A/N: this chapter takes off a  Continuation of chapter 30.

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My hair clamps around my face in a sweaty ball of a mess, as I gauged the scene breaking away in front of me.

Alexander reels his head around, watching me with these piercing red eyes while standing gravely to his feet but he doesn't say anything.

Not yet.

"Vera what is the matter?" Heidi brushes her fingers across my cheek in a friendly gesture, but in the corner of my eye I can still see Lionel smirking.

I think I just had a glimpse of my mate's memories, but I'm too distraught to speak or more so distrustful of my poor choice of words to tell anyone of what I've just relieved in the midst of a day without dreaming.

"I-" I'm at lost for words. I've been hurting on the inside since I stood witness to the brothers brutal assault on one another, the holocaust of a wealthy, strong family who wasn't so strong after all. "Nothing." I mutter, not wanting to arouse any worry.

Alexander pulls Lionel to his feet by his torn fleshy throat while his other fisted his bloody hairline. I suck in my bottom lip in between my Meath as my stomach turned at the mellowed sight. "What have you done to her Lionel? before I break every bone in your body!" His threat is filled with promise, but this is exactly what I was afraid of.

My finger tips dance with electricity. "Oh I think you already know, brother. How about you figure it out, and tell her what you've been hiding." Lionel teasingly replies but each time he sniffles, blood clots collect around his open gash which devoured his shoulder blade. "You're lying."

"It can't be." Heidi wraps her arms around me and for the first time there's something hidden in between Alexander's words, a caressing hint of fear.

"Oh but brother it can be and it is." Alexander slams Lionel back onto the ground and he kicks at his stomach repeatedly.

"Do it!"

"Kill me," Lionel persuades, he doesn't even bother to fight back. He was a sickening vile  creature but there's something about him that hung lose around the air, devouring my sensibility to determine what to do and who to do it to. Every relentless kick he received the more the fend inside of me whined, unable to decide for what reason did I feel like gagging.

It was truly something mind blowing.

How moments before, Alexander provoked Lionel's fate in his hands and now we're all sat on the ground, spectating the other's movement so silently, that even the forest purrs as the leaves fall gracefully from the trees.

I prohibit myself from swaying side to side.

Fearfully I crawl to sit by my mate's side discreetly rubbing my arm against his own, he responds slowly with his hand meeting my cheek, igniting the familiar frenzy of electricity, teasing the skin. "Lionel. I need you to tell me everything," Alexander caresses my cheek in his palm as I swoon at the tenderness of his fingertips, "Now." He demands.

Lionel fixes himself — sitting criss crossed legged in front of him. Despite the warning growl to keep the distance between us, I feel his knee skim across my own and his yellow eyes shimmering though he dared not to look to me.
I know he feels it too.

The yellow jaspers switched between me and Alexander, calculating which one he'd kill first if need be. "Face it Bane, whether you like it not, we're all connected." Lionel clears his throat while fisting his hand in the sand. "Starting with her, my dear brother." Alexander continues to glare at him with his fist shaking at his side.

Being lost by my mate's gentleness, I hadn't even notice him stand to his feet as Lionel mirrors him in this action. "Vera doesn't have shit to do with you nor this situation, Lionel," Alexander is gritting his teeth together and I swear I see his knuckles turn white from how hard he's clenching his fist.

"Oh but she does, brother. She's Adonis's and she's mine just as much as she's yours," Lionel hesitates before saying with a smirk tugging at his lips, "Maybe a little bit more of mine," At his tantalizing words, it doesn't take long for Alexander to threaten him with a flash of canine and his red glistening pools of irises once Lionel jumps backwards teasingly, "She will never belong to you, Vera's not for the taking." Alexander stated.

"She's claimed nonetheless," Lionel doesn't refrain from scuffing as if that was something vague, something to be detested like it was hard to believe. Heidi assured him me and Alexander were mated but despite confessing he wanted me, he didn't really seem to care.

