Chapter 12

“Where are you coming from?” Lucien asked with a scowl painting his face and his hands tightly crossed over his broad chest. My head fell from his face to look at my shoes as the waves of his anger threatened to bury me under.

“I went to see the Alpha.” He stood as I closed the door behind me and leaned against it as he stalked forward with unbridled anger in his eyes, his stance, even his aura radiated his displeasure but it couldn’t even be compared to the simple aura of the prince.

Lucien came forward and pressed his hands into the wall beside my head, his body caging me to the wall as he breathed down on me. I looked at the side and cussed myself for not fleeing before he stood, before he had the chance to put me at a disadvantage but I knew Lucien. If I ran, he would give chase.

“What is your relationship with him?” He snarled into my face, his teeth clench and hot breath warming my skin and kicking my heart to race faster.

I hadn’t done anything so why did he come down on me as if I did something dreadful and deserves to be punished? Why was he angry?

Wait. He never needed reason to be angry at me. Him and his gang, they never needed to find any reason to lash out at me. My existence annoyed them enough. The air I breathed made them angry and if they could, if murder wasn’t illegal, they’d have found a way to end my life by now. If the former alpha didn’t want to keep me around to punish me every time he thought of his wife, I’d be dead by now.

“I have no relationship with him,” I answered Lucien. I felt some of the anger in his stance deflate but he didn’t let me go. He didn’t let his hands drop from my sides and he didn’t stop breathing into my face like a bull holding itself back from charging at a waving red flag.

“What did Jabari mean then?” He still snarled into my face. I bristled at the constant and incessant yelling in my face. This time, spittle even flew into my face. It didn’t help that whatever he last ate had a lot of garlic in it which still permeates his breath.

“You can ask him if you want to know.” I sighed when he leaned in further at my words.

What would it take for Lucien to let me be? He didn’t want me. When we found out we were mates, I was both surprised and thrilled. A lot of times, mates couldn’t sense each other until they both had shifted so considering I hadn’t shifted, I didn’t expect to find my mate.

When my wolf whispered that one word to me, when he looked at me with smoldering eyes and whispered the words in my head out loud, I foolishly assumed we had such a strong bond that my lack of a physical wolf couldn’t stop it,

Our case was rare, as rare as one in a thousand wolves but it happened and I squealed and laughed in my heart before everything came crashing down. Till today, Celeste never figured out we’d been mates: such was how well he threatened me to keep quiet about our mate bond.

Lucien broke me but like a selfish child, one who refused to let go of the toys they broke and had no use for, he held me close. If I drifted too far, he came to pull me back. If I so much as looked at another boy, he went after said boy. He didn’t want me because I was trash to him, nothing but dirt, rotten garbage thrown out but he still wouldn’t let me be in peace.

“Are you really his mate? Did the goddess give you a second chance already?”

Was I really the Cursed Alpha’s mate? Every hint pointed to that direction. Yes, I was his mate but it didn’t make any sense for someone like me to be mated to someone like him.

He needed a curse breaker, an alpha female, a warrior wolf. Not me. I couldn’t do anything for him. I wasn’t made to stand beside a man like Prince Valens so there had to be a mistake somewhere.

‘There’s no mistake! How dare you think our bond is a mistake?’ Artemis snarled at me, pacing back and forth at the proximity of her former mate.

Our bond with Lucien had been severed and with the arrival of Prince Valens, there would be no going back. Not unless he forced a mark on me at this point. I pressed my back into the wall at that single thought. Until I mated with someone else, my bond with my first mate could be reawaken with just one bite.

“Why are you not answering me? Did you carry out Skylar’s plan? What did Jabari mean by ‘the luna?’ Answer me, damn it!” He punched the wall beside my head which made me flinch away from him. He breathed heavily through his nostril and mouth.

“I – I don’t know why you’re doing this. Why are you doing this?” All the emotions I managed to hold down all these days threatened to choke me at that point.

At this point, I just wanted to lay on my lumpy bed in the dark and consider all that was happening. I needed to sort through everything that happened today without fear of someone looking at me or judging me but it seemed like I’d escaped from a dragon’s den and stumbled into a tiger’s den.

Lucien made my room a danger zone. I wanted to push him out. I wanted to take off my slippers and hit him with it until he fled but I just stood there with all the drama going on in my head and the fear paralyzing my limbs while he growled in my face for something I had no power over.

I didn’t chose the Alpha Prince as my mate. If I had the chance to pick a second chance mate, it wouldn’t be the Alpha Prince.

I’d pick a soft man with a nice smile, a simple life and easy dreams. A man who would want nothing but to be happy with me. I didn’t fit with the Alpha Prince. If he broke his curse, he would go back to leading the whole werewolves on the planet. He needed someone strong to lead beside him.

‘You have broken his curse. We have broken his curse.’ Artemis kept urging me but she was the only person on the planet who thought I was better than I was. She thought I was worth more than a dirty plastic bag of waste.

“Please let me go.” I muttered when Lucien still caged me to the wall with his heavy breathing on my face. “I have to –“ I have to sort out my life but I didn’t say that. He didn’t let me finish.

“I’m never letting you go.” His l!ps descended against mine and rather than my eyes closing like most people’s would in this kind of situation, my eyes widened to twice their original size and my breathing seized. My heart missed a beat and then two, before it flew into overdrive and beat as fast as a racing car sped.

Disgust crawled up my skin at the feel of his l!ps on mine. I’d felt them once in the past, before he betrayed me. The memory of them faded in my mind but today, it filled me with repugnance and self-loathing. I didn’t want to be k!ssing him. I didn’t even want to breathe the same air as him!

I opened my mouth like a fool, wanting to say something, to tell him to let me go as his hands had come up to pin mine above my head but rather than say anything, he pushed his tongue into my mouth and my breakfast turned in my stomach, wanting to come out of my stomach.

My door creaked open to reveal a concerned Jabari. The concern on his face morphed to disgust when he saw Lucien attached to me like a viper. Lucien didn’t pull away immediately after the intrusion. He took his time pulling away from me with a small smirk on his l!ps.

The smirk didn’t last long as Jabari delivered a bone crunching hit to his chin. I watched Lucien crumple to the floor like a weightless paper without air to keep it afloat.

“We are moving your things, Luna.” Jabari said in a bland tone, lacking in emotion but his twisted l!ps made it clear that he was disgusted with me.

“I – I’m – It wasn’t what it looked like.” After I blurted that out, my face fell into my palm. That was what every guilty person always said. What would it be if not what it looked like!?

“That is for the prince to decide,” he said, his face still contorted.

“I – please, don’t tell him.” I knew it wouldn’t end well. The Alpha Prince was already possessive of me. I didn’t know what he would do to me if he found out Lucien had his l!ps on mine. I didn’t want to think of what he’d do to the man groaning on the floor behind me.

“I must.” He shrugged, pulling me out of the room.