Dread snares around my heart. “Alistair, wait?—”
“When Viserys didn’t come home,” he continues, drawing a ragged breath, “my father and I went to Roane Valley to find him.”
The wolf shifter with a dimpled smile. Vibrant auburn hair. Shockingly warm eyes.
Nonono—
My heartbeat stutters, and Alistair growls against my spine. “Yes, Sienna, you met my brother. Remember him now?”
“I didn’t know who he was,” I whisper, “I swear.”
Not that knowing his identity would have mattered. Revyn jumped Viserys the moment he got close to me. He’d barely had a chance to speak before Revyn tore his throat out with his fangs.
I’d watched in stunned silence as Viserys’s blood soaked the earth.
I swallow whatever apologies linger on the tip of my tongue. I don’t know if I can apologize for something I didn’t do, and I don’t dare point the blame at Revyn. They’d kill him for murdering the heir to the Dire bloodline.
But they can’t kill me since I’m Alistair’s fated mate.
“He was going to kill me,” I reason, but Alistair’s hand suddenly captures my throat, the tips of his claws breaking through the skin.
“Say that again,” he growls.
“He was going to?—”
“No!” Alistair roars, his entire body shaking. “He was rescuing you! You wouldn’t have been wild any more. You would have joined our pack. You would’ve?—”
—been with me!
The words flash through my mind like a burst of flames, searing through my skull so hot that I choke. Alistair’s claws scrape my throat. “But instead, you tore his fucking throat out.” Shoving me away from him, he takes rapid steps back.
I don’t dare look over my shoulder as I gasp for air, the cuts on my neck stinging in the harsh wind.
“And then you took that monster as a mate,” he finishes, growling. “Everything is notmyfault, Sienna. It’s yours.” As he storms away, I close my eyes and grieve in silence, the loss of our bond a strange, palpable pain despite never truly having Alistair as a mate in the first place.
We were doomed before we even met, and somehow, Revyn is to blame.
My heart aches, its attachments to both men twisting and tying into unbreakable knots.
Despite Revyn’s flaws, I love him.
Despite Alistair’s rage, I want him.
The fact that I can’t have one without breaking the other cracks my heart open more than it ever should.
We’re back to glaring at each other from across the room by the time the sun rises. I’m tempted to ask Alistair why he’s here in the first place with Mating Games happening across campus, but I don’t. I keep my mouth shut and ignore the stinging claw marks he left on my neck.
Idefinitelypretend that the throbbing between my thighs is because I’m sore from fighting him earlier.
Not because I want him.
Gods, I’m a fucking mess.
Every snowflake that falls on my skin sizzles as it melts, then evaporates. My hair’s a rat’s nest of tangles. I haven’t slept. I’m worried about Revyn and Callum. Then there’s Gemma and Thorn. Did they all pass the Games? Or will I find out that they’ve been expelled for failing?
The only saving grace tonight would be if Alistair failed for leaving before sunrise. Then he’d get expelled, and I’d never have to see him again.
Unless I’m expelled too.
