Chapter Six

Aurora POV

Great, time for the same shit, him hating me for things that I can't control.

“I—”

He doesn’t wait for an explanation. He tosses a damp cloth onto the table beside me. “Clean the floors in the great hall. There’s a mark near the baseboards. You missed it yesterday.” Is he serious right now?

It's my fucking birthday!  I open my mouth to complain, but stop when I feel his anger slamming through the bond.

It's not just anger, it's jealousy and possessiveness. Great, as if his rage didn't taste like copper in my mouth, now I have his jealousy to deal with as well.

All of it pulses beneath his skin and presses through the air like a storm. He saw the kiss, of course he did, there was no hiding it. Caelan kissed me here, in the open, for everyone to see, as if he wants everyone to see he's putting in the effort to accept me as his mate.

So that's why he's acting like this, he's looking at me like I betrayed him, like I chose Caelan, when I didn't. He and my mother picked Caelan, and he walked away last night and decided to ignore the bond.

I pick up the cloth with trembling fingers and lower my eyes to hide what I'm feeling.

"Do it right this time Aurora, I mean it," he snaps.

I watch him turn and walk off without another word, and I’m left standing alone with a gift I don’t want, a command I didn’t deserve, and a bond I never asked for pulsing like fire through my chest.

Clean, it's my birthday, and he ordered me to clean, like I don't even deserve this day off. He's jealous, purely because Caelan kissed me. Now I wonder, how bad will this month be after I marry and mate with Caelan?

I walk through and begin to clean the floors like he said. It's routine, dip the cloth in the bucket and scrub. My hands move without thought, circling and cleaning the floor that already is. This is a punishment from Killian for Caelan kissing me.

I press harder, trying to focus on the task, but it’s useless. The bond is still humming through me, sharp and pulsing and impossible to ignore.

The bond still wants him and it pulls toward him like gravity, like instinct, like breath, despite his cruelness toward me.

He's not far, I look up and through the tall windows behind me. I can see the courtyard with the large stone pillars, trailing vines and the sun rising above the large garden.

There is Killian standing at the center of it, dressed up in his usual black, giving off the look of pure power. His arm is wrapped loosely around my mother's waist. She leans into him, laughing softly at something he says, her head resting against his shoulder as if it belongs there.

I focus and strain to hear.

"It will be beautiful," my mother says.

"Everything that you do is beautiful, Darling," Killian whispers back.

I can't help but I have to look at him, I keep looking at him no matter how much I try not to. I do try not to, but the bond drags my gaze back to him, over and over.

My wolf growls low in the back of my mind. She's unsettled and confused, scenting her mate in another woman's arms. My chest aches from betrayal, not that I have a right to feel it.

He felt it. I know he did.

"We should take a holiday," my mother says with a smile.

Killian nods slowly. "It will need to be once Aurora leaves."

Is he joking?

"No, we can leave with her still here, Caelan will be here to ensure she behaves," my mother says.

I stare at him, not long ago he whispered about how badly he wanted to claim me, and now he's out there, playing the perfect husband. All while I scrub dust from between stones with a rag that smells faintly of bloodrot.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek and lower my head, focusing on the smear of dirt I’ve already wiped clean three times.

It’s fine, this is how it's always been. Why am I pretending it now hurts? They laugh, and I kneel. She glow,s and I disappear. There's no changing the rules or how things worked out before.

Gritting my teeth, I dig harder into the stone, almost like punishing it might make the pressure that's building within me disappear. It won't, I know it won't, but it helps my mind in some way, and I feel like I'm cleaning my soul.

My eyes go back to the window, as if the bond wants to punish me. I watch as my mother tilts her face up and kisses his cheek. He smiles at her and pulls her closer, and she beams like she's won the world. He leans in, and I watch as he brushes his lips against her ear, and something inside of me twists so violently that I nearly choke on it.

I don’t even know what to call it, but I do know that he did that to me last night, the exact same thing, and now he's doing it to my mother?

Why doesn't the bond care who I am to him? It's like it doesn't care who I'm meant to marry, and it doesn't care about rules, titles, or the years I've spent hiding in plain sight while they pretended I didn't exist.

No, the bond doesn't care about any of that; it only cares that he's my mate. Fated to be mine.

It burns relentlessly, feral and hungry. The cloth slips from my fingers, still soaked. I stare at it for a long moment and listen to their laughter. It's a punishment, it has to be. That life my mother is living should be mine, but I know it never will be.

Even if that's the facts, my body still aches for him, and the bond screams at me to let him claim me. I wish I could rip it out of my chest, then burn it alive in front of Killian to show it means nothing to me. Not him or the bond.

Killian glances toward the window once, and his eyes flicker through it like he's watching me. For the briefest moment, our eyes lock, and everything stills. My breath catches, but his expression doesn't change. He doesn't smile or frown; he just stares unreadable, dangerous, and impossibly still.

Then he turns back to her, as if the moment never happened.

I pick up the cloth again with fingers that won’t stop trembling, press it hard to the floor, and keep scrubbing because it’s the only thing I can do that won’t betray how close I am to falling apart.