The Messenger( Iva) novel Chapter 227

Fated Pair 11-2

The door closed behind them with a soft click.

Claim

Iva leaned against the wall, her heart still racing.

Caleb stood beside her, his hand warm on the small of her back.

“What is your impression?” she asked quietly.

Caleb shook his head slowly.

“Honestly?” He let out a breath. “I have no idea. He’s in shock. That much is clear. But how he’ll react once the shock wears off…” He trailed off, shrugging. “Attia is not an easy man to read.”

Iva closed her eyes.

She thought of Lori-waiting somewhere on campus. She thought of the fear in her friend’s eyes, the self-doubt, the quiet resignation that she would never be enough.

And she prayed.

*Goddess,* she thought, *please let this work. Please let him be kind. Please let Lori find the happiness

she deserves.*

“Come on,” Caleb said, tugging her gently away from the wall. “Let’s go.”

Iva nodded and let him lead her down the corridor.

But she couldn’t shake the image of Attia’s face-pale’ and wild and shattered.

Back in his office, Attia was pacing like a caged animal.

His boots thudded against the wooden floor-back and forth, back and forth-a relentless rhythm that matched the chaos in his mind. His chest was tight. His throat was closed. He felt like he was choking.

He crossed to the window and yanked it open.

Cold air rushed in, sharp and clean, stinging his face. He leaned his forearms on the sill and bowed his head, breathing deeply.

In. Out. In. Out.

It didn’t help.

Caleb and Iva’s words rotated in his head like a carousel from hell.

*The Messenger found your fated mate.*

His fated mate.

13

<Fated Pai

After all these years-after he had given up hope, after he had resigned himself to a political marriage, after he had buried his dreams of love beneath layers of duty and obligation-the Goddess had finally spoken.

And from all the people possible, it was a student.

A medical student.

A first-year.

A girl young enough to be his daughter.

*Lorelei.*

Claim

He said the name aloud, testing it on his tongue. It felt strange. Foreign. Like a language he didn’t speak.

He thought of her face. The wide green eyes. The red hair that caught the light. The way she had looked at him-not with fear, but with something that made his chest ache.

“Damn it!” He was the headmaster. He was old. He was cold. He was the man who made students tremble

with a single glance.

Why would the Goddess curse her with a mate like him?

Attia slammed his fist against the windowsill.

The wood cracked.

He didn’t feel it.

Athos stirred within him-restless and eager and unbearably hopeful.

“Mate,” his wolf whispered. “Our mate.”

“She’s a child.”

“She is not a child. She is a woman. She is ours.”

“Are you insane! She is barely eighteen and we are thirty-five!”

Attia pressed his forehead against the cold glass.

His engagement. Monica. The contract that had taken months to negotiate, signed by both families, witnessed by the elders. Breaking it would be a scandal. A humiliation. Monica’s family would demand compensation-land, money, something to soothe their wounded pride.

His own family would be furious as they were the ones who pushed him to get this set.

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