Chapter 5 - Donna
Two Days Later
I used to think that I had my life figured out well enough. No shocks or disruptions that could possibly change the trajectory of my life, and I preferred it that way. I felt like I was in control, and control meant that nothing could frighten me, nothing could hurt me.
I once lost control of my life, and it was the moment my lips found Nicholas’s, and we kissed. The explosion of sensations meant there was no space for logic, no space for control, and I let my guard slip.
That’s when it hurt the most.
I’m no stranger to loss, like when Dominic and I lost our father. But he’d been sick for a while—long enough for us to mentally prepare for his departure from this earth. That’s why it was easier to grieve his loss.
It’s harder to grieve the loss of someone who’s still alive. Walking. Breathing. Disrupting my life and tearing my heart apart as if it isn’t a precious muscle that holds a precious frequency of love that should be unconditional.
Grunting my frustration under my breath, I turn to the side so the mirror reflects the zipper I'm supposed to pull up.
The dress feels too much, like I'm going to drown in the layers, and the zipper is the metaphorical seal on the fate that awaits me after I go through with this mate bond slash marriage ceremony.
My fingers tremble as I lift them to the zipper, and as soon as my fingertips touch the cold metal, my mind lurches into a memory I thought I’d banished, and my vision is seized as if the memory is projected into my mind’s eye.
***
Last Summer
The service closet in the Crescent Moon Pack’s training center is small, and I should be feeling claustrophobic, since I have a fear of tight spaces.
The fear’s been there ever since the latch on my wardrobe door snapped while I was hiding inside, playing a game of hide-and-go-seek with Dominic when I was seven.
It took my brother only five minutes to find me, but those five minutes felt long enough to develop a severe aversion to small, confined spaces.
Somehow, it’s gone now, vanished the moment Nicholas pulled me into the closet after his training session, delectable and sweaty as he pushed me against the wall and conquered my lips.
He rolls his hips between my thighs, allowing me to feel the prominent bulge of his rigid manhood against my clothed core.
I moan into the kiss, the sensations rushing through my veins already enough to bring me to the verge of climax.
Deftly finding the zipper on the back of my dress, I feel him pulling it down between passionate kisses and heavy breathing.
The two weeks of our stay in Wells have nearly come to an end, and while Nicholas and I can’t keep our hands off each other, we’ve agreed not to go all the way.
That hasn’t stopped him from pleasing me in other ways, with skillful hands and an expert tongue, and he’s been respectful enough to accept that I wasn’t ready yet.
But every time we have these secret rendezvous in the most spontaneous of places, I feel myself getting closer to the leap.
Especially in moments like these. He’d been training, and I’d been watching from the bleachers, my eyes only on him as he graced the field with moves that he’d probably mastered during his time in black ops.
Our eyes met for a brief moment that was enough to ignite a raging fire in my core, and he’d excused himself from the field, calling on one of the other members to take his position, before he jogged toward me and nodded to the walkway on the side.
We met halfway down the alley between two sets of benches, and he’d grabbed my hand and led me to this service closet.
That’s how we ended up here. Mentally, I’ve deduced that the way I’m feeling is because he’s my fated mate.
It’s becoming harder to ignore the obvious signs that this is true.
Since the day we arrived in Wells and my heat emerged, it’s been harder to keep my hands off him, like I’m addicted to the pull I feel every time he’s nearby, and the sensations that tingle in every part of my body every time he touches me.
Even now, his scent arrests my senses, citrus and earthy pine claiming me long before his fangs can claim my neck with the territorial mark of a mate bond. And as he breaks the kiss to stare at me with heady, dark eyes, I bite my bottom lip, briefly contemplating what I want to say.
I’m so sure of it because Cecelia already told me how it was for her and Dominic when they discovered they were fated mates.
It would make sense, after all, why I feel the way I do around Nicholas, and why there’s a magnetic pull and an understanding of who my body belongs to, because I know our souls are already one.
