Series: Star Moon Pack Series by J.L. Beck
Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 118781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118781 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 594(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)
The innocence in her eyes is laughable. She genuinely has no idea what I’ve put into motion. She only knows what she’s feeling. There’s no doubt I’m going to hell, but at least I’m going in good company.
“Did you just bite me?” she whispers, her face a mask of confusion, disbelief ringing out in her words. Over the other raised voices and questions and concerns, hers is the only one that matters. It cuts through the confusion and anger all around us and offers a chance for me to play with my prey.
I lock eyes with her. She is nothing but another pup. Weak, without a prayer of standing up to me. I wait for her to wilt under my stare, to submit to my commands. Come to me, my wolf beckons. Play with me. Mine.
Nothing happens. She’s frozen stiff, staring at me in surprise, no matter how her wolf begs her to submit. I feel it—hell, I smell her arousal from halfway across the room, where she came to a stop after stumbling away from me. She can’t hope to fight that. Nobody could.
And her father standing in the room, aware of exactly what’s happening? That’s just the icing on the cake, as far as I’m concerned.
Yet all she does is pull her fingers away from her neck and stare at them, eyes widening when she finds blood on the tips. A feral smile stretches my lips—there’s no stopping it. I did that. I marked her. This goes deeper than pack politics, deeper than right and wrong. She belongs to me now.
Yet when I move as if to claim her, her alpha steps between us. My lip lifts in a snarl before I know what I’m doing. Who is he to stand in the way of what’s been decided? Alpha or not.
“Now, wait a minute,” he demands, his back to her, arms slightly spread as if he wants to keep her protected. The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen or heard.
“As alpha,” I mutter, “you are aware of pack law. At least, I assume so.”
“Wilde,” my father calls out, but I ignore him as I ignore the rest of them. Idiots, nuisances. That’s all they are. They’re not going to stand in my way. She’s mine, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
“He marked her,” Dad reminds everyone, especially Daniel, who hasn’t moved a muscle. “She belongs to him.”
“Excuse me?” Lili’s mouth falls open before a brief, brittle laugh bubbles out of her. “I belong to him?”
“Yes.”
Another laugh, louder this time. “To quote one of my favorite songs, I belong to no man.”
“Lili…” Her father approaches her, turning her with a hand on her shoulder. “I know there are a lot of things you have left to learn about pack life, and I’m sorry you have to learn them this way, but what he says is true. Now that he’s marked you, there’s nothing to be done.”
“That can’t be true. I didn’t have any say in it. I didn’t want it.” Her head swings around, her eyes wide and staring as she searches for understanding. For sympathy, for help. She receives none of it because there is none to be given. Eventually, she’ll figure that out.
Finally, she spins around and glares at me. “How could you?”
“Let’s be reasonable,” Dad intervenes. “We can’t always decide these things. When the wolf finds what it wants, there’s nothing to stop fate from taking its course.”
Still, she sputters in disbelief while the elders squabble among themselves.
“Look at me.” I don’t say it out loud but rather in my head; our connection allows me to speak telepathically. She hears me, I know she does because she turns a begrudging eye my way. “You know it’s true. Fight it all you want, but all you’re doing is wasting time.”
She shivers and rubs her arms, her teeth gritted, and her eyes narrowed to slits. “You bastard.”
“The bastard who just saved your neck by biting it.” She rolls her eyes at my little joke. “Face it. We both know what you would have been in for if I came in here and told them what you did to me.”
“What I needed to do! You were going to kill me!”
“And isn’t this better than that? You don’t have to die.”
“Are you sure I wouldn’t rather die than be bonded to you?”
“That’s just the human side of you talking,” I remind her. “I can hear your wolf. I can feel her. She knows what you refuse to admit.”
“And what would that be?”
“That you’re mine.”
“Bullshit.”
“Fine. If that’s the way you want it, I’ll tell them you stabbed me in the chest.” I look down at my ruined shirt. “As it is, they’re all so busy bickering they haven’t noticed the blood. Then you’ll end up wishing you got off easy, the way you are right now.”