“You should know that you don’t have to worry about Brody. I know how it looks, but I don’t bring humans here to mock them. They’re either chosen to join my pack or they’re sacrificed.”
I scoffed, still trying to catch my breath as I rose to my feet.
“Brody had no right trying to keep Joanna for himself. He died because he was greedy.”
Keep Joanna? My gaze shot to Latoya. She smiled at me innocently.
Silas threw my sweater at my bare chest. “I want the hunter in my family,” he declared. “She’s obviously powerful, and there’s a reason the Goddess chose her to be your mate. There’s a reason I was the one who saved her sister… There’s a reason she’s carrying your heir.”
I dropped my gaze, ashamed of how closely my wolf was now paying attention.
“I’ll be the bad guy, Marcus. That’s what you want, isn’t it? For someone else to be the monster?”
“How do we know my child will survive her change?” I rasped.
Silas sighed. “That’s the tricky part, and the answer is we don’t… I can wait until she delivers… but something tells me she has the means to disappear. So, she’ll have to be confined until the baby is born. Then I’ll give her the Bite, and you two can be reunited.”
I paled. “Are you saying I can’t be with her for months?” I demanded, my wolf howling in anguish within.
He shrugged. “Youcan. But I’d advise against it if you want to play the hero—storming the castle, saving the princess… She’ll be angry, of course. But that anger is going to make her so fucking strong. Plus, she’ll have Latoya. She’ll have you and your child. She’ll come around.”
“It’s impossible. We have a pact. I can’t betray—”
“The way she obviously betrayed you?” Latoya scoffed, placing a hand on Silas’s shoulder.
Silas raised an arm to caress her cheek. “She rejected you, Marcus.” His hand slid down to her neck, and she winced when his fingers brushed along the edges of a fresh bruise. “The bonds are broken.”
Chapter Fifteen
Joanna
How the fuck was I Marcus’s fated mate?
I sat at my desk and pulled my knees into my chest, glaring at the cloner by my laptop.
This shit didn’t make any sense.
I was a human. A fucking werewolfhunter.
He was an alpha—with a pack he protected from threats likeme.
Did he know I was his fated mate when he first offered me the Bite? Was that why he wanted to change me in the first place?
And my response?All wrong. I replayed that night a million times in my head, trying to see if I’d missed any clues. I described my feelings for him as confusing and terrifying—rightfully so. And I wasn’t lying when I told Marcus I cared about him in a way that rivaled any other feelings I’d experienced before.
So where did I fuck up?“Right now, that’s enough for me.”What the hell did thatmean?What I should’ve said was, I never wanted to be a werewolf. End of story.
But… what did I want?
My phone chimed at just the right time, diverting my hand from my stomach to the pocket of my sweatpants.
It was a text from Malik.Walking up now.
I tried all night to open the cloner, but an error message popped up each time. Malik had more experience with computers than I did, and although my intention was to take the device to him… I hadn’t been able to rise from the chair all morning.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and quickly tried to stretch out the stiffness in my back before padding across my loft. I swung the door open and regretted it once I realized Malik had brought company.
Dark circles had begun to stain the skin under James’s eyes, while the lines around them appeared deeper since I last saw him.
