"You aren't my second choice," Ulric spat as he stood still in front of the door.

"Then what am I?" Her soft voice drifted through the air, full of disdain.

He wasn't sure he wanted to discuss this. He'd spent centuries guarding his emotions, refusing to speak on the matter, and all of that protection was crumbling down around him. He made his decision with his next words.

"You are mine," Ulric answered while turning around. She stood there, looking every bit like an angel. Except he hated the expression in her face. She looked as though she was suffering emotional torment. Amaryllis looked betrayed and full of sorrow and yearning.

"No, I'm not," she whispered. "You have another mate. You lied to me." She hung her head in anguish.

"Amaryllis, you have no idea what you're saying," Ulric said, feeling his body tense up. "I don't like being accused of things." He wasn't lying to her. He had no mate but her. She was the one and only one he wanted.

"Then why am I your second chance mate. What does that even mean? Please tell me!" She said. Amaryllis had never felt so upset and so betrayed in her life. Even the fright she felt when she was chosen to come to the castle and was ripped away from her family didn't compare to what she was feeling now.

Ulric said that a mate was your other half, your soulmate, the person you are destined to be with forever. And she was only his second choice. The second best. So what happened to his first mate?

"You aren't my second choice, mate," he replied. He appeared in front of her in a split second, amazing her at his vampiric abilities.

"You are my second chance." He said that as if it were supposed to clarify something- it did not.

She started up at him in confusion, waiting for him to explain.

He aggressively pulled a hand through his hair, and turned around, walking toward the door again. "Ulric, you said you were done trying to fight the mate bond. Please don't walk away from me," she begged. "I want to know what happened, please. I can tell you're conflicted and I want to help you. I'm in pain too."

He growled lowly in frustration and grabbed Amaryllis's hand, leading her to the couch. It was a long story. He stood in front of the couch and paced while she sat on the couch looking so small and sunken in. He didn't like her feeling the way she was feeling.

"First of all, there is no other mate. I don't have another mate. All I have, and all I want, is you, Amaryllis," He said, making sure to emphasize that point clearly.

"Binta was alluding to the fact that I had a different mate at one point in time, many decades ago."

"What happened?" Amaryllis asked. She needed to know.

Ulric walked along the edge of the kingdom grounds. It was a beautiful day outside, one of the best they'd had in a while. The rain seemed to condemn them to dark, dreary weather, which was unfortunate for them as they had already been condemned to hiding by the humans.

He looked over his shoulder when he heard a faint noise arising from the woods. Whatever it was was deep into the thick brush of the woods. He continued to hear the sounds of twigs snapping, getting closer and closer with each step.

It sounded as though someone or some creature was walking toward him. Based on the pattern and the frantic speed, it sounded like a person.

He took off into the woods, not making a sound as he flawlessly ran through the brush. As he quickly approached the thing in the woods, a smell captivated all of his senses.

It was the most magnificent thing he had ever smelled. They smelled of a flowering peony, a wonderful scent. He knew what that meant. He had finally found his mate. After a hundred years, he had finally found the one he was destined to be with forever.

He increased his speed to get to her even faster, and he stopped dead in his tracks at her beauty. She was tall and slender, with hair as black as the night, and eyes as blue as an elegant lapis lazuli gemstone. She was gorgeous. Never in his life had a woman made him stop dead in his tracks. Never had a woman made his breathing become so erratic, nor had a woman ever caused his heart to beat the way it did.

She must have caught his scent in the air because her eyes snapped to his. A look of pure euphoria crossed her face, and Ulric cleared the remaining space between them.

"Hi," she spoke. Her voice was rich and smooth, like a strong whiskey.

"What is your name," Ulric asked, as he brushed a strand of her dark hair from her tan skin.

"Clove," she whispered with a hint of seduction, as she bit her lip. "What's yours?"

"Ulric," he replied, lost in her gaze. Her eyes held a world of various tumbling blues within them.

