CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
AUbrEY
I nod firmly, meeting Knox's furious green eyes without flinching. "I know exactly what I'm saying."
The rage radiating off him is palpable, making the air between us crackle with tension. His jaw clenches so tight I can hear his teeth grinding, and his hands fist in the sheets like he's fighting the urge to grab me and force his mark onto my throat.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?
" Aria's voice explodes in my mind, sharp with disbelief and fury.
"You're disrespecting the most sacred bond between mates!
Marking isn't just tradition—it's completion, recognition, the physical manifestation of what the Moon Goddess herself created! "
"I understand perfectly what marking means," I reply, my mental voice calm despite the storm raging around me. "I also understand that I can't accept being marked by the son of my family's murderer."
The silence that follows is deafening. I feel Aria recoil as if I've slapped her, the shock and horror bleeding through our connection like poison.
"Knox had nothing to do with—" she starts, but I cut her off.
"His father gave the order. His blood runs in Knox's veins. That's enough."
Aria's presence retreats deep into my consciousness, her anger simmering just beneath the surface like a barely contained wildfire. I can feel her there, coiled and furious, but she doesn't respond. Good. I don't need her conscience interfering with what has to be done.
Knox is still staring at me, his chest rising and falling with barely controlled fury. The morning light streaming through the windows catches on his features, highlighting the aristocratic nose and strong jawline that mirror his father's so perfectly it makes my stomach turn.
I soften my tone, letting a hint of vulnerability creep into my voice.
"Knox, I'm not rejecting you. I'm just asking for time.
" I reach out to touch his arm, forcing myself not to recoil when my fingers make contact with his skin.
"This is all happening so fast. The proposal, the ceremony, becoming Luna—I need time to adjust to it all. "
His eyes search mine, looking for something I'm careful not to let him find. "How much time?"
I pretend to consider, as if I'm genuinely weighing the decision instead of calculating how long I'll need to extract every useful piece of information from him.
"A month?" I suggest, making my voice hopeful.
"Just to let us get to know each other better, to build the trust a real partnership requires. "
Knox's laugh is bitter, hollow. "A month to decide if you can stand being permanently bonded to me, you mean."
"That's not—" I start, but he holds up a hand to stop me.
"Fine," he says, the word sharp as broken glass. "One month. But that's it, Aubrey. After that, we complete the bond properly, or we find another way to handle the political situation."
The threat is clear, but I nod as if I'm grateful for his compromise. "Thank you. I know this isn't easy for you."
Something flickers across his face—pain, maybe, or disappointment—but it's gone before I can analyze it further. Instead, he reaches for me, pulling me back into his arms with a gentleness that contrasts sharply with the tension still radiating from his body.
"Come here," he murmurs against my hair, his voice rough with emotion I don't want to examine too closely.
I force myself to relax into his embrace, letting his warmth wash over me like I'm seeking comfort instead of gathering intelligence.
His scent—cedar and storm rain—surrounds me, and I hate how my traitorous body responds to it.
Even knowing what I know, even with the truth burning in my chest like acid, the mate bond still pulls at me.
Knox's hands stroke up and down my back in soothing circles, and I can feel some of the anger leaving his body as he holds me. "We'll figure this out," he says, more to himself than to me. "Whatever you need, whatever it takes—we'll make this work."
The faith in his voice, the determination to fix something he doesn't even understand is broken, makes guilt twist in my stomach. I push it down ruthlessly. He's the enemy. The son of my pack's killer. Whatever pain I cause him is nothing compared to what his father did to me.
When Knox finally releases me to get dressed, I slump back against the pillows, letting my carefully maintained mask slip for just a moment.
The weight of what I'm doing—the lies, the manipulation, the complete betrayal of everything the mate bond is supposed to represent—settles on my chest like a stone.
I hate this, I realize with startling clarity. I hate every second of this charade.
But reason tells me there's no other way.
If I want to uncover the full truth about that night, if I want to gather the information Jax needs to bring justice to my family, I need Knox's trust. I need access to royal records, private conversations, family secrets.
And the only way to get that access is to play the loving mate while I systematically destroy everything he holds dear.
"Isn't it strange," Aria's voice drifts up from the depths of my mind, carefully controlled but edged with something I can't identify, "that your dreams only revealed the king's face after you'd already refused Knox's proposal?
That the 'memory' came back at the exact moment you needed justification for your betrayal? "
The observation hits me like a slap, unexpected and sharp. I frown, trying to push away the doubt her words create. "I saw what I saw. I know what I remember."
"Do you? Or do you remember what someone wanted you to remember?"
Before I can demand an explanation for that cryptic comment, Aria's presence disappears entirely, the mental link between us severing so completely it leaves me gasping. The sudden absence of my wolf feels like losing a limb, a hollow ache that spreads through my chest.
Fine, I think furiously. If she wants to abandon me when I need her most, so be it. I don't need her doubts clouding my judgment.
But even as I try to dismiss her words, they echo in my mind like a warning bell. The timing was strange—the memory surfacing so clearly, so completely, right when I needed justification for what I was already planning to do.
I shake my head, forcing the doubts away. What matters isn't when the memory returned, but what it revealed. King Alexander ordered the massacre of my pack. Knox is his son, his heir, the future king who will continue his father's legacy of violence and oppression.
And I'm going to bring them all down, one carefully extracted secret at a time.