It would also explain why I have no fears anymore.
The words escape my lips before I can process the thought fully.
“Fate was sneaky, wasn’t it?” I giggle as I card my fingers through his damp blonde hair. “Who would have thought that my brother’s best friend from ops would be my destined mate?”
Nicholas’s eyes light up with instant recognition, but then he exhales and suddenly stiffens like he’d been tasered.
“Wh—what?”
My brows begin to furrow slightly. “We’re fated mates, Nicholas. I’m sure you can feel it, too.”
Nicholas hesitates, gulping as he straightens up, his jaw clenched with indifference that seeps through my spine like a cold flush.
My heart beats unsteadily as if he’d just punched me in the gut. “You don't believe me, do you?”
Nicholas shrugs nonchalantly. “I mean…Donna…we're just having fun, aren't we?”
“Fun? You think this was only fun?” I ask, shaking my head slowly as I straighten up and remove myself from his space, sticking to the wall with my back ramrod straight as my frown deepens.
“Of course, it was fun. Come on, Donna…” Nicholas tries to pull me back, but I flinch away. “You don't really believe we could be mates, do you? You’re still young. You don’t know what you want.”
My ears are buzzing at this point, ringing with my disbelief as I stare at Nicholas’s face, unable to fathom how he’s just turned so cold when I’ve felt how hot he can be.
“Y-young?” I scoff bitterly. “I’m not naive, Nicholas. I’m not an idiot.”
“I never said you were,” Nicholas retorts. “But there’s no way we can be fated mates. I'll never settle down. I don't need a mate.”
My eyes fill with tears, my airways filled with his scent as my heart cracks. Nicholas reduced our time together to “fun,” while I'd been falling for him.
Stupidly.
I am an idiot.
Tearing my eyes away, the storm inside me erupts as the service closet suddenly becomes small and suffocating, and I spin on my heel, throwing the door open and bolting out.
As the tears roll down my cheeks and I put as much distance as I can between Nicholas and me, I swear to myself that I’ll never meet his eyes again.
He doesn’t deserve the heart he just ripped to shreds, or the unconditional love I would have showered him with.
***
I regain my composure until I’m able to draw up the zipper, realizing how harsh the truth is—memories can’t die.
They can only be buried, locked away by bars constructed of indifference, nonchalance, and numbness. I’ve been running away from my feelings ever since that day, but now that Nicholas is back, and I’m about to marry him, there’s no way I can keep running.
How am I supposed to be numb? Cold?
I’m a woman. It’s never been in my nature.
But I’m also a hot-blooded werewolf, and the laws of ordinary human psychology don’t affect me. They shouldn’t.
Lifting my face, there’s a defiant tilt to my chin as I stare at my reflection, considering what I’m about to do.
Sure, I agreed to this because of Dominic, and I haven’t told him about last summer, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.
I’m not okay, and apart from no one else noticing it, I’ve hardly given myself time to feel.
I just learned that my best human friend of four years was deceiving me all this time and was not even human all along.
It’s just another betrayal to add to my already deep betrayal wounds, and now I have to heal again while I’m tossed to the Crescent Moon wolves.
“Donna? Can I come inside?” Cecelia asks from behind the door, and I take a deep breath before turning from the mirror and padding across the room to the door.
“Why didn’t you just come inside?” I chuckle as I open the door, and Cecelia steps in with Darius on her hip.
“Oh, my Goddess…” Cecelia gawks as she rakes her eyes over me from head to toe. “Your mother was right…you do look good in her dress.”
Darius opens his arms and beams from ear to ear at me, silently pleading for me to take him, and I need the distraction so I don’t have to wallow in my sorrows about wearing the same dress Mama wore to her mating ceremony with my father. As I’m about to take Darius, Cecelia shakes her head.
“Dom’s gonna be here any second now,” Cecelia playfully scolds. “No auntie duties for you. It’s your big night.”
