[BL] Alpha, You've Got the Wrong Mate!

Chapter 382: 382 — A Monster’s Birth (6)

The High Priests had told him they had prepared a gift for him.

What could it be?

Raniel wondered about it the entire way to the library.

A snake?

That had been his gift last time.

They had told him snakes made excellent companions and were easy to raise. However, once the creature had grown large enough, it had begun biting Raniel while he slept.

The animal had been thrown away shortly afterward by High Priest I.

The elderly man’s voice had trembled with worry when he noticed the bite marks covering Raniel’s arms.

Raniel had never understood that reaction.

If he truly cared, shouldn’t he have been more careful when choosing a gift in the first place? Still, the young man never voiced such thoughts aloud.

Not when doing so could anger the High Priests.

Once he stepped through the large white doors, engraved with symbols written in a language he couldn’t read, he glanced left and right.

There was no box, no cage, nothing that resembled a gift.

The snake had been the first actual present he had ever received, leaving him with no idea what he should expect this time.

The other children seemed to receive gifts regularly. Perhaps they would have known.

For several minutes, Raniel searched. He checked every corner. Every shelf. Every empty space.

In the process, he bumped into the corners of tables more than once.

When he hurried, navigating the world became difficult. It was easy to miss an outline here and there. Easy to mistake a chair for empty space or a wall for an open path.

As a child, he had fallen so often that he couldn’t remember a time when walking had been easy.

The High Priests would scold him afterward.

"Useless." The word echoed through his mind.

He had heard it so many times that, eventually, he had begun believing it himself.

With a quiet sigh, Raniel pulled out what felt like a chair and sat down.

The seat startled him.

Soft.

Far softer than anything he had ever sat on before. The cushion sank beneath his weight, reminding him vaguely of his blanket.

When he met with the High Priests, they were always the ones seated while he remained standing. This was the first time he could remember sitting somewhere so comfortable.

Slowly, he rested his forehead against the smooth surface of the table after feeling it with his hands.

A precaution.

Nothing more.

If he moved too quickly, he would probably end up hurting himself again.

Though he wasn’t sure it mattered. Bruises appeared on his body often enough regardless.

The young man nearly jumped out of his skin when something poked his back. He immediately sprang to his feet and turned toward the person behind him.

"Who is it?!" he demanded, his pulse racing.

An unfamiliar alpha scent drifted into his nose. It wasn’t any of the alphas he was assigned to.

"O-Oh, did I scare you? I apologize." The voice belonged to a young man.

Soft, and pleasant like one of the hymns occasionally sung throughout the Temple.

No. Even sweeter than that.

"Who are you?" Raniel asked again, refusing to lower his guard. His voice came out harsher than intended as his hand instinctively moved toward the blindfold covering his eyes.

The High Priests had taught him exactly what to do whenever he found himself in danger.

"Remove the blindfold to protect yourself," and they had taught him something else as well.

The people who spoke the sweetest often hid the sharpest knives behind their backs.

For that reason alone, Raniel remained tense, ready to pull away the cloth at the slightest sign of hostility.

The young man raised both hands immediately.

"I-I mean no harm," he said hurriedly, taking a step back.

Raniel remained motionless, waiting to confirm whether he spoke the truth or not.

But how would he do that? He didn’t know.

The alpha scent lingered in the air, unfamiliar and strange. He couldn’t place the young man’s age through his voice alone, but he sounded younger than the priests. Much younger.

"Who are you?" Raniel repeated.

The stranger hesitated before parting his lips. "My name is Ilyan."

The name meant nothing to Raniel. Should it have? The High Priests had never mentioned anyone called Ilyan before.

"Why are you here?" Raniel questioned.

"Because this is where I was told to wait."

Wait? For what?

A frown formed on Raniel’s face.

"You were told to wait in the library?"

Ilyan laughed softly.

"No. I was told to wait for you."

The answer only made Raniel more suspicious. His fingers tightened around the edge of his blindfold.

"Why?"

"I don’t know," he shrugged.

"You are lying."

"I am not."

"You are."

