Unraveling Mathias by Marisa Maichel (reading women TXT) 📕

"My Ari," he muttered. "If she's hurt...."

"She won't be hurt," I said, not convinced. I had a feeling I knew who the werewolf was.

Uncle Soren rushed out the door, followed by Louis and Father. For the heck of it, I followed him as well. Soon enough, I came across Ariella's scent mixed with Damon's.

Uncle Soren circled around, pacing and sniffing the ground.

"I smell her, I smell her," he repeated. He jumped into a tree and climbed up. "Ariella, where are you?" he asked quietly.

I came across a fresh trail, and called Father over. Uncle Soren got there first. We followed the trail to a graveyard a mile away.

The graveyard was called Temple of the Lord, and was the oldest cemetary in North Hampton, with graves dating back to the 1600s, many of them unmarked. In the middle of the sacred place was a statue of an angel holding a Bible in one hand and in the other hand he held a sword.

Sitting at the angel's feet was a plastic bag full of Ariella's clothes and cell phone. Uncle Soren took the bag, handing the phone to Louis to hack into. Uncle Soren went through the clothes, coming across a bloody pair of jeans.

"She's hurt!" he said. He smelled the jeans. "No...this isn't wound blood..." Slowly, he lifted his face away from the jeans. If he was human, he would have been bright red. "This is from her, but it's not blood from a wound. And..." He smelled it again, then started to look angry.

"THAT SON OF A BITCH! SHE'S MY MATE AND HE STOLE HER! I'LL KILL HIM! HE HURT HER! HE VIOLATED HER! SHE'S MINE!"

Suddenly, we heard brush crashing. Ariella came out of the woods wearing nothing but a bra and a denim miniskirt. Her brown hair was tangled, her eyes sad, cheeks flushed. Uncle Soren rushed to her.

"Baby, what happened?!"

"I knew I heard you," she sighed. "Soren, we need to talk. Privately."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day was full of sadness and anger. Ariella had broken up with my uncle and went back to Damon Sage. To say I was furious would be an understatement. Uncle Soren refused to leave his bedroom.

Father was furious because he saw the whole thing as a waste of time and resources, as did Grandfather. Louis was confused about the whole thing. My Sarah sensed the fury in my voice and told me that she'd call back when I got my anger under control. I apologized for taking it out on her.

Faolan tried to control the anger of the pack. Damon had allegedly broken a pact to keep silent about the werewolf secret. But since he was a loner now, there was nothing Faolan or the pack could do.

That didn't stop some of the male pack members from cornering Damon and beating the shit out of him. That made Faolan angry, and he reprimanded the culprits.

The next week was filled with trying to control the wolf pack and preventing Uncle Soren from destroying Damon, or Father's house. He'd already broken the wall dividing his room from Louis'. Louis happened to be changing clothes at the time, and it gave him quite a scare.

This is what happens when one mate breaks it off with another: first, there is the confusion stage, then the anger, then sadness, then despair. If the despair stage is not headed off soon, then the vampire usually descends into madness or a depression so deep that they commit suicide, or at least think about it.

I had a feeling that Ariella and Uncle Soren were not truly soulmates, though, one reason why I was so against it. That, plus she's my age. Normally, Louis is the one who tries to go after sixteen-seventeen year olds, not Uncle Soren. Lately, though, I've noticed that my uncle seems to have a thing for younger women.

For example, crushing on a nineteen-year-old natural-born female a few years before he met Ariella Spears. She was a friend of Rebeka and Rainess, our cousins.

One night, after Sarah went home after her wrestling show, Uncle Soren finally emerged from his room, looking worse for wear. He was pale and a bit thinner, even seemed to be sweating as if from a fever. He put his hands on the kitchen counter and sighed loudly. Then he chuckled maniacally.

"It's my own fault," he muttered, "-for thinking that I could have a human girlfriend."

"I have a human girlfriend," I said quietly. He glanced at me.

"I didn't mean all human women were bad, Reese. Just certain ones. Why is it that the women I fall for always seem to be more selfish than caring?" It was a rhetorical question. "Hey, cat. I bet you've never been unlucky in love."

"That's Belle," I said, scratching her ears.

"Fuck, I keep getting her and Shadow mixed up. I don't know why, that big fucking cat can talk, and the others can't." He smiled, but his eyes were shining with tears. "I'm never going to fall in love again. I swear it on my mother's ashes."

"Don't say that," I said, yelping at an unavoidable cat bite. "Some things you just can't control."

"You're right, Reese," he sighed. He scratched Belle's rear. Seeing the attention their sister was getting, Catniss and Frodo decided to join her on the counter.

"Why are all those litter-trailing furballs on my counter?" Father said. His nose twitched. "Oh, shut up, Shadowfang. I can't even see you and you're in my head."

"Mordecai, don't ever let me fall in love again. Swear it on Mother's ashes."

"What? Hell no. Mother would be disappointed at you for being so stupid."

"Aw, shut up. She's beyond caring."

"How can you say that?" They started arguing about the afterlife. Father believed she was in Heaven or Valhalla, while Uncle Soren thought she was dirt at this point, which I found depressing and rather morbid.

