Chapter Nine
POV
Mira
Torn Between Two Truths
I locked the door behind me and pressed my back against it, my heart pounding as if it wanted to escape my chest. My whole body trembled as though it had carried the weight of the world across oceans and through time.
"He was real".
'The Alpha King!
"The man of molten eyes" 'The wolf of impossible nights.
'The stranger who had haunted my dreams for months, then appeared.... living, breathing ; on a sun-bleached Florida street.
I pressed both palms to my face.
"No. No, this isn't real."
'Because it couldn't be.
Back home in Nigeria, wolves belonged in foreign documentaries or Nollywood metaphors about treachery, not in real life.
"I know I love reading online books, having knowledge of supernatural beings but I thought it is fantasy".
The supernatural was the domain of old women's fireside tales; not something that could stand before me in broad daylight and whisper my name like a vow.
'And me? I was raised in The Apostolic Church, wrapped in hymns and hallelujahs.
'My life had been prayers, tithes, choir practice, youth fellowship. I believed in the God who parted seas and healed the sick and not in moonlit kings who claimed souls with a single glance.
'Yet I had seen him.
'Felt him!
Smelled the wild earth on his skin.
I had watched two grown men, hardened by street life - scatter like frightened children when he growled.
"Lord… what am I supposed to do with this?"
My whisper barely reached the quiet room.
My Bible still sat on the nightstand where I'd placed it when I left Nigeria, its leather cover worn from Mama's hands and my own. I reached for it, clutching it to my chest like a lifeline.
My thumb found Psalm 91 without thinking.
"'He shall give His angels charge over you…'"
I read aloud, voice shaking. "Father, send Your angels now. Deliver me from.....whatever this is."
But even as I prayed, the image of his eyes; gold burning into amber -seared itself into my mind.
His touch on my cheek. His voice, rough as gravel and soft as sin, whispering "mine".
Tears blurred the words on the page.
How could I tell Mama?
How could I explain to my family that the life I came here to build wasn't only about work and survival.... but about a destiny older than blood?
"That the man in my dreams had found me"?
Mama would clasp her hands and call on Jesus. Elder Modupe, Mama's friend mummy Alice would tell me to fast and pray. They would think I'd lost my mind. "And maybe I had".
Because despite my fear, despite everything my faith cried against - another truth burned beneath my skin.
'I wanted him!
My pulse quickened at the memory of his nearness. My body remembered the heat radiating from him, the scent of cedar and wild air.
My soul ached with a longing I couldn't pray away.
"God, why him?" I whispered into my pillow. "Why this? Why me?"
The ceiling stared back, silent and infinite. Outside, the city murmured.... a car horn, a burst of laughter, the low hum of passing lives; but none of it could drown the echo of his voice inside my head.
'Because fate does not bow to reason'.
'Destiny does not bend to belief!
'And the Alpha King would not let me go.
That night, sleep betrayed me again.
The dream began in silence -silver light spilling over an endless forest. Mist hugged the trees, soft and glowing. The moon hung heavy and perfect, like an unblinking eye.
'Wolves prowled at the edges of my vision, their eyes shimmering with ancient knowing.
'And then he was there.
'Lucian!
Closer than ever before. The shadows seemed to breathe around him. Every movement was predatory grace... "a king who didn't need a throne to command". His gaze caught mine, and the air between us thickened until I could hardly breathe.
This time, I wasn't trembling with fear. I was trembling with fury.
"You're not real!" I shouted into the dream, my voice cracking. "I don't believe in this. I don't believe in you!"
He stepped closer. The moonlight spilled over his face, revealing his unique sculpture jawline that should have made him less beautiful but only made him more human.... more dangerously handsome.
"You don't have to believe in me, Mira," he said, his voice calm, low, terrifying in its certainty. "I am."
"No." I backed away, tears burning down my cheeks. "I came here for a new life.
I came for peace' for freedom!"
He tilted his head slightly, eyes glowing with something between sorrow and pride.
"And yet you called me."
My breath caught. "What?"
"Every night you dreamed of me. Every time you felt the pull in your chest and prayed for it to stop. Even when you ran, you called me."
"Stop it." I pressed a shaking hand against my heart. "Stop saying I called you. I didn't..."
"You did," he murmured, stepping closer, his voice the sound of thunder over still water.
