Chapter 4 4

I frowned up at him in confusion, hoping he would explain what he meant.

He didn’t.

Instead, he looked to the man by his side, with the most bored look on his face. “Beta Calen. Prepare her.” he said, making me even more confused. “I have found my queen.”

His words made me freeze in my spot as my heart beat hard in my chest. What did he mean by queen? What on earth was going on here? I hadn’t even been in this war camp for thirty minutes, and this was already happening?

I had a lot of questions, but before I could let out even a single word, he unhanded me and walked off.

Mate?

Queen?

What is happening?

"Come this way, miss," the said Beta took my hand.

I could hear people whisper to themselves as he led me away, but I barely registered their words. I couldn’t. I was stuck in my own head trying to make sense of this entire situation.

What did he mean by mate? Was I really his mate? My mind went back to how stiff he was when he had said the words. There was no way I was his mate … there wasn’t even the smallest bit of warmth in those eyes.

With that, I convinced myself that he had made a mistake.

I looked at the beta that was leading me away. He was tall. Werewolf men usually were, but he was taller than most of the men I had seen.

I stared at the back of his head, trying to work up the courage to say the words on my mind.

It took a while, but my mouth finally decided to cooperate with me. “Um, hello?” I started, my heart beating hard in my chest.

Maybe I should have just shut up. I didn’t know how things here worked, not yet. How will he react to my words? ‘It was too late now.’ I thought to myself as he turned around to face me.

“I think …” I trailed off, losing whatever was left of my courage. He stood there looking at me impatiently. He was already pissed anyway; might as well just go for it.

“Maybe the king was mistaken … sir …” I said, in a voice that shook so much it barely sounded like mine.

His eyes flared at my words, so I continued quickly before he could cut me off. “The thing is, I just ended a mate bond today, so it’s honestly not possible for me to be his mate.”

He looked like he was thinking through my words, and for a split second I thought maybe he'd understand me and speak to the King on my behalf.

“Whatever the king says stands.” He said, with a finality that made my heart fall into a pit in my stomach. “I am under strict orders, and I must follow them.” He said, pushing me into the hands of maids that I hadn’t even realized were here until now.

"Clean her up. Make her presentable for the King and ready for transport tomorrow."

Fear threatened to drown me. Was my life now some kind of play? He, just like his master, was just throwing me around without a care about how I felt about it.

How did my life go from … Where I'd been to this?

In such a short span of time?

I just escaped one horrible mate, only for me to meet someone who could be even worse than him?

I might know nothing of King Alaric, but I had heard enough to know that he wasn’t sunshine and rainbows.

Quite the opposite, actually.

What was it with my wolf?

It still felt odd saying that.

I didn't really have one until today.

Even now, she was practically nonexistent.

But still, she had to have made a mistake.

I mean, wasn’t she tired? Didn’t she want a break from the emotional trouble we had been suffering for the last six months?

My mind drifted back to Damien and Sara. The image of their passionate kiss in front of the entire pack as I was shipped off in her place was burned into my head.

It no longer hurt as much as it did; maybe because the bond between us was gone, but it still stung.

From the very first moment we discovered we were mates, I had been ecstatic. I waited for him.

I actually believed that with time he would come to love and cherish me, or at least stop looking at me like I was lacking something.

He didn’t stop, and nothing changed either. Instead he betrayed me and dumped me here.

Thinking back, I guess I should have seen the signs earlier. Or maybe I did. I just decided to ignore them, no matter how it hurt me.

I was desperate, the kind of desperation you feel when you’ve been trapped in a cage for years and then you see a way out. He was my way out, until I discovered that sometimes a door doesn't lead to freedom.

Just a bigger prison with powerful people throwing you around.

As the maids began tearing off my clothes like they were filthy, I bit my lip and swallowed my pain.

Even they couldn't believe what was happening and didn't care to treat me like a normal person.

My mind went back to my former mate again even though I'd sworn to forget him.

But every single pain I felt reminded me of him, of the smirk on his face as he betrayed me..

Lied to me.

What I couldn’t understand was why he decided to toy with me. Yes, I was desperate, but it only took a few words to break the bond between us.

If he wanted to be with Sara that badly, he could have broken the bond and moved on. Why didn’t he?

The question weighed heavily on my mind as the maids took me into the bathroom. I didn’t bother to struggle as they roughly washed my skin.

Every scrub I took felt like they were sending a message. One I couldn't decipher.

Ugh, what hole did I just fall into?

I wasn’t ready for another mate like Damien. I didn’t want to go through that pain and heartbreak, especially not when the last one was still so fresh in my mind.

After they washed me enough to make my skin red, they cleaned me up and wrapped me in a robe.

Then they took me towards another tent, a different one from earlier.

It didn’t look bad. It was much better than the other ones I had seen on the way. It wasn’t until we stepped inside that I felt the weight of what was happening.

It was a beautiful space. I studied the space, looking around in awe.

How had they managed to fill this place with so many beautiful things when they were in the middle of a war?

I looked from the shiny dresser to the queen-sized bed in the corner, and I immediately felt out of place.

I wasn’t used to these things. I thought of my small room back at the Pack.

They had given me that room because, apparently, that was all I deserved. To them, having no wolf meant you were worse than trash, and there was nothing I could do about it. My own mate didn’t even want me.

Even when I got nice things, they never stayed for long. One way or the other, every nice thing I had ever owned got taken away from me, one by one.

And I knew that soon this one would be taken away too.

All I had to do was refuse to play this ridiculous game.