"I really am not, though."

The immediate reply caught Raniel off guard. People usually became angry when he accused them of lying.

The High Priests certainly did. Yet the stranger sounded more confused than offended.

For several moments, neither of them spoke.

Then Ilyan carefully took a step closer.

Raniel immediately stiffened.

"I was told that you would be my mate."

Complete silence filled the library. Even Raniel’s thoughts seemed to stop.

His mate?

The words echoed inside his head.

A mate? How could this strange man be his mate—and what did that even mean? No one taught him this word.

"You are a person, not a mate," Raniel said flatly.

"Uhh yes?" The man blinked.

"What is... a mate?"

"You don’t know?" Ilyan tilted his head to the side.

The young man appeared old enough to know.

Raniel shook his head.

"Explain yourself before I call the guards." He tried to appear as powerful as possible. He couldn’t let him know about his real worth at the Temple.

Ilyan scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Because that’s what High Priest XVII told me before bringing me here."

Raniel’s brows furrowed. The more he listened, the less he understood. The High Priests had given him snakes before.

Books.

Blankets.

If this person was his gift—he had never received a person as a present.

His gaze lowered instinctively, though the blindfold concealed the movement.

"Are you a servant?"

"No."

"A disciple?"

"No."

"Then what are you?"

This time, Ilyan fell silent. When he finally answered, his voice was much quieter than before.

"I live here too. In the Temple. Although maybe not for as long as you have been here..."

Something in those words made Raniel pause. For a moment, he loosened his grip on the blindfold.

There was a strange feeling in the young man’s voice. No fear, no hostility, but loneliness. A loneliness so familiar that Raniel recognized it instantly. After all, he had heard the same loneliness in his own voice countless times.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Raniel asked as he sat back down on the chair.

He reached toward a nearby stack of books and pulled out one at random, opening it in front of him and pretending to read.

Countless people had tried to approach him before, and they succeeded.

When he was younger, he had foolishly believed he had finally been blessed with friends—something he had wished for his entire life.

However, those people had only started showing interest in him after he presented as an omega.

At first, Raniel hadn’t understood the difference. He thought they simply wanted to spend time with him. Talk to him. Be near him.

But then, he learned the truth.

He had seen the consequences of letting alphas get too close. So close that they touched him in places he hadn’t known anyone was allowed to touch. Places that made his body feel strange. Sometimes it hurt enough to make him cry and whimper. Other times, the feeling was merely uncomfortable—something he endured because he didn’t know how to stop it.

Compared to his training, it wasn’t even the worst thing he had experienced.

At least, that was what he had convinced himself.

The realization made his fingers tighten around the edges of the book.

And now another alpha was trying to approach him.

Why?

What did this one want?

The young man’s expression remained neutral, but every muscle in his body was tense. Prepared to pull away his blindfold if necessary.

For several moments, the stranger remained silent.

Then the chair across from him shifted.

"I don’t know," the alpha admitted.

Raniel frowned.

"What do you mean you don’t know?"

"I mean exactly that." The young man let out an awkward laugh. "I just wanted to talk to you—my mate."

The answer sounded absurd to Raniel. People always wanted something.

The High Priests wanted obedience.

The instructors wanted results.

The other children wanted favours, attention, or things they couldn’t obtain themselves.

Nobody approached another person for no reason.

"That’s a lie."

"It isn’t."

"You expect me to believe you walked all the way here just to talk? No, you came here because the High Priests told you to. Don’t lie to my face just because I can’t see your face. " his voice was laced with fury.

It was unlike him to react like this. He had always been nonchalant, letting everyone do as they pleased. But something about this man unsettled him.

Then, the alpha fell silent again.

Raniel could hear him shifting in his seat as if he were genuinely thinking about the answer.

Eventually, the young man spoke.

"That is true, but... I truly did want to talk to you. They can’t force me to do something against my will."

Raniel froze. His grip on the book tightened.

He can’t be forced to do something against his will?

What did will even mean?

That was a word he didn’t know. And in which language was it even? The one he spoke, or the one everyone else spoke?