Fated: The Alpha's Unwanted Luna-Chapter 164: Can’t be marked

Viola’s hand, which had been swinging idly in the air as she admired her nails, slowly came down and her stomach turned over. She had a bad feeling about where this conversation was heading. She sat up on the bed.

"Just as I told you yesterday, I cannot mark you, but we will still go through the marking ceremony, as that is the only way you can be crowned my Luna. Without my mark, you cannot be qualified as a Luna, for only a she-wolf who bears my mark can be crowned."

"So does that mean... I can no longer be your Luna?" She asked, her fingers tightening around her phone as her throat went dry. So this was it?

"No, you will still be my Luna," Sebastian said quietly and firmly. "But I will only give you a temporary mark that will fade within hours. Not the real one."

"Why?" Viola questioned, keeping her voice carefully calm despite the fact that her mind was spiraling with emotions and questions, trying to piece together the reason behind why he wouldn’t give her a real mark. Had he finally decided she wasn’t good enough? That she wasn’t worth it? Had he finally seen through her?

"Don’t overthink my words, honey. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with my family’s curse." Sebastian assured her, recalling what the therapist had told him about Viola’s state of mind, about how everything she had endured would make her believe she was always the problem, and he could already sense the shift in her mood from the other end of the line.

"Why?" Viola asked again. What did any of this have to do with the curse that everyone seemed to speak of? She had heard many rumors about his family’s curse, but Viola had no real idea what it actually was, every version she had come across carried its own interpretation that only confused her further. So what did the curse have to do with him marking her?

Sebastian knew he couldn’t keep this from her indefinitely, and she would need to know at some point. And if he wanted her cooperation in this, he would have to tell her about the curse, and what it would do to a Luna who was not the one.

"Since the beginning of time, my family has been cursed, but only a certain she-wolf can break it. In every generation, a she-wolf is born who is destined to break that curse, and a prophecy was given about her. But none of my ancestors ever succeeded in finding their true prophesied mate, for every Alpha in my bloodline was destined with multiple mates, and that caused a distraction that made it nearly impossible to find the one among them. You must have heard about the deaths of my past Lunas. They died because they were not the one."

Viola listened in complete silence, astonishment quietly written across her face, for not a single person had ever told her any of this. The curse killed his Lunas?!

"So you didn’t kill them?" She asked, recalling how the rumors had branded him as their killer, and how not a single person had ever seen their bodies, just as no one had ever seen the body of his twin. If she recalled correctly, it was said that not even the families of the past Lunas had been allowed to see their daughters before they were reportedly buried, and so no one truly knew the extent of what had taken their lives or how it had happened.

"I did." Sebastian said without any change in his tone. "I killed them because it was destined to happen. But I want to protect you from that fate. And I can only do that if you do not carry my mating mark. I will not kill you if you don’t bear it. If I mark any she-wolf who is not the prophesied one... her days are numbered from that moment on."

Viola went utterly still and silent. He had killed them? She thought, not fully understanding how he had killed them or how exactly the curse had made it so. Had he done it deliberately, or had something taken hold of him beyond his control? She decided to lean toward the latter, for she had seen how he treated his first wife, and a man who had gone all the way to the human world just to make his Luna happy wouldn’t kill her on purpose...

"So you can only ever mark the prophesied one, and not the others, even if they are your mates?" Viola asked quietly, her fingers absently playing with the edge of her bedsheet.

"Yes. If I want to be free from the curse and spare my son from carrying it after me, I will have to let three of my mates die. And Viola, you are the third one. If I mark you tomorrow, you will no longer be safe from me. I need you to cooperate with me and allow everyone to believe I have given you my real mark, so you can take the Luna position without unnecessary complications from my pack members."

Sebastian was certain no she-wolf would willingly agree to marry a man who couldn’t mark her, as many associated the absence of a mark with an easy and open door to infidelity during marriage, but until he was one hundred percent certain she was the one, he would not risk it. He would not take a single chance.

Which was why he needed to help awaken her wolf and find her twin as soon as possible. But if she didn’t cooperate with him in keeping up the appearance for his pack, everything would fall apart, and this marriage might never be completed at all, for it could not stand without his mark being witnessed.

Viola was silent for a long moment before she asked, "For how long would I need to pretend I have your mark after the wedding?"

"Forever, if possible. That way you will be safe from becoming the third death to lift the curse."

"What if you finally find the prophesied mate, what happens to me then?" Viola asked quietly, her voice composed and curious, though she was holding her breath without quite realizing it, her eyes fixed blankly on the wall in front of her as she waited for his answer.

"I don’t know," Sebastian said. It was a lie. He knew perfectly well what the answer was, but he didn’t want to speak it, not when he so strongly believed she might already be the one.

But if it turned out she wasn’t, and he eventually found the real prophesied mate, there was only one possible outcome. He would have to let Viola go. Because more than anything else, the prophesied mate would not only heal something in him that had been quietly draining away for years, she would end the curse in this generation, and his sons would never have to carry it again.

It would end here. But for now, he refused to think about another woman when the one he already had might be exactly who he had been searching for all along.

"So do we have a deal?" He asked, as she fell into silence on the other end.

Viola felt a lump rise in her throat, but she forced herself to speak through it anyway. "Yes," she whispered. "We have a deal."

I will be your Luna until you find her, and when that day comes, I will step aside and hand her place over to her. Viola thought to herself, but kept the words locked behind her lips. She was grateful, genuinely grateful, that he had told her this, that he hadn’t let her walk into another heartbreak blind and foolish. She was glad he had made it clear that she didn’t carry the fate of dying like his other Lunas as well.

She was glad she wouldn’t be used for a sacrifice to lift his curse...

Though there were countless questions still burning in her mind about the curse and about exactly how he had ended the lives of his other wives, she couldn’t bring herself to keep talking. A prick had formed behind her eyes for no reason she could name, crawling slowly up the back of her throat.

"If that is all, I think I should get some sleep. Tomorrow is a big day and I need to rest early." She whispered.

"Hmm," Sebastian hummed before asking, "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?" She forced her voice to sound perfectly normal. "Thank you for telling me, anyway." She paused. "Goodnight." She pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call quickly before he could say anything more.

On the other end, Sebastian stared at the blank screen of his phone with narrowed brows. ’I think she is upset.’ He said to Muffin.

’Duh, no woman wouldn’t be upset to hear that she is having a temporary marriage without a permanent mark,’ Muffin said matter-of-factly.

’I never said it was temporary,’ Sebastian argued. He hadn’t told her it would end. Was that what she had concluded on her own?

’Well, she must have come to that conclusion herself.’

’Then I have to assure her...’ Sebastian said, not liking at all the thought of her building those walls back up inside her heart because of this, not now, not when he had worked so hard to begin bringing them down.