CHAPTER 18: EIGHTEEN

"Let me help you, Rafe," I plead as he limps over to the horses, but he ignores me, grabbing one rein with his unbroken arm and hefts himself atop the saddle.

He pulls, the horse neighing as it sets into a steady gallop ahead. I run to my mount and follow closely, the tears burning in my eyes making it near difficult to feel the cold anymore. "Rafe, please. Say something."

He doesn’t, his back stiff as a board as he acts like I don’t exist.

For another hour, I watch him make slump in his horse, and struggle with the markers all by himself with his still healing arm. Then he kicks his horse into a full gallop, leading us back to the encampment.

The reins are clenched tight in my bloody hands, my throat raw with a sob I’ve been holding back. "Rafe."

Nothing. Not even a flinch.

The gates part, ushering us inside, and the cold air bites into my cheeks as I follow him farther past the buildings, towards the river beyond the encampment. Every rapid heartbeat is agony, replaying the fight, the look in his eyes when he called me that word.

Monster.

"I didn’t ask for this," I say louder, the words cracking. He gets off his horse, tying the reins to the tree. I do the same. "I never asked to be born this way."

Still silence.

The ache in my chest swells until it’s unbearable and I don’t register getting off the horse or stomping across. Or grabbing his arm, forcing him to turn and look at me. "You think I want this? I don’t even know what the hell I am!"

My voice echoes through the woods, causing a ripple across the water’s surface. Light grey eyes widen and I see my reflection in them. In Rafe’s eyes, I look small, frightened, specks of blood littered across my cheeks. I look human. Nothing of a monster. How could he think me a monster?

"All I know is it feels like I’m burning alive when it happens. Every time something inside me takes control. And you--" My hand fists his tunic. "You look at me like I disgust you."

He finally speaks, voice hoarse. "Because you do."

I rear back, his words sharp as a whiplash across my skin. And then, fury sparks hot and fast inside me, drowning all that hurt. "You’re so terrified you can’t look me in the eye when you say that, can you? Was it easier before? When you only suspected? When you could pretend I was something you could ignore?"

He whirls on me, grey eyes turning a bright burning gold. "I saw you rip that thing apart with your bare hands. Trained as we are, it takes five men to bring down one of those fully transformed devils. You tore at it and gods, your eyes. They were red. Fucking red.

How the fuck am I supposed to pretend that’s normal?"

Red? My eyes were red? Oh gods...

I shove down the panic to deal with later and I raise my chin. "I’ve never been normal. And you’ve always known that. But that has never stopped you before."

His jaw clenches and he yanks his arm from my grip. "I’m not doing this with you. You’re dismissed--"

"Whatever happened to being drawn to me? Or did that change because you saw the truth of me?" I raise my bloodied hands. "Does this, all this blood on my hands that repulse you, make you want to kiss me any less?"

"Stop." The word is a growl, but I cannot.

"Or maybe you’re just a coward whose words don’t mean a dime--"

Rafe’s hand, at last, moves. He curls it behind my ear and grips my hair at the nape, a hard, possessive palm. The contact is electric and my limbs jerk in such violent response.

His thumb drags dirt and blood into my hair, and pain flashes, hot and immediate, as he yanks down, so that my neck is craned with no points to turn for slight reprieve.

My heart thrashes against my ribcage as he leans down, nose brushing mine. I can see the white of his canines, the set of his lips, the flare of his nostrils as he breaths me in. There is nothing tender about the way he looks at me. Fury, hatred and that damning want that consumes us both.

"How’s this for cowardice?"

Then his lips crash against mine.

Everything goes crazy instantly.

We grapple for each other’s hair the way animals do, clumsy at first, then with the desperation of two people who will die if we let the other go. I taste smoke and blood and heat. We are breathless and reckless, hungry in the way a man is for the things he shouldn’t have.

Our knees bump. My back hits a tree and something formidably hard presses against my stomach. I gasp as he grinds it against my belly, wonder filling me at the deliciousness of the feeling that glides in the heat between my legs. It flares hotter and hotter, devastating me, devouring me.

More, I moan, but the moan is sucked off my tongue with expertise, and my inner muscles clench, hard.

And just as Rafe’s hand glides down my arms to encircle the ribs just below my breasts, something strikes us both, like lightning.

Something snaps inside my chest with a pain that is sharp and sweet and terrible. My body jerks, my chest arching into his, my gasp caught in his mouth. I feel it in my bones, my soul, my blood. Him. Me. Us. The universe binding us together in an unbreakable chain.

