Choose me as your mate
1437 Words
TALIA
“No.”
Tres stared at me like I’d lost my damn mind.
I haven’t — and thanks to the goddess, I haven’t — because who in their right mind would agree to their proposition?
Malrik didn’t blink.
He didn’t even look surprised.
He just leaned back in his chair, one hand braced on the desk, the other holding the papers I refused to touch. “You think you have a choice, omega?”
“I have a name,” I hissed.
His eyes flicked up. “Not in this room, you don’t.”
That hit harder than it should’ve.
Maybe because I’m still wearing one of Jarrick’s shirts, maybe because the ink on that contract still smells like control, maybe because deep down I know — if I sign that thing, I stop being a person and start being property.
My hands curl tight in my lap. “You want me to sign an NDA saying I belong to you? To all of you? That I can’t even breathe without permission?”
Malrik’s mouth curves. “You make it sound dramatic.”
“Because it is.”
“You’re under pack protection,” he says, tone smooth as stone. “No one touches you. No one takes you. You eat when we say, sleep where we say. That’s not ownership, omega. That’s order.”
“Same thing with better spelling,” I mutter.
Tres snorts. “I vote to kill her and kick her out of our pack.”
“I’m not scared of you, Tres.”
That’s the wrong thing to say.
Tres yanks me up so fast my shoulder burns. My ribs hit the desk—knocks the air right outta me. His grip’s iron, fingers digging into my arm hard enough to bruise.
“You *should* be scared of me, Talia.” His breath’s hot on my ear and I twist hard, kicking back, but he just slams me into the desk again. Wood bites into my hips.
"Let go!" My voice cracks.
He chuckles—dark, mean. "Make me."
All the while Malrik is just watching me. Is that what he calls a mate?
The moon must have hated me for doing this.
Mates are supposed to protect. To choose you. To see you.
Not stand there while another man grinds you into a desk just to prove a point.
Maybe the moon made a mistake. Maybe it looked down and saw me—ordinary, small, inconvenient—and laughed.
I don’t want this bond.
I don’t want them.
“I, Talia—” I drag in a breath that feels like drowning.
“Don’t you f*****g dare.”
Malrik in front of me before I even blink, eyes burning gold, his chest rising like he’s holding back the urge to tear the walls down.
I don’t care.
I’m done being afraid.
“I don’t want this bond.” The words scrape out of me, raw and trembling. “I don’t want you.”
His jaw flexes. “Watch yourself.”
“No.” My throat tightens. “Watch me.”
My hands are shaking, but I lift my chin anyway.
“I, Talia—” I drag in a breath that feels like drowning, “—reject—”
The door bursts open.
Jarrick.
Everything in me just—stops.
“What the hell is happening here?” Jarrick roars and he quickly pushes them away before taking me behind him.
“She’s going to reject us,” Malrik said.
“What?”
Jarrick turns to me and I’m shaking when I look up only to find the look on his face.
Shock first. Then hurt.
“Is it true?” he asked me. “You were going to reject us?”
I can’t breathe.
Because I was.
Because I still am.
Because I have to.
But then it hits me. Rejecting them means rejecting him.
The only one who ever made me feel safe. The one I thought—stupidly, blindly—might save me from the others.
“I…” My voice cracks. “I was going to.”
Malrik exhales like he’s bored. Tres mutters something under his breath, but I can’t hear it.
All I see is Jarrick—his jaw tightening, his shoulders drawing back, his hand that was just on my arm now hanging useless at his side.
And gods, I wish he’d get angry. Yell. Growl. Break something.
But instead, he gently patted my head and said, "It's okay, if that's what you want, Talia.”
No.
No, it’s not okay.
It’s not supposed to be this.
If Jarrick is my only mate, then I’ll be grateful to the moon goddess because he’s everything that I have wished for. However, I don’t think I can survive Malrik or Tres either.
“I didn’t mean—” The words trip over themselves. My throat’s too tight. “I just—”
Tres scoffs. “She was about to reject us. I think that earns us a little explanation.”
“I wasn’t—” I start, but the look Tres gives me pins the rest of the words to my tongue.
Jarrick turns, jaw set, eyes never leaving me. “Talia… look at me.”
I do. Slowly. My pulse stutters.
“Do you really want to reject us?” His voice softens at the edges, the way it always does when he’s trying to sound calm but isn’t. “Or are you just scared?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. Because it’s the truth. “I mean, three of you? My mate? I am not that unlucky.”
Tres snorts. “Unlucky? That’s what you call being chosen by three alphas?”
“Pretty sure the moon was drunk when she did,” I mutter.
Malrik’s jaw tightens, a warning flash in his eyes. But Jarrick—he almost smiles. Just barely.
“Maybe she’s scared because we keep cornering her like this,” he says quietly. “Maybe she just needs time.”
Malrik’s voice cuts through the air like a blade. “Time won’t change her place here.”
“Maybe not,” Jarrick says. “But it might change how she feels.”
Then his gaze lands on me again—steady, warm, protective in a way that shouldn’t make my throat tighten.
“Talia,” he says, softer now. “If you accept the bond, I’ll make sure no one hurts you. Not him. Not anyone.”
He would?
My chest squeezes, stupid and soft.
Jarrick is always the protector.
It’s infuriating.
And unfair.
“Way to go, doctor,” Tres teases before he leaves the room.
Jarrick exhales, rubbing the back of his neck, eyes flicking toward Malrik. I don’t like where this is going but I don’t think I have a choice either.
Malrik gives a short, reluctant nod and I don't know what to feel about it. “Fine.”
Fine what?
Fine I can stay? Fine I can breathe for another day before they decide what to do with me?
Jarrick exhales, slow. “Officially, she'll be my mate."
My head jerks up. “What?”
“Unofficially,” Malrik says, voice icy, “She’s our mate.”
“Wait—wait, hold on.” My voice cracked. “I don’t understand. I thought you were giving me time to decide?”
Jarrick’s jaw tightens. “We are.”
“Then what the hell is this?”
“I am letting you think,” Jarrick says carefully, "But you’re unclaimed.”
Unclaimed.
My stomach twists.
“You make it sound like I’m property.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Malrik’s low growl answers before Jarrick can. “It means every unmated wolf in this territory can smell you. And if they think you’re free—”
“They’ll come for me,” I finish, my voice barely a whisper.
Jarrick meets my eyes, steady, tired. “Yes.”
"I don't really have a choice do I?"
I don’t know why, but my eyes find Malrik. I don’t expect anything gentle from him. He’s the Alpha and Alphas don’t comfort omegas.
But when he steps closer to touch my lips, and stares at me like I’m the most valuable thing that he has now, something inside me almost feels special.
“You do have a choice, Talia,” he says.
My wolf stirs, traitorous and hungry as I stare right into his eyes.
“Choose me,” he murmurs. “Choose us.”
- Writer
