Word Count: 1721

¬Rosie

Nothing. For three days.

I've spent each passing moment wondering whether my inability to contact Thought is due to his lack of desire to save me, or because my brothers technology is far more developed than I've realised, and I can't contact any immortal, at least in any conventional manner. Maybe it's a far stretch to call out to Thought and assume he would be listening.

But I had hoped.

Lying on my bed, I stare at the ceiling. Over these past few days, I've done everything I can think of to get out of here. My door is constantly locked, there's no windows, and I have no way of contacting anyone. Especially not Time.

I can only imagine how he is dealing with this right now. Surely he is spending every waking minute trying to find me. I just hope he doesn't.

The door opens, forcing me into a sitting position. Seeing it's Altin, I roll my eyes, and lay back down on the bed. He's brought me my food ever since I arrived, not saying much more than that he loves me, he's missed me, and that he hopes I will come around to what Harlen and him have been saying. Yet despite this, they haven't put much effort in.

Clearly they are waiting for something.

"You're not doing a good thing by locking me up here," I mutter. It's been a similar mantra with small adapation's each time. I'm hoping to hit Altin right where he feels his guilt the most. He's more sensitive than Harlen, and will be more likely to take what I say into account.

"Settle down," he murmurs, closing the door tightly behind him. He never locks it, like he knows I'm not going to try to fight back. "Harlen doesn't know I'm here."

I sit up again, swinging my legs from the bed. Altin doesn't come close. He quickly learned his proximity to me makes me extremely uncomfortable, even if he is my brother. He lost that right when he threw me into this room.

"Finally have a conscience?" I question, tilting my head.

"We didn't do this to hurt you. We did this to protect you," he explains, as if I haven't heard that multiple times already. "Here, you're safe."

I watch him sit down on the desk chair before me, feeling brave enough to move it slightly closer to me than I would usually allow. I could protest, but instead, I keep myself calm. I'm curious about why he is in here, when he hasn't made any effort to speak to me outside of bringing me my food. This time, he has come here on his own volition, and I want to know why.

"Please, let me go. I know that as my brother, you know holding someone back from their mate is the wrong thing to do. I can make my own decisions-"

He holds his hand up. "But you can't. Time is manipulating you, and you have no idea."

"He's my mate, Altin," I say softly. The Altin I knew deeply desired a mate, even when he was younger. He was always a romantic, doting on girls who he never had a chance with. He was always on a pursuit for true love, not just something fleeting, and when he found out about the prospect of a mate, he was endlessly overjoyed.

"Harlen did it. He rejected his pure-blood mate," Altin reveals, making me flinch. Harlen was different to Altin in the romantic department, more interested in girls for a night. But I never could have predicted he would reject a mate.

"Wait, seriously? He's mated to a pure-blood?"

Altin nods grimly, an unknown emotion glittering in his eyes. "One of the Virtues. He was disgusted when he found out, rejected her without a single thought."

"If he expects that of me, he's crazy. I love my mate, more than anything. There's no way I'm going to reject him, whether you let me rot in this place for the rest of my life or not," I growl. Harlen has changed beyond recognition, which Altin surely must be seeing. Time has done wrong in his life, but he is trying his best to right himself, to become a better person.

"Harlen thinks he can get through to you, while I disagree," Altin says, the softest hint of a smile touching his features. I shrug my shoulders, glad he has accepted that, at least. Although despite knowing this, he is sitting here right now, talking to me.

"So you'll let me go?"

"Not quite," he says uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck. "But, I am willing to strike up a deal."

"Unless you want to let me go, I don't want some deal," I reply, leaning back to fold my arms across my chest. If they want me to lure Time here, I won't. They will kill him if they get the chance, and although he is powerful, I'm not doubting their technology.

Altin looks around anxiously, like he is frightened someone might be listening in. "Maybe I could get you out of here, but you have to promise to reject him."

"No, that's not happening."

"You're my little sister, I have to protect you. I don't think Time is right for you, which I know is hard to justify when you think you're in love with him, but if you allowed me to show you our research, maybe you would change your mind," he offers. I can tell he is trying to be gentle, to be kind, but just trying to tell someone who they should be mated to is a very bad idea. I can feel anger begin to bubble up within me.

"No!" I demand, getting to my feet. Altin does too, exceeding my height, but not scaring me at all. He would rather cut his own hand off than hit me. But then again, I did used to think he valued the mate bond. "You have no right to tell me how to live my life."

"I'm trying to help you..."

"Get out. I would sooner die in here than reject my mate," I growl, pointing to the door.

Deciding I'm a lost hope for his manipulations, he gives me one last look, before he walks out the door, ensuring to lock it behind him as he goes.

***

I didn't sleep much that night.

Restlessness tugs me out of sleep at some ridiculous hour of the morning, darkness shrouding me like a mess of tangled sheets that I struggled to get out of, until I finally find the switch to my light. It illuminates my small room, and also a figure, which sits lazily back on my desk chair, making me gasp before I slap my hand over my mouth.

Thought. His arrogant grin has all the breath rushing out of me in relief. He's not sitting in front of me right now for real, but it appearing in a hallucination as a way of communicating with me. If I could get up and hug him right now, I would.

"Your mate would kill me if he knew I was waltzing through your mind right now," Thought grins, suggesting he does not at all care what Time thinks.

I give him a flat look."What took you so long?"

"I was busy."

"You were being stubborn, drawing out helping your brothers mate to poke fun at him," I predict, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Thought narrows his eyes, before his grin betrays him. "Then your conscience got to you."

"Wow, can you read my mind too?" he questions, tilting his head to the side. I sigh through my nose, wondering whether it was worth asking for Thoughts help in this. I should have known he wouldn't do anything nice without torturing me first.

"I need your help," I decide flatley.

"Evidently."

"You can't tell Time where I am, though. He will come here and kill both of my brothers before he's even realised what he's done," I demand. Time carries enough guilt around with him on a daily basis, and doesn't need my brothers blood on his hands. And I don't want to lose my brothers, even after they have done all this to me. I hope that at least Altin can be saved.

"He's quite old, you know," Thought muses, swinging back and forth on the chair casually. "He has quite a lot more self-control than you may realise."

I try swallow past the lump in my throat. "But in his long life he's never had a mate. And we just..."

"Ugh. Did not need that picture," Thought mutters, face twisting in disgust. That's what he gets for sifting through my mind beyond what he needs to appear before me right now. Were it not for the strange haze that surrounds him, and the slight throbbing between my temples, I wouldn't know this isn't real.

"My point is, I'm not taking that risk," I breathe, starting at him pointedly. "I need to help get you out of here yourself."

"Your brothers are running an operation that puts all immortals at risk. I would love for nothing more than to destroy everything," Thought says, his expression finally becoming serious. He will help me, not just for me and his brother, but for the risk my brothers pose to him. That makes me feel more comfortable that he will, in the end, do his best to get me out of here.

"Not them. Get me out of here, burn their base, I don't care," I demand. "Just don't hurt my brothers."

"You're lucky I like you," Thought says with narrow eyes. "Don't sleep tomorrow night.. I'll come get you soon."

And just like that, he was gone, dousing my room in darkness.

🖤••🖤

Hey guys! If you're enjoying the story, you can head over to Radish and read Time ahead of Wattpad!

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I'm officially rewriting Alpha Jasper's story now on Radiah! It will be following the same storyline with the same characters, but with revised scenes and some new ones!

I love Jasper's story so much that I wanted to go back and rewrite it. I hope you guys will enjoy it, you can find it now on Radish (:

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~Midika 💜🐼