Chapter 2 Who Refused to Beg
1570 Words
The warmth vanished from Fiona's face. She met Zane's gaze without blinking, and he looked back at her as if her anger were beneath his notice.
This was not the first time he had spoken to her that way. Every time they had clashed in the past, it had ended the same way. Fiona had been the one to apologize and follow him around trying to make peace.
Zane had been admired too long and indulged too often. Humility was a skill he had never needed to learn.
But this time, something was different. She did not soften. She did not retreat. If anything, she seemed to grow colder by the second, and the change unsettled him more than he cared to show.
Fiona let out a quiet, scornful laugh. "Low-rank? Zane, are you really in a position to look down on anyone? If you were truly that important, the Fox Clan wouldn't have shipped you off for a political marriage. Don't flatter yourself. The only difference between you and a pet is that you can talk."
For the first time since entering the room, Zane's composure cracked. Color drained from his face, then rushed back in an uglier shade.
Before he could explode, the door opened, and her remaining two claimed mates walked in.
Zane fell silent, his expression turning glacial.
Fiona did not waste another glance on him. Instead, she lifted her eyes to the two men entering behind him.
The first was Harvey Frazier of the wolf clan. His features were sharply masculine, his presence heavy with command, and at the center of his brow rested the silver apex mark of the wolf clan. His clothes were buttoned with military precision, but that only made the breadth of his shoulders and the powerful line of his body more arresting. He was exactly the kind of man Fiona had always liked.
The man behind him could not have been more different. Cedric Rocha of the Merfolk Clan entered quietly behind him. His face had a clean, gentle beauty, and the Merfolk apex mark rested just behind his ear. At first glance, there was something disarmingly harmless about him, something mild and unthreatening. Of the three men, he was the least vivid in the fragments Fiona had inherited. According to the previous Fiona's memories, she had barely interacted with him at all.
If anyone among the three seemed to have the weakest motive to kill her, it was Cedric.
Fiona studied them carefully. Harvey's face was cool and unreadable, whatever thoughts he had buried too deep to show. His deep eyes gave away absolutely nothing.
Cedric, by contrast, looked openly surprised when he saw her. "I assumed," he said softly, "that you would not summon me, my lady."
His voice was soft, carrying that hypnotic resonance unique to the Merfolk Clan. It was the kind of voice that somehow stirred a deep, aching pity.
Fiona's hand stilled at her side. Her heart sank.
None of them looked startled the way a guilty man should when he found his victim alive. 'Is it possible the killer is not one of them after all?'
Before she could follow the thought any further, Mateo's voice cut through it. "Princess Fiona," he said, formal as ever, "it is time to choose who will stay with you tonight."
Harvey spoke first, "I leave for the front tomorrow. I'm not available tonight."
Cedric's expression turned apologetic. "I have urgent matters to attend to back with the Merfolk Clan. I'm afraid I can't stay either..."
The excuses were neat. But Fiona knew exactly what this was. They were just finding polite ways to avoid touching her!
All three of her mates were willing to let her break the law and risk being cast out, so long as they were spared the inconvenience of sharing her bed!
In their eyes, the woman who had claimed them was worth less than the dirt beneath their shoes!
Mateo seemed to reach the limit of his patience before Fiona did. He frowned and stepped forward. "Gentlemen, by law, a female shifter must..."
Before the Warden could finish, Zane let out a dark chuckle. "No law says her mates have to come running every time she wants attention. Her obligations are her problem, not mine."
Then he looked Fiona up and down, slow and deliberate, with all the insolence of a man certain he was still in control. "Unless you beg me."
His hypnotic eyes held the easy certainty of a man who believed she would fold. He fully expected her to plead.
Fiona turned and looked at Harvey. He said nothing. Then she looked at Cedric. He said nothing either.
As far as they were concerned, the woman who had claimed them was supposed to lower herself and beg for a place in their beds.
To them, she had no dignity left to protect!
Fiona laughed. She narrowed her eyes and let her gaze drift past Harvey's shoulder.
A servant stood behind him with his head lowered. His jawline was sharp and rigid, and a patch of obsidian snake scales crept up the corner of his eye. But the scales didn't ruin his face. If anything, they added a dark, dangerous allure.
In the Shifter Realm, the ability to take a fully human form was one of the clearest measures of status and power.
A shifter who could not shift completely was branded defective. Men like him were considered fit for service and nothing more. Unless a high-ranking female shifter chose one of them, he could spend his entire life bound to obedience and never rise above it.
Fiona gave a thin, chilling smile. "No law says I can only soothe the men I claimed," she said lightly.
Zane's smirk vanished instantly. His brow furrowed. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
Fiona did not answer him. Instead, she crossed the room and stopped in front of the snake shifter. Then, to the shock of everyone watching, she lifted one finger and tipped his chin up. "Would you like to come with me?"
The snake shifter lifted his gaze to hers. Something unreadable passed through his eyes. Up close, Fiona could truly see his face.
He was breathtaking, almost brutally beautiful, except for those golden slit pupils and the strange vulnerability hidden inside them.
Fiona's breath hitched involuntarily.
Then Zane's voice split the silence. "Fiona, have you lost your mind?" Disbelief sharpened into something uglier on his face. "You would actually lower yourself by sleeping with that thing?"
Fiona let out a short, dismissive breath. "Lower myself? At least he didn't stand there and watch the woman who claimed him be humiliated."
That landed exactly where she meant it to. Zane's face darkened at once.
Even Harvey's expression shifted. "Fiona," he said, unmistakable disapproval entering his voice, "don't be childish. I told you, I have obligations elsewhere."
Cedric stepped in more gently. "My lady," he said, "please calm down."
Fiona did not bother answering either of them. She kept her eyes on the snake shifter. "Well?" she asked. "Have you decided?"
He bowed his head. "I am yours, Your Highness."
His voice was low and rough. He sounded like a man who had learned obedience so thoroughly it had become muscle memory.
For some reason, Fiona smiled. "What's your name?"
"Jose Yoder."
She gave a small nod, then turned to Mateo. "He will stay with me tonight."
Mateo paused for only a second before inclining his head and recording her choice.
Fiona turned without another word and walked back toward her room, bringing Jose with her.
Behind her, Zane stared after her in open disbelief, then laughed once, sharp and bitter. "Fine! If you want to humiliate yourself, I won't stop you! A low-rank female and a defective shifter, a perfect match! If you had even half the talent of your sister Ivy, you would never do something this disgusting!"
Fiona did not stop walking. She did not even slow down. "If Ivy impresses you that much, go find Ivy. I have no use for a fickle mate whose loyalty changes with the weather."
Then she stepped into the room and slammed the door behind her.
The sound cracked through the corridor like a verdict. Outside, Zane's expression darkened by the second. Harvey looked at him coldly. "That was too far."
Zane gave a contemptuous laugh. "Spare me the act. If you think I was too harsh, strip down and go take my place!"
Harvey held his gaze for a long moment, then looked away without replying. A moment later, he turned as if to leave.
Mateo did not move. His eyes remained on the closed door, their color deepening into something unreadable.
'If she could choose someone else... Why couldn't it be me?'
The thought struck him hard enough to unsettle him. Mateo's Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard.
Since becoming her Warden, he had never once allowed himself anything so improper, so disloyal, so dangerously close to desire.
Suddenly, Fiona's icy voice rang out from inside the room. "Mateo, tell them to wait outside and serve hot water for me! Make sure they hear me loud and clear!"
Outside the door, all three men froze in their tracks. Harvey stopped in place. Zane's head snapped up as if he could not believe what he had just heard. Even Cedric, the gentlest of them all, looked openly stunned.
- Writer
