CHAPTER 262: CHAPTER 262 THE LOVE AND HATE

After her snarl faded, a smile tugged at her lips. The thought of being a Princess sent a rush of pride through her chest, and she let out a low snort.

’Now that I’m a Princess too, I’m no lesser than that bitch Addison,’ she thought with venom.

Her gaze drifted back to the man she now had to call "father." To her, he was nothing more than a meal ticket. Yes, he was tall and handsome—but he lacked the overwhelming aura of the Alpha King, and his body held none of the power she so admired.

No matter how she looked at him, Dimitri seemed lesser. The realization soured her pride because it meant that Addison still stood above her in rank. Claire’s smile faltered, her brows knitting together in irritation.

Dimitri spoke for hours, recounting everything. He told her how he had been sent to the White Crescent Pack for a year of training, to learn combat and strategy, only to unexpectedly meet his first love—her mother, Rosalie. Rosalie had been warm, radiant, fiery yet kind, like sunlight breaking through his days.

Inevitably, they fell into a secret romance.

But after that year, duty called him back to the Royal Palace. His sister-in-law had shown signs of pregnancy, and the Alpha King held a banquet to celebrate. Dimitri never expected that night would change everything.

There, for the first time, he crossed paths with his fated mate, who had only just arrived at the Palace after her coming-of-age ceremony, barely eighteen.

The moment her scent reached him, his instincts overwhelmed his reason. His wolf surged forward, and before he could stop himself, he was drawn to her, kissing her, unable to hold back.

One thing led to another, and as though possessed, he spent days with her in a frenzy of passion. He marked her, leaving her neck littered with bites and his claim glaring for all to see. Worse still, his instincts had made him knot inside her, ensuring she would almost certainly bear his child.

But because of the mate bond’s pull, he couldn’t resist her. She was like an intoxicating aphrodisiac; the harder he tried to fight it, the stronger it drew him in, trapping him in an endless cycle he couldn’t escape.

It wasn’t until he heard the news that his first love had found her own mate—after leaving home in search of him—that the guilt came crashing down. He began to blame himself, loathing how he had surrendered to instinct, how he had allowed carnal desire and primal need to consume him until there was no turning back.

And indeed, his fated mate soon became pregnant. When his brother, the Alpha King, learned of it—that Dimitri had found his mate, consummated the bond, and even marked her—he was overjoyed.

He held another grand celebration, honoring Dimitri’s union. There was no marking ceremony; Dimitri had already claimed her in his reckless impulse, so the wedding was performed only for the sake of tradition. To everyone else, it was a moment of double happiness for the royal brothers.

But for Dimitri, it was nothing less than a gilded cage, his prison, his pain.

Because of this pain, Dimitri began to stray, taking other women to his bed. He knew the bond would make his mate feel it, that every time he touched another woman, agony would burn through her body. And yet, he relished in that cruel thought. Still, she never left him.

He hated her, blamed her for trapping him in a life that kept him from his first love. Yet at the same time, he dreaded the idea of her leaving. He told himself it was only the bond twisting his mind, making him irrational. The more the bond pulled at him, the less sense he made.

There were nights when he craved her, when desire consumed him until he would fuck her relentlessly, using her body to quench a thirst that never seemed to end, rough and merciless until her voice grew hoarse. But when he was spent, he would leave her and find another woman, only to return and repeat the cycle again and again.

Each time he saw his mate’s eyes grow dimmer, a part of him ached, knowing it was his hand that extinguished her light. His mind told him the truth, that it wasn’t her, but him, who had caged himself. That he was beginning to care for her and love her, and this felt like a betrayal to the woman he had once loved, his first love.

He knew he was selfish, a man who wanted to keep both worlds without sacrifice, to eat his cake and still hold it whole. It was ugly, unsightly, but he was drowning in his suffering, and in his torment, he wanted everyone else to suffer too.

Maybe this was what Claire inherited from her father, selfishness, that insatiable desire to have everything bend in their favor without ever sacrificing or losing anything. And when loss did come, they always blamed others instead of reflecting on themselves.

Because of this twisted love and hate, Mila’s mother suffered for over a decade. Under Dimitri’s constant push and pull, she became indecisive. One moment, she wanted to leave, ready to walk away from the torment, but with just a few sweet words from Dimitri, or a night where they mended their bond through passion, she would falter and forget her resolve.

And so the cycle continued. Their bond was never whole, only patched together enough to keep her alive, enough for Dimitri to go on with his philandering without letting his mate dying on him, bedding any woman who caught his fancy.

In his mind, if he couldn’t have the love of his life, then he would drown himself in fleeting pleasures, losing himself in other women’s arms to numb the ache inside him.

And so, because of this, Dimitri sired countless children, yet his mate could never leave him. Under his constant mind manipulation, she grew weak, both physically and mentally, and in that weakness, even her only daughter, Mila, suffered alongside her.

The illegitimate children he fathered flocked around them, bullying and tormenting Mila, while Dimitri turned a blind eye, fully aware yet letting it all happen.

But everything changed when he discovered that he had a child with his first love. Happiness and guilt crashed over him in equal measure. It meant that when Rosalie went out searching for him, she had already been pregnant, likely hoping to tell him the truth.

Yet instead of finding her, he found his fated mate and surrendered to desire, never once thinking of Rosalie. She must have been heartbroken, forced to accept her own fated mate the way he had. In the end, it was his choices that carved this path.

Because of that realization, Dimitri wanted to treat Claire better than anyone else, to make up for the wrongs of the past. He vowed to change, to pamper her as if she were his redemption.

But this newfound devotion only ignited Mila’s hatred. After years of being the collateral damage, watching her mother suffer while she herself endured torment, seeing Claire treated like a treasure made her seethe with fury.