"A mate of yours is only claimed by unforgivable distrust and corrupted misdeed."

I relished in between their proposition as the brothers began readily to fight again, ready to rip out each other's throats, I've seen enough. "Stop," I yell. "This can't be right. What the hell is going on here?" I hesitate to stand in between Lionel and Alexander who sneered at one another. What would I give to disappear into nothing right now... into solitary.

"Tell him Vera," Lionel pushes my shoulder softly from behind him as I stood in front of my first mate. I wrap my hand around his fist trying to settle in his wolf but he growls at the sight of seeing another male touch me. "Confess to your male, how I made you feel. How I make you feel." Lionel whispers into my ear. Shivers run cold down my arm where the hairs stood anointed.

"Tell us exactly what you feel for me." In the heat of the moment, I find myself debating whether Lionel's a bad guy and I decide he's not, he's just... different.

My cheeks redden as his cool breath fanned my face. "I d- don't." I manage to stutter out, though I knew I lied straight threw my teeth and I get the sense Alexander will realize I'm lying too.

His name tasted like wolfsbane on my tongue but instead of burning from it, I lavished in the sizzle. "Touch my mate again and I'll kill you before burying your bones where your feet reside." The velvety sound glides down my back, slithering it's way into my heart from Alexander.

"I dare you." Lionel teases.

Alexander mumbles another promising threat, taking three strides forward, His voice holding deviance, daring his brother to place another finger on me. "I know you've met my twin counterpart Adonis. and back at our pack, he couldn't seem to shut up about you. I had to come see for myself." Lionel mumbles while his lips danced alongside my earlobe.

"Truth be told my younger brother indeed has a mate... in the flesh." Lionel snickers more to himself as I got the impression I was missing something.

"If Alexander here, were to kill me. Not only would he be start for war against my pack but against Adonis's pack. Their speciality overall is militial tactics." Too close for comfort, I step forward into my mate's arm seeking space between me and Lionel. He doesn't like this, but I could tell he chose to ignore it. "Basically his pack is Sparta and we're Athens." For the first time, Heidi speaks up, with this gaining the attention of Lionel.

She sends me a reassuring nod that I brush off returning my attention back to Alexander. He hums quietly before saying, "You think you can beat me?" I squeeze his shirtless bicep as he points at himself and jabs at Lionel's chest. "I'll be king, Lionel. I'll have everything at my disposal. Including your measly armies." I try to calm him down by the best of my ability, grazing his jaw with my thumb. "I'll rid you as soon as I rid that cowardice father of yours."

"Oh no doubt, brother. Me and father are not your worries, no." Lionel squints his eyes that reigned with golden speckles. "Adonis perhaps? Now that's something you really have to consider. He's the true challenge here, he rules us all." The smirk appears on his lips again as he spat this proclamation, and I can't help but grow irritated. Bothersome by the mention of Adonis's name. "Can't you see brother, Adonis is the real threat here!"

Lionel strangely infatuates me to no end.

"After all those years Bane, you see back in my lands we have a way with curses, magic properties. I could've stayed away. But now that I've seen her up close with my own perpetual vision..." Alexander starts to growl louder pulling me closer than unimaginable, flush against his warm body. "I'd say I'm rather, imprinted."

Lacking remorse, Alexander raises his fist towards Lionel which he deflects with his arms shielding his face, Alexander pushes me to the side to deliver another punch which Lionel also avoids with a sharp turn.

"I'm attached Alexander... what can I say?" Lionel is egging my mate further with his mystical laughs and persistent charisma, "I'll kill you for those filthy words." Alexander strikes Lionel's jaw causing for the yellow eyed Jester to topple over as he reverts a standardized kick to his ribs.

Just by observing their agile movements I wondered... were they always like this?

I receive a sense of Déjà vu once Lionel began to gauge out Alexander eyes and then Andy came back to the thought. My arrogant, dashing prick of a sister who also happens to be teaming up the sole enemy; Adonis. Yes, that's whom Lionel reminded me of yet he intrigued me for an adventure. That's probably why I was attracted towards his no good behavior... and that smile?

