Chapter 21 #2
Megan stepped forward. "Ellie, is this… do you have to do this? Is there really no other way? Yes, the pack helped us, but this is your life. A mate bond isn’t something trivial, it’s for life.
You shouldn’t be bonded to someone you aren't sure of.
" There was something in her voice that made me glance over at her, as I translated her question but then Rivik responded.
"No," I said quietly. "There's no other way. Karik would just pursue us anyway"
"And if you say no? What happens then?" asked Dev.
I asked Rivik. His answer was longer this time.
"If I refuse," I said, my voice hollow, "Karik will come back. The pack won't be strong enough to fight him and his wolves. People will die."
Dev exhaled slowly, his arm still around my shoulders. "Okay," he said softly. "Okay. But it's still your choice, Ellie. You know that, right? No one can make you do this."
The kindness in his voice nearly broke me.
Nathan, however, wasn't kind.
"This is insane," he snapped, his voice rising. "You're not seriously considering this. They're manipulating you, Ellie. This is barbaric—they're treating you like property."
My stomach twisted, shame and anger flaring hot in my chest. I had to translate that. I had to tell Rivik what Nathan just said.
I did, softening the words instinctively, but Rivik's expression hardened anyway. He responded in a low, clipped tone.
"He says," I forced out, my voice shaking now, "that no one is treating me like property. That this is my choice. That Daska offered freely, and I can refuse freely."
Nathan scoffed. "And you believe that?"
"Nathan—"
"No." He cut me off, stepping closer. "This is insane, Ellie. You don't know these people. You don't know what they want from you. For all we know, they've been planning this from the start."
"That's not—"
"They want your power," Nathan continued, his voice hard. "Your magic. You think they'd go to all this trouble if you were just some random woman? You're not even that pretty."
The accusation hit like a slap.
I stared at him, heat flooding my face, my chest tight with humiliation and fury.
I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. Rivik asked me what Nathan had said, clearly seeing my face, but I didn’t need him to fight my battles for me.
Not the man choosing who exactly to whore me out to.
Something inside finally snapped, and I stepped forward, slapping Nathan across the face.
“Fuck you, Nathan. you don’t give a shit about me, just the mission. And I’m worried about that too. I know we still have to reach the drain, and I know you need me, but right now, this feels like the only way out, so I’m taking it.”
"Don’t translate this, Ellie, but if you mate Daska, Karik will come back but will not be able to claim you. Is that right?" said Megan. I nodded. “So you mate him, then when Karik has left, then we leave. Would Daska be the type to hunt you down and drag you back here if you left?”
I thought of my bear shifter, his gentle, careful hands, his massive strength. Daska not break Ellie. Tears pricked in my eyes, but I blinked them away.
“No,” I said quietly. “He wouldn’t.”
Megan's gaze settled on me, steady and assessing. "Then this may be the only workable solution."
“I…” I trailed off, my mind spinning. sadness and fear, and fury all tangling together, landing on one simple thought. Where the fuck was Daska? I spun around to face Rivik.
“Where Daska? Did you even give choice?” I shook my head. "You stand here talking what's best for pack, they talk what's best for team, what Karik wants, what law says—" My voice cracked, but I pushed through. "No one asked me. No one asked me first."
Rivik frowned and opened his mouth, but I shook my head sharply.
"Daska didn't come," I continued, the words spilling out now, raw and unfiltered. "He be mate, but he didn't…" I broke off, pressing my palms against my eyes, trying to hold back the tears burning there, running out of words.
A hand grabbed one of mine, and then I was being dragged out of the cave, along to a smaller hearth, Rivik muttering under his breath the whole time.
“What you doing?” I got out.
He pulled down the skin blocking the crack in the rock wall we’d slipped through, and looked down at me, amber eyes burning.
"You can say no. Daska chose freely. You are not pack. If you and them leave tonight, i will not hunt you."
I looked up at him, and despite my anger, I knew he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t hunt us down or force us to return. He was making me choose. And somehow, that made it worse. Because it meant this was real. This was happening. And I had to choose between my freedom and his pack.
