Matteo
My fists slammed against the stone wall of my private quarters, cracking the surface and sending dust down to the floor in a soft cloud. I barely noticed the blood dripping from my knuckles, hot and sharp. It didn’t hurt. I wished it would. I wanted pain. Pain made sense. But this? This sick, burning ache in my chest? This need that had crawled out of nowhere the second I touched her lips with mine? That wasn’t pain. That was poison. The bond was sinking its claws deeper, threading through my veins like wildfire. I could feel her even now, trembling a few floors beneath me. I hated that I knew she was crying. Hated that I could sense her breath hitch, that her despair hummed through the mate connection like a live wire. She was the last person I should have bonded with. Aveline Carrington. The final rotting leaf on the tree that strangled my family’s legacy. And now she was mine? Fate was a cruel bitch with a wicked sense of humor. A knock sounded at the door. I didn’t answer. Kai walked in anyway. Of course he did. “Is she locked in?” “She’s not going anywhere,” I said through gritted teeth. He leaned against the frame, his arms folded, unreadable as always. “You kissed her.” I turned away, muscles locking. “It wasn’t a kiss. It was dominance.” Kai gave a sharp breath of laughter. “You dominate everyone with your tongue now?” I snarled. “Don’t test me.” “Matteo…” he started, but I held up a hand. “Don’t. I don’t want your f***ing sympathy, Kai.” He studied me for a long moment. “It’s not sympathy. It’s sense.” I scoffed, blood still trickling from my hands. “There’s no sense in this.” “No, but there’s a way out.” My jaw clenched as I met his eyes. “Say it.” “Kill her.” Silence. The word echoed in the room like a bullet fired into still air. “I can’t,” I said eventually, my voice lower than I meant it to be. Kai’s expression didn’t shift. “You mean you won’t.” “I mean I can’t, Kai!” I shouted, whirling around to face him. “The bond won’t let me. I tried. Before the kiss. My wolf won’t let me raise a claw against her. Every time I imagine it, something inside me pulls back.” “Then reject her.” “No.” He blinked slowly. “Then what, Matteo? What’s left?” “I make her suffer,” I whispered. Kai raised an eyebrow. “You think that’s going to work? You think you’re going to torture your mate without torturing yourself?” “I don’t care.” “Bullshit.” “I don’t want her dead. I want her miserable. I want her to wake up every day and wish she’d died with the rest of her pack.” Kai’s voice was colder now. “And what happens when that backfires? When she stops fearing you and starts feeling something else?” I flinched. “That won’t happen.” “You sure about that?” I didn’t answer. Because I wasn’t. Kai shook his head, pushing off the wall. “You’re going to punish yourself more than her, Matteo. I hope you realize that.” “I don’t care if it breaks me,” I said quietly. “As long as I break her first.” Kai didn’t speak after that. He just stared at me like he was watching a man already halfway to ruin. Maybe I was. He finally turned to leave but paused at the door. “You keep pretending this is about revenge, but if it were… you’d have slit her throat the second you caught her.” Then he left, leaving nothing but silence in his wake. I dropped into the nearest chair, elbows resting on my knees, blood still dripping onto the concrete floor beneath me. My breathing was uneven. My hands trembled. Not from weakness—but from restraint. I could feel her again. Even through the layers of steel and brick between us, her presence lingered. Like a wildfire behind my eyes. Her heartbeat was faint, but I could sense it. Her scent still clung to my skin, even though I’d already scrubbed it from my hands three times. Mate. The word echoed like a curse in my bones. I never wanted a mate. Never expected one. And now that I had one—her—I felt robbed of the justice I’d spent a decade chasing. I was supposed to kill her. I’d imagined it too many times to count. Her face would be buried in the ashes of what was left of her line. Aveline Carrington—the girl who vanished while her family burned mine alive. The daughter of betrayal. The symbol of everything I lost. But when I looked at her earlier, she hadn’t been the monster I’d carved in my mind. She looked… human. Fragile. Scared. Angry, yes—but defiant in a way that called something feral out of me. And that kiss? It hadn’t been planned. It wasn’t a tactic. It had been instinct. Raw. Wild. Wrong. And yet… my wolf wouldn’t let it go. He was pacing inside me now, snarling whenever I thought about rejecting her, about handing her over to someone else to punish. No—he wanted to keep her close. Not because he forgave her. Because he needed her. But I didn’t need her love. I didn’t want it. I didn’t care if she bowed to me or begged for mercy. I wanted her to suffer. To exist knowing she would never be accepted. To feel the bond flare hotter every time I touched her and realize that she’d never be cherished by the one the moon chose for her. I would be the kind of mate that turned the bond into a weapon. I would use it to pull her apart, thread by thread, until she was nothing but broken promises and haunted eyes. Maybe then, my parents would rest. Maybe then, I could finally sleep without hearing the screams from that night echo through my skull. My fingers twitched. I needed to see her again. Not to comfort. Not to explain. But to remind her. She wasn’t here to be loved. She was here to be broken. I stood, stormed to the door, and barked an order to the guard outside. “Prepare her.” “For what?” he asked cautiously. I looked him dead in the eye, voice sharp with finality. “For her new life. One breath at a time.” Then I walked away, a slow, calculated fire building behind my ribs. If fate wouldn’t let me kill her, I’d give it something worse. Regret. And she would feel every second of it.
