“Has she woken up?”
I nod slowly, almost nervously, at Heinrich. “She has woken up,” I concede, and Uncle Joel steps in.
“Has she agreed to the mating ceremony?”
I wince, the question stinging my insides, stirring my inner wolf with uncertainty. “We will proceed with the mating ceremony, but for her sake, we will refer to it as marriage. I don’t want to frighten her. She will learn of my true nature as time goes by.”
“We don’t have the luxury of time,” Elder Bernard reminds me, and I nod.
“Just trust me,” I say, recalling the look on Sophie’s face when I told her the same thing.
She doesn’t trust me, and she has every reason not to. I snatched her from her hometown, only to bring her here and demand that she marries me. Call me a brute, a beast, but after what happened in Hamilton last night, there’s no way I would have willingly walked away if she asked me to. It’s why I refused her request to go back home.
This is more about protecting her than having her here to strengthen myself and my pack. My priorities seem to have shifted, and it’s my inner wolf that commands this change, knowing its fated mate is in danger, needing to protect her as much as I need the air I breathe.
“Prepare for the ceremony tomorrow night,” I tell Uncle Joel as I stand from my seat, needing to go back to Red Moon territory, where I can only hope that I haven’t made too much of a mess with Sophie. She has every right to hate me, but there’s no way I’m letting her return to Hamilton when the demons seem to know of her existence.
***
Standing beside James’s bed in the clinic hut, I mull over what just happened, perhaps visiting the unconscious beta in the hopes that he’ll magically wake up and offer some advice.
My frustration stems from visiting the room I’m keeping Sophie in, locked away like a damsel in distress who refuses to accept she’s in danger. She didn’t even speak a word to me, not even when I showed her the wedding gown she’s meant to wear tonight.
I know my beta wouldn’t agree with my methods, and neither will my sister. Locking up the woman I’m going to marry isn’t how I’m supposed to sweep her off her feet with the promise of my eternal devotion, but things are too tense right now. And as the council warned, we don’t have the luxury of time.
I need to do whatever it takes to protect my people. But more than that, I need to defend my fated mate.
The door creaks as it opens, signaling Dianna’s arrival as she comes in carrying a fresh bouquet of flowers. She sees me and frowns, as if she’s upset with me.
“Damian,” she nods curtly as she walks to the window to remove the old flowers from the vase. “Are you ready for tonight? Uncle Joel said we’re not performing a traditional mating ceremony...”
I take a deep breath, gulping when she turns, her eyes squarely on me.
“Yes,” I concede with a short nod, shoving my good hand into my pocket as I keep my shoulders tight, wearing my injured arm like armor pressed to my side. “It’s better this way, for Sophie’s sake. She doesn’t remember what happened, what chased her, or that I’m a wolf. Or maybe she does, and she just refuses to believe it.”
Dianna crosses her arms, eyes turning a colder, darker shade of blue. “I don’t blame her. You pretty much sprung this on her, and now you have her locked up in your house like a hostage.”
“Do you think I have another choice?”
“I don’t know.” Dianna shrugs as if a cold shiver travels down her spine. “You could have started with the truth and made her understand why you’re doing this.”
I gulp hard. “It’s not so simple,” I murmur, running my good hand through my hair, not ready to reveal the truth of my history with Sophie. “She’s a human from the ordinary world, of course, she doesn’t believe in our existence. I need your help, Dianna—”
“Of course, you do.” My sister rolls her eyes. “I will try to befriend her, but you have to promise to let her out of that room, Dame.”
“I will. I promise. Tonight, after the ceremony, she’ll be free to roam the valley.”
Dianna nods, but I can see the sadness in her eyes, that softer side of her shining through. She knows that keeping my fated mate captive is no way to win her over.
She just doesn’t know that Sophie and I have history, and that even if I weren’t a wolf, and if the preservation of our pack didn’t rely on this bond, Sophie would never agree to this. She’d never take me back.
Not after what I did.
***
Dianna’s efforts must have failed, because the small log cabin that houses the pack meetings becomes colder when footsteps creak on the wood outside. Sophie brings her resentment with her like the wind, even long before she enters the cabin.
When she does, her eyes are cold, livid orbs of dark brown—eyes that were once warm, chocolate-brown, and welcoming. She holds my gaze for a deliberate second, as if challenging me, as if telling me, without words, that she’s going through with this only to make my life a living hell.
