Chapter 13
Tori
“Let them try.” He stepped closer.
Instinctively I backed up until my shoulders pressed against the wall. The cool surface grounded me for half a second before my pulse kicked harder.
“I have resources you can’t imagine,” Derek continued, voice rough, confidence bleeding through the edges of his desperation. “Connections. Power.”
“You have delusions of grandeur.” The words slipped out before I could stop them.
His laugh echoed down the hallway. There was nothing amused about it. “You think you’re so smart?” His head tilted slightly as he studied me, eyes narrowing. “You think you’ve won?”
“I wasn’t trying to win anything. I just don’t want to be married to you.” My chin lifted before I even realized I’d done it. Pride stiffened my spine, overriding the fear. “I won’t.”
“Ah, but you are my wife.”
“Just let me go. Agree to the annulment. I know your lawyers have it.”
“No.”
“What do you want? I don’t understand. We were friends, Derek. We were never in love. Why are you holding on so tight?” Seriously? What was with this guy?
“You’re mine.”
“I’m not property.”
“You are. On that, your beast and I agree.”
Fuck. Him. “So what? Buying a wife wasn’t enough? Now you’re sneaking onto closed sets like some obsessed stalker? Making a fool of yourself on television? Begging?”
His gaze darkened, but I was too angry to stop now. There had been too many times over the years I’d wanted to tell him and off and hadn’t. Too worried about being nice. Being liked. Having so-called friends.
I folded my arms across my chest. “What’s next, Derek? You going to sit outside my bedroom window with a boombox?”
All traces of compassion drained from his face so quickly it was almost frightening. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. Wife.”
“I understand perfectly.” My voice sharpened. “I left you. I chose someone else. And your ego can’t survive it.”
“I saw you.” The words dropped between us like a blade.
“At the ball.” His gaze hardened, burning with something ugly and raw.
“The way you looked at him. The way you danced with him.” His lip curled slightly.
“You’re not just playing the game anymore, are you?
You actually feel something for that… alien. ”
My heart skipped once—hard. I didn’t look away. “What if I do?”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Jealousy twisted Derek’s features, the emotion so stark it almost startled me. Rage followed close behind, tightening the lines around his mouth. “Then you’re even more foolish than I thought.”
He stepped closer again.
My back flattened against the wall. The corridor suddenly felt very narrow, very empty.
I could scream. I could try to run. But he blocked the hallway, and instinct told me I wouldn’t make it two steps before he grabbed me.
Where the hell were Krag and Rohn? They were supposed to be right behind me on the next elevator. They’d stopped to talk to Chet for all of two minutes.
“You think he’s going to save you?” Derek’s voice dropped, soft now. Intimate. Terrifying. “You think your precious Warlord can protect you from what’s coming?”
Ice slid down my spine. “Why would be need to protect me?” I asked quickly, forcing steel into my voice. “We were friends. What is wrong with you?”
“You don’t know what you’ve done.” That smile appeared again. The same calculating smile he used in negotiations, right before someone signed away a company they never should have lost. “You’re my wife, Victoria.”
He kept using that word, wife. Coming from his lips, it felt like a rope closing around my throat.
“You’re mine. You gave me your word, and you don’t get to break it.”
“I want a divorce.” My voice softened slightly, confusion pushing past the anger. “An annulment. We never consummated the marriage.” I shook my head, frustration tightening my chest. “Why are you making this so difficult?”
This didn’t make sense. “You don’t even want me,” I continued quietly. “This was a business arrangement. That’s all it ever was.”
His tone shifted again—suddenly calm, almost conversational. “That’s where you’re wrong.” He stepped closer until there was barely a foot between us. Then his hand lifted.
For a heartbeat, my body locked in place as his fingers brushed my cheek.
The gesture mirrored one Egon used all the time—gentle, grounding, steady.
But Derek’s touch felt completely different. Cold. Wrong.
Revulsion twisted through me.
Derek’s eyes were glassy, unfocused, something frantic flickering deep beneath the surface. “Either you get rid of him,” he said quietly, “or I will.”
I froze, trying to process that my friend, the man I’d agreed to marry to help him with some money issues, was threatening to kill Egon just because I had fallen in love with him.
“You were my friend.” Maybe if I told him enough, he’d start acting like it again.
“You should be happy for me. Stop this.”
“One phone call.” He lifted his phone slowly, waving it in his fingers like it was a weapon. “One bullet. That’s all it takes.”
