11

CHAPTER 11: Deception or Denial

Gone is the vulnerable Alpha I had before, in his place, a cold and stoic one that has an approving look in his eyes when I stand in a gemmed dress, my rustic blonde curls loosely cascading down my shoulders. He looks at me like a territory he needed to conquer now, seeing an Alpha unguarded was apparently a pleasure woman got once in a blue moon, and Martin was taking it literally as I’m forced into the small throne seat next to him, “You don’t walk like a Queen should, should I insert etiquette lessons for you?” He asks me.

“You don’t need to look like a Queen just to be one, clearly that is an opposite assumption for a King, however you seemed to have misplaced your crown.” I mutter.

“Aren’t you talkative this evening? I didn’t believe I’d get a word from you, even thought you’d rub it in my face.” He mentions, eyeing the rows of tables in front of him with deadly glares for yet another wasteful evening I’m here.

I side-glance him, “If only you were so important. Why make me wear this ridiculous outfit this evening?” I question him, he stares me down in a manner that says ‘behave’ when twin wooden doors creak open, revealing one of the professors from my old academy in a robe of some kind, black and red, he has a necklace of gold around his wrinkled neck, white beard trimmed finely short and deep brown eyes that were stern wherever they looked. I furrow my eyebrows when he enters with other men cloaked, but my stomach clenched for some odd reason. I looked through the cloaked individuals, not noticing anything as Martin stands and harshly gestures for me to do the same.

Something felt off about this moment, my old professor bows in our direction, “Alpha Martin. Alpha Celestine, we are honoured to be in your presence.” Elias Cardinal. A professor of an older kind of magic, but not something he truly revealed to many.

Martin steps forward in his formal suit. “Cardinal, we welcome you. Please, join us for dinner, we should not speak so soon of the tournament only when you first arrive. Enforcers, please welcome them through.” He speaks so formally it’s almost like watching a robot. I sit back down, feeling light-headed and watched closely by whoever was among the robe-wearing men who came with Elias.

Martin studies them, “They are here to ensure we are both fit for the tournaments. Any female not eligible, or any male not eligible will have their clan name removed from the tournaments. I believe I discussed this with you before our bond was made.” He says to me, his tone changing to something softer, like the feathers on an archangel, he made himself look fierce, not just his physical form, but his aura too.

“How long will they be here for and actually no, you did not mention anything?” I bite.

He gives me a long look, “You never listen to me. They will be here for a week, we are their last stop, before we return back to Europe for the tournaments in front of that ridiculous supernatural Council you still believe is necessary.” He grits his teeth as he speaks.

“The tournament that supposedly brings mated couples closer together?” I sway, accenting my lips.

He looks at me blankly, “Because you’re so open to a relationship.”

“Says the imbecile who got turned on during an argument.” I answer with, raising an eyebrow at his flushed form when he looks around to see we’re being stared at, however, I truly did not care.

Martin’s intense silver eyes penetrate my emerald green ones, I meet his head-on, not backing down, “Do you really want to play this route?” He questions in a hushed manner, before standing abruptly, grabbing my arm and ripping me forward, I grit my teeth, “Excuse us a moment.” His voice echoes against a partially silent courtroom of people eating a dinner they always seem to find entertaining whenever we are around.

The doors open by the two guards, I rip my hand away from Martin’s as if he was burning me, but in true fact, it was my own skin that somehow felt eternally heated. I felt like blasting the walls down just to see if I could, “You’re burning up.” The arsehole actually sounds concerned for me.

“Fuck off.” I spit at him.

He grabs my arm and pulls me down a corridor, I felt sizzling hot, but it became more pleasurable than just painful. My eyes searched the corridor, I found flamed sticks on the walls, looking inviting, I reach for one, but he rips me away, “What in the actual hell? You could hurt yourself, even burn, you daft princess. Get away from that!” He growls into my ear. I struggle against him.

“I am sick of you being a man-handling twat, let go of me.” I growl lowly.

He rips me into a colder room and slams the door closed, locking it before shocking me by cupping my cheeks, only it’s not a heated kiss I get, but eyes of great concern, “What is going on with you? Do you think me a fool to not see you capable of burning my skin?” He asks me, though I had a gut feeling it was rhetorical.

I nod to him anyway, he gives me a flat look, before stilling us both when my back meets a shelf of old books, he dragged me into another library, how many of these damn libraries are even here, “Answer my question, what is going on with you?”

