chapter 9

Daisy

Daisy, my name in his mouth hit me harder than any slap.

For one wild second, I thought it was over. I thought he knew. I thought he'd felt it in the way my body fit against his, or tasted it on my skin, or finally smelled it through the last of the pills.

I waited for his face to change. For the shock. For the rage, It didn't come.

He squeezed his eyes shut like he was in pain. His forehead dropped against mine, and he dragged in a ragged breath.

"Fuck," he whispered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean... I'm sorry."

And just like that, I understood, je didn't know. He was lying in bed with a woman named Rose, and he was thinking about someone else, he was thinking about me.

I don't know how to explain what that did to me. It was the most beautiful thing and the cruelest thing anyone had ever said to me, all at once. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream. I wanted to shove him off the bed and tell him everything, just to watch him break.

,

"Who's Daisy?" I heard myself asking. His whole body went rigid above me.

"Nobody," he said.

"You said her name."

"I said nobody." His eyes snapped open, black and wild.

"Don't ask me about her. Not tonight. Not ever."

Nobody, two years of tearing the country apart. Two years of cake on the kitchen counter every night. Two years of sitting in my empty bedroom until the sun came up. And I was still nobody.

'He's lying,' Nyx whimpered.

'You know he's lying.' I did know. That was the worst part.

"Do you want me to stop?" he said, his voice was rough.

"Say it, and I'm gone." I should have said it.

I didn't. I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down to mine.

If he was going to think about Daisy, then fine. Daisy was right here. Daisy was the one he'd have to live with. Every time he looked at Celeste for the rest of his life, he'd remember tonight, and he'd never know why it hurt so much. He groaned into my mouth like he'd been starving for years.

The rest of the ripped shirt went flying across the room. His hands were everywhere. Rough and hot and shaking, gripping my hips, sliding up my ribs, tangling in my hair. Every place he touched me burned like he was branding me.

"So soft," he said against my throat.

"So fucking soft."

His teeth scraped across my neck, right over the place where his mark would go, and my back arched off the bed. Nyx howled so loud my vision went white at the edges.

He felt it too. I knew he did. His whole body shuddered, and a growl ripped out of his chest that didn't sound human at all.

"What are you?" he breathed.

"What the hell are you doing to me?"

I didn't answer, I couldn't. He kissed his way down my body like he was trying to memorize it. Slow, then not slow at all. When he finally came back up and settled between my legs, he stopped. He braced himself on his arms and looked down at me in the moonlight.

His eyes flickered. Black to gold. Gold to blue. Like he and his wolf were fighting over something.

"Look at me," he said. I looked at him.

"Last chance, Rose," he said through his teeth.

"I don't want a last chance," I whispered.

"I want you."

He pushed into me slowly, and the whole world broke apart. It hurt. Just for a second. He froze, his eyes going wide, and I knew he'd felt it.

"You've never..." he said.

"Don't," I begged.

"Don't stop. Please."

Something changed in his face. Something so tender it was almost worse than anything cruel he'd ever done to me. He bent down and kissed my forehead. My eyelids. The tear that slid down my cheek.

Then he started to move. I stopped thinking, I stopped hating. There was only him, and the heat, and the bond screaming between us like a living thing. Sparks raced across every inch of my skin. Every time he moved, he growled my fake name into my neck like it was the only word he knew.

Rose. Rose. Rose.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I forgot it wasn't really mine.

When it was over, he collapsed beside me and pulled me against his chest so hard I could barely breathe. His arm was locked around my waist like iron. His heart was pounding against my back. He buried his face in my hair and breathed in, slow and deep, like he was drowning and I was air.

For a few minutes, neither of us said anything. For a few minutes, I let myself pretend, he was mine. I was his. Nobody had ever said plaything. Nobody had ever stood at a window and watched me go.

'He's ours,' Nyx purred, curled up warm and happy in my chest.

'He's finally ours.'

Then his arm slid away from my waist. The mattress shifted. The cold rushed in where his body had been.

I rolled over. Lucien was sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to me, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands.

"Lucien?"

"This can't happen again," he said.

The words hit me in the chest like a fist.

"What?"

"I'm marrying Celeste in a month." His voice was flat and hollow.

"The treaty with Crescent is signed. My pack needs it. I gave my word."

I sat up slowly, pulling the sheet over my chest. My hands were shaking.

"Then why are you here?"

He didn't answer. He stood up and grabbed his jeans from the floor. He pulled them on without looking at me once.

"You were a virgin," he said quietly.

"So?"

"So you should have told me."

"Would it have changed anything?"

He finally turned around. His face was a mask. Cold. Empty. The same face he wore the night he ripped up my letter. The same face he wore at that window.

"No," he said.

Something inside me cracked so loud I was sure he could hear it.

"Get some sleep, Rose," he said.

"You look tired."

He walked back through the hidden door. The bookcase slid shut behind him. I sat there in the dark, naked and alone in my old bedroom, staring at the wall between us.

I didn't cry, not at first. I just picked up the pieces of his ripped shirt off the floor and held them in my lap. Then I cried until the sun came up.

At breakfast, the dining room was full. Celeste was glowing in a pink silk dress. Her father sat beside her, smiling like a man who'd just won something. Seraphina was on her phone. Damien took one look at my face and put his fork down.

Lucien sat at the head of the table. He didn't look at me when I walked in. Not once.

I sat at the end of the table and stared at my coffee. My whole body ached. My neck was covered in marks I'd hidden under a high collar. Lucien tapped his glass with a knife. The room went quiet.

"I have an announcement," he said.

Celeste reached over and squeezed his hand. He didn't squeeze back.

"The Luna ceremony is being moved up," he said.

"It will happen on Saturday."

Three days. Gasps went around the table. Celeste squealed and kissed his cheek. Her father clapped him on the back.

I didn't move. I couldn't. I sat there with my hands wrapped around my cup so tight I thought it would shatter.

Then Lucien turned his head and looked straight at me for the first time all morning. His eyes were ice.

"And Rose," he said, "your services are no longer needed."

The room went silent again.

"I've arranged for a new healer from the Crescent pack," he went on calmly.

"She arrives tonight. You'll be paid in full, of course. A car will be waiting at the gates at dawn." A car at the gates at dawn. Just like last time.

"You can't," I whispered. "Your mother..."

"My mother," he said, "is no longer your concern."

He picked up his coffee and took a sip, like he hadn't just ripped my heart out in front of everyone.

"Pack your bags, Rose," he said.

"You're done here."