"Because your soul remembers what your mind denies".
'Because before your first breath, before your mother named you, you were bound to me."
His words wrapped around me like vines; ancient, inevitable.
He reached out, fingers brushing mine. I should have pulled away, but the spark that leapt between us stole my strength.
'Fire. Pure, consuming fire. It wasn't pain; it was recognition.
'My body trembled, my knees gave way, and I fell into him, his arms closing around me like the safest cage I'd ever known.
'And I had him say "MINE"
"Lucian…" I breathed his name before I could stop myself.
He pressed his forehead to mine. "Say it again."
"No..."
"Say it."
The command rolled through me, dark and electric, and my lips betrayed me.
"Lucian."
He smiled then; not with triumph, but with something softer, sadder.
"You will fight this, little one. You will pray and doubt and run. 'But the bond does not break. It waits."
His lips hovered a breath away from mine. "And I will wait with it."
The dream shattered before he kissed me.
I woke with a cry, drenched in sweat, heart hammering. The night outside my window pulsed with rain. My Bible lay open beside me, its pages fluttering from the wind.
I pressed my hand to the words, as if they could ground me.
"God, please… please show me what to do."
But deep inside, the prayer dissolved into silence.
The next morning, I moved through my apartment like a ghost. The mirror caught my reflection; eyes swollen from tears, hair tangled from restless sleep but there was something else too. A glow under the skin, faint but real, like moonlight trapped inside me.
I touched my neck where his hand had brushed me in the dream. The skin there was warm ....too warm.
'Was I losing my mind?
A sudden knock on the door jolted me. My breath caught. I hesitated, every muscle tense.
"Mira?" A familiar voice; my friend and roommate, Tessa. Human. Ordinary. Blessedly normal.
I opened the door, forcing a shaky smile. "Hey."
She frowned. "Girl, you look like you've seen a ghost."
I almost laughed. "Something like that."
She stepped in, eyeing the untouched breakfast on the counter. "You've been weird all week. You okay?"
"I don't know," I whispered, then caught myself. How could I explain something like this?
Tessa reached out, touched my shoulder. "Whatever it is, you'll be fine. You always are."
If only she knew.
When she left, I sat by the window, watching rain drip from the rooftops. The world outside was calm- buses passing, children splashing through puddles, someone selling roasted corn on the corner.
Yet within me, two worlds collided.
The faith of my childhood - hymns, oil on foreheads, whispered tongues of fire.
'And the call of something older, wilder - a bond that hummed beneath my skin like a forgotten song.
'Lucian's voice echoed in my mind: "Because before your first breath, you were bound to me".
I pressed my palms together in prayer, but my heart was no longer still.
"God," I whispered, "if this is a test, I don't know how to pass it."
Thunder rolled far away -faint but deliberate.... as though the heavens themselves answered.
The wind shifted, carrying the faint scent of earth and pine. 'Impossible.
'I was in Florida!
There were no pine forests near my building.
Yet the smell lingered, rich and wild.
A shiver ran down my spine. I turned toward the balcony; and froze.
Standing beyond the glass door, framed by rain and twilight, was him!
'Lucian!
No dream. No illusion. His golden eyes burned even through the storm. His clothes clung to his broad frame, soaked and dark. But it was the expression on his face...that raw mixture of longing and restraint...that undid me.
"Mira," he said, voice muffled by the glass but unmistakable.
My body moved before my mind could stop it. I stepped forward, one trembling hand reaching for the handle... then stopped.
Everything inside me screamed don't.
He was danger. 'He was myth! 'He was everything I wasn't supposed to believe in;
But he was also truth. "My truth".
I opened the door.
Rain and wild air rushed in, wrapping around me.
Lucian took a step forward, his gaze locking on mine. "I told you the bond waits," he said softly.
"But I could not wait any longer."
I should have run.
I should have prayed.
Instead, I whispered, "Why me?"
His answer was simple-devastating.
"Because you are the only thing in all worlds that ever made me believe I still had a soul."
"Mira' I have waited for you for centuries"
The storm raged around us, lightning splitting the sky-heaven and earth bearing witness to a love that should not exist, yet did.
And in that suspended moment, I realized the truth that terrified me most:
No matter how much I prayed, I would never be free of him.
Because faith might save the soul....
But fate had already claimed my heart.