Her mouth popped open slightly. "As in the King?" She asked.

Ulric nodded his head, breathing in her scent. He couldn't believe he finally had her. After years of searching, he was standing so close that their chests almost touched.

He bent down as he was still towering over her 5'9 frame. He pressed his lips to hers, and his entire body tingled with pleasure. He'd kissed several women over the years, but not one of them had made him feel the way he did then.

He brought his hands up to her hips and squeezed them in his hands. He deepened their kiss and she opened her mouth, allowing him access. She wrapped her hands around his neck and leaned up to press herself into him further.

When they pulled away, they leaned their foreheads against each other's, reveling in the newfound pleasure of finding their mates.

He wanted to spit at the sour taste that entered his mouth as he recalled that memory. He had blocked that moment from his mind for as long as possible. He chocked up at the thought of her scent, the sickeningly strong smell that now repulsed him.

The sweet clementine scent of Amaryllis pulled him in now. He craved it. That was the only smell he wanted to surround his home or himself. His lips twitched with disgust as he recalled kissing Clove. The only one who's lips he wanted was the sweet girl's in front of him.

He told Amaryllis how they met, and he watched her facial expressions while he was telling her. He didn't want her to feel as though she was second best in his eyes. She was absolutely perfect, comparable to no one.

Her expression remained mostly constant, an adorable confusion plastered on her face. She didn't understand how it was possible for him to have two mates. He would get to that shortly.

"But... how? I thought a mate was for life, so why am I here?"

He bent down and kissed her forehead, trying to provide her comfort and security during this unsettling time.

Amaryllis took a deep breath and looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. The dread she felt in the pit of her stomach hadn't exactly eased up.

Her proximity helped his internal turmoil calm down as well. He sat down next to Amaryllis and stretched his limbs before telling the rest of the story. His mood once again turned sour as he dug up even more history, forcing himself to think about Clove again; something he had been avoiding for decades. He loathed her and only wanted his thoughts to focus on Amaryllis.

"I thought she was my everything, my other half, my soul mate. She truly made sure I believed that, and I did. She played the perfect part of a mate. She was everything I thought I wanted.

She had a skinny figure and a tan complexion, something I had always been drawn to in women. I saw her as independent, and strong-willed, and confident. Looking back now, I see that will and confidence was merely self-absorbed and cocky. But at the time, I thought she was magnificent."

Amaryllis's insides twisted painfully as he spoke of his feelings for his previous mate. She didn't like hearing him talk about how wonderful another woman was. Especially when this woman looked absolutely nothing like she did.

"I brought her back to the castle and that night we mated. We got into physical intimacies rather quickly when we first met. She wasn't a virgin and neither was I. I was okay with that. I didn't feel that I had any room to be angry that she had shared her body with other men as I had shared mine with other women."

Amaryllis was shocked to hear that. Ulric seemed possessive over her and very proud of the fact that he had been the only lover she had ever taken. She found it odd that he didn't feel the same possessive, passionate tendencies toward Clove.

"Either way, I thought that what we shared, our mate-ship, was great. I thought I was in love, I thought she loved me. I was a blind fool. Blinded by the relief of finally finding my mate. Blinded by the passions of lust and sex.

Eventually, I started to smell this scent on her when we were together. It changed some, usually shifting between three different scents. I didn't pay much mind to it, though I had my suspicions as to what it was. I was blinded as it told you. I was relishing in my new found mate. I didn't want to admit it to myself; didn't want what we had to be corrupted.

I asked her about it a few times, and she denied ever being with anyone else. Faking innocence and hurt that I would make such assumptions about my own mate. So I disregarded the subject. I was perfectly content in my ignorance.

Except for when I simply couldn't ignore it anymore. I thought she had been sleeping around, with at least three other men. Their scents were constantly on her. I came home one evening, I had been out late meeting with a few of my closest men to discuss our blood shortage issue. When I got closer to my bed chambers, I heard it. The closer I got, the more I heard. I opened the door and found Clove, naked, riding some subordinate on our bed.

