Alpha's Chosen Mate

15

I shrug. “Pick your poison, princess. It doesn’t matter to me how it gets done. It’s the result that matters to you, no?” I smirk. “Make it convincing.”

Leilani grabs the flower vase Mallory bought me for my birthday last year and hurls it at my head. I move at the last minute and it crashes into the wall, shattering into pieces. “I’ve got a better suggestion for you,” she pants, sobbing and wiping at her tears angrily. “Why don’t you just die? You’re already dead on the inside.”

She storms away and slams the door behind her. For a while after she leaves, I remain rooted to that spot, replaying her words in my mind. Dead on the inside? I have been for longer than I can remember. My happiest memories are tied to the saddest, haunting me.

My fingers start to tremble, and sweat breaks out on my skin. The shadows in the room seem to grow larger, louder, and I shut my eyes. They’re everywhere, pressing down on me from all sides. Avenge me. Kill them all. Kill the girl. Asher, please!

I gasp at the pain in my chest and I stumble, grabbing the table’s edge to keep me upright. The sound of fabric ripping follows a haunting scream. Mom! Asher! Goddess, no!

The table cracks and I wheeze, trying to force air into my lungs, but that just makes it worse. I think I’m about to pass out from the pain, but then the doorknob twists. The shadows retreat, releasing their hold on me, and I straighten in time to see Talon come in. His boots slam against the marble floors angrily. “Don’t you think you’re being too hard on her?”

I hide my trembling fingers in my pockets and blink the last of the shadows away. “She deserves the same hostility as any other prisoner.”

Talon’s eyes flash. “No, she doesn’t, and that makes it harder, doesn’t it? Kill her or let her go, Asher, but make a choice. This isn’t our way. The plan was to make it painless and swift. Keeping her locked up in there is torture.”

His words send a rush of anger through me. “What changed, Tal? Why the sudden interest in her wellbeing?” I tilt my head, observing him. His fists are clenched, like he walked in here expecting to exchange blows. He’s angry over a woman he wanted me to kill only days ago. I stare at my closest friend coldly. “You want her.”

It isn’t so much a question as it is an observation.

Talon rears back like my words have stung him. “f**k that, Ash. I would never think of your woman that way. You know that.”

The dark beast in me doesn’t agree with that, but I say nothing and let him finish. “The longer she stays, the harder it’ll be to get rid of her. Do it now, or be ready to face the wrath of the council, because I assure you, they have quite a lot to say.”

CHAPTER 7

GEORGIA

“Y

ou are with child, luna.”

It’s not the first time I’ve been pregnant with Christian’s child, but this time, I don’t have to terminate it out of fear of being discovered by my best friend or getting killed by her father for my betrayal. I am Christian’s luna now, and I carry the alpha’s precious heir in my belly.

My mother would be proud.

The stairs leading up to my husband’s study are devoid of guards, I realize. Lately, it’s been off-limits, even for me. It initially wasn’t, not for Leilani at least. We would sit together for hours in her father’s manor, talking about men, s*x, and our future. I hated her back then. Listening to her speak about Christian, a man I’d set my sights on since I became aware of what intimacy meant, made my blood boil. I didn’t think she deserved him. She was too innocent, too naive. She already had a life every woman in our world would kill for. Surely, she should’ve let someone else have Christian.

As I reach the top of the stairs and approach the study, I recall one of our many chats. Christian took her virginity right there, on his father’s desk, which is now his. It was why I pressed him take mine there too, once our affair began. To erase whatever of Leilani I could in his life and take her place…so that when he worked on that desk, he would think of me. Not her.

I hesitate for a second, gripping the edge of my skirts with anxiety. Chris doesn’t like it when I go against his instructions. I still have a healing dark eye from the last time I disobeyed him, even though it’s hidden under several layers of makeup.

Dread travels down my spine. He wouldn’t hit me if I gave him this news. Nothing could be more important than this—our child.

Those words ring untrue in my heart, and bitterness sweeps in.

When Christian asked me to be his chosen mate and luna, I was overjoyed. I’d expected to remain his mistress, even after his marriage to Leilani. Christian never he gave me any explanations for his schemes, which always turned out brilliantly. I’ve never met a man more wicked and intelligent. It’s one of the things that drew me to him in the first place.

And now, it’s the thing that scares me most.

I never know what my husband is thinking, and I don’t think I will ever be able to unravel that deceptive mind of his.

After Leilani walked in on us naked, he f****d me hard, raw, and passionate. He told me we were made for each other. He pushed inside me, pressing my head deeper into the pillows, and whispered, “You could never be like Leilani.” For hours, I wondered if I was imagining him growing harder when he spoke of Leilani, but he reassured me that she could never be as perfect for him as I was.

As he watched my mother prepare me for our wedding, he told me that he loved me and that I was the most beautiful woman on earth. And an hour before the mating ritual, he took me in my wedding dress, whispering sweet nothings in my ears. I was cunning and selfish, and he adored those qualities in me.

But throughout the entirety of our wedding, he watched Leilani prance drunkenly around the hall. His nails dug painfully into my skin when another man so much as looked at her. And when Alpha Mardoc raised an alarm because his daughter was missing, Christian left me for the rest of the night to join the search parties. He didn’t return until morning, and then, he wasn’t himself.

I’d never seen him so angry and out of control.

He trashed his—our—bedroom. He smashed every piece of furniture into splinters. The walls were cracked from his punches, and Leilani’s dresses were torn to shreds, like he somehow hoped to find her in them.

I didn’t understand his anger. If he loved me as much as he claimed, why did her disappearance affect him so severely? Trying to get an explanation out of him had earned me a slap so hard I lost my sight for a full minute. It was the first time he hit me, and the moment I came to, he apologized with flowers and gifts. He made love to me for hours, like he should have on our wedding night, and when he came inside me, he said reverently, “I love you, Lei.”

It became startlingly clear that the woman Christian wanted in his bed was not me.

I’ve barely been in the same space with my husband since then, save for meetings with the elders that we must attend as a couple. I can tell he’s still searching for, even if he barely speaks more than two words to me these days. The servants gossip about it and laugh at me behind my back. I’ve swiftly become the topic of ridicule in a pack I should be ruling over. She isn’t even here and she still manages to steal the spotlight, my life, my husband.

My fists clench as I near the door. I’ve never wished anyone death, and for Leilani, I want something worse. I hope the pain from being unable to reject the mating bond kills her slowly. For every tear I’ve shed because of her, I wish she suffers through hours of agonizing pain, alone.