Roman
I gazed at the man in the fucking mirror and sighed. I could barely recognize myself after I let my mate leave me without putting up much of a fight. A part of me hoped that she wouldn’t go through with it. A part of me hoped that this was all some fucked up dream. But she was stubborn, and this was all my fault.
She should be with me. She should’ve been on the team. Not Vanessa. But I was so fucking jealous and terrified that Ryker would take her away from me that I couldn’t let it happen. Now it had happened.
My mate was at his pack, living in his house, getting close to that asshole.
Any day she could go through heat. Any fucking day. And I had no way of knowing when it was. Would she be strong enough to resist any other guy who wanted to mate her? There were plenty of wolves who would love the chance. Would she be strong enough to fight off the men to keep herself for me? Not with Ryker living in that house with her. He would take her, and he wouldn’t even care.
Why had I let her leave again?
I shook my head and adjusted my tie. She would be at the Night Raider’s Café tonight for the full moon party, and I was going to go to get her back. I’d drag her back if I had to, I’d placed her on the warriors, I’d… I stopped. I couldn’t. She was to be a Lycan for at least a year. A vow to the Lycans was as scared as divine law, and she couldn’t break divine law.
Tonight, I would go to see her, even if it was in passing. To smell her vanilla sweetness again, if I had a chance.
I gazed down at my dresser which was covered with all my late-night drawings of her. It was the dresser I emptied for her, the dresser I left her mate’s necklace on. And, when I looked at it, all I saw was the devastated expression she gave me when I told her I wouldn’t mark her before she left me.
Vanessa knocked two times on the door and walked into my room—uninvited.
Why the fuck did I even let her stay with me again? Did I not respect my mate that much to force her out? I lost all my damn respect for myself when I told her yes and told Derek that I would take care of Vanessa’s living arrangements after one of her water pipes burst.
She drew her finger across my dresser, then she touched me. Yes, she touched me.
Her finger grazed up my neck, and I let her. So fucking stupid. But it felt better than nothing. All I could picture were her fingers as Isabella’s. Teasing me like she always did. She never even had to try.
“You look so good,” she purred. “So, you decided to be my date for tonight?”
I swallowed hard and took her hand off of me. “Vanessa, what did I tell you about overstepping your boundaries?”
She gazed up at me through her long lashes that she had dressed in over a hundred coats of mascara. “Oh, come on Roman, don’t act like you haven’t ever thought about me.” She smirked and hopped onto my bed, breasts bouncing as she did. “I know you have.”
She was right. I had.
“Thinking about all the things you would do to me.” She grabbed my hand and put it around her throat. “Wrapping your hand around my throat, fucking me like you used to fuck Isabella.”
I wrapped my hand around her throat, dug my claws into her neck, and thrusted her off the bed and up against the wall. Then squeezed.
This was the only thing I had thought about doing to her, but I hadn’t been man enough to do it yet.
“I should’ve never let you live as a warrior. You’re beneath me. You’re beneath her. You’re beneath us.” I growled. “You will never have a chance with me. I have a mate.”
Her cheeks reddened. “A mate?” She spat. “She’s at the café right now with someone else.”
My hand tightened around her throat. She was lying.
“Jane sent me pictures of them,” she said. “She even said that she wasmarked.”
Both my hands slipped around her throat, and I lifted her off the floor. I wished that I could snap her neck right here, right now. She dug her nails into me, her eyes wide. “Leave before I kill you,” I seethed in her ear. It took everything I had to let go of her.
She fell to her knees and gasped for breath as I walked to the other side of the room, trying to calm myself down. A minute went by, then another, and that bitch was still in my room. “Get out, Vanessa.” I gazed out of the window, clenching my jaw. “Don’t make me say it again.”
She scurried out of the room, and when she was gone, I sat on the bed and dug my claws into the bedsheets. My Isabella was marked. My Isabella was with another man right now.
I had waited three years for her, turned down everyone and anyone for her, then fucking refused to mark her.
My wolf growled inside of me, ready to kill anyone who dared to touch our mate.
Vanessa had to be lying. She had to. She always did.
