Chapter56
My face paled.
I wasn’t some naive she-wolf.
Alpha Adrian’s words, sharp as a hunter’s call, and his predatory gaze-stalked, focusedmade it sickeningly clear what he intended.
Panic coiled in my gut. I shrank back. “Don’t you dare!”
Alpha Adrian’s hand shot out, fingers digging through the thick weave of my forest-green tunic to clamp down on my shoulder.
He hauled me closer, and I stumbled, my hip hitting the edge of the bench.
“How’s it wrong? Mates claiming their right-no pack elder’s gonna bat an eye.”
“I don’t want this! Force me, and the council will hear about it!” I shoved at his chest.
His strength dwarfed mine.
Pinned by his grip, my struggles fizzled out.
Alpha Adrian’s hand slid down, leaving a trail of heat through my tunic, before his arm looped around my
waist.
He tugged, and suddenly I was pressed to his ches.
Our breaths mingled.
I turned my face away.
“Alpha Adrian, you bastard!”
“You were always so focused on patrols,” he murmured, “never wanted a whelp too soon, always kept that moonflower tea stashed. Tonight? No tea. Maybe when the next full moon rises, you’ll be carrying one.”
“Get off me! Let me go!”
His words lit a frenzy in me.
I thrashed, my braided hair coming loose, strands sticking to my sweat-damp neck. But he only held tighter.
Alpha Adrian kissed from my ear to my cheek, his stubble scratching.
“Let’s strike a bargain. One step back each. If the moon’s light doesn’t bless us tonight, I’ll let you cross the pack border. If it does? You come home.”
His shamelessness ignited my fury.
I spat at him.
“Go to hell! Who haggles with a brute? You don’t own my fate!”
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All my poise burned to ash.
“When you’re carrying my pup, you’ll sing a different tune.” A
“Get up! Let me go, you bastard!”
I pounded his chest, fists flying, but my slender hands were no match for his towering frame. Sweat beaded
on my forehead.
My arms were pinned above my head, his large hand clamping both wrists to the rough wool of the bench’s
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backrest.
He closed the distance.
“Not like this. Not in a car, out here under the half-moon, Adrian. Please-I’m begging. Don’t desecrate our
bond like this.”
My hands pressed weakly against his chest, eyes stinging, tears finally spilling over.
Alpha Adrian paused.
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His gaze flicked to my trembling lips, my heaving chest.
Did being near me hurt this much?
My resistance, my fear-they stabbed him.
His jaw tightened, amber eyes darkening.
A low, dangerous growl rumbled in his throat.
He pried my hands off his chest, pinning them harder
. “You’ll crave it. When the moon’s pull thickens, you’ll beg.”
“You bastard!”
I opened my mouth to curse again, but his lips crashed down.
The familiar press of his lips against mine sent a jolt through me-not of longing, but of revulsion, sharp as a
blade.
His desire coiled around us, suffocating, but I only felt ice in my veins.
He kissed me harder.
I bit down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood, and he pulled back with a snarl.
I love you. We swore under the elder tree to be mates forever.” His kisses trailed to my chest, rough, urgent,
and his hands fumbled with the laces of my tunic.
My screams turned hoarse, a ragged sound that scraped my throat raw.
Just when I thought my strength would snap, a voice cut through the air outside.
“Hey, alpha-this ain’t the mating clearing. Some of us don’t need front-row seats to your nonsense.”
Alpha Adrian froze.
For a second, his grip slackened, and I almost breathed.
Then he shifted, shielding my shoulder with his arm as if I were a prize to guard. “Piss off,” he snarled out the
window.
The stranger didn’t linger.
Footsteps crunched away in the dirt, and silence settled back over us, heavier than before.
I shoved him off with every ounce of strength I had, and this time, he stumbled. My lips felt swollen, my tunic
hanging open at the neck, hair sticking to my tear-streaked face.
He stared at me.
He reached for my face, and I flinched.
“Let’s go to the old cottage,” he said, voice low. “No one will bother us there.”
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I slapped him.
The sound echoed, sharp, and his cheek reddened.
“You’re a monster,”
“I was blind to ever let you mark me as yours.”
If I could claw back the day we bonded-when he’d pressed that pendant into my palm, when I’d thought his smile meant forever-I would. I’d grind that bond to dust.
“Regret it now? Too late. You’re mine, Vivian. I won’t let you go.”
“You cheated!”
“You left me alone during the winter hunts, let Vanessa hang off your arm at the solstice feast, acted like my heart wasn’t breaking right in front of you! And now you think you can torment me?”
“Don’t cry,” he said, his voice cracking, like he cared.
“I’m the fool. I messed up. But I can’t lose you. Please.”
I fell still, my tear-streaked eyes locking onto his.
“Will you only stop… if I’m dead?”
Alpha Adrian’s breath hitched. His hand hovered near my cheek.
He just stared, his lips parted.
I knew how this started. I’d replayed it a thousand times in my head, like a cursed story. The first moon he
stayed out late, the scent of Vanessa’s jasmine perfume clinging to his cloak.
One wrong step, and the whole mountain of our bond had come crashing down.
We sat there, silent, staring at each other.
“I’m hungry,
“I want something to eat.”
“I’ll get you something.”
