“Isn’t it?” I drop the bracelet at his feet with the rest. “The dresses, the shoes, the jewelry. All of it was you trying to make yourself feel better about what you were doing to me.”
I slip out of my heels. These ridiculously expensive, beautiful shoes that I loved when I first put them on. Now, they feel like shackles.
“Stop it. What are you doing?”
“Taking back my power.” I pick up one shoe and throw it into the bushes. The other follows. The grass is cool and damp under my bare feet.
“They were gifts, Violet. There were no strings attached.”
“Everything has strings with you, Darius.” I meet his eyes, letting him see the devastation he has caused. “The touches, the words, the moments. All of it was conditional. Dependent on me not knowing the truth. On me staying in the dark where you wanted me.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what? The truth? Knowledge? The abilityto make my own choices?” I shake my head. “You weren’t protecting me; you were protecting yourself. Because as long as I didn’t know, you didn’t have to face what you were doing. You didn’t have to acknowledge that you were hurting your mate.”
He hangs his head.
“You thought my ignorance made it easier, didn’t you?”
His silence is answer enough.
“Say it,” I demand. “Tell me you thought it would be easier to keep lying to me because I couldn’t feel the mate bond.”
“I—” He closes his eyes briefly. “I thought it would hurt less. For both of us. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t feel rejected when I couldn’t claim you publicly. You wouldn’t have to carry that pain.”
“So, you decided to carry it alone? How noble.” My tone drips with venom. “Except you weren’t alone, were you? You had your wolf. You had the bond singing in your veins, telling you I was yours. Meanwhile, I had nothing. Just the certainty that something was fundamentally wrong with me.”
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. “Violet, I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“But you did.” I look down at the jewelry scattered at his feet, glinting in the moonlight like fallen stars. “And the worst part is, you were going to keep doing it. When exactly did you plan to sit me down and say ‘oh, by the way, you’re my fated mate, but I choose the pack over you’?”
He has no answer. Of course he doesn’t.
“I don’t need a mate like you. At least Ryker wants to claim me publicly. At least he’s not ashamed of being seen with me.”
The change in Darius is instantaneous. His eyes flash gold, his wolf surging to the surface. A growl rumbles from deep in his chest, low and threatening enough that the hair on my arms stands up.
“Ryker,” he snarls the name, “will never touch you again.”
“You don’t get to decide that.” I step closer to him, refusing to back down even when his wolf is right there, visible in every line of his body. “You lost that right when you kept me in the dark.”
“He doesn’t deserve you.”
“And you do?” The question leaves Darius with his mouth hanging open. “At least Ryker sees me as someone worth being with. At least he’s willing to tell people we’re together. That’s more than I can say for you.”
“Because we’re stepsiblings!” he yells.
“We’re not blood related!” I shout back. “We have no shared DNA. The only thing that makes us family is a piece of paper our parents signed. But that’s enough for you, isn’t it? Enough to keep you from claiming your mate. Enough to make you ashamed of what we are to each other.”
“I’m not ashamed.”
“You are. You’re ashamed of us. You’re ashamed of wanting me, of needing me, of being bound to me by fate.”
His gaze fixes on me, his chest heaving.
“If you had told me when I came back from Europe, if you had been honest from the start, I like to think I would have understood.” My voice breaks despite my best efforts. “I would have understood why we couldn’t be together publicly. I would have accepted what you told me because it would have come from a place of honesty. But you didn’t give me the chance. You decided to lie to me, leaving me drowning in confusion and self-hatred.”
He reaches for me. “Violet—”