Louis came down, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, and even that was barely holding on.

"Put some clothes on, will you?" I barked. He gave me the finger and heated up a bottle of blood.

"I swear, they're like brothers," Father chuckled.

"Maybe more so than we are," Uncle Soren agreed. "If Reese was mine, I'd have kept him from getting kidnapped, though. And I wouldn't lie to him or hold things back from him."

Father gave him two serious middle fingers. It wasn't in the jokey way that Louis did with me, and I realized that Uncle Soren had hit a nerve or three.

"Screw you, Soren. Let's switch sons for a day."

"You know what? I'm game for that."

"Hey! Don't I get a say in this?" Louis wondered.

"Please submit any suggestions in writing and drop them in the mailbox or slide them under my bedroom door," Uncle Soren replied.

"What door? I can give it to you through the space where there used to be a wall!"

"You're worried about privacy? Everyone can see your boy parts! Nice towel, son."

"Fu-"

"Now Louis, consider who you're in front of. Do you really want to say that to your father?" I could tell that Uncle Soren was enjoying himself.

I considered his light teasing as a good sign. He would be fine.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - FRIEND

I hadn't heard anything new from Mason for a week and a half after that dramatic conversation. Father had called Krauvas, and Mason's father promised to keep an eye on him. I still worried about him. I asked Noah if he'd spoken to him, and he asked me if I was crazy.

The competition over Amara had grown tense. Noah had realized that he made a huge mistake by dating Rouge.

Then everything came to a halt one day after I got a call from Krauvas.

"Hello?"

"Reese! You need to come talk to Mason!"

"What? What's going on?"

"I...I..." He sounded like he was sobbing. "I found Mason with a rope around his neck! He refuses to come down unless he talks to one of you!"

"I'll be over as soon as I can!"

When I got there, Krauvas was pacing in front of the house.

"Reese! Thank God! Come, hurry!"

I flitted up the stairs before Krauvas even entered the foyer.

"Mason!" I said, terrified to see my friend standing on a chair with a thin rope around his neck. "Mason, don't be stupid."

"What's the point?" he asked, eyes hiding behind a curtain of hair. "I lost my best friend, and the love of my life, and my father hates me!"

"Mason, how could you think that?" Krauvas breathed. His eyes trailed down, and for the first time I noticed a large knife gleaming in my friend's hand.

"Mason, don't do this," I said. "Think about all the people it will hurt. Your mother. Me. Duke. Amara." I'd said the wrong thing. His foot twitched and inched toward the edge of the chair. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Think about your soulmate. You haven't found her yet. She's still out there, waiting for you."

"I did find my soulmate," he said. "She was right under my nose the whole time, and I didn't see her!" I wondered if he meant Jordan or Amara.

"That's because you weren't ready for her. She's ready for you! She needs you!"

"Mason, how could you possibly think that I could hate you?" Krauvas asked, his eyes filling with tears.

"Several reasons. One, you've been so angry lately-"

"I'm going through a divorce! Your mother is trying to take you from me! Of course I would be angry, and I'm sorry that I took it out on you!"

"You never liked my mother."

"That's not true. I loved Antonia at one point, but over time, my love for her has all but vanished. If only you knew the truth!"

"Oh? What is the truth?"

"My true soulmate died many years before I began courting Antonia. I still mourn her. I need you to drop the knife, Mason. Please."

"Give me an excuse."

"Mason, drop it," I said. His grip loosened on the silvery weapon. "Drop it, Mason." His grip tightened.

"Mason, please," Krauvas begged. "I will never forgive myself if I lost you."

"Like you said you'd never forgive me over a basket of herbs!"

"Mason, I'm sorry! Please drop it!"

My friend plunged the knife into his own heart, then stepped off the chair.

"Uroneo!" Krauvas shouted, and the rope vanished. He caught Mason just as he fell. "Reese, call an ambulance!"

I did call for an ambulance as Krauvas held Mason and muttered apologies and asked for him to live.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As my friend was strapped onto a stretcher and put into an ambulance, Krauvas and I joined the parademic in the back.

"No, no," Krauvas muttered. "Don't do this to me, Mason. Not the way Sarah did it." I looked up in shock at the name. Then I told myself I was being silly. Sarah had been a popular name for many years. It made sense that someone else connected to a friend or acquaintance would be named Sarah. But how had she killed herself?

I decided that now was a bad time to ask and it was none of my business anyway.

Mason had to go in for emergency surgery. I called my father to let him know what was going on and told him that I would be late tonight.

"Reese," Krauvas said, sitting next to me. "I know you heard me mention the name Sarah."

"Yes, I was wondering about that," I admitted.

"I met Sarah three hundred years ago. She was the daughter of a noble family, and we loved each other. But I was known for being a warlock, and her parents wanted nothing to do with me. They decided that Sarah should marry a nobleman. She refused, so they locked her up. I was devastated, as I'd thought she had gone missing.

"A year later, I was skulking around the garden at night, and I decided to use a hearing charm to hear the birds better. Instead, I heard Sarah moaning. I broke through into her prison, and I found her chained to the wall, her dress torn and her hair, which had been blond, was now a dark brown from all the grease and dirt and dried blood. She told me