38

"That thing he did to you..." Beatrice said, rolling her fingers while her brows were furrowed in confusion. "The harm—has he apologized for it? Has he sought for any forgiveness?"

I nodded, "Several times."

"Oh," She turned her eyes away from me. "Well then, have forgiven him?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing left my throat. "I—I don't know if I want to forgive him to for it. It's going to take some time but maybe, I can forgive him for it in the future."

I could.

I never kept any grudges against anyone. I moved past Bryce, forgave him for cheating on me. I could move past King as well, forgive him for his mistake. But that wasn't the problem here.

I didn't know who King was.

What kind of man he was? Where did he come from? What does he do to people? Does he harm people? Does he control people? I barely knew anything about him and everything that I knew came straight from the internet where anyone could search him.

"So, as far as I can tell, if you really like him, you should go for it but if he's a douche, don't. There are many fishes out in the sea. He's not the only one." Beatrice said, speaking too soon.

She wasn't wrong. There were many fishes, but I only wanted one goddamn fish and that was King.

Silence fell between us. Beatrice knocked her elbow to my stomach and quietly whispered, "Is he hot? Because if he's hot then we don't care about anything."

My cheeks turned red in embarrassment. I lowered my head and picked up my phone before turning it on and finding the picture we had clicked together on our last date. It was before King decided to show his wolf to me and shatter my entire world.

"I have this picture, but you can't laugh, and we cannot speak about this again." I said, bringing up the phone and showing Beatrice the picture we had clicked.

It was at the bar, I was chugging on something and he had snapped a photo of us together. Moments after, I was laughing, my gums were showing, and my nose was crooked. While it was a hideous picture, it was still a memory and I enjoyed seeing it.

"Oh, fuck." Beatrice smacked her hand over her mouth, stifling her laughter. Tears formed in her eyes before she moved her hand away. "Oh my god. I'm sorry." She said.

"Don't laugh." I slapped her shoulder before snatching my phone away from her.

Maybe I should've deleted it.

Her laugh continued for a long minute, she cackled and cackled before she ran out of breath and stopped. "Wait, wait." She held her hand near my phone. "That face is familiar. Is that King Emerson?" She asked, calming down, her laughter's finally dying.

"Yes." I responded.

"Wait, what?" Her eyes bulged in horror. "What? What? You're seeing him? Emerson?"

My breath was coming out fast, "Yes."

"Wow," Beatrice sat back on the beach, her eyes still wide in shock. "I can't believe it. He's one of the richest bachelors in the city, probably the top. I had seen him everywhere—TV, magazines and oh, he's hot." She continued, this time with excitement in her words.

"I'm aware."

"But what is he doing here? A small, shady town like this?" She lurched forward and asked.

"Well, as far as I'm informed, he came here to pay a visit to his hometown. I met him at his own welcoming party at the mayor's house. Then, he was seeking something." I explained and she just smiled.

My thoughts ran toward the evening. He was looking for something and that was his mate—I was his mate, not that the term still made any sense to me. But he had his eyes on me and the reason made sense.

"Oh, that's so good! I can't believe you're dating a billionaire."

"I'm not dating...not yet." We were just seeing each other.

"You had sex with him, Eos!" Beatrice exclaimed, blurting out the three-letter word.

My face turned red once more in embarrassment. I swallowed hard as shame washed over me. "It was just a few times." I said, my voice breaking. "And it probably meant nothing to him."

"Did it mean anything to you?"

Yes.

"I don't know," I shrugged and quickly scurried away from the topic. Maybe mentioning King wasn't the best idea. "Anyway, tell me about yourself. Are you dating someone?"

"No, no, Eos, you can't do that!" She chuckled, waving her finger back and forth while catching me trying to switch the topic. "We are going to talk about your dating life and how you're going to soon be a billionaire's girlfriend."

I wanted to mentally smack my head. "I'm not really sure."

"Why?"

"I like him, I do but I don't know anything about him. What kind of man is he? What does he become when no one is watching him? Where is his family? All these things confuse me." I said, slowly, pausing after every question.

The Emerson family disappeared, King never mentioned them and when I did ask him about his family, he simply told me that he was separate from them.

"Aha, rich mysterious men." Beatrice nodded and agreed. "Well, no pressure, take your time to understand him but he seems like a nice guy, so I doubt you'll be hurt. We have heard a lot about his charity galas and fund-raising events at the city. People love him there. You'd know if you were living there."

As the night ended, I no longer thought about King. He was going to return by later in the morning and we were going to see each other soon. Until then, I wasn't going to worry about anything.

I drove Beatrice to my house, and she met with Aunt Carol while I set up the guest room with her things. She decided on living with us for a few days. Her trip was a week long. She was working on an assignment about the history of Frostford and had to visit certain location to get information.

Most of the history of the town was private. There were no mentions of the founders, or who lived here before us except for tiny, little details.

Beatrice came running into my room while I was taking a glance at myself on the mirror, hoping that after the transformation nothing would have been changed. Fortunately, I was still the same old me, but I could hear better, smell better, and see better.

"Guess what Carol told me!" She jumped onto the bed with excitement with her laptop on her hand. I tore my eyes away from my reflection and looked at her.

"What did she tell you?" I rose my brow.

Beatrice rolled on the bed and with a stiff smile she asked, "Did you know this entire town was a territory belonging to a pack of wolves that lived here hundreds of years ago?"

My breathing hitched. Shit. I had almost forgotten about the information Aunt Carol had about the town and its history. My heart raced in the fear of unknown.

I shouldn't be scared.

"Oh, yeah, she told me a while ago about it." I acted calm while something rattled inside me. "I thought it was just some myth because I've heard wolves barely ever pass by here." Lies.

All those hundred years ago, werewolves lived here, in a pack and they owned the land just as Aunt Carol told me. She mentioned shifters then and she wasn't wrong at all. People could shift into wolves, hunt, attack, and feed—just as I did at the full moon.

I was one of them.

Their curse was upon me.

"Oh, it's not a myth." Beatrice shook her head. Her eyes were wide in complete belief. She understood things better and cracked the history long before I or anyone could. Her fingers rolled over the mousepad of her laptop before she continued, "Just around a hundred years ago, while those wolves lived here, the town was then founded by two known families. You want to know which families?" She turned around and glanced at me.

"Sure."

"The Vincent's and the Emerson's."

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