Healing Kisses (Sophia and Santiago) novel Chapter 196

195

There are cameras everywhere when we arrive. My grandmother and Ana easily blend into the security as Kaylee and I are escorted to the waiting car. There are people screaming my name, trying to get my attention.

Some of are holding signs with my face on them. " Long live the Queen" is being called out by the people who didn't come here to get pictures.

"That's intense," Kaylee says after a while. "Do Lycans not do ceremonies?"

"Yeah, our mating ceremony will be in a couple of months. We had to complete our military training for it to happen. My grandmother is in charge of it, so I know it's going to be a spectacle, I admit I'm a little scared of what she's putting together for us.

"Was your training difficult?" she asks gently.

"Yeah, it was a lot more than what we're used to. I did the first couple of years without having shifted. I was only allowed to join because we all believed I was just a wolf.

After my transition, things got a lot easier. I actually had to practice being careful with certain things. It was a lot weirder when Ragnar discovered my affinity with the water. I didn't know what was happening."

"You must have been scared, she glances over at me.

"I don't think I've felt scared since finding out he's my mate," I admit. "He's gone about it the wrong way at times, but I always know he does the things he does to protect me."

"You mean like not wanting you to come here?" She clears her throat. "Ivar told me that he doesn't believe you'd allow anyone close enough to hurt you anymore.

That you're a more than capable fighter, but I always knew that."

"That's not why he thinks I'm going to get hurt. He thinks I'm too trusting. That if I were to let my guard down around you, you wouldn't hesitate to kill me. You're the one he's afraid of hurting me, and that I would simply dismiss it again because of some sense of duty I have to Gavin," | laugh and shake my head. "I was a mess when I arrived at court.

"I could barely move after the rejection. I couldnt eat, and after forcing myself to, it would come back up. He started to look into my background to figure out how attached I had been to my former life, and he didn't like what he found. Neither of them did.

"Ivar was by far the most bothered by it. The position he found me in is not the way you think you're going to find someone you've always seen as your little sister. It took me a long time to shake the nightmares and to get strong enough to be able to do their training.

"That's what he's afraid of. That it'll happen again and that he wont be able to pull me out of that darkness like before. His hatred isn't because you and the others were mean to me growing up. It comes from the fact that everyone knew what he was doing, and none of you bothered to tell me, so I could just get the fuck out of there. And it's stayed because despite how much I've done, you're all still blaming me for all of your fuck ups."

"Seven thousand wolves lost their lives," she says tightly.

"Yeah, seven thousand compared to the two point six million he wanted to obliterate when he burned the city to ashes. I didnt cause this war. I may have instigated it when I found those documents, but I was just that little stone that no one knew would destabilize the entire structure when pulled."

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