What Will You Do?
1046 Words
Elysia’s POV
The sound of a gunshot and the wailing sound of the man whose hands had just been shot had me fidgeting. The smell of blood hit first, metallic and wrong. My stomach churned.
He called himself the ‘Rightful Alpha.’ No Alpha hurts innocent people. There was no terror greater than him. He was a liar. No true Alpha hurt people who couldn’t fight back.
“I have a question,” I said before my courage could think twice. My voice cut through the silence like a blade. Heads turned. His eyes found mine, dark and unblinking, as if I’d just insulted a god.
“What do you stand to gain? You beat up our leader, took over our pack, terrified your people… your goal must be worth it.” Making sure every spite I felt within me could be heard, everyone in the room agreed as they murmured between themselves.
“Elysia…” My father cried, but I braced myself.
My heart was hammering so hard it almost drowned my words. Maybe it was the mating ritual’s afterglow still burning in my veins, or perhaps I was just done being afraid. Either way, I didn’t lower my gaze. If he wanted to kill me, he should go ahead, I had nothing less to lose.
“I stand to gain you, my jewel. You’re bonded to me for life. Isn’t that price enough?”
His voice was smooth, too smooth. I almost laughed. Minutes ago, he said I was just a piece of his grand plan. Now suddenly, I was his jewel?
“Pathetic,” I spat before my brain caught up.
He smiled. “Bold.”
He descended the stairs like a predator who’d already decided his prey’s fate. Every step he took, I took one back, until two guards blocked my escape. My throat tightened. My body wanted to shrink, but my pride stayed standing.
His dark eyes peered into my soul when he stared at me. It was only when he leaned closer to my face that I realized I was holding my breath. And my courage had disappeared.
“You’re causing a scene, my lady.”
He leaned in, his breath bathing over my cheek. His nose brushed my skin; his lips followed. I went still. The air between us thickened, wrong, suffocating, intimate.
Then, before my mind could process the touch, he scooped me up by the knees and threw me over his shoulder. My world flipped upside down.
“Let me go!” I screamed, kicking and thrashing, but his hold didn’t even falter.
He carried me effortlessly through the corridors. My fists pounded against his back: nothing. The walls blurred, torches flickering as we passed. I caught the faint scent of his skin, cedar, and iron, and hated how my body recognized it already.
When we reached the room, the one decorated for Kieran and me, he pushed the door open with his foot and tossed me onto the bed. The sheets were still white. The blood stain on my wedding dress stained it. Annoyed by his attitude, I pushed myself off the bed and lunged at him.
“Don’t you ever lay your hands on me again,” I snapped, chest heaving.
The mark of my fingers burned red across his cheek. For a moment, I thought he’d hit me back. Instead, he smiled. A dangerous, unhurried, cocky smirk.
“Feisty,” he murmured. “I like you already, my jewel.”
He took my hand, the same one that had struck him, and kissed it. The touch was soft.
Cruel and warm.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I just sat there as he walked out, locking the door behind him.
The silence that followed was louder than the gunshot.
My knees buckled. I sank onto the bed, my body shaking as my mind tried to catch up to reality.
Hours passed, or maybe minutes. Gunshots echoed faintly outside, then nothing. I stripped out of my bloodied wedding dress, hugging my knees like a child punished for a wrong deed, when the door creaked open again, I didn’t even bother looking. I already knew the scent that entered.
My body reacted to his movement, I felt in sync with a foreign emotion, and I knew it too well: the mate bond had started taking place in my heart. Soon, my wolf would be submitted to him, my desires, and my weaknesses; it would all be in his hands, and I hated it.
I hated that the bond was real. Every flicker of awareness, every tremor in my chest, all pulsed stronger when he was near. Even the ghost of his kiss still lingered on my skin.
“Have you come to kill me now?” I asked, voice hoarse. Tears slipped down my cheeks, hot and relentless.
He didn’t answer. The bed dipped beside me. I tensed, waiting for pain, for punishment, but all I heard was a tired sigh.
“I won’t let you leave the pack house or the pack,” he said quietly. “But you are a free woman. I won’t force you to love me. Or pretend that you want to be my wife.”
I let out a bitter laugh. Love. From a man like him? With time, he grew more pathetic.
“No one will ever love you,” I whispered. “You’re wicked, cruel, and heartless. Even a bond as strong as the mating bond would not make me like you.”
Silence again. Then a sound I didn’t expect, a low groan, like something deep inside him hurt.
“No one knows me enough to make such claims,” he said finally. “Not even you, my dearest mate. We might be soul-tied… but you don’t know me.”
His words felt like a promise. Or a warning. Maybe both. But I wanted to know more about him.
“What are you going to do about Kieran?” I asked quietly, denying the urge to ask why he claimed I didn’t know him, even with the obvious understanding that everyone who was above the age of twenty-two knew he was nothing but a murderer. “Are you going to kill him?” I asked, dreading his answer.
- Writer
