Goodbye, My Mate

Chapter 123

Leah's POV

I didn't know how long I had been running on that day.

I was running across busy streets, running over bridges and rivers, running past forests and hills.

A Lycan had great stamina, but on that day, I completely lost control. I used every single dash of my stamina until I became absolutely exhausted until there was nothing left.

Lying in a clearing in the forest, I looked at the sky above me. The everchanging cloud was silently cruising in the sapphire background of the sky. I wondered if I could float in the sky like a piece of cloud. When I felt tired, I could just melt and become rain, dropping to the ground.

The contrast between the lightness of my dream and the gravity of reality was suffocating.

I hate Lucas. I thought to myself. I hate Jalin. I hate Finn. I hate Darren. I hate Troy. I hate every man that I have ever appeared in my life except my Father and brothers.

"Leah." The voice in my head appeared again.

"Stop haunting me!" I shouted in the quiet forest.

Some birds were surprised by my sudden outlet of anger. They flapped their wings while screeching, disappearing into the trees.

Great. Now I got fucked and frightened some innocent birds. What a day. I thought to myself.

I covered my eyes with both of my arms, so I can hide away from reality.

"Leah." Moon Goddess' voice called my name again.

"What else do you want from me?!" I castigated.

"Come to my temple. We have to talk." The voice said.

"But I don't want to talk to you. Do you feel that this is funny? Forcing me to have sex with a man that I hate? Do you have a sense of achievement when you manipulate someone's life like this?!" I shouted at the void in front of me.

"Leah, you need to stand up and walk. You're in danger now. Come to my temple for shelter," that voice said.

At almost exactly the same time, I felt the ground shivering, with the swishy swashy sound coming behind the bush.

When I looked up, I saw a giant grizzly bear standing in front of me, staring at me with a tilted head.

As soon as our eyes met, he became angry, with lips pulling up into a sinister snarl.

Wolves hate bears. They are the number one enemy of wolves in the wild, which was why I had a primal fear of this kind of fluffy, toothy beast.

Grizzly bears seldom attack people in the wild, they are usually quite tolerant of people. But the giant magnificent beast was an Alpha male with the meanest look on its face. It suddenly occurred to me that it was during mating season. I could tell that this big fat bear absolutely hated any intruders in his territory.

I wanted to shift into a wolf, but I was too tired to do so. Running exhausted all my stamina, which I should have reserved for a fight like this.

Common sense of surviving a bear encounter was lying on the ground and playing dead.

But I heard the oracles of the Moon Goddess. She wanted me to run into her temple for shelter.

Although I had just had a one-way argument with the Goddess in my mind, I had to follow her instructions when it comes to this kind of live or dead situation.

So, without hesitation, I turned back and started to run.

The Moon Goddess Temple was about a mile away from this place.

If I paddled my two useless human feet fast enough, I would arrive at the temple within 10 minutes.

The remaining strength inside of me was 100% human being, which was totally weak.

It didn't take more than a few minutes before I could feel the steps of the bear drawing closer to me.

As I looked back, I expected to see the giant head of a grizzly bear right in front of my face, with saliva drooling from the corner of its giant mouth and a burning flame of hatred in its eyes.

But I didn't see anything except trees and bushes.

The forest was quiet, except for the occasional rustling of leaves and twigs. In the midst of the dense wilderness, I was all alone.

Just as I thought I was hallucinating the bear I saw a moment ago, suddenly, I heard a growl.

The growl was followed by a deafening roar, and within seconds, that massive brown bear charged at me from my back. Its eyes glimmered with hunger, and its fur stood on end as if it was ready to attack.

I immediately sensed the impending disaster and began to back away. But the bear was too fast. It lunged at me with its paws stretched out, ready to tear me apart!

I tried to dodge it, but I stumbled and fell to the ground. The bear was on top of me in an instant, with its claws digging into my flesh.

At that very moment, my mind flashed back to the time my Father took me on a hunting trip when I was a little girl.

As an ordinary little girl, I personally hated killing and I abhorred the activity of people killing animals for trophies and fun. But my Father insisted on taking me there in the forest on his Royal Hunting Trip. I managed to sneak away from him, trying to run away back home. Then I got lost in the forest and started to sit there and cry.

As the royal guards found me, I passed out because of frustration and exhaustion.

When I woke up, the first thing my Father told me was, "You can run but you can't hide, Leah."

I didn't know why. As I was about to be attacked by the grizzly bear on that day, my Father's voice flashed past my mind.

The Moon Goddess told me to run for my life, whereas my instinct used my memory to let me fight back.

If everything has already been written in the form of oracles in one's destiny, why do we exist? I thought to myself. I'm not some stringed puppets to be played by a manipulative Goddess.

So, I fought back with all my might.

I punched and kicked the bear with all my strength, trying to get it off me. But the bear was too strong. Its jaws were inches away from my face, and I could feel its hot breath on my skin.

This position reminded me of the shameful experience I had just had with Lucas in his car.

I became furious and it was then that she realized that she had to do something drastic -

I struggled to reach for the bear's throat and started to strangle it.

The bear roared in anger, but I didn't let go. I squeezed harder and harder with her fingers digging into the bear's fur.

The bear tried to shake me off, but I held on and stared into its eyes.

"You motherfucker." I hissed. "You've never been strangled by a girl before, right?"

I could see the bear flinched.

I was wounded, bleeding profusely from my wounds, but I didn't give up.

I kept strangling the bear until it finally gave up and slumped to the ground, unconscious.

I stood up. My clothes were torn. My body was bruised and battered.

I looked at the bear, lying there motionless, and knew that I had won.

I survived the ferocious attack.

I survived not because of my destiny.

I survived despite it.

It was my strength and will that had saved me, not some fucking oracles from a mad manipulative Goddess.

As I stumbled away toward the Moon Goddesss Temple, I couldn't even feel my legs.

I knew that she would never forget the fight I had just endured on my own.

For the first time in my life, I solved a crisis on my own, without inference from any man in my life.

I had proven to myself that I was strong enough to overcome any obstacle and that nothing, not even a fucking horny male bear or husband, could stop me from living my life to the fullest.