Lies and Costs

My back is pressed tightly against the cool wall. My heart beats violently, and I begin to think it will burst through my back and into the plaster of the wall. Glynn's hot breath scorches down the side of my face, humid and close.

I fight every instinct I have not to flinch. He’s too close—so close I can feel the heat of him like a fire I can’t escape. I freeze. This unbearable moment is inked by his possessive nature and searing, growing anger.

"I hear that beautiful sound of your prey like nature beating in your chest," Glynn slyly says as he places his hands on my hips. "I guess you and Marta are both just so addictive."

"This isn't some sort of sick game." I hiss through clenched teeth.

One desperate, quick fluid motion, and I am out from under his arms and making my way quickly down the stairs.

"Dad, please don't do this." I plead to my father at the foot of the staircase, as he signals for his guards to go upstairs and get Booker. My voice is as shaky as my eyes squint to plead. He doesn't look at me but instead stays cold and unreasonable. 

Then I hear it.

There is a nasty, wet, dull, sickening thud of a fist against flesh. I can't hear Booker make any tangible language now. He makes no more pleas. The second punch sounds like it lands harder. By the third, he’s collapsing, and I can’t listen anymore.

I turn my head, but I can almost mimic the sounds he makes as they walk him to the stairs.

His groan pierces. The shuffle of his feet on the tile became needles in my brain. The muffled sob tears its way out before they drag him down through the front door and to his fate that I have no control over, even as his alpha queen.

When he's gone, my knees wobble. My nails dig into my palms, and I find myself falling onto my bottom. I feel unfortunately, weak. My life has begun to change me and I don't like the way it's headed.

Glynn saunters downstairs as the predator who has his kill in his jaws. Every movement is fluid, practiced—he’s a cat, smug and slinking, about to lap up the cream. He couldn't just let me suffer. This wolf was pure animal, and he enjoyed the torture.

His eyes glint with something monstrous, shifting like oil under moonlight until they’re no longer eyes at all—just pieces of something monstrous peeking through a beautiful, eerie, placid expression. I hate him. I hate the smile that blooms across his face like the rot of fruit in spring.

He grins playfully as he rolls the cuffs of his shirt to his elbows, deliberate and slow. His bare, firm chest strains against the buttons of his shirt, half-undone like always, as if to remind the room who it belongs to. His arrogance has always been his gift and his barrier.

“He raped your sister, Jocelyn.” His voice slithers across the room. He shakes his head, but it’s not remorse, but easy condescension. “Maybe this is the moon mother letting me know that you don't understand honor at all, and that we were never truly meant to be mates.”

"Except you know that we are." I suddenly bite my tongue as my heart lodges firmly in my chest. He was giving me a sliver of a way out, and I just slammed the door shut in my miracle's face.

I  bulldozed over the fact that he wants out, too, because of my own arrogance. His gaze snaps to mine. There’s curiosity there... but something colder grows behind it. He studies me like I’m a riddle he hasn’t solved yet.

His stare is curious but powerful. A part of me—God help me—is pulled toward it. The detective in him is dangerous. Addictive.

“You will behave,” he says softly, but the words are steel. He steps forward, the space between us devoured in a blink. He towers over me, and for a breath, I wonder if he’s going to kiss me—or kill me.

Then he spins me.

His wolf claws dig at my clothes, tearing them aside with terrifying ease until my mark is exposed. It is like he is using scissors to undress me. All softness drains from him. His hands clamp down on the still-healing circular wound, his fingers dig into the raw flesh with violent precision.

Blood flicks off and flakes wisp into the air as he peels the skin wider. An indescribable pain rales through me.

“Fuck!” I scream, my body arching. The pain is fire and razors, slicing through bone and what is left of my brain power from the events of the last 24 hours.

“I should rip it all the way open,” he mutters darkly.

Then—God, no—he lowers his mouth to it. He bites. Sharp and cruel, his tongue traces the open mark, sucking at it like a wound that will never heal.

“Why?” I'm sobbing, intending to get just one pinch of compassion from him as I'm bent over and barely able to breathe. The floor rises to meet me. My tears fall unchecked, heavy, humiliating. I'm wearing a dunce cap.

“Because maybe—just maybe—if we bond deeper through your mark, you’ll have a reason not to embarrass me so much, and a bigger reason to make me wait to kill you after you’ve done the one thing you will do right...”

"And that would be exactly?" I knew what he was going to say, but I couldn't back down to his power any longer.

He leans in, breath hot and cruel against my ear like a barbecue poker. “Give. Me. A healthy. Male. Heir.” He jerks away now, with his teeth clenched, and storms from my bedroom toward my father. Toward more destruction and male ego. They were perfect mates for each other.

My knees buckle. My youth was never supposed to hinder me this much. I had been trained for years to be a wife, guardian, and alpha. I was my father's daughter and my mother's twin. My sister and I had been the envy of many bitches growing up. Yet here I am cowering to Glynn only because he demands it.

Blood drips in ribbons onto the cold floor, pooling beneath. I can't look down. My body trembles. The world shifts sideways. One ragged breath... then complete blackness.