.Chapter 7-2
Don’t read into it, I told myself. Don’t read into anything. I mean, he probably saves random people all
the time. This doesn’t mean anything.
“Why did you help me?” I asked, because I needed to know if this was just him being a decent
person or if there was more to it.
He stayed silent for a long moment, just staring at me with those intense green eyes that occasionally flashed red. The silence stretched between us until it became uncomfortable, and I started fidgeting with the sleeves of his shirt.
Finally, he spoke. And completely ignored my question. “Tell me everything that happened.”
“Everything?” I asked, startled by the sudden demand.
His voice hardened, becoming more commanding. “Every. Detail.”
Well, shit. So much for him being the strong, silent type who didn’t ask questions. His eyes had gone completely red now, and his posture was rigid with barely contained tension. I felt like I was being interrogated by someone who could see straight through any lies I might try to tell.
“That’s a long story,” I said, stalling.
“I have time.”
Right. Of course he did. He’d been living in a cave for eighteen years, time was probably the one thing he had plenty of.
I took a deep breath and tried to organize my thoughts. Where the hell was I supposed to start? With the skirmishes between our people? With volunteering to marry his son? With discovering Kellan was a manipulative psychopath with mind control powers?
“Okay,” I said, settling back against the cave wall. “But you’re not going to like any of this.”
His expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight tightening around his eyes. “Start talking.”
“Fine. About five years ago, your people found our mountain. We’d been living there for generations, thinking we were the only supernatural creatures in the area. Turns out we were wrong, because your kingdom exists and apparently you guys needed resources, or just wanted magic.”
I paused to gauge his reaction, but his face remained impassive. Only the continued red glow of his eyes showed he was listening intently.
“At first, it was just scouts testing our borders. Then it escalated to full raids on our outer
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settlements. People started dying on both sides, and the conflicts kept getting worse. My pack is the largest on the mountain, so most of the fighting fell to us.”
His jaw tightened slightly at that, which was the first real emotion I’d seen from him.
“My parents, the alphas, they tried everything. Diplomatic envoys, peace talks, even offering tribute
if your people would just leave us alone. Nothing worked. Your son wasn’t interested in negotiation.”
“And you volunteered to marry him,” Kane said, his voice flat.
“Yeah.” I met his gaze steadily. “I volunteered to marry him. Against my parents’ wishes, against the advice of my pack, against every instinct I had. Because I thought it was the only way to stop the bloodshed.”
“What made you think Kellan would honor a marriage alliance?”
Good question. Looking back, I wasn’t sure why I’d believed it would work.
“Hope, I guess. Stupidity. The belief that even a spoiled prince would want peace more than war.” I shrugged. “I was wrong about a lot of things.”
“What happened at the wedding?”
And here we were at the fun part. I rubbed my temples, trying to figure out how to explain the mind control situation without revealing too much about my abilities.
“I went to his room the night before the ceremony. Caught him with one of my maids. When I confronted him about it, he tried to…” I paused, searching for the right words. “Let’s just say he attempted to make me more agreeable to the situation. But it didn’t work the way he expected.”
Kane’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“He got angry when his persuasion failed. Really angry. At the wedding, he tried again, and when that didn’t work either, he completely lost his shit. Rejected me in front of everyone, called me worthless, and ordered his guards to arrest me.”
I was being deliberately vague about the magic part. That was information I wasn’t ready to share with anyone, even if my wolf was convinced this man was my mate.
Kane was quiet for a long moment, processing what I’d told him. When he spoke again, his voice was deadly calm.
“Why did he say to you?”
The humiliation came flooding back, and I had to swallow past the lump in my throat. “That I was a
mountain-born nobody, a conniving bitch who couldn’t follow orders. That he wouldn’t lower
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Chapter 7-2
himself to touch me or let my blood stain his bed.”
I left out the part about him calling my blood “filthy null blood.” That would raise too many
questions I wasn’t prepared to answer.
Claim
A low growl rumbled from Kane’s chest, and the temperature in the cave seemed to drop several degrees. His hands were clenched into fists, and I could practically feel the rage radiating off him.
“And then?”
“Then his guards tried to grab me, my aunts started a fight to give me time to escape, and I ran. A councilman found me in the hallway and told me to head for the woods, so I did.”
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