CHAPTER FIVE

Hearing it stings so much.

Kairi did not simply insult me because I am a woman. He insulted me as a mother concerning the welfare of our daughter by saying I was crazy and that I was making it all up like child’s ploy to get his attention. 

I can’t believe that he still to chooses to side with Riri even after telling him the truth that they gambled with our child's life.

Something inside of me wanted to shout and shatter every window in the room with the force of my wrath. But the mother in me had to keep her ground. She had to negotiate.

I took a shaky breath, feeling all of the fight drain out of me, leaving a crushing, soul-deep fatigue. I stared at the floor and the worn pattern on the rug.

"You wouldn’t really listen to me anyways, so I'll be taking this money for Elisse’s medication.." My mouth was dry.

A knowing, cruel grin twisted his lovely lips. It was a face that had before promised passion but now just promised contempt. "There it is. I knew it. I knew you were doing it for the money."

He then moved, crossing the space between us in two quick steps. He leaned in, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear, and a terrible, instinctive tremor surged through me.

This was the overwhelming control of our mate bond, which I couldn't overcome no matter how much my head and heart protested. My legs felt weak, and my willpower dissolved in the familiar, seductive presence of him.

"You could just ask, you know," he muttered, his voice low and intimate, promising dark, pleasurable things. "You remember how. Take good care of me tonight and I'll give you your pocket money. "As usual."

As usual. The statement hovered in the air, unflattering and degrading. Those two words transformed a lifetime of emotions into a transaction. like a payment for services given. 

I couldn't help it. A brittle, hollow laugh escaped me. I pulled back to look him in the eyes. "As usual? Kairi, what is this 'as usual' now? so, everything you told me earlier was a lie in front of Jack, wasn't it? You merely uttered things because of your status as an Alpha in the Cresendo pack. So, am I only just the usual person you need to warm your bed? Especially when you couldn't have Princess Bianca, right?"

He shifted instantly. The smirk disappeared. The seductive heat in his eyes turned to something harsh and threatening. He straightened up, his presence now overpowering.  

“What did you just say?” he asked.

However, the front door swung open again, and my mother, Shy, walked in, her arms full of grocery bags. She froze, sensing the tension so thick you could taste it.

“Alpha Kairi? What’s going on?” she asked, her eyes wide. Then they landed on me. “Sze, what have you done now? Where’s Jack? ”

Before I could speak, Kairi’s attention focused on me. “Whatever business I have for Bianca doesn’t concern you, Sze.”

“Did you just say Bianca?” My mother dropped her bags on the floor with a thud. “The princess of Moonrise Pack? Where is she? Is she here?” Her concern was strange, overly excited.

From Shy’s back, Jack reentered the house, emboldened by the shift in conversation, found his voice. “You haven’t heard? Everyone’s talking about it! Princess Bianca is coming to our pack for a three-month diplomatic visit. It’s a huge deal!”

Kairi's head jerked around, his glare a laser that nailed each of us in turn—my mother, Jack, and then me. The dissatisfied mate's mask was gone, and the merciless Alpha had entirely replaced it.

"Enough," he demanded, his voice falling into a firm tone that would not be defied. "I don't care about the rumors you've heard. Bianca's visit is extremely important from a political standpoint. This pack's future may be determined by the alliances formed during her stay. There will be no errors. There's no gossing making. No hysterics." His gaze fixed on mine, delivering the ultimate order. "Do you all understand me?" 

“Yes, Alpha,” my mother and stepfather chirped in immediate, cowed unison.

I just stood there, numb. I didn’t have the energy to agree with his lies. 

How could he stand there and construct this cage of political necessity around his betrayal? Was he the same person who had sworn his heart to me under the full moon?

I didn’t get a chance to find an answer. His hand closed around my wrist, his grip iron-strong. He didn’t say a word, just dragged me out of the house and toward his waiting car. I stumbled after him, too stunned, too emotionally ravaged to resist.

He shoved me into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The interior was a prison of his scent. Before I could even process what was happening, he was on me, his body half across the console, his lips crushing mine.

It wasn’t a kiss. It was an assault. A reclamation. A reminder of his power over me. It was the Mate bond being wielded like a weapon. My body, traitorous and weak, responded to the familiar taste of him. A low moan caught in my throat, and I felt myself melting, the anger and the hurt momentarily drowned out by a primal, addictive need.

Then a tear escaped, tracing a hot path down my temple and into my hairline. Another followed. I wasn’t sobbing; I was just leaking a silent, profound despair.

He felt it. He stilled. His lips softened against mine for a fraction of a second, and then he pulled away. In the dim light of the dashboard, he looked at my face, at the tears he had only just noticed. 

For a fleeting moment, something unfamiliar flickered in his eyes—not anger, not desire, but something almost like confusion, perhaps even shame.

He didn’t speak. He straightened up, and then he pulled out the gift and shoved it into my hand. It was more than enough. It was always more than enough.

He didn’t look at me again. He just waited for me to get out, and then he drove away, leaving me standing on the curb with the gift and envelope of money clutched in my hand—a payment for a debt he would never understand—and the taste of his betrayal, and my own powerless desire, bitter on my lips.