My stomach dropped. Oh my God. He was serious. “You wouldn’t.” My voice barely made it past my throat.
Hire an assassin? He was talking about hiring someone to murder Egon.
“Why wouldn’t I?” He leaned closer. Too close. I could smell his cologne—the same expensive scent he’d worn for years. Tonight, it was sharp with sweat and desperation.
“You want to save him?” Derek murmured. “Then you come back to me.”
My pulse thundered in my ears.
“Publicly. On camera. You tell the world you made a mistake. That you chose the wrong man.” His gaze bored into mine. “That you’re sorry. Be convincing, Victoria.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then he disappears.” The words landed with brutal finality. “There are consequences to stealing from me, Tori. Even for an alien.”
“You can’t steal a person. I’m not your property.” My voice shook now, fury rising fast enough to burn away the fear. I sounded like a broken record.
“You are. You are my wife. My property. I will not allow you to walk away from me.” He stepped back, giving me space again.
That smile returned. He was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Fucking Hyde. How had I never realized he was like this? I’d known him for years. Years. “You have three days.”
My chest tightened. The season finale was in three days. I was supposed to be on stage as Egon placed his mating cuffs around my wrists and claimed me.
“Come back to me publicly. Tell the world you choose me over him, and all of this goes away.” His shoulders lifted in a casual shrug. “Your alien lover survives. Everyone wins.”
“Except me.” I already knew what my answer was going to be. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give up Egon. He was an Atlan Warlord. A born warrior. One of the most feared soldiers in the universe. He wouldn’t be afraid of Derek, so I couldn’t allow myself to be afraid either.
“Except you.” Derek’s expression didn’t change.
“But you’ve always been good at sacrifice, haven’t you?
” His gaze slid over my face, calculating.
“Working those double shifts. Paying your way through school. Working extra hours as my personal assistant.” His voice softened almost sympathetically.
“Surely you can sacrifice your happiness to save your alien’s life. ”
Footsteps echoed from around the corner.
Heavy.
Booted.
Male.
My body reacted instantly.
A rush of awareness slid through me—something deep and instinctive that had nothing to do with logic.
Egon.
I knew it before I saw him.
Derek heard it, too.
His head snapped toward the sound, tension flashing across his face. He stepped backward toward a narrow service door I hadn’t even noticed. “The clock is ticking.” His fingers closed around the handle. “Choose wisely.”
“Derek—” But he was already gone.
The door swung shut behind him, swallowing him into the shadows.
I stood frozen in the hallway, my heart slamming against my ribs hard enough to hurt.
Three days.
Choose Egon… and Derek would destroy him.
Choose Derek… and I would lose everything.
The footsteps grew louder.
A moment later Egon rounded the corner.
Relief flashed across his face the instant he saw me.
“Tori. I heard voices.” He closed the distance between us in two long strides.
“Krag and Rohn were delayed downstairs by Jessica. They messaged me to attend to you.” His hands came up, framing my face, the warmth of his palms instantly grounding me.
His golden eyes searched mine with fierce concentration.
“Are you all right? Who were you talking to?”
His gaze scanned my face, my shoulders, the tension in my body. “You look… shaken.” He inhaled slowly, the beast’s eyes flaring as he processed. It wouldn’t be hard for him to figure out who I was talking to. Even I could smell Derek’s cologne in the hallway.
“Derek.”
He didn’t react.
“And I’m fine.” My response was automatic. And a lie. A complete and total fucking lie.
Egon
My mate was lying to me.
I knew it the moment I touched her.
My hand rested at the small of her back as I guided her through the quiet corridors of the resort, the thin fabric of her dress warm beneath my palm. To anyone watching, it might have looked casual—protective, perhaps—but nothing unusual.
To me, it felt like touching a live wire.
Tori’s body was tight with tension. Her muscles stayed rigid beneath my hand. Her pulse raced so fast I could feel the rhythm through the delicate bones of her wrist when our fingers brushed together.
Her breathing came shallow. Too shallow. And beneath the soft scent of vanilla and sunlight that always clung to her, there was another smell now.
Fear.
Not the sharp, immediate fear of danger. This was deeper. Lingering. The kind that settled into the bones and refused to leave.
Something had happened. Something she had not told me. The beast stirred uneasily beneath my skin. Demanded answers.
Kill him.
The instinct rose fast and hard—primal, brutal.