Chapter 29 #2
My eyelids twitched. My heart thundered as I looked away. The air between us pressed on my chest like an invisible weight. I’d never stood up to my cousin because of the burden I carried, but this time, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me as a weak human.
I forced my gaze to meet Layla’s. She giggled and beamed like the spoiled princess she was.
Torin didn’t know how Layla had left me to die in a vampire attack, or at least he didn’t know the whole story. Layla spread rumors in the kingdom faster than a burning fire. He didn’t see the bullying I’d endured for years.
But he knew I was responsible for the death of Layla’s father. Maybe he took pity on her and was on her side. I didn’t blame him for that.
Torin’s eyes flared with hatred, and his face slipped into a snarl that made him look like a wild beast. He glared at me as if he wanted to pounce and tear out my throat.
A dark shadow fell over his face, making him appear terrifying. He looked at me as if I had stepped on his cold heart when it was the other way around.
I swallowed, my throat burning from the rising acid.
What had I done to this man to make him hate me so much?
“I’m busy with Princess Layla now,” he said through clenched teeth, and another wave of sharp pain cut through my chest.
Torin didn’t excuse himself with a Council meeting. No, he had to be busy with my tormentor. He couldn’t even bother to call me by my first name.
I glanced around the boardroom to realize that Torin’s Councilmen had silently taken their seats. I locked eyes with four people—one woman and three men. Four sets of scrutinizing eyes left me feeling like I was standing in a graveyard.
Memories flooded back to me from nine years ago. The Councilmen’s expressions reminded me of the werewolves gathered when Layla and I had our friendly sparring match at the kingdom’s training grounds. It ended with me curled up on the ground, dirty and bloodied.
The knots in my stomach had tightened so much that I had to flee, finding refuge amongst the first line of trees where I could vomit in privacy.
I loudly gulped another dose of pain and humiliation as the realization that the Alpha wouldn’t show me any sympathy struck me hard.
I returned my gaze to Torin’s ungloved hands around Layla’s waist. He clenched and unclenched them as if trying to crack his knuckles, ready to fight.
He touched Layla, but Torin’s eyes didn’t miss any of my movements—my hitching chest, my fidgeting, my shuffling feet. The worst thing was that he noticed everything about me, making me more exposed and vulnerable.
You can do this, Breanna. You survived living among the supernatural. You can do this.
Overridden with guilt, I had let go of many of Layla’s indiscretions, but her coveting the man I desired wouldn’t be one of them. How wrong I was to think that Layla would change after all these years. How wrong I was to believe that Torin would change too.
At this moment, I decided that I needed to change after I found out the answer.
I put my hand on my chest, rubbing the spot over my heart. I heard from someone that when you did this, the same region of the brain lit up as if someone was giving you a hug.
But I couldn't calm down, no matter how much I hugged myself.
Darkness made my heart its home and stayed there, and the next wave of sensations caught me off guard. My body shuddered so hard that it shook me to my core.
My shoulder and neck muscles ached, and the tension climbing into my head signaled an oncoming migraine.
This is his last chance.
I had to draw a line to my obsession with the Alpha for my sanity and survival. I wasn’t a masochist. I wasn’t a good person. I didn’t possess the virtue of forgiveness. I didn’t have a short memory. I held grudges and spoke my mind.
I was about to open my mouth when Torin’s Beta marched into the boardroom, and his smile disappeared.
“Uh, am I interrupting something?” he asked.
“Nothing important,” Torin said without disconnecting his intense gaze from mine.
I wasn’t important to him was the message I heard. My eyes burned, but I blinked and blinked, fighting back tears.
My presence became even more awkward when Torin’s eyebrows raised in a challenge. He waited to find out if I dared to say what I’d come here for.
In front of his Council and my cousin.
Courage. Despite the pain, I called on my bravery.
I guess I was doing this in front of an audience.
“I’d like to talk to you about…”—I cleared my throat because I was afraid my voice would break, just like me—“whether, possibly, we are—”
“Mates,” Layla finished and let out a small laugh.
Torin’s eyes flashed crimson, but the color change was so quick that I blinked, and it was gone.
“Aren’t you much too presumptuous?” Torin asked me.
He abruptly stood, and my cousin barely steadied herself. He didn’t reach out to help her. Instead, he stomped to me, closing the distance.
His face said it all. The Alpha was about to strike his most brutal punch, but not the physical kind. Despite bracing myself for the onslaught of hurt, the agony still rolled over me like an avalanche of jagged rocks, crushing me in its path and leaving a trail of brokenness in its wake.
