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All eyes turned to me. Every House Leader was here. Hundreds of representatives from each faction were witnessing our moment. Each would go back and share the story and how it had all unfolded. I had to control the outcome.
“I’m cursed,” I started, pulling my arm away from Markus, but he wouldn’t let go. I tugged harder, looking down where his hand wrapped around my wrist, demanding with my eyes that he release me. “I am cursed, Markus. A shifter who can’t shift.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said firmly, refusing to let go.
“It does matter,” I countered, speaking just as harshly as he was to me. “You’re the next Alpha Supreme. You should reject me. Find another mate.”
Please, just find another mate. Anyone but me.
“I will not.” I stared into his dark eyes, wondering what on earth could have this hold on him. How could the mate bond be this strong for him, after everything he’d put me through? Surely, he could see this was the match made in Hell. Nightmares could have better outcomes. “Broken or not. Cursed or not. You are my mate. I won’t give up what’s mine.”
What. Not who. Whether he realized it or not, he didn’t see me as me anymore. He saw me as filling some role that fate had decided I should play. He didn’t care that I didn’t want it. That I didn’t want him. It was the most Markus thing ever, and with the worst timing.
“Reject me, Markus,” I urged softly, though my teeth clenched as I spoke. “Do it.”
The entire ballroom was hushed. Everyone was silent, waiting with bated breath for what would happen next. Even Mathis kept his mouth shut, though if seething could have made a sound, the volume was set to full blast.
His brows furrowed as he looked down at me, and he shook his head. “I would never reject you.”
I recoiled like I’d been slapped. A rush of resentment coursed through me, and flashbacks of my past flooded to the surface. The hateful words. Being ganged up on. Criticized. Insulted. Tripped. Kicked. Bruised. Ridiculed.
Oh, but now he would be kind to me? Now he wouldn’t reject me?
Absolutely fucking not.
I leaned into him, whispering in anger. “You do not get to bully me for years then expect to claim me because of some divine-whatever-this-is. You tormented me. You hate me. Now some bond tells you that I’m yours, you bang on your Alpha chest like a feral animal, and all that history between us goes out the window? I’m supposed to forget it ever happened and pretend that you didn’t enjoy watching me suffer? It changes nothing. We are nothing.” I looked at the crowd in my periphery before pinning him with an icy glare. “I am not your mate, and you know it. Reject. Me.”
Markus’s cheek twitched slightly, and his expression softened for a brief moment. His eyes flashed with uncertainty. “I can’t,” he whispered back.
I breathed out loudly and closed my eyes when I heard his words.
“Fine.” I yanked my arm away from him, hard, taking a step back. The distance between us wasn’t enough. It needed to span miles. Oceans. But a few feet would have to do.
“Oh, fuck,” Adora whispered so silently, I wasn’t sure anyone else heard her.
Holding my chin up high, I squared my shoulders and straightened my posture. With a hand on Nova’s scruff, I pet her softly, letting her give me some of her solace and strength.
She was everything I needed in my cursed life.
Living in this cursed House.
All because of this cursed moon.
“Markus Del Reyes, I reject you.”
CHAPTER 4
Elias
Istood in awe. Everyone did.
I hadn’t been anywhere close to the ordeal when it had started, but the crowd had grown quickly around the commotion. Once the gossip chain and rumors had made it to someone nearby, I’d overheard the details . . . and I’d been intrigued.
The young woman I’d just met had found her mate, but from the sounds of it, it wasn’t a happy union. Understandable, given the bastard she was sentenced to be with. Like everyone else, I slowly filtered toward the group gathering around the happy couple.
Markus was every bit the prick his father was. Call them whatever name you wanted to, they were bullies through and through. Mathis dragged his son everywhere he could, showing him off like a prized stallion. His heir, he would constantly tell everyone present. Born a leader. Markus would puff up and soak in the praise, playing his part. I hated any House business that involved the two of them.
As the two fated mates argued at the center of an open circle, a brutal history between the two shifters came to light. No matter how quietly Danni spoke to him, we could still hear it. Whatever the details were didn’t matter. It was simply enough to know that she had been the target of his menacing nature for more than half her life.
