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But I still can’t help myself. Maybe it would be better if he kills me now. My sisters are gone. Nathan can be just as much a possessive douchebag as Ashton is. And I don’t doubt that the council might still rule in Ashton’s favor, just to spite the usurper king.
But like hell I’m going to let Ashton think he won.
I spit in his face.
He releases me and I shove him away hard, laughing at him. “You’re so pathetic. Even if you win this challenge, Nathan is the king. He can keep seeing me. I’ll make sure you always wonder if our children are yours, or his.”
Ashton stares at me as if he’s never seen me before. And he hasn’t. This is the first time he’s ever seen who I really am. What I’m really capable of.
He might be the first person who’s ever seen the real me, at all.
“You will never own me,” I tell him, wiping blood from my mouth, onto the sleeve of my white sweater so I can use it as evidence later. “I am Nathan Frost’s mate, no matter what the council decides.”
I move toward the door, braced for Ashton to grab me. He doesn’t stop me from leaving the pool house, but I give the covered pool a wide berth, afraid he might push me in. I don’t go inside the house; I’ll probably never go into it again.
I slide behind the wheel of the car, my hands shaking, and remember the phone in my back pocket. It’s still recording. I manage to hit stop and take a few deep breaths before I start the ignition.
I have more than enough evidence that Ashton has broken pack law.
CHAPTER 23
Lupercalia. The challenge is here.
I’m taken from Aconitum Hall to the ceremony grounds in a chauffeured car. I sit by myself, across from two unsmiling, armed royal thralls. I get the feeling that they’re protecting a piece of disputed property. I’m not the future queen tonight.
Not that I wasn’t pampered like royalty. Before I left there were manicures and waxes, a makeup artist, a hairstylist, all of them sent to prepare me for my mating ceremony. There had also been a tailor, who nipped and tucked an off-the-rack suit for my testimony before the council; black pencil trousers and a single breasted jacket over a light blue silk chemise, all of it making me look much older than I am. My hair is in a careful twist, knotted at the nape of my neck, and it will, the stylist assured me, look as good down as up.
Because after my testimony, I’ll be taken straight to the ceremonial chambers and prepared for whoever wins the challenge.
Unfortunately, the robe for my mating right is the one made for me five years ago, with the pink silk and delicate embroidery chosen for me by my mother and Ashton’s mother. I hope that doesn’t somehow cause bad luck.
You don’t need luck. You have evidence, I remind myself. The cell phone is tucked in my jacket pocket. I haven’t let it out of my sight since last night. It’s going to save me from Ashton.
We arrive at the ceremonial grounds, and I catch my reflection in the car window under the landscape lighting. The makeup artist did too good a job concealing my bruised cheek and split lip. I wipe some of it away with the inside of my jacket while the guards stare at me in confusion.
The council meets in chambers built on the foundation of the first great hall erected by our ancestors when they settled in the area. Those foundations are visible through the tempered glass floor of the entryway, and I’m careful not to look down into the exposed pit as I stride, head held high, toward the council chambers. I try to remember the polished, professional-looking woman I saw in the mirror at Aconitum Hall. She looks nothing like the scared child I feel like inside.
All night, I went over and over my circumstances. If the council decides in favor of Nathan, I become queen. I also enter into what seems like the second-most potentially manipulative, controlling mating pact of all time. If they decide in Ashton’s favor, I’ll enter into what will be the most manipulative, controlling mating pact of all time, now with added violence. And, I’ll be mated to a man who’s been convicted of treason and who’s apparently living on the kindness of other traitors.
And some of them are on the council.
They can’t ignore this evidence, I tell myself. Get through your testimony. Deal with the Nathan problem later.
They called me to testify at nine-thirty, and I wait awkwardly in front of the chamber doors until nine-thirty on the dot. The council guard opens them to admit me. I suck in a nervous breath, my confidence destroyed.