“Do I look like I fucking know? I’ve been trapped here for how freaking long? The days are just combining now, you want us to be strong enough for these pathetic tournaments that are quite literally just used for entertainment, leaving your guests out there like children coming in a museum that you just don’t care about? What’s going on with you, huh? You never mentioned them, I know you were lying about saying that I never listen—I’m forced to fucking listen in case you pull a curse out of your arse and run the rest of your kin straight to hell along with me, you abusive swine.”

He studies me, “I don’t need more of your verbal vomit, and pulling a curse out of my arse would be the least of your concerns, considering you cannot seem to feel anything I feel and I want to know why. Your skin electrifies me, Celestine. Every time I try to focus on my clan, you are what comes to mind, my home, yet you forever ice me out. I’m forced to retaliate, if I was a nice guy, you would run and I would be weak to allow it.” He argues, pulling away from where his hand was gripping the shelf behind me. His silver eyes glare with a hidden frustration, a hidden intensity of want and longing, it’s no longer indecipherably contracted within those stormy moons.

I step away from the shelf just so I’m not backed into a corner, “I highly doubt that.” I mutter.

“I speak the truth, no matter your incessant need to always be in denial.”

I wanted to flip the fucker off.

“Why did you do it? Why did you do this to us?” He asks me.

“Because you are not mine to love or even bond with, you illusionistic prick.” If I was so in denial, I wouldn’t see his deceptions for what they were, if a mate’s skin sets another on fire, burning with love and need, then why the hell would that so-called other cage them, abuse them because of one set of words that meant no love or comfort; a rejection. He’s deceptive, I know it, proving it though was more problematic than any mission I’ve ever been on.

“Is that what you tell yourself every night?” He asks me bitterly from behind, but I pause when fingers brush the length of my spine, it wasn’t a pulsing electrifying contraption, but a strange bitterness I allowed. Why did I allow it? Haven’t got a fucking clue.

His fingers draw, shaping down my back before they’re venturing along my waist, “Shall I try a more intimate approach?” Approach to what is the better question. His lips brush the sensitive shell of my air, I don’t breathe raggedly, my heart doesn’t race where his begins to. He kisses along the disgusting fang marks that scarred my skin, he shivers behind me and digs his fingers into my abdomen, panting above me, “I want you. Badly.” He confesses.

And I want a chocolate milkshake.

Neither of us we’re getting our wishes.

His fingers slide down my bare arm, “Why can’t you feel it? What is blocking you and your creature I want spread like a feast of my liking?” Was that considered hot or just bloody domineering?

“I want to taste you.” He pants like he’s just run across the world twice.

I don’t see how this is hot though. His chiseled chest hunches around me, his head in close to mine, cheek slides down mine, he squeezes my hips, “I want to make love, not war.”

“And I want a jelly donut, the sun on my face and a fucking ticket to freedom, but do you see any of those fucking happening?” I ask him, scoffing and shoving him aside.

He dumps his head back against the shelving, “Gonna have to try harder. Moon goddess hates me.” He mutters, grabbing his suit jacket, and shirt and tie. Wow, he had gotten half naked during that pledge of lust and teenage hormones? I didn’t even notice. No sparks, not even some fireworks could make me look at him and see detail, not an obstacle in my way.

“Why try at all? Do you truly believe you can go back after the choices you made? After what you did to me?” This question has never been truly answered by him, I know he chooses to force things to keep moving forward, but did he really love me or did he want to guarantee a future for himself? An heir, two sides of a throne to better manage an entire clan?

I take a slow seat in the chair facing the iced over window that looked cobwebbed with cracks from the ice outside, making everything look bleary and almost disorientating to look at. Like an illusion of its own, a pretty cage is still a cage, “You’re too young to understand love, aren’t you?” He asks, not in anger or in a patronising manner, he just wonders out of curiosity.

He tries to reason my reluctance to mate with him.

“You’re too old to misunderstand cruelty, aren’t you?” I fire back at him.

His eyes penetrate mine, “That goes both ways, unless you want to tell me men cannot feel. That we should be emotionless robots, strong and determined, never weak, never fucking vulnerable.”

I inhale slowly, feeling my nostrils flare, “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Women expect it though.”

“No, not always. That’s just another assumption.” I tell him.

He scoffs, “Now who’s being patronising, or just demeaning? It’s difficult to tell when you continuously believe everyone here is out to get you or hurt you, or turn you into something you do not wish to be, yet you are not fooling anyone, Celestine. I see it when you walk in a room, you want the eyes, the audience, the flare. You’re one for it. I bet you’d even kill for it.” He points at me, getting right up in my face.

