Chapter 6

Rowan’s POV

My eyes didn't leave the silhouette stumbling through the rain toward me.

I leaned against the matte-black hood of my SUV, the cold drizzle soaking into my tactical shirt, but I didn't feel the chill. I felt her. Veda Bennett was a flicker of dying light in the middle of a graveyard, her white dress stained, her hair plastered to her cheeks.

She should have been halfway to the High-Rise by now. I’d given her the exit. I’d given her the escape. Instead, the stubborn little fool had gone back inside to face the wolves who had just finished tearing her heart out.

"You're still here," she panted, stopping a few feet away.

She was trembling, her chest heaving, but her eyes—those hazel eyes—were burning with a fire that hadn't been there an hour ago.

"I don't leave my property behind," I said, my voice a low grate against the sound of the rain. "I assumed you’d finally finished your farewell tour of the gutter."

Veda flinched as if I’d slapped her, but she didn't look away. "Why, Rowan?"

"Why what, Veda? Speak clearly. I don't have the patience for riddles tonight."

"Why me?" She took a step closer, invading the space most Alphas were too terrified to enter. "You could have had land. You could have had gold. You could have had an elite omega who actually knows how to be a Luna. Instead, you took the one your nephew threw away like trash. Why?"

I straightened up, the movement slow and predatory. I let my height tower over her, my shadow swallowing her whole. I could smell her now—vanilla, salt, and the sharp, metallic tang of a broken bond. It was a scent that made my inner wolf shift, baring its teeth at the thought of the man who had caused it.

"Maybe I like trash," I murmured, leaning down until my lips were inches from her ear. "Or maybe I saw something in that ballroom that everyone else was too blind to notice."

"What?" she breathed.

"Potential."

I pulled back, my gaze raking over her. "Julian wanted a doll he could pose on a throne. I want someone who knows how to survive a knife in the back. Now, get in the fucking car."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me the truth," she snapped, her voice rising. "This is a game to you. A way to humiliate Julian. You're using me as a weapon."

"You say that like it’s a bad thing."

I reached out, my thumb catching a stray raindrop on her lower lip. She froze, her breath hitching, her pupils blowing out until her eyes were almost entirely black. The tension between us was a live wire, humming with a dark, twisted electricity. I wanted to see how far I could push her before she broke. Or before she bit me.

"Rowan?"

The voice broke the spell. Marcus, my Beta, stepped out from the shadows of the estate’s pillars. He looked at me, then at the shivering girl standing in my personal space, and his jaw practically hit the pavement.

"Tell me the rumors are wrong," Marcus said, his voice tight. "Tell me you didn't actually agree to marry the Prince’s reject."

"The rumors are understating it, Marcus," I said, not taking my eyes off Veda. "The paperwork is already being filed. She’s moving into the penthouse."

"The penthouse?" Marcus hissed, stepping closer. "Boss, the Council is already having a collective stroke. Taking her as a ward is one thing, but a marriage? To a Bennett? It’s a political nightmare."

"Then let them lose sleep over it," I replied coldly. "I don't remember asking for your opinion on my domestic arrangements."

Marcus went silent, his neck baring instinctively in submission, though his eyes remained skeptical. He looked at Veda with a mixture of pity and distrust, but he knew better than to push me when my aura was this close to the surface.

I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. A familiar, irritating scent.

I looked past Veda, toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the ballroom. Julian was standing there, his hand resting on the glass, his golden-boy features twisted into something ugly and possessive. He was watching us. He was watching her. Even after the rejection, even after the humiliation, he still looked at her like she was a toy he’d put in the "donate" bin but was suddenly reconsidering.

Veda followed my gaze. I saw her shoulders slump, a flicker of that old, pathetic longing crossing her face for a split second.

My blood turned to liquid lead.

I grabbed her arm, my grip firm enough to make her gasp, and hauled her flush against my chest. My other hand went to the back of her head, forcing her to look up at me, blocking her view of the palace.

I looked over her head, locking eyes with Julian through the glass. I didn't growl. I didn't shift. I just let the Butcher look at the Prince. I let him see exactly what I was doing, claiming the space he had vacated. Julian flinched, his hand dropping from the glass as he took a step back into the light of his own hollow celebration.

"He's still looking at you," I hissed against Veda’s lips.

"He's my mate," she whispered, her voice trembling.

"He was your mate," I corrected, my voice a dark, jagged edge. "Now, he's just the man who was too weak to keep you. And I don't share, Veda. Not even with memories."

I shoved her gently toward the open door of the SUV. She stumbled, catching herself on the leather seat, before turning back to look at me with wide, terrified eyes.

"You're a monster," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

"I told you that already," I said, stepping into the vehicle and shutting the door, sealing us in the silent, leather-scented darkness.

As the engine roared to life and we pulled away from the Kingsley estate, I looked at her. She was huddled against the door, staring out at the rain, her fingers picking at the torn silk of her dress. She was still mourning. Still bleeding for a man who didn't deserve a drop of her sorrow.

"Listen to me," I said, my voice cutting through the silence of the cabin.

She didn't turn around.

"Look at me, Veda."

Slowly, she turned her head.

"The Council wants blood. Julian wants a distraction. And you want a savior," I said, my eyes boring into hers. "You won't find one in me. But you will find a husband."

I leaned across the console, my hand catching her chin, forcing her to see the cold reality of the life she had just entered.

"You have two weeks," I said, the words a final, heavy vow. "Two weeks to stop looking at him like he still owns you. Because when I put that ring on your finger, if I catch you even thinking his name, I will give you a reason to fear the man you’re sleeping next to."

I let her go, turning my gaze back to the road ahead. The High-Rise was waiting, a tower of glass and steel that would either be her sanctuary or her tomb.

Veda didn't say a word. She just sat there, the silence in the car heavy with the weight of a future she hadn't chosen, and a man she didn't yet understand.

I didn't mind the silence. I had two weeks to teach her that the dark wasn't something to fear.

It was something to become.