The Golden Lycans (Ella) novel Chapter 51

End of Term

*Will***

I exit the greenhouse, shutting the door heavily in a mixture of emotions. I walk alongside the wall of the sports hall and around the corner before I lean against it, breathing heavily. What ‘d just

seen in Ella’s aura had thrown me, BIG time.

Well that didn’t go too well, Fabian comments.

Of course it didn’t. She’s so innately good, why would she ever care for me? I say sadly.

You can still turn things around, you haven’t actually DONE anything bad. She DOES care for you, we both know it. You’ve changed for the better since you started coming here with HER every day. You’re more like your real self. You ARE good, Fabian urges.

He’s too strong. Who on earth could beat him? I say anxiously.

SHE could. Fabian says simply, why else would he work so hard to find her? Imagine what she could do with fire, and she hasn’t even explored her faerie magic yet. She gets stronger by the day…

But he uses blood and dark magic Fab, how the hell can any of this compare to that? I exclaim to him

angrily.

We have to try, because this isn’t us, not anymore, Fabian states simply.

I don’t even know what to do Fab, who can I even turn to?

I check my watch, noting it was just two hours until it was time to shift. Fabian’s point is ringing in my ears as I make my way to the atrium.

As I arrive, I spot them-Freya, Austin, his blonde Beta, and Freya’s dark-haired friend. They stand near the entrance, suitcases in hand, clearly preparing to leave for the Christmas holidays. I linger at the end of the sports corridor, watching them.

My mind is still spinning.

I had looked at Ella’s aura for what felt like the two-hundredth time, searching for answers. And this time, I had seen something new, something I should have noticed before but had only become glaringly obvious after she pulled away from me. A sign I’d encountered in auras before.

I shift my gaze to Austin across the atrium. It wasn’t hard to see why Ella was drawn to him. He had the look of an alpha, strong and commanding. But Ella wasn’t the type to fall for someone based on looks alone. She had never spoken to me about him, but my gift for reading auras came with my instinct for reading people. I had noticed the way she tensed around him, the awkward

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hesitation in her presence. I had also seen him-the way his eyes always sought her out at mealtimes, the way he watched her.

As he picks up two suitcases and heads for the exit, I focus my senses on him. His aura shimmers

into view just as he nears the door. It only takes seconds, but it’s enough.

The mark of an incomplete mate bond glows within him-the same mark I had just seen in Ella’s.

Everything clicks into place.

This was why she looked like she was in actual pain after our kiss.

I wonder if she even knows. If she understands what’s happening to her.

One thing is certain-her pull toward him isn’t just attraction. It’s something far stronger. Something she has no control over.

What are you going to do now? She can only ever truly be in love with HIM, Fabian says.

The only reasonable thing I can do at this point. Erebus doesn’t need me anymore, not if she’s mate bonded to someone. I can’t let anything happen to her.

***Austin***

I slam the boot of the car shut, harder than necessary. The sound echoes across the empty car park, sharp and final, like a door closing that I’m not ready to walk away from.

I pause, staring back at the old brick building and something inside me twists. It hits me all over again: it’ll be another two weeks before I see Ella’s face. Two weeks without her voice, her laugh, the way her eyes intensely flick to mine across the hall.

And three weeks until I come of age.

That thought settles like a stone in my chest.

It’s probably a good thing we’re leaving before the full moon. Honestly, I don’t think I could handle being around her when the shift hits.

Not like this.

Not when every part of me already feels like it’s crawling under my skin just from thinking about her. The pull is getting stronger-sharper.

“Come on, Aus,” Freya says gently, her hand slipping around my arm and tugging, “we’d better get going before it’s time to shift.”

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I glance down at her, nod slowly, but my chest is tight. My jaw locks as I turn back to the car.

She doesn’t get it.

“You’ll see her again soon,” Freya adds with a hopeful little smile.

But I don’t answer.

I drag myself to the driver’s side and get in, the door clicking shut like a prison cell. The silence inside the car is heavy. I grip the steering wheel for a second, staring straight ahead, swallowing hard as the weight of everything I’m not saying bears down on me.

I’m losing my grip.

But it had to mean something.

I press my forehead to the steering wheel and breathe in through my nose, fighting the urge to

punch something.

***Ella***

The green landscape rushes past the windows of the train as it starts it’s journey towards London. I stare out the window, contemplating the past few months in my head. So much had changed and happened in such a short space of time.

I had changed.

The realisation just sixteen hours ago, that I was likely bonded to Austin, hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I couldn’t believe it. It was everything I had secretly hoped for, but now I was facing the reality of it, and I am afraid of what it meant.

Austin had a predetermined purpose in his life; to lead a large and important pack. Being his mate meant I would also be his Luna; and this is something I am sure I wanted.

Everything I had read in the library had told me how limiting that life was a woman. I had never wished to be a housewife, which is what they tended to sound like. I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to help people, I wanted to make my own mark on the world…not stand on the sideline in an apron and surrounded by children, while I watched someone else forge their path to greatness.

The more I think about it, the more I am not sure that was a life I wanted, regardless of who it was with. The fields slowly begin to be replaced by busier urban areas, until the high-rise buildings of central London come into view.

I get off the train into the familiar bustling hub of Waterloo Station, now one among hundreds of people getting on and off the various trains, many carrying multiple shopping bags having done

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their Christmas shopping. I feel happy and warm inside, seeing the giant Christmas trees in the

station, adorned with all the decorations; I loved Christmas.

I make a quick stop in a little shop on the corner of the station for some milk and bread, humming along to a children’s choir singing as I walk past them on my way to the underground. There are various pop-up Christmas stalls which are selling roasted hazelnuts, various nik-naks, mulled wine

and more.

Christmas in London was like no other.

I get on the familiar underground and head toward Camden Town where home is, feeling strange to be sat there on the underground surrounded by concrete and metal. I start to feel drained and confined, realising how different my life was now at Exton, surrounded by nature and sunshine. Being back in London was demonstrating to me how vital it was now, for me, to be around green

open spaces.

I was thankful we were lucky enough to have a small garden at our townhouse, so at least there would be some life around me when I got there. Regents Park was thankfully not too far from the house and that was the closest I’d get to something even slightly like being at Exton.

I exit the underground and walk down the familiar narrow pavement toward home. Once I get there, I stop outside the front of our house for a moment, feeling a great comfort in that I was shortly seeing my parents again after so much had happened. Except, I knew I had some difficult conversations to have with them, and I was beginning to feel apprehensive about it.

Our house, like many in London, was a terraced house, but it did have four floors and a little garden at the back. I knew it was worth a lot of money and I had often wondered recently what my parents could get in the country with the amount it was worth. Maybe I could convince them to move out of the city and back to where I came from?

A girl could dream.

I take out my key and let myself into the house, immediately heading over to the thermostat to turn the heating on, as it is freezing cold. After making myself a cup of tea I go to the living room and plonk myself down on one of the three, large, cream coloured sofas. Like all the rooms in this house, the ceilings are high and around three metres from the floor. The floor is varnished in an elegant parquet, the walls a calming sage green and huge white curtains framed the tall, Georgian windows. I hug one of the several emerald green and gold cushions that adorn the sofas and stare at the back wall of the living room. From floor to ceiling aside from a large section in the middle where the wall mounted television was, the wall was basically a giant bookcase.

My eyes fall on the family albums on the bottom shelf. get up and pluck out the first in a line of albums that were dedicated to me, and sit down to open the album, my fingers brushing the worn

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