“Prince Damion will be leaving tonight,” Mother announces with a sweet smile as she nods at the prince. “This private dinner is to bid him farewell and thank him for gracing us with his presence during the visit.”
Mentally rolling my eyes, I force a smile as I lift my gaze to the prince, noticing that he's staring at me in a way that unnerves me, his blue eyes glittering as if he's starstruck.
Quickly flitting my eyes away, I grab a bun from the basket and proceed to break off a piece to shove into my mouth before I say anything that might get us shunned by the European royal.
I'm only relieved that he's finally leaving and I won't have to put up with my parents’ tricks anymore.
“Oh, you have spoiled me too much, Luna Layla,” Prince Damion chuckles.
“It was only fitting, considering that what you came here for didn't work out,” Father says as his eyes flicker to me, a glint of disappointment in them.
I stare at my plate instead, toying with the breadcrumbs and rehearsing the things I plan on saying to my parents the moment the prince leaves. But as I drown out their voices, my mind drifts to places I've been refusing to travel, like the memories of the passion Hunter and I shared the other night.
After my dismissal of him, he hadn't tried to fight me about it, and it left me feeling disappointed. But then there's the situation with Gwen, and Hunter has been so supportive of keeping her in Scarborough to quell my guilt about catching the wrong witch that it makes it nearly impossible to stay mad at him for not trying harder.
My emotions are chaotic, and I feel so conflicted about our fake marriage. On one hand, I know I have to protect myself by maintaining that this is fake, and the sex was just casual.
But on the other hand…
“Delilah,” Mother interrupts my thoughts, placing a hand on my arm. I snap out of my daze, realizing that everyone around the table has grown quiet, watching me expectantly.
“Sorry, Mother,” I apologize, feeling a blush creep over my cheeks when I realize I missed some question I needed to answer.
“That's okay,” Mother giggles. “Prince Damion was just asking if you're happy with—” she gulps, as if she can't say his name.
“Hunter?” I ask with a frown, lifting my head and straightening up when I meet Prince Damion's eyes, and notice the way he's staring at me peculiarly.
A shiver of discomfort courses down my spine, but I don't understand why I feel so unnerved. Clearing my throat and tilting my chin boldly, I decided to be firm in my statement.
“Hunter and I are happy,” I lie. “We are, after all, fated mates. It's something we discovered while we were in black ops, and we couldn't wait to be married. Of course, we're happy.”
The prince smiles hesitantly, nodding slowly. “If you are happy, Miss Hargreeves, then that's all that matters.”
There's something in his voice that tells me he doesn't truly mean those words, but I attribute my uneasiness to the way I'm feeling about Hunter and everything that's happened between us. Perhaps I'm reading too much into something that doesn't exist, and I'm relieved when Prince Damion finally announces that it's time for him to leave.
“Be well, Miss Hargreeves,” Prince Damion bids kindly with a curt nod. “It was an absolute delight meeting you. I wish things were different. You were everything I could have imagined my wife to be.”
All I do is nod tersely in response, my blood simmering when my mother agrees with the prince as she bids him goodbye. Acrid bile rises in my throat, as if the prince's parting words were poisonous, and I scrunch up the napkin on my lap with curled fists.
As soon as the prince's guards escort him out of the mansion, I tap my foot impatiently, waiting for my parents to stop praising the prince even in his absence.
But something inside me snaps when my father says, “Prince Damion would have made a splendid husband.”
“Stop!” I roar, rising to my feet and stabbing my fork into the placemat. “Just stop, will you?! Enough about the prince!”
“Delilah…” Mother tentatively tries reaching out to me, but I snatch my arm away and glare at her accusingly.
“No!” I shout, not sure where this anger is coming from, but riding its wave because I can't control it. I'm done playing nice, forced to do it in front of the prince, but now that he's gone, I can't hold my tongue any longer. “I'm sick of the way you've both been acting toward my husband. Hunter is myhusband, and it's time you accepted that he's going to be Shadow Fang's next alpha, and I will be ruling by his side.”
“Delilah, you don't—”
“No, Father. I don't want any more excuses. Nothing excuses leaving Hunter out of tonight's dinner and tricking me into coming here alone. Or when Mother gave him the wrong time to attend the party, so he'd be late. What did you think?That I'd dance with the prince and change my mind about Hunter? He's my fated mate, and it's a sacred bond for our kind. It's time you both started treating it like one.”
Flinging my napkin on the table, I spin on my heel and storm out of the mansion, my body shaking with the aftermath of my sudden outburst. My mind is racing with questions about where that came from, or why I defended Hunter like that. Hugging my arms over my chest, I decide to cool down before my inner wolf erupts, and with everything that's happened between Hunter and me, I know I can't go home.
Not yet.
I jog toward town, deciding to get a drink at the bar that might take the edge off after I threw a fit like that and stood up to my parents for the first time in my life. If I don't calm myself down, I'll take my rage out on someone who doesn't deserve it.