I see Rafe’s pupils dilate until they swallow he colour from his irises. His lips apart on a sound that isn’t quite a word. Then, he stumbles back, as if pulled by a leash.

We pull apart, gasping, eyes wide. His hand tremble at his side. My lips are swollen and wet from his kiss. For a long moment, we look in each other’s eyes, trying to understand.

And when we do, no words exist for the terror in his face.

Because it is a bond. A mate bond.

And suddenly, it clicks. Everything makes sense. The attraction, the longing, the eviscerating need.

"This can’t be," he rasps.The words tear out of him like he’s trying to shake a lie. "It can’t be--this is wrong. You--this is you. You did this to me. You must have--"

"What?" I choke.

"No." His voice is harder than stone. "You used what’s in you--whatever cursed thing you have. You made me--" He breaks off. "You have seduced me."

I’m exhausted.

When I was younger, my mother--or, at least, who I thought Rhea Ironfang was--would tell me how wonderful it was to experience the mating bond. It doesn’t happen often enough is Silvermoor, a Kingdom built off arranged marriages, alliances and birthing pups only to send them to fight in the war or give daughters away to have more pups.

But in the rare occasions where it did occur, Mother said it was beautiful. She was my father’s mate and I’d seen the way they loved each other. Would die for each other.

It is one of the reasons why I didn’t believe a word of what Thane said about being a bastard child of my father’s.

Because mates were supposed to love you, even when the entire world hated you. Because the mating bond is a magical binding that structures you to become an extension of someone else.

You hear their thoughts. You feel their feelings. You merge. You love them. You live for them, and they, you.

Why then, does my life have to be so different? Is this another fuck up from the Goddess that I have to deal with? Getting a mate who looked at me like Rafe did?

Like... cur?

When he says the five words to me, I’m not even surprised. But it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

"I reject you, Valerian Ironfang."

The pain is vicious and merciless. No. Not the bond breaking. It can’t.

Because my name isn’t Valerian.

But I clutch my heart, nonetheless, a small cry tearing from my throat. It feels like my very soul is being torn out, because regardless, my wolf, however absent she is, knows that her mate doesn’t want her. And oh, does she hurt enough to push me into a heart attack.

I am nowhere over it when soft footfalls draw my attention upwards.

Astrea walks towards us, a beaming smile on her face. And if she notices how stiff Rafe is as she throws her arms around his neck, she doesn’t show. "There you are. I waited all night. You didn’t come up."

Rafe’s grey eyes lock onto mine as he leans down and presses his nose to her neck. "Minor inconvenience."

Astrea giggles and pulls apart. I see then that she is clad in a flimsy blue robe, with nothing underneath. Her eyes twinkle with mischief as she nods over to the river. "Are you coming in?"

Rafe nods.

She smiles at me. It’s the most poisonous, beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I hate her. I hate them both.

Without hesitation, she shrugs off her robe, the moonlight spilling down her naked skin. Wide hips sway left and right, her backside firm with each seductive saunter. She slips into the river and the water accepts her like a lover.

I feel like a stranger in my own body as I watch Rafe turn away from me like his lips hadn’t just been on mine, and shed his cloak. His shirt goes off and his breeches follow, until he is naked as the day he was born.

Astrea giggles, arching her spine, so that her nipples pull up from under the waters, pink and hard. Unbrazen. Unashamed. I would be too, if I had such a beautiful body.

She paddles to the center and Rafe follows. He catches up to her in seconds and his grey eyes meet mine as his arms circle her waist, and hurls her roughly into him.

Grabbing the nape of her neck, he pushes her head under water and grabs his member, plunging it into her.

The water bubbles as she screams.

My wolf screams, too, pleading with me to turn around and walk away.

I don’t. I stay, because the pain still has me in its hold. Because I need this to hurt, so that I never look at him the same way. Because, maybe if I break myself by watching it happen, I’ll stop...wanting him, still.

I watch him thrust into her. Over and over, with an erection that I caused. Out of spite, he fucks her. Out of cruelty, he makes her scream his name to my hearing.

And then he pulls her head from under the water and she gasps in air, only to release a throaty moan as his hips slam into hers again.

Then, she looks up at where I am frozen still, and her lips part into a bewitching smile. "Join us, Valerian. Rafe and I always have such fun back at the castle. Don’t you want to know how he tastes when he’s already inside me?" She licks her lips. "Do you look just as pretty underneath?"

My blood curdles. My stomach turns.

World spinning, chest hollow and burning from the rejection, I mount the horse and leave. The sounds of their sexes slapping against each other in the water, follow me as I ride.

I look to the moon then, and the Goddess beyond. "I hate you."