Chapter 7 : A Harsh Truth

"You don't need to be able to defend yourself," Marcus answered simply. "I will protect you."

I wasn't happy with that answer at all. And it had nothing to do with the fact that he had said something that I just didn't want to hear. It was because I wasn't happy with his statement.

I had the feeling that even if I was a wolf, even if I felt the true mate bond, then I still wouldn't have wanted him defending or protecting me.

I might have resented his words even more if I had been a wolf.

"I don't want you protecting me," I huffed, folding my arms across my chest.

"Then I suggest you learn to fight!" Marcus snapped at me, baring his teeth, elongated just a little.

He was trying to prove a point. He was showing off his strength just so–strength that I didn't have. But if he thought that it was going to get me to just shut up and behave, then he had another thing coming.

He couldn't kill me. He couldn't even hurt me. And the thought made me braver.

"You'll do anything before just letting me leave," I told him harshly. "What kind of an Alpha are you? That the only way you can keep a mate is if you keep them prisoner?"

Marcus snarled then.

"You think I want to keep you here?" Marcus demanded from me. "You think having you here makes me happy in any way at all?"

Yes, actually. I think it did.

"I think you like that… it means you have control," I told him firmly while I explained how I saw things. I was done being scared of him, I was done dancing around him. "I think you like being in charge and this is one more thing for you to hold in your hand."

"I am the Alpha!" Marcus roared in a way that perhaps could have made me flinch before, but now I was not going to back down. "I am supposed to be in charge. I am in total and absolute control of my pack. That is the rank and responsibility that was given to me. That is what I am trying to protect."

"And I am trying to help you!" I yelled back at him. "Me being here does nothing good for either of us. You said so yourself, if I stay here, I am only a sign of how weak and vulnerable you are. Just look at today. And then, you couldn't even fight properly because you knew you had to protect me."

There were his guard wolves outside, and I was sure that they could hear everything that was going on. They could hear everything that I was saying and perhaps this was not a good idea, but I found that I didn't care.

I didn't care what they thought of me, and I didn't care what they thought of their Alpha. And I really didn't care how this made them feel about themselves and their pack.

As far as I was concerned, they were all guilty of this. Any one of them could have helped me leave. Any one of them could have helped me escape. Or they could even not help me. They could just look the other way while I got myself out of here.

But no one would do that. They were blindly loyal to their Alpha.

Well, if that was how they wanted to live, then I was more than happy to accommodate them.

"You think I'm happy about this?" Marcus asked me, and his next words struck a chord in me. "I'm the Alpha! I'm supposed to mate a Luna. Not even a wolf, that's not where my standards are–a Luna. And you're just a human. Do you have any idea what this is doing to me and my pack? I've lost every standing. Every ounce of respect, gone, because my mate is a weak human girl."

I bit my tongue. Every word he said was true. And each one of then stung, like a whip across my face. I hadn't once considered what this was doing to him.

"You think I want to keep you here just so I can have another play thing under my control?" Marcus asked again, this time his voice was a bit louder. "You're not worth that cost! You are a danger to me, your existence is a danger to me. If I had had a wolf mate, I would have known that they could protect themselves. I would have known that they were safer than a weak human. If my mate had been a Luna," his voice lowered then, a soft almost wishful tone in his voice. "She would have been powerful and unstoppable. She would have been an asset to this pack. But I didn't even get a wolf, let alone a Luna. I got you. And I have to make the best of it."

I had thought that he was just keeping me here out of control. I had never once thought that he didn't want me here just as much as I didn't want to be.

"If I could let you go," Marcus said again, his voice calmer, and more at the level that I had gotten used to it being at. "If I could let you just leave here, I would have done it in a heartbeat the moment Jason brought you in. If you had been his true mate, I would have exiled you both. A human," he punctuated his sentence with a pause, "is a danger, in more ways than one."

I bit my tongue. I had no idea what else to say. I was as worthless as he said, but now I was only stuck here. There was nothing that I could do that would make any of this easier. There was nothing I could do to escape.

I glanced up at his face, and I could see that he had a bit better control of himself.

"You don't know what I would do to keep this pack safe," he said again. "And that includes just letting you leave. But I can't do that. Because my life is tied to yours, and the pack is tied to my life. So I would appreciate it if you could think about more than just yourself for a minute, if you can manage that."

I felt shame burn through me at his words. I had never been a selfish person. I had always thought of others, always been careful and considerate.

But not here. And not to the pack.

I wondered how I had become this person. How I had become so focused on my own life that I hadn't even once thought of everyone around me. They weren't my family or friends or even people that I knew. But they were innocent, and I was putting all of them in danger.

Marcus then shook his head and walked past me, heading out the door. Heat radiating from him, it made me shiver.

"I die without you," Marcus called one last time, and I turned to him. "And then the pack falls apart. You are human and you are weak. But you are our Luna. None of us asks for what the Moon Goddess provides. It is our responsibility."

I waited for him to say more, and it looked like he had a lot more to say to me. But he just shook his head and left the room. I collapsed on the bed next to me, feeling a new weight fall on my shoulders.

I wished that he had screamed more at me.

I wished that he had snarled in that way he always does.

Before I could let my thoughts get away with me, there was a knock on the door. I had no energy for visitors, I didn't feel in any way inclined to even respond to the person at the door.

But I didn't have to. In a moment, even without me calling for them, the door opened. I didn't have the energy to look up, but I forced myself to. It might be Marcus coming back in, or it might be someone else entirely.

It might even be Jason.

It wasn't Jason.

I pushed myself up off the bed to see Liana staring at me on the bed.

For a moment, I just held her gaze. I didn't turn away from her; I didn't flinch. But neither did she.

She looked a lot different than she had just a few hours ago. She looked angry, and infuriated. It wasn't my fault that Marcus left her on babysitting duty. No one needed to be on babysitting duty at all; if they just let me go, there would be nothing for them to watch.

As it stood, there was at least three other wolves outside, and even though I couldn't hear their heartbeat, Marcus had made it crystal clear to me that they could hear mine. They would know if I so much as began planning to run away.

I didn't doubt him.

The worst thing about all of this was that I didn't doubt anything he told me. He wasn't lying to me; he had absolutely no need to. And he wasn't hiding anything from me, there was nothing I could do with any kind of information that he allowed to come to me.

"You don't have to watch me every moment," I told her, irritation seeping through my voice. "Surely you can hear my every breath."

She didn't answer me for a moment, still just staring at me with a dead expression.

"I can," she said eventually. "But Marcus told me to keep an eye on you, so that's exactly what I'm going to do."

I rolled my eyes.

"Do you have to take everything he says so literally?" I asked her.

I purposefully got off the bed, and true to her word, she watched me as I went.

She tilted her head just a little.

"When he gives it as an Alpha Edict, then yes," she told me with an annoyed voice.

I frowned. Surely that couldn't mean what I thought it meant.

"And Alpha Edict?" I asked, turning to face her fully. "You mean he can just–"

"It's an order that we can't disobey, yes," she said clearly bothered by the fact she had to explain things to me.

I stared at her in horror. The thought that he could control their movements just with his voice was terrifying, and I wondered why she wasn't more disturbed by it.

"He can't control you, don't worry," she told me. "The Luna is exempt from the commands. Oh, and humans are as well, of course."

"How are you so okay with him just being able to command you?" I asked her. Surely this couldn't be acceptable.

"Because he is a worthy Alpha to obey," Liana said. "You're so stuck in your own world, you don't even realize what things are like for us wolf shifters. But Marcus keeps us safe. He protects us. And he is worthy of being followed to the letter."

It was the first time that I had even thought to listen to her words.

She may have been right.