I stare at him, “You’re one to talk, or unless bending me to your will is just a figment of my imagination.” I was short with him, but I knew I had to be.

He snorts, “I have an audience for a very different reason. Making you a Luna—do you believe all Lunas are treated like breeding mares? Are you truly so naive as to think all Alpha males are as wicked and cunning as the next grim reaper?” He asks me. Bastard has been in my mind, he would know.

I’m about to turn away, he grabs my arm and firmly pulls me back, “Answer me.” He demands.

“It’s not nativity if it’s true. If it’s real, and you don’t exactly paint the picture unique.” He was more stereotypical with this than anyone, telling me not all male werewolves, especially alphas are domineering arseholes, since he’s proven himself so greatly on the spectrum of nice fucking courting capabilities. I should hang him by his toes, get the blood running to his head and replay in detail what he’s done to me. Because I doubt he has amnesia or any type of memory loss to forget how callous he’s been to me.

He stares, searching my eyes, “Oh, I’m callous. Might we replay your sharp tongue at a certain public event where you were a sadistic, vicious brat?” He asks me.

I slap him, hard.

“Might we replay the fact you shoved me in a cage?”

“That was my wolf, uncontrolled and pressured, you were putting us both through pain and you wouldn’t let me mark you, I had to do something. SOMETHING! To keep him at bay because you wouldn’t and that’s your job.” He growls at me, shaking me by the upper arms. We can never have a civil conversation.

I grab the white collar of his unbuttoned shirt and shove him now, my own wolf fighting now, he got me riled up, “Call me merciless for rejecting you in public, call you wicked for everything you’ve done to me because of one factual moment where I made it clear to you that we are not possible, that I could never love your ancient arse—mmhmm.” My lips were sewn shut before they were parted forcefully by the one and only Alpha above me. His fingers on my upper arms tightened, before being released when those lips went from relentless and ruthless to a different kind of pain: more sorrowful. He rests against the small desk, tilted back enough to fit me between his muscular legs.

While this was cold-hearted, it made me freeze and I hated that it did. He’s a savage until he sees that fierce, almost unfeeling taunt and one hand circles my neck, brushing the nape with a soft, tantalising lick of skin down the small arrow toward my shoulder blades, my stomach clenched against my ribcage, it wasn’t sparks, believe me, I’d say so. It was like dipping a few fingers into a set of dark, wet shadows above water. Above hellish black waters with the shadows hovering and tickling me with those taunting fingers, eyes, ears and kicks. It brushes like a paint brush, paint that flicks off of it to the canvas but those that miss it is each time his hand almost falls from my waist.

I pull back, didn’t even realise my green eyes closed until I opened them and my vision returned from the hellish black abyss that felt like I’d fallen off a cliff and dived to a set of dangerous rocks barricading an even more precarious sea. I felt the virulent beating of Martin’s heart racing underneath a palm I didn’t even realise I’d placed against him until it was too late, “You want me, you just won’t admit it.”

“But it’s only a kiss, nothing behind it. No meaning through it.” I shake my head at him as I explain this, gripping him, digging my fingers into pecs, hard enough to draw vengeful velvet blood.

He grips my chin, “How many kisses do you need to catch up to my damn heart?”

I search his eyes, “You’re trying so desperately to make this work.” When it isn’t. It just isn’t.

“You’re trying so desperately to make sure it doesn’t.” He murmurs, brushing a strand from framing my face, before his hands find my hips, he lowers his lips back to mine, it’s a soy feather-like brush. It’s not unkind, it’s the polar opposite. He leaves just as quickly as I felt him on me. His fingers lingering on my hand. But when I look at him, when I feel the brush of something more in the mind than on his face, I saw his manipulative wolf grin, a cunning little shit.

It’s harsh. Almost hateful and wants that vengeance like he needs it, like he must thrive on it just to survive. And that includes breaking me before ever putting me back together. I’m a puzzle to break before fixing. I’m a maze to ruin and run through before re-creating just to fall all over again. He wants vines and fires and blockades and dead ends just to keep going.

I read it in his devious, deceptive mind.

He’s like milk chocolate for an angelic sweet-tooth and dark chocolate for a demonic one.

Everyone has that addiction, that need to make their blood swarm and their mind work in geared up ways, just as said about the maze. He needs the chase, he needs to run, it’s why he enjoys the fight no matter how desperate his human side is to suffocating and choking on the desire to keep me anchored here. First the bite. Then the seduction.

And lastly...the deception.