Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Violet
His words replay in my head, over and over, a broken record I can’t stop. I stare at Darius, my mouth dry, my heart pounding so hard that I think it might shatter my ribs.
“I’m your—” I choke, then swallow hard. “You’re my…fated mate?”
“Yes.”
The single word is heavy, resigned, like he’s admitting to a crime. I feel a stirring inside me, that weak flicker of awareness I’ve been struggling to understand, and suddenly, it all makes sense. The pull. The need. The way my body responds to him. How I’m helpless to resist.
I look down at my dress then back up at him. The pieces are falling into place too fast, cutting me as they land.
“Is that why you’ve been doing all this?” My voice shakes. “The apartment, all this over-the-top shopping, the—” I stop before I say it out loud. The desperate fucking when we’re alone and no one will catch us.
“Yes.”
The truth hits like a punch to the gut. I wrap my arms tightly around myself, suddenly cold despite the humid night air.
“You’re mine,” he continues, and I hear the possession in his voice, raw and primal. “I have every right to take care of you. Every right to provide for your needs.”
“How long?” The question comes out barely above a whisper. “How long have you known?”
He doesn’t answer. He just stands there, his jaw tight, his eyes burning into mine.
The silence stretches too long. Something hot and sharp twists in my chest.
“How long have you known, Darius?” I demand again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
I shove him away from me, hard. He doesn’t resist, just lets me push him, and that makes it worse somehow.
“Tell me!” I shout, my hands reaching out to grab his suit jacket and shake him. “How long?”
His throat works as he swallows. “Since your eighteenth birthday.”
The world tilts. I stumble backward, his words echoing in my skull. Eighteen. I’m twenty-four now. Six years. Six fucking years.
“All this time.” My hands tremble. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He doesn’t answer. Won’t even look at me now.
Realization crashes over me like ice water. “You were never going to tell me, were you?”
“Violet—”
“Were you?” My voice cracks.
He hesitates, his mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out.
I take a step back. Then another. “I couldn’t tell it was the bond. Because my wolf is so weak, so broken. I couldn’t feel it.” I shake my head slowly. “And you planned to take advantage of that. You were never going to tell me.”
Guilt flashes across his face, stark and undeniable, and something inside me breaks. I can feel it, a physical sensation in my chest like my heart is being ripped apart by claws.
Numbness spreads through me, cold yet merciful.
“I’m good enough to fuck,” I say quietly, resigned to the truth, “but not good enough to mate.”
“We’re stepsiblings.” The words burst out of him, desperate and jagged. “If I follow the fated bond, my father won’t let me be alpha. Don’t you understand? The pack will suffer if Zion takes over. I can’t—I can’t let that happen.”
I meet his eyes, saying nothing.
Once again, I come second. Even in the eyes of the man the fates chose for me. Even destiny isn’t enough to make me worth choosing.
A bitter smile curves my lips. It feels wrong on my face, like I’m wearing someone else’s expression.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from the alpha heir.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out a way,” he says, moving toward me. His hands lift but stop midair. “It’s complicated, Violet…”
“You’re right. It’s very complicated.” I clutch my hair, pulling hard enough that it hurts. “Do you know what’s really funny? Do you want to know what I’ve been thinking was going on?”
He goes very still.
“Ever since I came back. These past few months.” The words spill out faster now.
“I thought I was sick. Twisted. Wrong. I was attracted to my stepbrother! My own stepbrother! I hated myself for it. Every time you walked into the room, I couldn’t breathe.
Every time you touched me, even accidentally, it felt like lightning. ”
“Violet—”
My nails dig into my palms. “But you knew. You knew the whole time that it wasn’t my fault. That it was the fated mate bond. And you let me suffer. You let me think I was broken.”
His face has gone pale. “I didn’t know you felt that way. I thought—I thought since you couldn’t feel the bond, you wouldn’t…” He trails off.
“Wouldn’t what? Wouldn’t want you?” I shake my head. “I wanted you every goddamn day. And you used me.”
“I never used you.”
“The apartment, Darius.” I advance on him. “Let’s talk about the penthouse.”
He tenses.
“I thought you loved me. I knew it was wrong, but you were the only one who seemed concerned about me. I thought that maybe, finally, someone cared about me enough to make sure I was safe and comfortable.” Another step.
