I was relieved that Dr. Phears had been called; she was an expert in shifter medicine. Mhari was in good hands. It alleviated some of the anxiety making me feel nauseous to know that Dr. Phears was the Academy medic called upon.
As we left the grove and the Royal accommodation mansion came into view, I began to try to free my wrist from Selene’s grip.
I didn’t appreciate being pulled around—not when I was so angry, hurt, and confused. And why had she agreed to effectively let me be hunted?
“Why are you fighting me?” she growled in frustration, stopping but not releasing my wrist from her hold.
“Isn’t it obvious? I want you to let me go and stop dragging me wherever you please!” I yelled. “I’m not some toy for you to play with!” The anger bubbled up and out of me, and my voice rose.
“You are mine to do with as I please,” she replied, pulling me closer to her, causing me to trip and fall against her chest. My wrist was trapped in her hold between us, and her free arm wrapped around my waist. “Remember your place,” she whispered against my ear. “There are those who watch your insolence even now,” she warned.
“I thought my place was at your side, as your equal?” I whispered back, anger seething through my words. I used my free hand to push myself away from her. She let me create some space between us—it calmed me slightly, momentarily.
“By my side does not make you my equal. It makes you wanted, desired—my pet. Do not disrespect me in such a way that demands correction,” she replied, dragging me back into her by my waist and squeezing my wrist harder.
“You—you cruel, sadistic monster!” I yelled. “Did you watch as they stormed our home and my garden? Did you watch as they chased me into the grove? Do you know what it was like to be back there? To be chased, again, knowing it was useless to run, that there was no escape but no choice other than to try? I thought you were hurt, attacked, being kept from me. I kept thinking where were you? Why weren’t you there to protect me? And all along, you were in on it!” I accused.
“Enough!” she yelled.
“No!” I yelled back. “What you did was not the action of someone who loves me,” I continued.
“Stop,” she growled menacingly, her eyes glowing bright silver, her fangs on show. “You’re crossing a line,” she hissedquietly, pulling me tighter to her until I was pressed firmly against her. “How dare you, you insolent, naïve little witch, incapable of comprehending the danger you have wrought upon us. All that I do, I do for you,” she hissed, her forehead pressed against mine, her lips a hair’s width away from my own, sharing my breaths.
I was stilled by her closeness, and despite everything, I wanted to lean forward, tilt my jaw ever so slightly, and taste her lips, but she continued.
The fire of anger in my chest that had been squashed to embers was reignited once again in outrage. “Know your place and your duty to me,” she said.
The hypocrisy was outrageous. I was to know my place and duty, but apparently, she held none towards me.
“What about your duty to me as my—" I was cut off sharply.
She gripped my jaw tightly, fingers pressing firmly into my cheeks and forcing my lips to part before she leaned forward and kissed me with a painful pressure.
I tried to pull away—I couldn’t breathe from the suddenness of the action—but it was useless.
I was trapped in her grip. My lips ached from the force, the ghost of the pressure remaining as she released me from the kiss, allowing me to take a sharp inhale.
“Silence! Before I bruise your lips so thoroughly they cannot move to form words, or perhaps you would rather I draw screams from you until your lungs ache and your voice becomes so hoarse you struggle to so much as whisper,” she warned.
The anger in her eyes was stinging, and the promise in her quiet threat was clear. Fear ran down my spine like nothing I had experienced from her before.
And I remembered the strange anger from the previous night, how it had manifested bodily in my chest, and I wondered if this bone-deep fear was all my own. “Do you understand?” she demanded.
I did not reply; I simply held her eyes with my own. Defiant, but submitting with my silence, the silence she demanded.
All of Selene’s previous kisses had brought me pleasure in some way, had been expected, but this—this was something else, something wrong and I didn’t know how to respond. I felt further from her than ever before.
My response seemed to please her—her head tilting to the side slightly in a way that, in any other circumstance, I would have found cute—but it in that moment, it was animalistic, almost feral, and it caused my heartrate to spike.
She inhaled deeply, and her eyes left mine as she lifted her face away from me. I watched her critical eyes scan the area around us.
“Good. No more of your impertinence here,” she stated. She released my face and began to drag me towards our home again.
I stumbled up the stairs. If not for Selene, I doubted I would have had the energy to make the journey back. All my muscles protested with every step, and my stomach churned.
No Royal guard stood waiting to open the large double doors. Selene pushed one open herself and pulled me in behind her.
Usually, I felt a type of warmth when walking through the entrance to the Royal residence quarters, but now, there was no warmth. It felt eerily quiet, still, alone. I had not realised before that moment that there was usually a low hum of noise—of the guards who had rooms within the building.
