The Messenger( Iva) novel Chapter 228

Fated Pair 11-3

Claim

The office had grown dim around him, the afternoon sun sliding toward evening, casting long shadows across the floor. He hadn’t moved. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t done anything but sit with his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands,

His mind was twisted into a million parts.

Each thought pulled in a different direction, tearing at him from every angle. He couldn’t focus. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the roaring in his ears.

“Mate,” Athos pushed, his voice insistent, almost frantic. “She is our mate. Accept her. Claim her. Bring her home.”

Attia squeezed his eyes shut.

“And then what?” he asked bitterly. “Bring her home to what? To my father’s sneers and my mother’s cold silence? To a family that measures worth in bloodlines and bank accounts?”

“She is our mate. Nothing else matters.”

“As per the Scott family, everything else matters.”

He lifted his head and stared at the wall opposite his desk. His reflection stared back at him from the dark window glass-a tired man with shadows under his eyes and a weight on his shoulders that had only grown heavier with age.

He thought of Lorelei.

Not the student-the girl.

She was a scholarship student.

He had seen her file. He remembered it now-fragments of information that had seemed unimportant at the time. No prominent pack. No powerful family. No pedigree to speak of, except her grandparents that were Elites.

୮

She was a healer. A doctor in training. Useful, yes. Respected, certainly. But in his world-in the world of the Scott family-useful was not enough.

His father would take one look at her and see a liability.

*Who is this girl?* he would ask, his voice dripping with disdain. *What pack does she come from? What alliances does she bring? What does she offer our family besides her pretty face?*

And Attia would have no answers.

Because Lorelei Thompson offered nothing as per Scotts requirements.

No lands. No titles. No political connections. Just herself.

“She would not survive a week in my family,” Attia thought. “Not one week.”

112

Fated Par

Claim

The image rose unbidden-Lorelei seated at his family’s table, surrounded by his relatives, their eyes sharp and judging. His mother commenting on her manners, her clothing, her accent. His father questioning her upbringings, her ambitions, her worth.

*What do your parents do?* his father would ask.

*They’re doctors,* Lorelei would say, *Healers.*

*How quaint.*

Attia’s stomach churned.

“What to do?” he asked himself, though the question had no answer.

“Meet her,” Athos said. “Talk to her. See her. Hear her voice.”

“And say what? We have no stance. No decision. No idea what we want to do with this bond.”

“Then we find out. Together. With her.”

Attia pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes.

The torment inside him was unbearable-a war between duty and desire, between fear and hope, between the man he had become and the man he might still be.

He had never imagined that the Goddess would give him a mate.

After the curse. After the military career ended abruptly. After he had accepted that his future would be one of political convenience and quiet desperation-he had stopped hoping. Stopped dreaming. Stopped believing that true bonding was something meant for him.

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