“Hate you,” I said.
His eyes burned deeper. "I cannot protect you otherwise," he said. "Karik will return stronger. The pack will suffer if you do not do this. After Karik returns and sees he cannot have you, you and your pack can leave."
“And Daska?” I asked. “He good me leave?”
The pain that crossed Rivik’s face surprised me, and angered me. I knew they were close. Daska had told me how they’d grown up together, and now Rivik was hurting him too.
“You don’t care,” I shouted at him. “You alpha, so you order and we do. Don’t care Daska hurt. Don’t care I hurt. Just pack. Mate me Daska, save pack. No care if hurt!”
"You think I want this?" Rivik's voice rose for the first time, sharp and raw. "You think I want to hand you to another male? My brother? To watch you bond with him and know I cannot—"
“Cannot what?” I demanded.
He crossed the distance between us in two strides, his hand catching the back of my neck, his grip firm and deliberate.
I barely had time to draw breath before his mouth was on mine.
The kiss was fierce, desperate, controlled but only just. His lips were warm and demanding, and I froze for half a heartbeat, shock slamming through me, before instinct took over.
I grabbed the front of his tunic and kissed him back.
It wasn't soft. It wasn't tentative. It was fire and frustration and everything we hadn't said, couldn't say, all crashing together in one impossible moment. His other hand found my waist, pulling me closer, and I felt the tension in his body, the way he was holding himself back even as he gave in. I hadn’t even realised we were moving, until I felt the rock wall at my back, his hands under my thighs lifting me and wrapping my legs around his waist. His mouth, hungry and demanding, claiming mine relentlessly.
I reached for the ties on his tunic, yanking them open so I could spread my palms over his hard, toned chest, and he growled into my mouth.
I felt him press against me, pushing between my legs, rubbing against my pussy with the hard length contained in his trousers.
He groaned. Deep and rough, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my palms where they were pressed flat against his skin, and the sensation of it sent something liquid and hot pooling low in my belly.
He rocked his hips against me, slow and deliberate, and I gasped into his mouth.
One hand slipped between us, sliding down the front of my trousers and I cried out as his fingers found me, and I arched against the rock wall with a broken sound that I barely recognised as my own voice.
I broke the kiss with a sharp, helpless cry, my head falling back against the rock. His mouth followed, dropping to my throat, teeth grazing the tender skin there as his fingers moved with a focused, devastating intent that made my thighs clamp around him and my hands claw at his shoulders.
"Rivik—" His name came out wrecked, barely recognisable.
"I know." His voice was rough against my collarbone, his breath ragged. "I know."
I felt the warmth of him everywhere, solid and overwhelming and so much more than I'd let myself imagine in the dark hours when I'd lain awake in Daska's cave and tried very hard not to think about either of them.
He didn't stop. He pressed deeper, his palm grinding against me in slow circles, and I buried my face in his neck and bit down on the tendon there to keep from screaming, and he made that sound again, that low, guttural rumble that bypassed every rational thought I had and went straight to something older and more animal.
I came undone with my face pressed against his throat, gasping his name into his skin.
He kissed me again. Not to silence me. Harder than that, more desperate than that. His forehead dropped to mine when he finally broke away, his breath ragged, both hands now braced against the rock wall on either side of my head.
We stayed like that. Breathing hard, his fingers still inside me, my legs still wrapped around his waist. He was shaking.
"Rivik," I said. My voice came out wrecked.
He pulled back, lowering me to the ground and stepping back, refusing to meet my eyes, his expression shuttering so quickly it made my chest ache. The loss of contact was immediate and brutal. I stumbled slightly, my breath coming in short, uneven gasps.
"I apologize," he said quietly. "That was wrong of me."
I stared at him, stunned, my lips still tingling, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might break through my ribs.
"Rivik—"
"Prepare yourself," he said, cutting me off. "The ceremony will be at midday tomorrow. You will mate my brother."
And then he turned and walked away, leaving me standing alone in the firelight, shaking and breathless and utterly wrecked.