That tasmanian devil smile.

It was drawn on lips that asked for my lips to touch them like hands do. It was weird, how I can't explain these feelings but having Alexander around fully shadows over how I feel about any, other second or third lover, which sought me.

Lionel manages to pin Alexander on his back, sending him a toothy grin and a wink so playful, when Alexander was everything but demonstrating entertainment. He seriously wanted to murder his brother in cold blood, and that's in summary of what he wanted to do to the rest of his family aside from Heidi.

I felt someone press the hook of their thumb into my side, robbing my attention from the battle between alphas, "Believe it or not they'd always been like this." Heidi bit her fingernails eyeing her savage companions, "We experienced a harsh childhood Vera. I wouldn't take it personal as to why they are like this around you." Then why do I feel guilty somehow? "What is the meaning of all this, Why do I feel a connection to every powerful male that I've met since I came into this bloody lifestyle of royals and power." The level headedness, that I've tried to maintain for so long now, is diminishing and I'm angry.

Heidi raises her hand to make a gesture only for it to fall to her side. She's trying so hard to speak in riddles but when will they realize thats only making matters worse.

"Are you telling me that you really don't know a thing, Vera?" I peak at my domineering mate kicking into Lionel's stomach and I whimper every time his foot meets Lionel's animation. "All of this is because of you Vera, and you persist on acting naive like you still don't know." Stealing my attention, it's Heidi whose snapping her fingers in front of my face.

"I'm clueless." This was the truth.

She scoffs for the first time but her torment ends as she finally looks over at her brothers who were arguing about something I couldn't entirely comprehend, not while my attention was on her. "All of this is happening because you want it to, Vera Lee. You have to stop dreaming."

"What?"

"We are trying to save you!" Heidi shakes at my shoulders, as if I'm attempt to jump start me awake. "From what?" I repeat over and over again until I would get a response. Something reasonable.

"From you!"

Confusion hits me in a variety of waves, but all I can feel is the hurricanes bashing at the walls in my head. "What do you mean by that?" A frustrated growl ripples from my lips, Heidi's greasy, grey eyes glisten towards me. "Your own brothers are fighting to kill each other, how could you be so stupid to think of saving me?" I'm hot all over and ready to pounce on anything, maybe rather anyone.

Heidi looks around at the setting before she marches between Alexander and Lionel. It takes some time for her to finally rip them apart and she's scolding them like a mother would with a pointed accusing finger.

"Look Lionel, at this point you're either a friend or foe now which one is it." Heidi is shaking at his arm trying to snap him back into reality. But his gaze couldn't help but fall upon me. He hasn't dared to look anywhere else since.

He's entering my head with wishful thoughts and I can almost picture a life with just me and him together, I should hate myself because there's my real mate standing just close behind him.

"Neither."

"I won't stop until the fight for the throne happens," Lionel forces his gaze away from me and all I want to do is dive head first into foreign lands, but I knew where my fantasies collapse as far as territorial grounds. Into the unknown. "And until I have her beside me." Alexander places his arm around my neck, burying me into his warmness that felt like pits of hell, and everything I loathed to love.

"You know what this means..." Heidi cocks a single eyebrow at him as we both exchange a look. "The throne is a fight to the death, Lionel." Cue the pounding headache and Archelaus clears his throat again, sending a rumble on my backside. "He's smarter than that, he knows I can't kill him."

I twist my head around at my mate only to find him staring daggers into my soul. "Why is that?" I dreaded the words he'd say next like I already knew the answer to my question.

"Because my Vera," his red gates to the soul behind black pupils, "As much as I hate to admit it. He's your mate. If I kill him-" my mouth falls wide open and I see the vulnerability tug at his lips as he frowns. Lionel interrupts him breaking out into a soft chuckle.

"He'll be risking your life, beloved, and we can't have that now can we?"

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