The war had just begun.And now I had a strategy.
I lifted my glass and clinked it against Clara’s.
“Teach me how to be a monster,” I said.“Since he’s so determined to make me one.”
Clara smiled, and there was something fierce in it.Something proud.
“That’s my girl.”
4
RAPHAEL
My control slipped the moment the elevator doors closed.
The walk from her office had taken everything I had.Every step pulled at the wounds across my back, the claw marks beneath my shirt, but that wasn’t the worst of it.The worst was her presence fading behind me with every stride.Apples and fury.The combination that had become the only thing I wanted to breathe, the only air that felt right in my lungs.
My wolf clawed at my insides, howling.
Go back.She’s ours.She agreed.Go back and claim what’s ours.
I kept walking.Forced one foot in front of the other despite the wolf’s snarling protests and the fire across my ribs.The hallway stretched endless, too bright, all that spring sunshine streaming through windows that overlooked mountains she loved.Mountains I had watched her admire from my penthouse, coffee cup cradled in her hands, her face soft and unguarded in the early morning light.When she thought I wasn’t looking.
I was always looking.
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime.Parsons waited beside them, his face carefully blank.He saw whatever was showing on mine, whatever had slipped through the cracks in my mask, and said nothing.
Good man.Fifteen years of loyalty, and he had never once asked a question I was not prepared to answer.
I stepped into the elevator.The doors slid closed, cutting off the hallway, cutting off the fading trace of her scent.
I braced my hand against the wall as the elevator descended.Let my head fall forward.Let myself breathe without the mask, just for these few seconds between floors.
She agreed.
The words should have been victory.The Pakhan’s ultimatum was satisfied.Kill her or marry her.Those had been my only options, delivered with cold precision in the Alpha’s study while four of his enforcers stood ready to ensure my compliance.I had chosen marriage, taken the beating that was the price of that choice, and now she had agreed.My mate would be legally mine, protected by my name and my resources and every weapon in my arsenal.
But the way she had looked at me.
Like I was the monster she believed me to be.Like every accusation she had hurled at me was written in the lines of my face.Like she could see straight through to the darkness that lived in my chest, the wolf that wanted to pin her down and claim her properly, consequences be damned.
You are a monster,the dark voice whispered.The one that sounded like my father’s ghost.You made sure of that.
The elevator reached the lobby with a soft jolt.I straightened my back, settling the mask back into place despite the way the movement made the wounds scream in protest.Fresh blood, wet and warm, seeped into the fabric of my shirt.I ignored it.Parsons fell into step beside me as I crossed the marble floor, his presence steady and silent.
“The courthouse is expecting us Thursday at two,” he said as we pushed through the hotel’s front doors into spring sunlight that mocked me.Too warm.Too cheerful.The world had no business looking this beautiful when she was back there, despising me.
“Good.”
That was all.Nothing else to say.Parsons knew everything, and we had been speaking in silences for fifteen years.He knew about the ultimatum.Knew about the scars beneath my shirt.Knew that I had walked into this marriage with my eyes open and my heart in my throat, and he had never judged me for any of it.
The car waited at the curb, black and sleek and armored against the threats I had spent my life navigating.I slid into the back seat.Pain ripped across my ribs where the enforcer’s claws had gone deepest, tearing through muscle and scraping against bone.
I didn’t let the pain show.Couldn’t afford to, even now.
Parsons started the engine.We pulled away from the Hughes Palace Hotel, away from the woman who hated me, away from the memory of her that clung to my jacket and filled the hollow spaces of my chest.
The mountains rolled past the tinted windows, their peaks still capped with spring snow.Green was creeping up from the valleys, painting the foothills in shades of new growth.She had been fascinated by the changing seasons, commenting on the deer that appeared at dusk.Small observations she had offered during those weeks we were together, before I had taught her to hate me.