I was hurt. I felt as though I'd been permanently scarred by the one I loved most, but I forgave her. I felt that if I forgave her, if we talked about it and why she did it, if we spent more time together, that she wouldn't feel the need to get her pleasure from other men. She would've left if I didn't, and I would've been alone. I thought I was in love with her, so I forgave her because I didn't want to lose her.

I thought she would change and stop sleeping around, but she didn't. It made our relationship tense as she skirted around me constantly. She would make up an excuse as to why she had to leave and it would never be discussed. Then, at night she would manipulate me with her body into believing she truly cared about our bond and about me. Only to once again be met with the harsh reality in the morning. I would try to talk to her but she wouldn't listen.

After three months, I had had enough of her. The passion I had once felt was gone. I saw her for who she truly was - a manipulative whore. I was getting ready to break things off with her, to tell her to go back to the city she came from when I walked in on her, the three men she had been sleeping with, and a handful of other men. They were having a meeting of sorts, planning out how they would overtake me and dethrone me.

It enraged me. Her cheating throughout our short relationship didn't affect me much but knowing she deceived me in order to attempt to overpower me, enraged me. I went ballistic," Ulric explained.

Her throat choked up as Amaryllis thought about the pain he must've gone through. His own mate enacted the ultimate sin against him and then planned to overthrow him. He didn't deserve to be tortured emotionally like that. Amaryllis hated that someone had toyed with her mate's emotions so viscously. No one gets to hurt her Ulric like that. Though, he didn't seem to be that tormented over the ordeal, oddly enough.

"I'd just captured a few rouge werewolves that had ventured onto my land. So, I fed Clove and the three of her fuck buddies to the wolves. I simply killed the ones she was conspiring with in front of my people. I was much nicer then, much calmer, much more open to negotiations. Even then though, I was not lenient with people seeking to overthrow me or undermining my authority in such a way."

Amaryllis gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. No wonder people viewed him with such hesitance in their eyes. They were afraid of what he could possibly do to them, being that he easily killed off his own mate. They were afraid he would make a statement via their own deaths.

"You... you killed her?" She reiterated.

"Yes. I don't regret it. She was conspiring against me and forming a small group to rebel against me. All because I wouldn't let them feed on human children as children are easier to capture and kill than adult humans. The time of the blood shortage was a very tense situation for all vampires, and they let their inability to follow directions cloud their judgment. Now they are dead."

"I can't believe- I don't even know. I never expected this," Amaryllis said as she tried to comprehend all of what Ulric just told her. "So where do I fall into all of this?"

"Well, that's what surprised me when I first had a taste of your blood. I never expected to have a mate again, but then I began looking into it. I remembered hearing about a second chance mate once when I was a young boy. They aren't popular at all, in fact, it's only been documented a handful of times in all vampire history. Only one person is made for a vampire, only one person can fulfill the position of a mate.

But, in my case and only a few others, we were given a fake mate basically. Our initial attractions were similar to that of a real mate, though still nowhere near what it feels like to find your actual mate. However, you never share a true mate bond. I wasn't possessive over Clove. I didn't shred the bodies of those she cheated on me with. I didn't even question it and kept my suspicions to myself.

The moon goddess determines the mateships between werewolves, but vampires are different. Our mates are spontaneous. No one creates them. So sometimes, something fires wrong in the process of creating a mate, and you get a fake one. They may seem like your true mate at the beginning, but they aren't.

They are kind of like a part of a mate. You feel similar things for them like you would a real mate, but the emotions involved aren't as strong and your bond is weak because it's not a full bond. And eventually, it just fizzles out. That's what Clove was to me. She wasn't my real mate. You are."

Amaryllis processed all of this new information. She felt relief in a way she had never felt it before. She felt so abandoned when she thought that Ulric had another mate and loved some other woman. It killed her inside to know that she wasn't the only woman in her mate's life.

