Chapter 2: MATE

Layla

“Aren’t you afraid of blasphemy? The light might strike you for speaking against the goddess.”

I huffed. “If the Moon Goddess wants to smite someone, she can start with him.” I jerked my chin at Ben. “Not me.”

“You speak boldly for a lowly slave,” he added.

Anyone could recognize status by scent, except me. As a human slave, my nose was useless. But if he could tell what I was instantly, he must’ve been high-ranking. My fragile womanly ego cracked a little, but fine… beggars can’t be choosers.

“I apologize,” I murmured. My back still burned from the whipping, and I wasn’t trying to collect bonus pain tonight. A smart woman knows when to bow her head and bite her tongue.

The next round of the mating ritual would begin in thirty minutes. Most guests had slipped into the gardens for food, drinks, or whatever mated wolves did. Everyone but the man next to me. He hadn’t moved at all. Not a twitch. His aura alone was enough to press against my skin like cold iron.

I cleared my throat. “So… are you here to find your mate?”

I don’t know why, but I suddenly wanted to talk to him. His presence felt…minty. Weirdly minty. Like that mint-flavored cigarette I once stole off a Gamma, which was cool, addicting, sharp, bad for you, but you still crave it. His aura felt exactly like that: cool, addictive, intense, and choking.

He was choking me...

You dirty ass, not in that way...

“No,” he said flatly.

“Oh.” I blinked. I liked that he wasn’t here for a mate. Again, why do I like it?

“You already have one?” I asked, trying to know more about him.

“No.” Once again, the frustrating short answer.

“Ah. The unlucky, then.”

Honestly? I liked that too. People who were miserable always felt like my people. No FOMO when the whole room sucked equally.

“Aren’t you overstepping your boundaries by calling me unlucky?” he asked sharply.

I squinted into the darkness, trying to see his face. Nothing. Just a tall shadow with a voice that could slice stone.

“Am I?” I said. “I don’t think so. I asked a normal question, and you answered with the shortest and most boring replies ever. Not fun.”

For some reason, arguing with him felt comforting.

A small pause. He asked me with that razor-sharp tongue of his, “Do you always talk this much? Even with strangers?”

I shrugged. “Not really. Only when I’m nervous or hungry. Or both.”

He didn’t respond.

A servant eventually placed a plate of food in front of him, which smelled like roast meat, golden and buttery bread, and herbs that smelled like heaven.

He didn’t even glance at it. How do I know? Because I stared at that plate in the dark for a solid minute, like it held this secret superpower to inhale it all.

“You’re… not gonna eat that?” I whispered after a while.

“No.”

My stomach growled loud enough to be its own animal.

My cheeks heated, but honestly, can shame feed me? No.

“Can I have it then?” I asked.

A pause.

Then: “Okay.”

That was all I needed.

It was too dark to see the food, but it smelled divine. I tore into it with the grace of a starving gremlin. Juice ran down my chin, but did I care? Absolutely not. The plate was clean in minutes.

I turned to him, licking my fingers. “Good food. Thanks, dude.”

He turned his head slightly. “Dude?”

“Yeah,” I said cheerfully. “It’s a word I invented. Means someone who is nice to me.”

“Nice to you?” he repeated, like I was speaking in some foreign language.

“Yep. You let me eat your food. That’s nice.” I grinned, knowing he couldn’t see it.

He didn’t smile back. The air only grew thick between us and oddly intense. Like I said, his aura was intense and choking me...

Then the bells chimed again.

The next session of the mating ritual began.

A beam of silver light split through the ballroom, stretching farther and farther all the way to the darkest, loneliest corner.

Our corner.

The light stopped on us.

I froze. My breath lodged in my throat.

Slowly, I turned to him.

His eerily glowing crimson eyes met mine.

His wolf snarled inside him, one word echoing through the hall:

“Mate.”

My jaw dropped.

“What. The. Actual. Fuck.”