but I will give my life for yours to keep you safe. You are all I have now." I tried to stop my tears from flowing again, but I failed. Trying not to let my tears fall on my daughters, I lay them back into the bassinet. They had stopped crying and wiggled their little arms towards each other till they were holding hands. I sighed "at least they will always have each other." I sat down in a chair next to them, just watching them sleep.
As I sat there, I knew I need to help myself gain control over my grief. I needed to complete our family bond. As much as it hurt, I need to live for my daughters. I extended my claw on my left hand, slicing a small cut on my right, and then as gently as possible, pricked both of their big toes. I touched each of their tiny toes to my cut, letting the smallest drop from each of them enter my cut. That's the ritual for making family connections. I felt them enter my soul at that moment, and the silver of hope and love started to heal me. I looked down at my chest right where my heart is, and I could see my daughter's family mark forming a white rose and a white and yellow daisy. "My tiny flowers, you have no idea how much you have saved your daddy," I whisper.
The doctor was right. I didn't have time to grieve. I had to live on no matter how much it hurt. My mate mark burning the moment she left this world, which was long fading and went dull now. I should not let my pain and sorrow devour my soul, instead, I had to focus on my girls now. My mate would never forgive me if I didn't live on for our children. Right now, I just want to be a good dad and raise my little flowers with doubled love.
Years later, the cave.
Amelie, a she-wolf, was suffering from the loss of her mate too. Being totally different from Alpha Gideon, however, she was rejecting her mate.
The pale girl who was covered in blood was holding a knife and slowly plucking off the mate mark on her arm. Her face was twisted because of the pain but the pain was soon replaced by joy and relief...
"I'll master my destiny myself!" Her voice was weak but firm, without the slightest hesitation...
