Chapter 0008

Dane

I could see it in her eyes. She was just as confused as I was, if not more. She walks next to me, almost jogging to keep pace with me as we head back to the house. Her eyes remain low, focussing on her feet as we moved.

“Take a seat.” I tell her as I walk her into the office. She doesn’t hesitate like she did at Moonshine and takes one of the empty chairs. She sits with her legs clamped together. The sleeves of her top pulled down over her hands. Her face turned down in submission.

“Neah?”

Her back straightens as I say her name and her heart starts to race. The last time it did that, she almost passed out.

“I swear I don’t know. If I did, I would tell you.” The words tumble from her mouth as though she is fighting for her life. She speaks as though those words were what would keep her alive. Something I hadn’t felt in years flooded my veins and that was guilt. She shouldn’t feel like that, not around me.

‘You are upsetting her!’ Aero growls

“I shouldn’t have shouted at you.” I murmur, sitting on my desk. “You didn’t deserve that.” I pause, frustrated over the other thing she told me. “You stole food?”

“I had too.” she whispers.

The more I find out about that pack and what they did to you, the more I hate them. When the time comes, the entire lot of them will be killed.

‘Finally something we can agree on.’ Aero murmurs

Neah’s eyes flash up to me and she bites on her bottom lip. I will eradicate her entire past.

Contracts were simple. Every single contract I had drawn up, always favoured me. The other side were always too far up their own asses to bother to read it or negotiate and they always lost out. And this time, it would be Trey and his pathetic pack that would lose everything.

“Tell me about Cassandra.” I speak softly, aware that my Alpha tone puts her on edge.

There was a flicker of rage across her face. It goes as quickly as it comes. I had seen it before, when the stupid bitch had called my bride a rat.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything and no lies. How long has she been with Trey?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “She has been around for as long as I can remember. Trey is twelve years older than me. They went to school together.”

“She’s his true mate?”

Neah nods her head. “She was nice once, before I killed my parents. She used to bring me presents, toys mostly. It all changed after she became Luna and I became nothing.”

“You didn’t kill your parents.” When would she accept it was a lie? “And you are not nothing. Not anymore.”

She puffs out her cheeks and her brow furrows.

“Talk to me.” I mutter, ignoring Aero’s rumblings

“I will be nothing when you cast me aside for a new bride.”

I roll my eyes. “Raven?”

She nods her head at me.

“Raven needs to learn to keep her mouth shut.” Grinding my teeth, I stare at her, I had asked her for the truth, it was only fair I did the same. “Raven isn’t wrong. There have been other brides, but none that I have truly wanted by my side.”

“You killed them?”

Raven really needed to learn to keep her mouth shut. It was her that had freaked out my other brides by telling them the same shit as she had told Neah. She was the reason some of them had ran.

“Some of them.”

She nods, keeping her eyes low.

“I didn’t kill them because I was bored of them. Some were passing information back to their old packs. Others were money grabbers, or desperate to be hanging on my arm at all times. If I had to go do something, they would whine at me that they weren’t getting enough attention.”

“Oh.”

“Raven likes to do this. She likes to test my brides. But do you know what they all had in common?”

She shakes her head.

“I never marked them. I could never bring myself to do it. Something held me back.” Neah was the only one I had considered marking and I still couldn’t figure out what it was that drew me to her.

‘She’s perfect.’ Aero sounds smitten.

Grabbing the pot of cream, she automatically stands and lifts her top to show me her wound.

She lets out a little gasp as my fingers brush against her skin and I hear her heart skip a beat as she closes her eyes. She had a habit of doing that too. Afraid to witness what was happening or maybe it was a fear of looking me in the eye. I couldn’t tell.

My fingers pause over her stomach and she holds her breath.

“Breathe Neah.” I whisper and her heart skips a beat again.

She lets her lungs expand and tears creep out the corner of her eyes. “I don’t want to die.” Her eyes flash open, locking onto mine. It was the first time since meeting her that she truly looked at me. Her breathing hitches and her lips part a little.

There’s a growing need inside of me, the need to make her mine so that she cannot be claimed by anyone else. How the hell could she make me feel this way?

‘Mate!’ Aero growls

‘Not possible, her Wolf isn’t present.’ I tell him

‘Mate!’ he repeats a little louder, growing more agitated.

‘You’re wrong!’

Neah’s blue eyes are still locked on mine. The tears had stopped and her brow dips a little as she stares at me.

“I have to……” I mutter, turning away. I was completely thrown by how she was looking at me, so I storm out of the office.

‘Go back!’ Aero demands. ‘Go back, we need to mark her!’

I could feel him pushing forward, trying to break free of my control. The more he pushes, the more I fight back, keeping him shut away. I had to get out of the house.

Striding across the grounds, I head towards the pack hospital. I wanted to know what else Raven had told Neah.

Asleep at the desk, she is startled when I wake her.

“What the fuck did you say to her?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “She needs to know the truth. It’s not fair if she doesn’t know what's coming.” She rubs her eyes and yawns. “Why, has she done a runner?”

“No, she is in my office.”

“Then no harm done.” She shrugs her shoulders at me. “If you want my opinion, she is nice, different from the others.”

“I am well aware, why do you think I chose her?”

‘Because she is our mate’ Aero mutters gleefully.

I try to ignore his comment, he had to be wrong. Her Wolf wasn’t present. It would be impossible to know.

Raven walks around the desk, leaning on it and smiling at me. “I was right, you do really like this one, don’t you?”

“She has a name.” I snap, turning on my heel and walking away.

‘Why are you fighting it?’ Aero asks as I stop in front of the house.

‘How do you know?’ I mutter

‘When she looked us in the eye. Her Wolf is buried deep, but it’s strong. I can feel it. Maybe even stronger than us.’

Pushing open the door, I could still smell her strange scent. I had given her another opportunity to run but she was still here.

In the office, she is sitting in a chair, hugging her legs to her chest. Aero practically screams at me to claim her as mine. Instead I ask her why she is still here?

“You didn’t tell me to go anywhere.” She keeps her eyes low and I wondered if she knew. "And I have nowhere to go."

“Have you looked through my stuff?” I mutter, glancing around at the paperwork on my desk. It didn’t look like it had been touched but that didn’t mean it hadn’t.

She shakes her head at me. Her hair falls around her face.

“I don’t tolerate lies.” I remind her. “I don’t do scheming women.”

She frowns. “I didn’t look because……” She drags her teeth across her bottom lip and her cheeks flame. “I… I can’t read.”

It was completely not what I was expecting her to say. The others, they would make up some crazy lie.

“School?”

She shakes her head. I should have guessed that she never went. Not if she has been a slave since she was six.

“Raven tried teaching me a bit. But I didn’t understand.”

Why didn’t Raven tell me? Was it because she actually liked Neah too? Because she had never been interested in any of my other brides. In fact, she had hated every single one of them.

“I get it.” She mutters, “You regret choosing me. But please don’t kill me. I can work, I can clean, I can do anything you need me to do. Just please don’t kill me.”

Pulling her from the chair, I plant my lips on hers.