“But it wasn’t love, was it? It was guilt.
Obligation. You were taking care of your mate because your wolf demanded it, all while making sure no one would ever know. ”
He says nothing. His guilty eyes track my every movement.
“You set me up as your…mistress!” The word cuts through the humid air.
“That’s what this is, isn’t it? The perfect arrangement.
An apartment for me far enough from the estate that no one will see you coming and going.
Close enough to your place that you can visit whenever you need to scratch the itch your wolf has for its mate. ”
“Stop.” His voice is rough, strained.
“Why? Because the truth hurts?” I’m in his face now, close enough to smell the guilt rolling off him. “You wanted to keep me close enough to fuck but far enough away that no one would know. Your dirty little secret.”
“It wasn’t like that.” But he can’t quite meet my eyes when he says it.
“Look at me.” I grab his chin, forcing his gaze to mine.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that’s not exactly what you wanted.
Tell me you weren’t planning to keep me in that penthouse while you eventually took some other, more appropriate female as your mate.
Some woman your father would approve of.
Someone the pack would want to see by your side. ”
He pulls my hand down from his face. “We can still be together, Violet. We don’t have to…”
“Together?” The word explodes out of me. “Together how, exactly? What would I be to you? The woman you fuck in the shadows before going home to the one who’ll wear your mark and have your children?”
“No!” He lunges for me, frantic now. “That’s not what I mean.”
“That’s exactly what you mean.” I slap his hands away. “Because you’re not willing to give up being alpha. And you’re not willing to stand in front of the pack and claim me.”
“I just need more time. I’ll find a way to—”
“To what? Make me acceptable?” Fire is burning through the numbness. “There is no making this acceptable. Not to your father. Not to the pack. We’re stepsiblings. The only way we can be together is if you give up everything for me. And we both know you’re not going to do that.”
“The pack needs me.” His voice breaks on the words. “If Zion becomes alpha—”
“I know.” And I do. I understand pack politics. I understand duty and responsibility and sacrifice. “I know the pack needs you. I know Zion would be a disaster. I know all of it, Darius. But knowing doesn’t make it hurt less.”
“Violet, we can make this work—”
The slap cracks through the night air, and his head snaps to the side. I see the shock registering on his face, the red mark blooming on his cheek.
I laugh, and it comes out jagged and wrong.
“How do we make this work?” I ask, my voice rising. “You come over to fuck your dirty little secret? And then go back home to your socially acceptable mate and children?”
“Violet, that’s not—”
“I get the scraps of your affection? I become the other woman?”
“No. I would never—”
“It’s one thing not to want to publicly accept me. It’s another thing entirely to think so little of me that you believe I could only ever be a whore in your life.”
He flinches like I’ve struck him again.
“Is that really what you think of me?” I ask, more quietly now. “That I’d be content to wait in the wings while you build a life with someone else? That I’d settle for stolen moments and midnight visits?”
“I don’t think that.” His voice is raw. “I don’t think of you that way at all.”
I reach up and unclasp the emerald necklace from around my neck. I let it fall into my palm, heavy and cold with implication. The metal is warm from my skin, and the stones catch the moonlight.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting rid of you.” I throw the necklace at his feet. It hits the ground with a soft clink.
The ruby earrings are next. I yank them out, not caring that I’m probably tearing my earlobes in the process. I throw them at him. One hits his chest before falling to the grass.
“Violet, stop.”
“Why?” I reach for the diamond bracelet, but I struggle with the clasp. “These were gifts, right? Tokens of your affection?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong.” I finally get the bracelet off and hold it up between us. “They weren’t gifts. They were payments. You were purchasing access to my body, paying to ease your guilt about lying to me, buying me off to keep me happy and compliant in my little cage.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” I drop the bracelet at his feet with the rest. “The dresses, the shoes, the jewelry. All of it was you trying to make yourself feel better about what you were doing to me.”
I slip out of my heels. These ridiculously expensive, beautiful shoes that I loved when I first put them on. Now, they feel like shackles.
“Stop it. What are you doing?”
“Taking back my power.” I pick up one shoe and throw it into the bushes. The other follows. The grass is cool and damp under my bare feet.
“They were gifts, Violet. There were no strings attached.”