My Ex-Mate Rejected Me, Now His Enemy Wants Me

No One Must Know

Clarabel's POV

Now I knew what Malakai wanted. Now I understood why he had brought into his abode. He believed Greenwood would come for me.

A short, sharp laugh left my mouth. It hurt my ribs, but I didn't care. “Don’t depend upon that. Greenwood never cared for me. He won't come. He’s too busy playing house with a liar who abandoned him years ago. And if at all he does return for me... he wouldn't find the woman he knew."

"Is that right?" Malakai tilted my chin up with one finger. His touch was electric, the mate-bond surging between us, but I refused to let it show in my expression. "You don't miss him? You don't weep for the mate who rejected you before his entire court?"

"I don't weep for cowards," I snapped, slapping his hand away.

The silence that followed was charged with a new kind of tension. Malakai didn't look angry; he looked intrigued. He watched me for a long moment.

“Hmm. Interesting," he mused. "The reports said you were weak. Docile and Decorative. But right now, I see a fire in you that smells like... revenge."

"Pain is a brutal teacher," I said, my fingers curling into the bedsheets. "And Greenwood is a very thorough instructor."

Malakai stepped back, pacing the small room like a caged beast. He stopped by the window, looking out over the jagged peaks of his territory.

"Indeed. The healers found something else while they were cleaning your wounds," he paused, his back still turned to me. "Something that changes the value of your life significantly."

I felt my breath hitch. I knew what he was going to say.

"You're pregnant," he let the words settle between us, before turning back to face me. "With his heir. The next Alpha of the Moonlit Pack is currently growing inside a woman who has been banished and flogged."

He let the words hang in the air, watching for my reaction. I didn't give him one. I simply placed a hand over my stomach, an instinctive, protective gesture.

"That child is mine. He lost any claim the moment he ordered my death."

I looked at him—this man who was supposed to be my enemy, this man who was tied to me by a bond neither of us wanted. I saw the power in his shoulders, the ruthlessness in his gaze, and the absolute lack of hesitation in his movements.

He wasn’t safe.

He wasn’t kind.

He was exactly what I needed.

I stood up, the pain in my back flaring into a white-hot roar. I swayed for a second, my vision tunneling, but I grabbed the stone bedpost and held on. I looked him directly in the eye, ignoring the way the mate-bond screamed for me to lean into his strength.

"You hate the Moonlit Pack," my voice rang clear through the small room. "You've spent years trying to find a way to break Greenwood’s spirit. But you’re an outsider. You don't know the secrets hidden in the basement of that Packhouse. You don't know the names of the guards who can be bought, or the cracks in the Alpha’s armor."

Malakai stopped pacing, his entire body going still.

"I know everything," I continued, stepping closer to him, despite the agony in every fiber of my being. "I know how the patrols rotate. I know which elders are unhappy with his leadership. I know exactly how to dismantle that pack from the inside out."

I stopped a foot away from him. He was a wall of muscle and menace, but I didn't flinch.

"Keep me safe," the words came out low. "Protect me and my child. Give me the resources to heal and provide me with all the tools I will need to strike at him. Then sit back and watch as I give you the Moonlit Pack on a silver platter. I will help you destroy Greenwood until there is nothing left but ash and regret."

Malakai’s eyes narrowed, his breath hitching as he processed the offer. I could see the conflict in him—the hatred for my origin warring with the strategic brilliance of the bargain.

He reached out again, this time his hand settling firmly on my shoulder. His grip was heavy, marking me as his in a way that had nothing to do with the Goddess and everything to do with war.

"How can I trust you? How can I trust that you are willing to betray your own people?" he asked, his voice a low growl.

"The same people that said nothing in my defense when I was being unjustly abused? They stopped being my people when they watched me bleed and said nothing," I replied. "I want him to lose everything. I want him to watch as his world falls apart, and I want him to know it was the 'weak Omega' whom he had betrayed and thrown out without a second thought that pulled the first stone."

Malakai stared at me for a long, heavy minute. Then, a slow, dark smile spread across his face.

"A bargain, then," he said, his fingers digging slightly into my shoulder. "I will keep you alive. I will keep the child safe. Whatever you need shall be provided to you but make no mistake, Lady Clarabel—if you fail me, if this is a ploy... the forest will seem like a mercy compared to what I will do to you."

My voice was like iron. "You have nothing to worry of because I have more reason to see Greenwood fall than you ever will."

He let go of my shoulder and turned to leave, but stopped at the door. “One more thing.”

He didn't look back as he spoke. “About the bond… it means nothing," he growled, the sound vibrating through the stone. "No one must know of it.”

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I replied to the empty doorway as he had already walked out.