Chapter 4 - MATE!

~Reed's POV~

"Either you marry me, or watch me destroy everyone and everything you love." As the words left my mouth, I saw the tempting green eyes of the dark-haired beauty seated across the table from me widen for a moment, then narrow in confusion.

I couldn’t blame her; she had just tried to assassinate me, yet here I was, asking her to marry me.

"What?" she questioned, a puzzled look painting her delicate face.

"You heard me clearly the first time. What you attempted to do tonight was very foolish; you’re lucky to still be alive. This is the only thing that will save you," I responded.

She stared at me blankly for a while without speaking. I watched her carefully, trying to get a clue about what she was thinking from her expression, but there was none. She would be an excellent negotiator in the business world.

Finally, she leaned forward with her hands on the table. Instinctively, I leaned forward too until she was in my face. For the third time this night, her intoxicating scent wafted into my nose, and I could feel my control slipping. I didn’t know what it was about her that drew me in.

"Go. To. Hell," she spat out, and a grin made its way onto my face in response.

If it were anybody else in Riverton City who spoke to me in the manner she just did, I would make them regret their existence, but this woman fascinated me for some reason.

The moment I walked into the charity function some hours earlier, I felt a strange sense of excitement and pull. All through the multiple short conversations I had with various business associates that stopped me to talk, my restlessness only continued to grow. As I made my way to my table, I became more unsettled with every step.

Out of the blue, I heard a voice I hadn’t heard in eight years. The voice that had appeared in my head on my eighteenth birthday and whispered things to me. In order to prevent my grandfather from replacing me with my cousin as the successor to Knight's Corporation, I had started seeing a psychiatrist in secret. He had diagnosed me with schizophrenia and placed me on medications. After that, the voice had disappeared, and my head had been quiet until now.

"She's here," I heard the voice whisper as I made my way to the table.

I must have grown tolerant of my medications, thereby making them less effective.

"She's here, find her," the voice stated again and then murmured some more unintelligible things before it went totally quiet.

Fuck it. I thought I had gotten better. This was a crucial moment for me, and I would officially be announced as the CEO of Knight's Corporation in six months. If word got out about my condition, it could give Robert—my cousin and rival—the ammunition he needed to be the successor. I couldn’t afford that. I needed to see my psychiatrist immediately after the function.

All the thoughts in my head became background noise when I set my eyes on the shiny black hair of a woman in a waitress uniform whose back was turned to me. She seemed to have gotten in trouble with Jackson, another business associate at my table. Knowing the type of person Jackson Hunt was, he was probably at fault.

As I got closer, a delicious scent breezed into my nose, and I found myself following it until I was standing directly behind the waitress. The scent was coming from her.

"Is there a problem here?" I asked, and I saw her back straighten before she turned to me and lifted her head to meet my eyes.

Fuck. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid my eyes on.

I had no shortage of beautiful women at my beck and call, but this one right here was something else. Her emerald eyes felt like a magnet drawing me in, and I felt blood rushing down to my second head the longer she held my gaze.

Jackson soon explained what had transpired, and I convinced him to let her go. As she walked away, I couldn’t take my eyes off her no matter how hard I tried. The voice in my head suddenly came back with a murmur, as if it were trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I ignored it and continued watching the sultry temptress who had snatched all my attention. I needed her with an urgency I couldn’t explain. I was hypnotized, and so I made up my mind to seduce her into my bed tonight.

As the event progressed, I was called to give a speech, but even then, my eyes still followed her movements through the crowd.

After the speech, I headed into the garden to make a quick call to Dr. Rakesh, my psychiatrist, before I started my plan to work my charm on the beautiful waitress. The call didn’t take long, and my appointment was immediately fixed for the next morning. As soon as I ended the call, I perceived that sweet scent again.

The waitress had followed me.

She didn’t seem to notice me behind the tall flower bush, so she walked past me. The reflection of the moonlight on an object in her hand caught my attention, and I noticed she was holding a knife.

The way her head turned left and right, searching for me, led me to two easy deductions. One, she was definitely no waitress. Two, she was out for blood, and I was her target.

Robert had to be behind this. He was willing to do anything to be the CEO, including getting rid of me.

As she growled in frustration, another thing about her caught my attention. The way she moved was strange; I recognized the fluidity and speed. How could I not? That type of movement belonged to the group of people I hated with every fiber of my being.

Werewolves.

They were an anomaly of nature. They were a nuisance to Riverton City. They were responsible for most crimes. Most importantly, they were the reason I was an orphan.

"You're a werewolf," I stated. I didn’t need confirmation; it was glaringly obvious to anyone familiar with their mannerisms.

She froze for a few seconds before turning and suddenly attacking, but I caught her just in time and the knife fell. The moment I made contact with her, the restlessness I felt earlier came back, and the volume of the murmur in my head increased.

"Let me go," she said, struggling against me, but letting her go was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to pull her closer, I wanted to own every inch of her, I wanted her to surrender to me.

No. She was a werewolf. Even worse, she was a werewolf that was here to assassinate me. I would make her pay. But for some reason, the thought of hurting her caused me pain.

There was only one pack left in Riverton City, and I had been trying to buy their land for a while, but their leader wouldn’t sell. This woman in front of me could be amazing leverage.

I handed her over to security and quickly made inquiries. She was Seraphina Rose, the only daughter of the leader of the Moon-ray pack. Even better for blackmail.

Once I confirmed she was acting of her own free will, I decided to make use of her in a different way, which brought us to this moment.

"I think you're misunderstanding something here. I might have presented my proposal to you as if you had the luxury of choice, but you really don’t." I got up and walked to her side of the table to stare her down.

"The alternative to you saying no is me suing you and your pack into the ground. In the end, you’ll be thrown in jail while your pack loses their land without even getting the money I initially offered to buy it. Think carefully, love; there’s only one right choice here." I finished, making her glare at me like she wanted me dead.

She definitely did.

"Why not just go ahead with the second option? Why ask me to marry you?" she fired.

"The reasons for my decisions are none of your business. All you need to know is that I need a wife, and your only role here is to choose whether you’ll be that or a prisoner. The marriage is just for a year. We’ll date in the public eye for a month and be married for the remaining months," I replied.

I had two things holding me back from being announced as the official CEO of Knight's Corporation. First, my reputation as a young womanizing bachelor, and second, my media representation as being bigoted against werewolves had the members of the board and investors worried about the company’s image.

I already had a marriage arrangement with Loveth Macloren, one of the socialites the paparazzi had assumed I was involved with. We had agreed to marry for the duration of one year and then divorce after my position in the company was solidified, but that would have only solved one of the problems.

This firecracker in front of me would solve both. Being married to her could also hasten the process of acquiring their pack’s land.

"And what do I get out of this?" Seraphina asked.

"Your life is what you get. As I said, this is not a negotiation. However, I pride myself on being generous, so after the marriage, I will clear all your pack’s debts," I offered.

She stood up and moved into my personal space, making the voice in my head get loud again. I could almost make out what it was saying now.

"In that case, I agree to your terms, but I swear on my life, I’ll make you regret the day you made this proposal," she said through gritted teeth, just as the voice in my head became clear as day.

"MATE!"