Chapter 1 #3
I stood in the doorway where the beautifully stained hardwood melted into white penny tile with my arms crossed, waiting for him to say whatever he wanted to get off his chest.
Not even I was deluded enough to hope for an apology.
“It's not polite to eavesdrop on people,” the alpha said. He didn't even have the decency to look at me while he was telling me off, his eyes on his phone screen as he spoke, thumb tracking along as he scrolled.
It only pissed me off more, like I was somehow beneath his notice even when he was disciplining me.
“It's also not polite to talk about people when they aren't there,” I shot back, my petulant tone making my nose wrinkle a little.
I'd wanted to sound self-assured and a little annoyed… but somewhere along the way it'd turned into something that sounded an awful lot like whining.
Annoying.
He didn't seem phased, a single shoulder raising in a lazy shrug. “We were talking about pack business.” The clarification was a dig as much as it was anything else, the secondary meaning clear.
And as you aren't pack, you weren't invited.
Anger filled me, both because he was right—I couldn't bring myself to think about why that was, much less discuss it—and because Marcus' lack of attention was pushing my buttons in a way that meant I could barely reason with myself.
If Cameo's special talent was being at the center of this pack, Marcus' was pissing me the fuck off.
"I live here," I snapped.
“For now, sure,” Marcus said coolly, his tone pressing against the irritated vein throbbing in my neck. “But you've made it clear you don't want to bond, Joon. We're talking about forever, children, a family. And you obviously don't want that, so—”
“Says who?” I snapped.
Finally, that got the alpha's attention. He blinked, looking up at me in surprise. “You're telling me that you want to have a kid with us? Right now?”
“Maybe,” I said, my jaw working as my resolve faltered, just a little. “It's not like you've ever tried to talk about it with me. How am I supposed to make a decision that I've never been invited to consider?”
“Let me get this straight.” The alpha left his coffee cup on the island behind him, moving in my direction.
I stood nice and tall with my back straight, despite Marcus' best effort to make me cower as he leaned down into my space.
Or maybe people leaning away was just what happened when you were taller and nearly as wide as a goddamn fridge.
“You'd trust us enough to have a baby with us, but not enough to form a bond?”
“I…” I started, licking my lips as I looked into his mossy eyes, feeling small.
Was I considering it?
Sure, the idea wasn't terrible. I'd always loved children, and it wasn't even that I didn't want some kind of commitment with the pack.
I just… needed to be one hundred percent sure before we bonded. Sure that this was going to be my home forever.
Sure that I wouldn’t have to get another ugly tattoo to hide my mistakes.
Breaking a bond was agonizing, a fate worse than death. Both in the moments when it broke, the physical pain was enough to blur your vision and steal the breath from your lungs, but in the time after, too. In having to adapt from constant companionship to the overwhelming echo of nothing.
It was the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. And I wouldn't let it happen to me.
Not again.
“Well?”
“At the very least, I want the chance to think about it,” I said, much stronger than I felt. “Can I have some time to make a decision?”
He snorted, rolling his eyes like he already knew how this was going to end. “Sure, take all the time you want. But we're doing this with or without you, Joon. So it really doesn't matter what you choose.”
My hands balled into fists at my sides from the dismissal. “Whatever.”
Marcus' phone pinged, and he patted the top of my head, moving to place his coffee cup into the dishwasher. “See you later, Mr. Consideration.”
“Bye, dickhead!” I said as he grabbed his bag from the breakfast nook bench and disappeared through the back door with a chuckle. The shake of his broad shoulders mocking me through the window as he descended the steps off the back deck towards the garage.
I wished I'd said something more badass, but Marcus always pushed me to this level of frustration where I couldn't think straight. The kind that made my throat tight like I was going to cry at any second.
And I'd be absolutely fucked to let that dickhead think he had any kind of effect on me, much less let him see me cry.
The tears I’d been holding back tracked down my cheeks now that he was gone.
I wiped my nose with my sleeve before turning to his pristine to the point of neurotic kitchen, making my way over to the magnetized knife rack hung beside the stove.
It didn’t take me long to entirely destroy the perfect order by size, leaving the knives in complete, heavily fingerprinted disarray, but by the time I finished, I already felt a little better.
The little act of defiance helping me reclaim a hair of my control.
There, that’ll fucking show him.