“You’re here for the goddamn auctions, aren’t you?”
Dimitri’s head snaps back as if I slapped him. “No. Why the fuck would I come out here for that?”
But I nod and take a few pissed off steps toward him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re out here to find a new omega, one you don’t have to worry about your daddy wanting killed. One you can use to cover that fucking mark on your throat. You came out here to erase me because you failed to do that in person last time, because?—”
“Shut up, Niko.”
“I swear to god if you call me that one more fucking time?—”
“Take off the mask.” He drops his smoke on the ground then stomps it out as he takes a step toward me. “Take it off.”
I shake my head. “I don’t answer to you anymore. Especially when you’re out here looking for an unbiased and naive piece of ass to use to break our bond. You lost the right to say shit to me when?—”
Dimitri’s hand is on my throat and my lower back is against the nearest sink before I can blink. “Shut your mouth, Niko. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Then fucking tell me,” I grit through clenched teeth. “Explain it to me, or let me fucking go and leave me the fuck alone.”
He stares at me for a second, that bright blue eye shifting back and forth between mine, and that’s when I can see him register my contacts that have my eyes almost matching his.
“Who are you hiding from?” Dimitri squeezes my throat a little, stepping into me until we’re almost nose to nose. “Did someone hurt you?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I laugh in his face. “You did!Youfucking hurt me, dumbass, but I can promise my new life has nothing to do with that, or you.”
He narrows his stare, a sharp stab of anger spiking through our bond. “New life?”
I just nod.
He’s the one who threw my old one away, he doesn’t get the details of this one.
“You better start talking,maly, because I’m seconds from making you.”
“I better start…” I roll my eyes and try to shove him off me but the bastard doesn’t budge. “You’re the one who owesmean explanation, Volkov, and if you aren’t going to give me one, you can fuck right off and out of my life again.”
His fingers tighten on my throat as he reaches for my mask, tearing it from my face before I have the chance to stop him. “Explain.”
“Fuckoff.”
Dimitri yanks me away from the sink, pulling me upright before he spins me around and shoves me against the mirror. “Contacts. A fake name. A goddamn mask. I want to know why you’re hiding in plain sight.”
I flatten my palms on either side of my body and try to push back but it doesn’t work. “And I want to know why the hell you threw me away but since we’re just talking in circles, I’ll settle for any line of bullshit you want to feed me just to get this over with.”
“I don’t like it,” he growls in my ear, his grip tightening on the back of my neck. “I don’t fucking like it at all.”
“And I hate that you won’t admit to coming out here so you can find a replacement for me.”
“Because I’m not!”
“Bullshit.” I shove off the mirror briefly before he slams me back into it. “That’s bullshit and you know it. If you’d have wanted me, if our bond was enough for you, all that shit at the cabin would have gone differently, and you would have leftwithme when you had the chance.”
“That’s not true,” he hisses next to my ear. “You were… our bond… it was?—”
“A fucking lie, Dimitri, and you need to say the words so you can start believing them.”
He growls again but doesn’t speak.
No, he goes stoic and silent as fuck, holding me in place while he seethes against my back.
I should have known he wouldn’t say jack shit about anything of relevance. There’s no way Dimitri is going to betray his daddy by telling me all the juicy details of why there was a hit on me, or what was supposedly his reason for shitting all over our bond.