She wiped the few stray tears from her eyes as she looked up at him. He was staring down at her, waiting for her reaction. She leaned over and wrapped her arms around his torso, leaning her face into his chest. She felt him wrap his arms around her back as one hand came up to grasp the back of her head.

"I'm sorry that I doubted you," Amaryllis said, her voice muffled by his chest. "I can tell you didn't really want to talk about it," she said. That was partly why she was crying. It had taken so long for Ulric to open up to her, now that he finally did she was so relieved.

Ulric dug his hands into her hair, feeling the tension leave his body as she snuggled up against him. "I don't like talking about it, not because I miss her or anything. I don't. I hate thinking about how naive and vulnerable I was. I was a fool and I was weak. I never want to be in that position again."

"Is that why you didn't want me as your mate? Because you thought I might try to rebel against you? You thought I would make you weak?" She asked.

Ulric nodded his head, placing a soft kiss on the top of her head. "I realize now, that my thoughts were foolish."

Amaryllis smiled into his chest, tilting her head up to look at him. Ulric was so beautiful. She'd never thought of a man as beautiful before, but Ulric was the exact definition of it.

"So, you're saying that I make you feel more emotional than Clove did?" She giggled, liking the thought that she made him feel something meaningful.

"That is what I'm saying, little mate. What I felt with her feels nothing like what I feel with you. I can't even compare it. What I had with her was fake, just a glimmer of what my life with my true mate would be like. If you ever tried to fuck someone else, I'd kill them before you even had the chance. Then I'd fuck you for the next fourteen days straight to ruin you for anyone else," he growled into Amaryllis's ear. He felt her body shiver against him and he knew she was thinking of him fucking her. She wasn't the only one.

She shivered again and dug her head further into his chest, trying to contain her blush. This man seemed to always know what to say to rile her up.

"If you were to be taken away from me, I wouldn't be able to live. The pain would be nothing like what it felt when Clove died. I felt nothing for her when she died. No regret, no sympathy, no sorrow, nothing."

"I don't think I'd be able to live without you either."

Ulric ran his hand up and down her back, a smile gracing his lips.

"Are werewolf bites deadly to vampires?" She asked, thinking about how he fed the traitorous vampires to the wolves.

"Yes. To normal vampires they are. To royals, they aren't. Since Clove was a regular vampire, the bites killed her. To a normal werewolf, vampire bites are also deadly. But to the alpha, Luna, beta, and gamma, they aren't." He explained.

"Then how would someone kill you?" She asked, both feeling curious and repulsed by the thought of him dying.

"To kill me, a stake from a specific tree coated in a powder from a certain root needs to be stabbed into my heart. Then my body needs to be burned within mere seconds."

Amaryllis shook her head. "I shouldn't have asked, I don't want to think about you dying." She grimaced.

"Well, you don't need to worry. There's only three stakes in existence and I have all three as well as the root powder hidden away."

"Good," she said as she tried to shake the sadness away that seeped into her heart at the thought of him being killed. "How do you kill an alpha?"

"This particular silver knife coated in a mutated form of wolfsbane needs to be stabbed into their body. Some witch wielded these knives a long time ago. Just like vampires, there are only three knives."

Amaryllis pondered the thought. She always thought that just a bite from a vampire or a bite from a werewolf would kill the opposing species.

"Is this why most people are so afraid of you? Because you were willing to kill the one you thought was your mate?" It was quite obvious that people were tense around Ulric when he entered a room or even glanced at him. From his story, it seemed as though he was much calmer before he met Clove.

"Yes. They thought of me as a monster since I was willing to kill my own mate. I was angry that she was disloyal to my reign, and I took that out on my people. Then I heightened security measures around the Kingdom. I became much harsher to my people and much more aggressive in order to dissuade anyone from trying to rebel against me ever again.