I wanted to disappear, close my eyes, and put my hands over my ears. Instead, I forced myself to meet his gaze.
“You really believe someone like you, a human, could be my mate?”
The vibrations of his laughter trembled through my body. The emphasis on that one word made my heart sink into darkness.
The Fates gifted fated mates to the supernaturals, making it easier for them to find each other when mates accessed their dream realms. But in my twenty years, I’d never been privileged to find the access point to my dream realm.
And as a mere human, I could only hope to have been gifted a fated mate.
But the invisible force drawing me to this man felt so real and intense.
Stay strong, Breanna.
“Well, I thought—”
“You thought wrong,” he said, and everyone in the room laughed.
I didn’t see why. I was drowning. My breathing turned raspy.
Please, just stop talking. I’ll leave as you wish.
Torin tilted his head to the side. “What evidence do you have, or is your assumption based on your wild fantasy?”
Did he just insinuate that I had filthy thoughts about him? I did, but he’d just said it in front of everyone.
I swallowed the dryness in my throat, a painful tightness constricting it. I couldn’t stop my heart from breaking, but I wouldn’t give Torin the satisfaction of seeing the hurt on my face.
I lifted my chin higher. “Then why don’t you touch me, Alpha Torin?”
Some emotion passed behind his eyes, but I couldn’t decipher it.
I took a step forward, and he took a step back. Interesting.
“That’s enough. Or I’ll have to talk to your father and inform him about how you came on to me today. He won’t be pleased to know his royal daughter hit on one of his Alphas.”
More giggles echoed from behind Torin’s shoulders. Layla would do a good job telling lies in the kingdom without Torin calling my father.
I shook my head, realization settling slowly into every cell of my body like poison. A slow death I wished to no one.
I couldn’t take it anymore. This princess was about to break in front of all these people.
No matter how much I fought the urge to cry, silent tears trickled down my cheeks, but I didn’t wipe them. If I couldn’t hide my feelings, let them see the hurt and pain he’d caused.
The room fell silent. The air filled with tension.
I wasn’t wanted here. I wasn’t wanted by Torin. I couldn’t fully understand why. The only reason my mind came up with was that I was a human, and I had no place beside him.
I pushed my longing for Torin’s mate touch, my sensual thoughts about him, my burning need for him deep down.
Instead, I let the hurt, pain, and disappointment bloom in my heart.
Let that be my lesson.
“Very well. You’ve made your choice,” I said, my voice shaky, and I turned my back on him.
On everything supernatural.
The drive to the airport and the never-ending flight to London were long enough for me to dry my tears, turn my pain into numbness, and feel lifeless.
This kind of pain was long-lasting and permanent. It would leave a scar.
This shall pass, too. But would I ever be able to mend the pieces?
With every step closer to my newly built life among the humans in London, my sense of humanity was restored.
I needed time to heal. To feel more human. To disentangle and free myself from the unrelenting grip of the supernatural world.
Torin and I weren’t fated mates. There was no way a mate would reject their other half so harshly.
When I was inside the safety of my apartment in London, my cell phone vibrated in my bag.
I pulled it out and forced a smile when I saw who was calling. “Hi, Dad.”
“Anna, I was waiting for you to call me when you arrived,” he said, sounding worried.
“I just walked in. I’m okay.”
But I wasn’t.
Dad let out a heavy sigh, followed by silence until I broke it.
“You wanted to ask me about the rumors of Torin and me?”
“Alpha Torin, Anna. Werewolves are proud people.”
I scoffed.
Dad cleared his throat. “What is all this talk about you making a claim on Alpha Torin, trying to kiss him and seduce him in front of his Council?”
Kiss Torin? Layla had outdone herself this time.
I was grateful for Dad’s steady, calm voice, although these rumors put his name in the drain and gave the royal family a bad reputation.
“Most of it is not true,” I said.
“That’s what I thought, but which part is true? That you thought he was your mate? The other rumors I can take care of, Anna. I care about my daughter. What’s happening in your head?”
Here goes nothing.
“I felt drawn to him, so I asked him if we were mates. That’s all.”
Dad made a “humph” sound on the line. “So, is he your fated mate?”
“I don’t think so.”
I imagined him sitting in his study with his elbows on the massive wooden desk, one hand holding his head, the other the phone, the wheels in his mind working hard.