My lip was still bleeding when I hit the parking lot, and his truck was already rolling up like he had nowhere better to be.
Kael: Get in.
Rhea: I'd rather walk forty miles home than get in that truck again.
Kael: Then walk. After you see the house.
Kael: One hour, and I put you at your daddy's gate myself.
Rhea: There's no house. There's a mistake I made twice and a bastard who can't hear the word no.
Kael: It's on the border. My side or your side depends which door you walk out of.
I got in because I wanted to say no to his face and be done with him.
The house sat right on the line, half in Greyfen green, half in Blackpine black.
New windows. A porch. Coffee in the pot like somebody had been waiting on me all night.
Kael: It's yours. Ours. You'd run the water trade from that desk.
Kael: Luna of Blackpine. Nobody calls you the spare then.
A door opened behind me and Mack came out with a folder and a face that wanted to be somewhere else.
Kael: Mack. Tell her how a Luna eats at our table.
Mack: She eats first. She speaks for the pack when the Alpha's gone.
Mack: She's nobody's errand girl.
Kael: Hear that? Nobody's errand girl except mine in bed.
Kael: Mack. Out.
The door clicked shut and the house got small.
Kael: Now say the rest of it with your chest, sweetheart.
He walked me backward without laying a finger on me. Just his size, and the bond pulling like a hook.
My knees hit the bed. He caught both my wrists in one hand and pinned them to the iron.
Rhea: Let go of me, you bastard.
Kael: You first.
His free hand slid under my shirt, palm flat on my stomach, slow, like he was waiting for me to break.
Then it pushed the cotton up and his thumb dragged across my nipple through the bra.
Kael: Your heart's going like a rabbit's. And you're wet. I can smell your pussy from here.
I arched into his hand like something greedy and kissed him with my wrists still pinned.
My lip split again on his teeth and I did not care. That is how far gone I was.
Kael: Fuck. Say you want it.
Rhea: I want it.
Rhea: But wanting you isn't the same as being yours.
His hand came out from under my shirt so fast it felt like a slap.
Rhea: I reject the bond. I reject you, Kael Rourke, as my mate.
I said it slow, so he would not miss one word of it.
Something tore in my chest. Not clean, like a rope cut. More like cloth that holds on with half its threads.
Kael: Don't.
His face went white. Then the sound came up out of him, low and wrong, his wolf howling somewhere I could not see him.
Kael: You feel that? That's you doing that.
And then my wolf answered, and she howled like something was dying.
My legs went and I grabbed his jacket to stay up. The bond pulled. It pulled. It did not let go.
Kael: It didn't take. You can't cut me off, Rhea. You can't even cut yourself off.
He was right. That was the cold part, the part that made everything clear.
He would never let me go. Not because he loved me. Because he could not lose.
Rhea: I'm not a prize in your house, Kael. And I'm not your fucking water line.
Kael: You're my mate. That's not a prize. That's a fact.
His hand closed on my wrist, right on last night's bruises, and squeezed until my fingers went numb.
Kael: Tomorrow I sit at your father's table. I'll ask for you in the deal, and he'll hand you over with both hands.
Rhea: He wouldn't.
Kael: He would. For a water line. He'd call it a bargain.
Kael: You'll come back. Not for the bond. For the way you just kissed me with your hands tied.
Kael: And when you do, I'll fuck you in front of this whole pack so nobody ever calls it nothing again.
I believed every word of it. That was the worst part.
Mack drove me to the Greyfen gate and didn't say one word the whole way.
It was the only kindness I got that morning.
My mother was in the hall with a stack of towels.
Rhea: Mom. Kael just offered me his border house. I said no, and he threatened me in front of his beta.
Maren: Your father meets Blackpine tomorrow. Don't make it harder.
Rhea: He put his hands on me. I need you to hear that.
Maren: Then don't give him a reason to say it twice.
She walked past me with the towels. She didn't look at my lip.
Behind the study door, my father laughed at something.
My phone buzzed before I reached the stairs. One week, sweetheart. Your father's table, then mine.
I read it four times with the bond pulling at me and a howl still going in my chest.
Rhea: Nobody gets to keep me. Not him. Not them.