“Don’t make it sound like it’s a bigger deal than it needs to be,” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “I’m only entering this marriage because my brother is convinced I’m in danger.”
“Which you are,” Cecelia argues. “And you know Dominic won’t put you in any situation that isn’t good for you. He trusts Nick with his life, and this is the best solution for now.”
I gulp, hard, swallowing the truth caught in my throat, threatening to spill from my tongue. My brother’s blind faith in his best friend is nauseating when I know the other side of Nicholas—the dark side that Dominic isn’t aware of.
But I can’t hurt Dominic with the truth when I know it’ll destroy him. He already has so much on his plate, and I saw the weight of all he carries in his eyes the night he came to my tent in Terramor.
He’d followed to appeal to me to accept Nicholas’s offer, citing that it was the best way to keep me safe.
If he’d made enemies out there who were hunting him, or if the dark lord was targeting Lunaris, he’d have to protect Cecelia, their son, and Mama.
If he thought I was safe with his best friend in another town, I’d be taking some of that weight off his shoulders, especially since I was being targeted.
How could I possibly deny my brother that one little reassurance when he’s been through so much, and continues to work himself to the bone?
That’s why I offer him a smile, not letting him see that deep down, I’m breaking apart, because we’re headed outside where Nicholas waits for me to complete the ceremony.
As soon as we’re through the doors of Dominic’s home and in the backyard, I see Nicholas standing at the end of the aisle, hands shoved into the pockets of his perfectly tailored black pants that leave little to the imagination of where his muscles contour his thighs.
I take a deep breath before my brother leads me down that aisle toward his best friend, using every step to build up the courage that’s needed to face the enemy with the handsome face and crooked smile that should be nauseating, but instead makes my heart skip a beat.
No.
I can’t fall victim to his clutches like I did before.
The real enemy here is Nicholas. He’s the cunning one, the master manipulator who first ripped my heart to shreds, and now he’s back at the crime scene. What does he want this time? What does he stand to gain from trapping me in this arranged marriage?
Does he get a kick out of knowing that he has the power to break me? That's what this is.
An ego-trip.
We pass by the Lunaris Pack members seated on log benches outside, making up the crowd gathered here for tonight's ceremony, so it can be seen as official.
At the front of the crowd is my mother, who smiles proudly because her only daughter is about to enter a mate bond with an alpha.
And beside her is Nicholas's father with his arms crossed, eyes square as if he's sitting in on a business meeting.
As Dominic places my hand in Nicholas’s, the air crackles—or maybe it's just me.
The world narrows to the space where our skin touches, that old, treacherous awareness flooding my veins.
It's the pull I swore I buried, the one I've been determined to ignore. My fingers twitch in his grasp, but he doesn’t let go or flinch, giving me reason to believe he's as daft and oblivious as he was a year ago.
His hand is warm, steady, too familiar, and my breath hitches despite my better judgment.
Nicholas’s eyes flit to mine, and for a split second, I see something flicker there. Regret, maybe longing, flashes through his eyes, but I smother the idea before I become consumed by it.
No.
I won’t fall for those eyes again, for that look in them. Not when it’s the same one he wore before telling me that what we had was just “fun.”
I force a smile for Dominic, for everyone watching, as my brother takes position behind the podium and begins reciting the words that will bind me to the man I hate. Each vow feels like a chain tightening around my heart, the words I speak in response winding around my throat.
“I, Donna Rivera, take you, Alpha Nicholas Bartalow, as my mate,” I say, blinking coldly.
When Nicholas repeats his part, his voice is low, rough with something unspoken, but I can feel it. My wolf stirs, restless under my skin, sensing the truth my pride refuses to acknowledge.
As his lips brush the back of my hand to seal the ritual, I make a silent oath internally.
You’ll regret rejecting me, Nicholas Bartalow…and this time, I’ll be the one to break you.
That's the only way I'll survive this without breaking apart again.