The One He Trusted

Islinda left him. It was not the first. Everyone that he even felt the tiniest of affection for either betrayed or abandoned him. 

Aldric shouldn't have felt this way, but a deep hollowness gnawed at his chest. He knew it was the mate bond causing the ache. This was what he dreaded—the moment he surrendered himself completely to a female. Yet, fate was wicked and had tethered him to a human, whose life would flicker out in the blink of an eye, leaving him to wander this realm alone. Not that he expected to live long, anyway.

Perhaps, this was nature's way of restoring balance. He was too powerful and they had to limit him through his mate. Damn it! Who were they kidding? This was the punishment from the gods above? The gods had bestowed Islinda upon him as a mate, not out of love or fate, but as a means of punishment.