Episode 9

When I opened my eyes, Christophe had already disappeared, and I was alone on the kitchen counter. Still confused about everything that had happened, but less suspicious. I heard my phone ringing and jumped off the counter to grab it from my backpack. I saw five missed calls from my mom on WhatsApp and sighed.

"Answer the phone," she wrote in capital letters and was calling me for the sixth time.

"Good afternoon, Dona Regina," I answered, and she snorted.

"Diana, don't mess with me. Are you already going with him?"

"With him? Going where?"

"Diana Helena Vieira! Don't play dumb, I prepared you your whole life for this. You have to fulfill the agreement."

"I don't remember making any agreements."

My mother let out a roar of rage, and I cackled, loving to provoke her.

"You promised me!"

"I know, Mom," I sighed. I had made a promise to her that I would live far away, but if she needed me for something important, I would do it. "Is this so important to you?"

"It's the only thing that matters," she said firmly.

"You know this forces me to live in a marriage, and a very strange one, right?" I retorted indignantly.

She was silent for a while, as if thinking about how crazy it all was. Then she sighed.

"I know, but you have no choice. He needs an heir, and you are the only one who can give it. If you don't do this, he will enrage the pack. Imagine the chaos if these monsters break the agreement and reveal themselves to the world."

"Yeah, you've got a point."

"I have more than a point, Diana. I have the truth. And you need to accept it, however difficult it may be. You are the chosen one, and this is an honor and a responsibility. You can't run from your destiny." Her voice was firm and serious. "Now tell me. Where is he? Has he come to get you yet?"

"No, he hasn't. He disappeared," I replied, remembering how he had disappeared after standing naked in the kitchen. "I don't know where he is or if he's coming back. I hope not."

"He'll be back, Diana. He can't stay away from you for long. He is your mate, and you are his. He will miss you and will look for you at some point. And when he finds you, you will have to go with him." She had a certainty that scared me. It even sounded like she was charging me for my college entrance exam grades. "You're going to have to leave everything behind and follow your heart."

"My heart is screaming like this: run to the Maldives. Can I go?"

"Helena!" she scolded me, and I sighed.

"I'll think about this mess, I promise."

My mother snorted. One of her warnings intrigued me, and I dared to ask. "Mom? Why can't he stay away from me?"

"Ah yes, it's mating season."

Before I could ask anything else, she hung up on me, leaving me clueless.

"What the hell is 'to copulate?'"

I opened Google to search for the word.

Copulate

verb

1.

transitive direct and bitransitive

to join, to unite, to couple.

"c. a car to the trailer"

2.

transitive indirect and intransitive

to maintain copulation ('sexual intercourse').

My eyes widened as I read that. "What is the act of copulating?" was Google's own question, and I clicked to read the answer.

"'Copulation or mating' is the act of union between a male and a female of a given animal species, with the purpose of enabling the joining of gametes and the generation of a new being of that species, thus generating new descendants (fertilization)."

I screamed and threw my cell phone on the couch. I stood frozen in the middle of the living room, trying to process what I had just read. So that's what my mother meant. He was here because it was time to...well, you read it.

"How horrible," I grumbled. I felt the tension throughout my body as I thought of that huge man doing things to me, and I ran my hand over my head, trying to calm down.

I decided that I needed to get out of there, get some air and clear my head. I grabbed my wallet, my keys, and ran to the door. I had already noticed that I needed to go shopping, and there was nothing better to think about than walking in circles in a crowded market full of strange people and old people smelling like mothballs.

I took the elevator down to the ground floor, where there was a market. I entered the establishment and grabbed a cart, not knowing what to buy. I just wandered the aisles, looking at the shelves, the people, and the prices. I tried to distract myself with the most trivial things, but I couldn't. The image of Christophe wouldn't leave my mind, nor his voice telling me the most absurd story that could exist in life.

I remained stubborn. I convinced myself that it was all a mental delusion caused by the excessive work and effort I was putting into my daily life. It couldn't be anything else. After all, no one else had seen him but me, right? I didn't remember anyone talking to him. So, it was my madness.

"That's it!" I celebrated, and two elderly women looked at me without understanding. "Sorry, I think I was too happy."

I said that, and they ignored me, going back to their shopping. I followed through the market, putting whatever caught my eye in the cart. I wasn't hungry, nor did I have the energy to cook, but I needed to distract myself with something. Maybe a soup, a cake, or a salad would make me forget all that craziness. I wasn't a great cook, but messing with food relaxed my mind, and I would use every resource I could for that.

However, a doubt arose in my mind when I remembered the day I saw him at the Carnival block party. Brenda had also seen Christophe and even commented on his enormous size. This made me think that he wasn't so invisible after all. I slammed the grape juice on the checkout counter, letting out a frustrated curse.

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