This wasn’t the first time I’d seen death. I wished I could say it was, but Alistair had made sure it was a frequent sight. He’d destroyed anyone he perceived to be a threat, which happened to be a lot of people. None of those experiences had softened the edge of seeing death or having it paraded in front of me though.
My eyes shut, and images floated in front of me, memories I hated, but stopping them was close to impossible.
“Sit the fuck still,” Alistair barked in my face, all the while wrenching my arms behind me and around the chair’s back, where he’d shoved me to sit. “You’re shit at taking direction.”
My eyes pricked with tears, but I refused to show him fear. That only got him more excited, made him more cruel. I had no clue what I did this time to set him off, and it didn’t take much, I knew this, but my mind ran wild, trying to remember what it could be.
His face pushed into mine, and he smirked as he harshly tied my wrists up with the red ribbon I’d worn in my hair. “I told you before, Rune, about making yourself pretty for others. It comes with consequences. You don’t fucking flirt with anyone,” he spat. “You are mine, and I do what I like with you. I make those decisions for you, not you. If I want someone to fuck you, then I’ll make sure it happens under my watchful eye. You piss me off enough, and I’ll get the whole fucking pack to fuck you.” His hand struck toward me as fast as viper. He grasped my throat and squeezed, and the pressure of his grip had me nodding in agreement. Right then, I’d agree to anything in order to be released. “So you, my little moon, seem to have forgotten your place today.” He mocked me with his pet name, thinking it was hilarious. It made me ill each time he called me that. If he’d accepted me as his mate, I would have been his luna…his literal moon.
Now I was nothing but this.
I sucked in the shallow breaths he allowed, frozen in my seat, too terrified to make a single sound.
“Rune. Rune. Rune. What you did today was so damn stupid. You think I didn’t see you wriggling your slutty ass as you walked past my room while I had a business meeting, then tying your hair up with that red ribbon.” His lips curled with sinister menace, and my heart shivered at the notion that he was going to strike me in the face any second now. I tensed in my seat, waiting for it, bracing myself for the stinging ache. “You’re in heat, I can smell it, and don’t worry, after this, I’ll make sure to take care of you.”
Tears slid down my cheeks at his words, and a shiver started in the pit of my stomach as I knew exactly what that meant. Panic burned through me, and escape rolled over my mind, building like an unstoppable tornado. My heart beat so fast, it was ready to explode.
Except, he’d never let me get far.
Staring right into my eyes, he tsked. “Now I want you to know, what happens to Lester is all your fault, little moon. You made him look at you, and for that, I had no choice but to gouge out his eyes.” He released my throat at once, and I gasped for air as terror clawed up my spine.
“Alistair, please, I just wanted to tie my hair up. It’s hot today.” Desperation trembled my words.
His fist came for me sudden and fast, clipping me just below the eye. The excruciating pain was immediate and jolted up my face like my skull was cracking in two. My bones seemed to shudder as my head flung backward from the impact, and I cried out from the unbearable sting. There was nothing but stars in my vision, nothing but a thundering pulse deep behind my eye.
“Don’t ever talk back to me,” he growled.
Holding back how badly I wanted to ugly cry from how much my face hurt, I turned my gaze from him, hating him with every fiber of my being. His meeting today went shit, as I’d heard the shouting from across the mansion. But I was also stupid to have even gone anywhere near them. I wasn’t thinking and wanted to head into the backyard for fresh air, to stop listening to the yelling. I should have known better.
Furious at myself, at him, I kept my mouth shut, taking in raspy breaths while tears pooled in my eyes.
He wiped them from my cheeks with a thumb, and his attempt at tenderness only bristled my rage. My vision blurred in and out, but I tried to push past how half my face felt like it had swollen to the size of a puffer fish.
Then he pulled up, squaring his shoulders, and looked over to Lester, who was slumped in the corner of the basement. His soft whimpers were barely noticeable behind how loud my heart pounded in my ears. Lester lay on his side, his wrists and ankles tied behind him, while blood poured from his eye sockets. Silver coins were embedded in the sockets so that his shifter healing couldn’t get to work. I cringed, lowering my gaze when Alistair grabbed my chin, squeezing so hard, I couldn’t hold back the cry of pain that time.
I didn’t care about him or any of Alistair’s business acquaintances and friends. They could all die right at this moment and I’d celebrate. He associated with no one but thugs and criminals. Amid them, my fated mate was the most evil person I’d ever met, and he delivered punishment to anyone who crossed him.
It was hard to imagine what I must have done for the moon goddess to think that the perfect true mate for me was him. I must have been a monster in another life.
“You will watch and know that next time you go against me, this will happen to you.”
I nodded, shaking as I turned my attention to Lester, while my thoughts drowned in darkness, in my bleak life, and hatred.
“That’s a good snowflake. You’re learning. Maybe one day, you’ll even beg me to kill someone for you.”
The way he said those words, his voice almost brimming with excitement, only brought bile to the back of my throat. But I didn’t respond, didn’t dare, still he grinned, taking pleasure from terrifying me.
I swallowed the thickness in my throat, and instead of Lester, all I could picture was Alistair slumped on the ground, tied up, and how much easier my life would be if he was eliminated. Most nights, I dreamed of ways to get rid of him, the best way to destroy such a revolting beast. A blade in his heart while he slept. A gun to his head. But each time I woke, that determination dissolved into fear. Into the reality that if he so much as suspected I was thinking I wanted him dead, he’d murder me in the most painful way possible.
There was also that weak, desperate part of me that knew I’d never be able to kill someone who literally owned part of my soul.
Abruptly, Alistair broke into a chuckle, then clapped, and I flinched in my skin. “Let’s do this already.”
He marched across the basement to the table near the far wall and picked up the long thin samurai sword he’d brought downstairs with him. A chill spread through me, and a whimper rolled over my throat, which I regretted immediately.
He looked at me, his brows pulled together. “You better not cause me anymore trouble.”
Swinging the sword through the air in a show of how well he handled the weapon, he grinned to himself, while I wanted to scream for him to release me. He walked over to Lester and stood over him. “Now, where were we before we got interrupted?”
The beta wolf shifter whimpered, blood smeared across his face and down the front of his chest from his gouged eyes. Maybe I was just as broken as everyone else in this house to feel such little pity for him. The longer I spent with Alistair, the more he completely destroyed me.