CHAPTER THREE

The slap cracked through the corridor like a gunshot.

Klaus’s head snapped to the side, and I watched the red bloom across his cheek. My palm stung. My whole body was trembling—from rage, from that damned kiss, from the way every nerve ending came alive under his touch like I’d been dead for five years and he had just breathed life back into me.

I hated it. I hated him. I hated that for one traitorous second, I had kissed him back.

“Yes,” I snapped, “Yes, I’m Margaux. And you better stay the fuck away from me because there was nothing between us. There would never be anything between us.”

He touched his jaw, working it slowly. “How could I stay away? We’re mates—”

“Do you really think I gave a damn about the mate bond? I didn’t!!”

“Margaux—”

“You humiliated me.” My voice rose, years of buried pain clawing up my throat. “You broke my heart. You disgraced me in front of your spoiled, rich brat friends, laughing while they threw coins at your feet, and you had the nerve to touch me like…like nothing had happened?”

“Let me explain—”

“Because I was nothing, right?” I stepped forward, and he actually backed up. Good. “Because I was just an Omega. Just some pathetic girl stupid enough to believe you actually cared.”

“That’s not…”

“But now?” I smiled, cold and sharp. “Now I was going to be married to the King. Your father. Mate bond or not, I would be his Queen…YOUR FUCKING QUEEN. And you would do well to treat me and accord me some fucking respect.”

Klaus’s expression hardened, and I saw pain flash across his expression for some seconds before he masked it with a cold look that sent chills down my spine.

“That wasn’t going to happen.”

“Excuse me?”

“You weren’t marrying him.” He closed the distance I had just created, towering over me. “You belonged to me. The Moon Goddess ordained it. She marked you as mine, bound us together, and I didn’t give a damn how it was going to happen, but nobody—not even my father—would take what belonged to me.”

I laughed, “Belonged to you? I wasn’t a possession—”

“I would have you as mine.” His eyes blazed amber fire. “You would not marry my father. Even if I had to carry you out of that mansion myself, you would not—”

“You didn’t get to decide that.”

“The mate bond—”

“Could rot in hell along with you.” I shoved at his chest. “The mate bond was meant to be honored? Fine. You dishonored it the moment you took money to fuck me and throw me away.”

He flinched like I had hit him again.

“I would rather die than honor anything between us.” The words tasted like poison, but I spat them out anyway. “I hated you, Klaus. You were dead to me. You’d been dead to me for five years.”

“You didn’t mean that—”

“Every. Single. Word.” I pushed past him, my shoulder slamming into his. “Now get out of my way before I scream for the guards and tell them the Prince forced himself on me.”

His hand shot out, catching my wrist.

I whirled on him. “Let. Go.”

“Margaux, please—”

“That was Your Majesty to you.” I yanked my arm free. “Or had you forgotten? I was about to become your stepmother.”

Something raw and wounded flashed across his face, but I didn’t stay to watch it settle. I turned and walked toward the door at the end of the hall—my chambers, presumably. Each step felt like moving through quicksand.

“This isn’t over,” he called after me.

I didn’t look back. “Yes, it was.”

“I’ll tell him who you really are. I’ll expose you—”

I stopped. Turned slowly. “Go ahead. Tell him the dead Omega girl he tried to have killed five years ago was standing in his palace about to marry him.” I tilted my head. “I’m sure that conversation would go wonderfully for both of us.”

His jaw clenched. We both knew the truth—if Aldric found out I had survived, I was dead. And since I was his mate, that meant his death too.

Stalemate.

“Stay away from me, Klaus.” I reached for the door handle. “I wasn’t here for you. I wasn’t here for some fairy tale mate bond reunion. I was here for one reason, and you weren’t part of it.”

“Then why were you here?”

I met his eyes one last time. Let him see the cold hatred burning there.

“That was none of your concern, stepson.”

I slipped inside and slammed the door behind me, turning the lock with shaking hands.

Then I slid down to the floor, pressed my forehead against my knees, and tried to remember how to breathe.