{ZEPH}

“Huh?” I didn’t mean to say it. It slipped out before I could even think better of it.

Fate?

The air in the room seemed to thicken, the silence heavy with unspoken implications. And suddenly my legs could barely keep me balanced.

My mind reeled, the word echoing in the sudden void of my understanding. Fated? I couldn’t even begin to understand what that meant.

“Wh-Master Alaric, I-I don’t understand.” I tried to muster as calmly as I could.

“It is as Alaric states. The pull was…undeniable. The primal recognition…there was no mistaking it.” There was clear resentment in the Lycan King’s words when he said this. And the only thing that I could fight not to say was, Imagine how I feel!

“This is new to all of us, so I have to ask, Human,” said the elder, addressing me as if ‘human’ was my given name. As if I shouldn’t be offended by it. “Do you feel it? This…connection?”

My heart pounded in my chest, a frantic drum against the sudden understanding that began to bloom within me.

The unsettling pull I had felt in the Sigma’s presence, the strange awareness…and the acute sensitivity of my emotions whenever he was around. Could this be what it was? A…a mating bond?

“The bond is irrelevant,” Master Alaric cut in. “All due respect, Elder, even if this mating is true…even if Zphreya can feel the connection. Going with Damian…it…I cannot risk it.”

“All due respect, Alpha,” hissed the Lycan King. “You do not have a choice in the matter.” His tone guttural, and possessive.

Master Alaric growled. “Damian, I am trying to spare you because of our relationship, but will put you down boy, if you force me to.”

“I’m not a boy anymore, Alaric. Please don’t forget who called who here-”

“Enough!” The elder sliced through the conversation. “Alaric. She is a human. You can easily find another.”

“No, not like her.” quipped Master Alaric. “ Zphreya is special. And her safety is of the utmost importance.”

I’d never considered myself as important as Master Alaric had, but then I’d like to think he’d begun to think of me as a daughter. Maybe that was what he meant. Outside of me being his advisor.

“Yet you cannot seem to tell me why that is.” The elder interceded.

He was right. There wasn’t one thing that he could utilize to prove that I was. And the reason was simple. There was nothing special about me. Maybe to Master Alaric I was important, but in the end…I was only a human.

“She’s not a normal breed of human,” he said. Probably a lie to keep me at his side. I wouldn’t dispute it. Not if it kept me away from Damian Gallo.

“You’ll have to do better than vague declarations, Alpha.” said the Elder.

“Rare,” said Master Alaric. “Zphreya…is a Rare.”

A Rare? What is a Rare?

“Prove it,” said the Elder.

“Prove-prove it?” I looked at Master Alaric, eyes wide, bewildered and afraid. “Prove what? What is going on?”

At this point, they’d have to excuse my out-of-turn speaking. They’d have to forgive my gaze facing anywhere but the floor. This was all too much.

Silence followed before Master Alaric finally spoke. “To prove it would mean either her death or yours.”

“My death? That is a bold statement, Alpha.”

“If she is a Rare, and I prove that, what will you do at the first sight of her blood?” asked Master Alaric.

The elder watched me closely. “We all know what will happen then.”

“And do you really believe I’d allow you to harm what is mine?” The Lycan said before Master Alaric could respond.

“Sigma Gallo, you forget your place.”

“Be that as it may, even you know that what I speak is the truth,” he said in his light accent. “What mate do you know would allow someone to freely hurt their fated? Even if that someone is an elder?”

He didn’t like what the Lycan King had to say, but it seemed that even he could not budge against it. “Very well,” said the Elder. “But I will still need proof.”

“I don’t believe that you do, Elder,” said Damian Gallo. “Because the law is the law. My bond with this human usurps any feelings of attachment or even contracted use of her to any other inhuman. She is mine. And I have every right to her.”

As reality dawned on me, I shakenly whispered. “I…don’t have a say in this, do I?”

The silence that followed was all the answer that I needed but that didn’t stop the Lycan King’s solitary voice from saying. “Why would you, little human?”

It was at that moment that I looked into his eyes. And as I did, that feeling that he was talking about. That connection, it was there. It was palpable. But it wasn’t reassuring.

And that answer-it yet again reminded me that while Master Alaric may have thought highly of me. While I was important to him, I was still a human in a world ruled by the non. And in the end my feelings didn’t matter.

“I’ll give you the week.” Damian Gallo’s words broke through my reverie of distress. “Get your affairs in order. I’ll come by and get you. Saturday.”

Without another word, he and his lieutenants walked out of the room without another word.

It was as if nothing that anyone else said after that mattered anymore. Sigma Damian Gallo’s word was law-even over the Elder, it seemed.

After the Elder departed, I was too shaken to even speak.

“Zeph,” Master Alaric started but I just couldn’t…I couldn’t hold it in.

“What just happened?!” I exclaimed shakily. “What have you been keeping from this whole time?!”

“Zphreyah. I’m sorry, but it really is complicated-far more than you can understand-”

“Oh, so I’m good enough to advise you on inhumans and your situations but I can’t understand anything about myself?”

Silence followed. He knew I was right.

“Zphreyah-”

“No, I-I don’t want to hear anything else unless it’s an explanation.”

He sighed. “What do you want to know, Zeph?”

“Everything,” I stated without hesitation. “I want to know everything. Including what a Rare is. Or were you just lying about that?”

Master Alaric shook his head. “No, Zeph, no it’s not a lie. A Rare is a real thing, and you are one of them.”