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“I’m listening,” she said slowly, tucking her hands under her legs. I wondered if it was a nervous habit, or if she was trying to hide something.
“Do you believe in the mate bond, Dannika?” I watched her carefully, slowing down the truck to give us more time. “I know you believe it exists—clearly. But do you believe in it is my question.”
Her chin dropped to her chest, and she laughed softly. Her shoulders shook, and she tilted her head back and sighed. “Not for me, I don’t. It’s a cruel joke. We’re pieces on a game board and the gods are moving us, laughing as they poke and jab every single festering wound they’ve caused. The mate bond is part of that.”
“I don’t disagree,” I said honestly. When she looked at me incredulously, I continued. “A mate complicates things. I have ambitions. Plans. Purpose. None of those include a mate, and certainly not a bond.” She squinted her eyes at me, tilting her head in clear curiosity. “But I’m king. It’s . . . preferred that I have a mate. That I search for the one I’m supposed to be bonded to for the betterment of my House.”
“Okay . . .”
I pulled over to the side of the road, sticking my hand out the window to signal to Ysa and the others to go on ahead. Nova perked up in the back, and Dannika looked at me in confusion. I turned in my seat, giving her my full attention.
“What does that have to do with me?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed slightly. There was a slight tic in her cheek.
I considered her carefully before speaking. “I think it’s safe to assume neither of us is a particular fan of Mathis?”
She frowned. “Obviously. I don’t see what that has to do with?—”
“I’m making plans to remove him from power. Permanently,” I said bluntly. Her mouth dropped open. “The reasons why are beside the point. Removing a leader from power is not a simple thing?—”
“You’ll start another war,” she said, her voice dropping low. Her hands bunched into fists at her side. Nova let out a low growl from the back.
“That’s precisely why I need you. Because I need to remove him without starting a war. Mathis is prone to making rash decisions in the heat of the moment. Tonight is proof of that. By taking you in, I’m betting he won’t be able to stop himself from stepping over the line where I can finally challenge him head-on.”
“I don’t understand, and I don’t think you do, either.” She’d relaxed slightly upon hearing I had no intentions of starting another war, but she clearly wasn’t completely at ease. “Sure, he’ll be pissed you took me in, but honestly, he’s more likely to try to create problems within your House than attacking you outwardly here. It’s not like it will be hard for him to plant rumors about why you took in his son and me. You’re a king. You have very few reasons for why you would do that unless you were trying to stir the pot with Mathis. This won’t exactly be a hard story to spin to your people because it’s the truth.”
“Which is why I have a reason that neither my people nor Mathis could ever refute,” I said. She stared at me blankly. “I need a mate.”
Sort of. What I needed was a logical reason for why I’d taken this woman in beyond the reasons she’d so quickly pointed out. Would her acceptance in my House provoke Mathis? Yes. Did she need to be my mate for that? No, but without a proper excuse, there would be questions I didn’t want asked. This was the simplest way forward.
Her mouth fell open, and the sound of her breath hitching echoed in my ears. “You just said you don’t want payment in sex?—”
“I said sexual favors are consensual. Mate bonds don’t give a shit about consent. It works to my advantage here.” I looked between her and Nova. “You and I claim to be mates, you get protection in my House, and I have the final nail I need for Mathis’s coffin.”
“I just rejected Markus, and he won’t accept it,” she said, pointing to the vehicles ahead where she knew he would be. “It doesn’t make any sense that I would end up with another mate when I can’t get rid of the one I have.”
Lifting a single shoulder, I hummed. “Second-chance mates happen all the time.”
Dannika scoffed, crossing her arms. “Not that fast, they don’t.”
I laughed softly. “Fate is such a fickle thing. It seems to surprise everyone.”
She pinched the skin between her brows and sighed. “Even if people did believe this—which is a stretch, given how impossible I find it—why on earth would you take me on as your mate when you just said you don’t want one? I get that you want Mathis out of power, but aren’t there better ways?”
“None that have thrown themselves in my path as perfectly as you did tonight,” I told her. Her cheeks flushed. “I’m not going to go into the finer details of why this is the best course of action. For both you and my plans, it is?—”
“That’s presumptuous.”
I paused and desire stirred within me. I loved the pushback. Her unwillingness to agree with me simply because I was king. But this wasn’t what I needed. Ignoring my body’s response to the way she’d refused to yield, I said, “I don’t want a mate that fate chooses for me. This isn’t the same. It’s a business arrangement.” She opened her mouth to surely say something else that would disarm me. I held my hand up, palm out, telling her to stop. “I wasn’t asking, Dannika. It’s this or become Houseless, and you’ll be taken back to No Man’s Land, as is customary for the exiled. And before you ask, no—you won’t have permission to cross through my lands to Earth and Emerald.”
“You’re a dick,” she muttered. She wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t making this easy, but as she’d pointed out herself, charity didn’t exist anymore.
I shrugged, letting out a small laugh. “Perhaps. But you need?—”
She jerked her head up. “I sincerely hope you don’t finish that sentence by suggesting I need dick.”
I chuckled. “I was going to say, you need me. It’s a win-win here. But it’s still your choice.”
“Answer me this: What will you do when you find your real mate?” she asked, her pale eyes staring at me in a way she shouldn’t have. “This farce is all well and good for your plans to dethrone Mathis. But what about after? What happens when we’re still living this lie and your real mate comes along? I rejected Markus because of our past, but you won’t have the same situation. It won’t be so easy for you to push that bond away. What happens then?”
