She’ll never see it coming.
She’ll have no choice but to mate me now.
She’ll smell delectable when she realizes just how trapped she truly is.
I’ll so enjoy breaking her. She hasn’t behaved as a mate should, but I’ll show her… I’ll show her what it means to obey.
Dominate, degrade, defile.
My scent spikes with fear again, and Rad breathes me in, his chest expanding with his breath, and when he turns to me with a smile, his face is awash with the pleasure of my terror.
I pull my affinity back, too afraid of what I’ll find, too preoccupied with what I’ve already found. Saints, what won’t I see coming? He’s full of smug joy at the surprise he has in store for me. Has he shown results? He has no doubt we’ll soon be mated, so he must have.
I watch my days of freedom dwindle and wish I had more of a plan than I do.
Wish I had more than my feeble, fleeting courage.
CHAPTER11
When the game ends, he doesn’t release me. He watches the stadium below us empty and then stands, drawing me up with him. He squeezes my hand so tightly I feel my bones grind together and I wince, which draws out a slow, appreciative smile on his face.
“Come, I want to congratulate Kel on a game well won.”
Oh, we won? The roar of the crowd was nothing more than static between my ears as my terror overtook me.
Rad shoots a snide look at Marcus and snaps his fingers at him. “Come along, Haley. Follow us like the trained dog she’s made you into.”
I shoot Marcus a quick look, but he doesn’t meet my eyes.
Rad escorts us down to the home team locker rooms and we find them empty but for Kelvin Montrose.
Saints, Rad’s led me straight into a trap, and like the prey I am, I followed. A willing lamb to the slaughter.
Kel slams Marcus into the lockers the moment he steps into the room, holding him there with his arm braced against Marcus’ neck, his scribe pointed right at my honor guard’s heart.
Rad releases me and I look around desperately, but he blocks the only way out with his body. He stalks toward me, backing me up toward the lockers, and I stumble backwards, trying to get away from him.
“You haven’t been behaving,” he chides. “I can smell your filthy alphas on you, and I won’t tolerate it. Tell me, beloved, what happens when you don’t behave?”
My scent spikes, its sweetness turning bitter in the still air of the locker room. “You punish me. Are you going to hurt me?”
He smiles, but it’s more like a predator baring its teeth. “Oh no, my beloved. I’m not going to hurtyou.”
He whirls on Marcus, whipping out his scribe, and shouts a hex. “Agonia augiere!”
Kel spins out of the way just in time for the hex to strike Marcus right over the heart.
My honor guard lets out an animalistic roar of pain and collapses to his knees, clutching his heart. His sounds of torment rend through me, cutting me to ribbons, but they don’t let up. Marcus falls to his side, balled up as if trying to protect himself from being hexed again.
But the damage is done.
He writhes on the floor of the locker room, agony piercing through him.
Saints, I have to help him. I have to do something!
I throw myself to my knees in front of Rad and bare my neck to him. “Please, let me help him,” I beg, my voice shaking. I don’t bother trying to hide my terror. Not now when it’s my terror he wants above all else.
Rad waves toward Marcus, and I scramble over to him on my hands and knees, drawing my scribe. I cast the only sigil I can think of: three lines with a fourth diagonal line slashing through them. It’s the simple sigil for strength Ian wanted me to cast when Marcus and Cassian were hit by the Ever Ember hex.
