The Alpha’s Runaway Mate and Secret Son

Chapter 4

The moment I understand he's going to lock me in, I know everything I believed about him was a lie.

It's not the anger that tips me offDarius's always been angry, always carried that sharp edge of fury just beneath his skin like a second heartbeat. It's the calculation in his eyes. The way he looks at me like I've stopped being a person and started being a problem that needs solving. When he turns that predatory gaze on the door, on the lock, on the servants lurking in the hallway beyond, I see exactly what he's thinking. He's already decided. Already moved past rage into strategy.

"You're not locking me in here," I say, but we both know I'm wrong.

The door slams with a finality that echoes through the small room like a coffin lid. The key turns. Metal against metal, a sound that will haunt me the way my mother's blood on the kitchen tiles has haunted me for four years. Some things, once heard, become permanent fixtures in your skull.

I don't remember walking to the window. Don't remember the conscious decision to press my palms against the glass so hard my hands ache. What I remember is understanding, finally and completely, that Darius Blackthorn never loved me. He owned me. There's a difference, and I've been too stupid or too desperate to see it until now.

The confrontation happened hours ago, though time has become elastic and unreliable. He came to my room the small servant's quarters he'd been sneaking into for two years like it was his secret and something was different about him. Colder. Like he'd made peace with something terrible.

"We need to talk about Tova," I'd said, because apparently I still believed in conversation, in honesty, in the possibility that he might actually explain himself like a person instead of a predator.

He'd laughed. Actually laughed, like I'd made a joke about my own impending destruction.

"There's nothing to discuss." His hands gripped my shouldersnot gentle, never as gentle as I'd pretended they were in the dark and he pulled me against him in a way that felt more like restraint than affection. "You knew what this was."

"I knew what you told me it was," I spat back. "Two years, Darius. Two years of promises and"

"Promises?" He pulled back, and his eyes were something new. Something without warmth. "I never promised you anything except honesty about what you mean to me. And I've been honest. You're my mate. You're mine. That hasn't changed."

The cruelty of it took my breath away not because it was vicious, but because he genuinely didn't see what he was saying. To him, possession was love. Control was loyalty. The fact that he was marrying someone else, that he'd been sleeping with Tova for over a year, meant nothing beside the fact of the bond between us. The supernatural claim he had over my body, my wolf, my very essence.

That's when I started packing.

I'd moved calmly at first, almost meditative, pulling my handful of possessions from the small dresser. Three changes of clothes. The money I'd saved, hidden in the lining of my only extra pair of shoes. A journal with my mother's handwriting in one of the only things I'd managed to keep after her death. Nothing valuable. Everything is essential.

"What are you doing?" His voice had shifted into something dangerous.

"Leaving."

The laughter had turned ugly. "You're not leaving."

"Watch me."

That's when he'd grabbed my duffel bag and thrown it across the room like it weighed nothing. Which, given that I owned almost nothing, it probably did. That's when I'd seen the future mapped across his face, not his future, mine. Locked in rooms. Controlled access. Waiting. Always waiting for him to decide my worth.

I pushed him then. Actually laid hands on him, which is maybe the most Omega thing I could have done. He'd let me, his expression almost amused by my defiance, like he was a parent watching a toddler throw a tantrum.

"I'd rather die than be your mistress," I'd said, and I'd meant it with every cell in my body.

The shift in him had been instantaneous. His eyes had gone gold, animal, and for a moment I'd thought he might actually hit me. But he hadn't. He'd just looked at me like I'd become something beneath contempt.

"You have no one," he'd said quietly. "No family. No allies. No protection. An Omega who can't even shift properly. You think you have options? Do you think anyone cares whether you live or die?"

The words had been designed to hurt, and they'd succeeded, but not in the way he intended. They'd clarified something. They'd made me understand that I'd spent two years negotiating with someone who would never see me as anything but a possession. That every gentle moment, every whispered promise in the dark, had been a performance. That I'd confused his obsession with his affection.

So I'd left anyway.

And he'd locked the door.