“You summoned me, I’m here. Now speak. I have other things to get to.”
She gulped, nodding.
“My family. Set them free. Let them go, my daughter is sick and my husband—” her voice trailed off as tears threatened to overcome her at the thought of the condition they might be in.
The inhumane treatment that they might be going through at that moment, the pain, it made her heart ache, most especially for her daughter, her darling little Mira. She knew nothing, she didn’t deserve this.
“Please, just let them go. It is me you want.” She said, her voice firm and laced with unhidden disgust.
She watched him for a moment in anticipation of his response, taking in his silence, watched as he looked at her through black soulless eyes. As a usual thing, whenever she was around him, she had to fight the consuming mate bond that relentlessly drew her to him like a magnet far powerful than her entire being, a force mighter than her that always threatened to bring her to her kneels before him, to summit, to let fate happen as it should.
It was always a battle.
But the embers of hatred towards his Kind had just been further rekindled in her, and her loathing for him was just as much of an unshakable presence.
Using her wolf’s hearing, she listened and heard no beating from him. All she could hear was her heart pounding with fear and rage in her own chest.
If only he had a heart, then it would be a pleasure to rip it out, watch his poisonous black blood coat her claws, smear her skin, and drop to the floor while it beat it’s last rhythm in her hand, every beat slower and fainter than the last, till it finally stopped.
Forever.
Oh, an immerse pleasure.
But he had no heart, so she would need to beg, even more than she was already doing.
“I’ll do anything.”
Something clicked in his jaws and he seemed to have gone stiff for only a brief moment before a corner of his lips tugged up in a shadow of a smile.
A mockery.
She knew it.
He took a step towards her and she held his gaze, not allowing herself to be swayed with the absolute dominance that slammed into her the closer he got.
Her stomach churned with disgust at her body’s reaction to every simple move he made.
She hated this mate bond. She wished
it never existed to begin with. The restraint that George’s bond usually had on her seemed to be disappearing into thin air by the second.
He was close enough now that if he could breath, his breath would be fanning her face.
Light like a feather and warm with life.
She remembered the last time he had been this close and how she was turning to mush with desire.
It was a pitiful sight for a warrior like her. Her body cringed at the memory but what was more pitiful was that, it felt like it was happening again.
Wanting to regain quick control of herself and not caring how she’d look if she had to give a brief moment of a show of vulnerability for it, she took a step back, looking away for a brief moment before looking back to regain her stand.
“I see, you want to use me again.”
“Use you?” The words sounded foreign to her, her voice sounding a little like a whisper from a strained voice box.
“It’s all you’ve ever done since you laid your gaze upon me.” He replied coldly and his voice shifted something in her.
Something she certainly didn’t want shifted. And certainly not by him.
She balled her hands into fists by her sides, digging her claws slightly into her palms, distracting herself with pain and the smell of her blood.
His gaze darted to her clenched fists immediately, then back up to her face in a flash.
“With all the lies you’ve been telling me, there is no wiser conclusion. I know the little pup isn’t your real daughter. You fight for her just as much as you fight for the wolf’s claim you now wrongly carry.” He said with a calmness that promised behind it seething rage. “You fight for the wrong things.”
A storm of rage built up inside her, powerful and deadly.
“They are my family! They are important to me. Mine!” She declared with finality.
Whatever emotions had passed through him at her statement, he had kept it away from his face.
“I don’t understand you. The things you value, they make no sense. The things that you are truly yours you don’t want and the ones that are not yours, you fight for.”
“They. Are. My. Family.”
“I am your mate.” His voice was still at the same tone, but his eyes were more darker than she remembered it to be a moment ago, zigzig lines slowly appeared underneath his skin, running from the collar of his blue robe, slowly up his face.
Despite the boldness she had built in her, she flinched at the sight of those dangerous lines, and she backed away towards the window behind her, but he stalk her slowly, like she was, but to him, a prey.
“You should want me. You should fight with me. You should stand by me, rule with me. It should be only me.”
She stopped, sensing that he would just continue following her all the way and once again, he would have her trapped.
Having her trapped like he had done the last time he had been in this room was a thought she dreaded so much.
She couldn’t risk that happening again, nor could she risk allowing his presence to further weaken George’s bond on her.
“But no. You ran away from me the first time we met, lied and tried to manipulate me ever since then, you’ve never given me a chance. You don’t even know my name.”
“What else should I have done? I already have a family. My family.”
“Your family?”
Rough leather grazed her skin as he pushed his hand around her neck, angling a thumb by her chin to tilt her face even further up to him, reducing the distance between them to a hair’s breadth.
Her mark was starting to feel hot against her neck again, her head drowsy with need that she knew only he could satisfy, her body absolutely betraying her.
“You can’t belong to them. You are Mine.”