“Fuck you!” Perry drove deeper, stretching me brutally as he took his anger out on my body. “You’d rather spread your legs for him!? Fine!”
Everything blurred together – fast and slow simultaneously.
I felt like I was watching the scene from outside myself, observing a stranger being violated while I stood helpless on the sidelines.
I blinked rapidly to clear the tears – the pain was nothing new, considering how Kevin used to abuse me.
Perry gripped my waist, his fingers digging deep enough to draw blood. He saw it but didn’t care. Why should he? In his mind, I was fantasizing about another man.
What sane man could tolerate that?
Especially not the Mad King. He was planning to murder that alpha and see if I’d still think of him afterward.
When the king finished, he pulled out and released me, letting me collapse to the floor. Blood spotted the space between my legs.
My body hit the marble hard, pain radiating through every nerve, but I stayed silent. I studied the marble pattern with strange fascination. It was bizarre to focus on something so trivial in my current state.
But that’s exactly what I was doing. I examined the marble while the king ranted about something I couldn’t process.
I heard his voice but couldn’t decode the words. They sounded like wind rustling through leaves or branches tapping against glass.
“I can’t believe this.” Perry glared down at my broken form. I hadn’t moved at all. My wet hair hung like a curtain over my face, but my back was to him. My pale skin showed a faint flush. “I should have killed you if not for this damn mate bond!”
Perry should have heeded Flynn’s advice.
He should have rejected me. But he couldn’t force himself to do it. Why would he set me free when that’s all I wanted – to run back and whore myself to that other alpha?
He wouldn’t make it easy for me.
“Don’t even think about returning to that place! Don’t even consider seeing him again! You’ll stay here until your flesh rots off your bones and you’re buried six feet under!”
Perry waited for some reaction. Tears, screaming, anything – but I made no sound. I remained motionless and silent.
And I stayed there on the freezing floor with blood between my legs for what felt like forever, long after the king stormed out and my body dried.
Was it an hour? Two? I couldn’t tell, but when awareness finally returned, even my hair had dried completely.
I stood up as if nothing had happened and looked down at the blood on my legs.
Without thinking, I turned on the tap and began cleaning myself. The dried blood was stubborn, forcing me to take another full shower.
When I finished, I didn’t bother with a towel before walking to the massive closet. I grabbed a shirt and pants, not even wincing when I pulled the pants over my injuries, then returned to bed.
I lay there motionless, staring at the ceiling.
I didn’t even stir when Mason entered with lunch.
Time slipped away, and when Mason returned with dinner, he found the afternoon meal sitting untouched exactly where he’d left it.
Perry’s POV
“She refused both lunch and dinner, Your Majesty. When I brought her evening meal, the afternoon food sat there cold and untouched. I checked again just now – same thing with dinner,” Mason delivered her report while keeping her gaze fixed on the floor, terrified that I might blame her for failing to do her job properly.
“She’s throwing a tantrum to grab your attention,” Flynn muttered without bothering to look up from his paperwork. He pressed his palms against his tired eyes – the late hour weighing on him, though his workload showed no signs of shrinking.
I despised handling this bureaucratic nonsense.
“What’s she doing right now?” I asked, my voice sharp with irritation.
My blood still boiled from her brazen rejection. Fantasizing about another man while I was inside her?! That woman had balls of steel to pull that stunt.
“She’s asleep at the moment.”
I dismissed Mason with a wave, and she scurried out.
“She’s playing games with you. She wants you to despise her enough to ship her back to her pack so she can run into the arms of whatever man she’s pining for.”
Flynn shot me a look as I maintained my unsettling silence. “I warned you to reject her, but you wouldn’t listen. What’s the point of keeping her here?”
“She’ll die if I reject her.” I stared out at the dark sky, unable to shake the image of her crumpled on that bathroom floor.
Every instinct screamed at me to go to her, to hold her, to offer some comfort – but for what? I’d be the biggest fool alive, consoling a woman whose heart belonged to someone else.
“Well, you can’t be certain of that.” Flynn’s words hung in the air. He understood that Phoebe had lost her wolf after the first rejection, making a second rejection potentially fatal. But it was just theory.
Still, Flynn wasn’t heartless enough to openly suggest I kill someone. I already had enough blood on my conscience – no need to add more.
Besides, he’d been trying to soften my crueler impulses lately.
Pushing me toward murder would contradict everything he’d been working toward. This whole mess frustrated him beyond measure, so he kept his mouth shut and returned to his reports.
Then he remembered something unavoidable that needed addressing.
“What about the formal introduction? Since you marked her publicly, everyone knows you’ve found your mate. They’re expecting you to present her.”
Since I’d refused to sever our mate bond, the logical next step was introducing her as my mate – meaning this kingdom would finally get a queen.
But Flynn couldn’t see me doing that.
I’d given no hint of planning any announcement regarding Phoebe.
“What’s your plan?”
“Let them wait,” I replied with complete indifference, my attention drifting to the horizon. My thoughts consumed me, and I tuned out whatever Flynn said next.
***
Phoebe’s POV
I had no idea when sleep claimed me, but I jolted awake to find my room plunged into complete darkness, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
I hated this suffocating blackness.
Mason must have checked on me while I slept and switched off the lights, thinking she was being considerate. Her heart was in the right place, but sleeping in darkness sent my anxiety skyrocketing – I needed to see every corner, every shadow.
Kevin had made sure of that.
It took several agonizing minutes to wrestle down my panic before I could force myself out of bed. I immediately flooded the room with light, and only when every corner blazed with brightness could I breathe normally again.
I scanned the room, confirming I was alone. The clock revealed sunrise was still two hours away – my usual wake-up time.
I stood and headed toward the bathroom, but froze at the doorway as memories of earlier crashed over me.
The pain lingered, spreading through my body like poison. It twisted together with every cruel thing Kevin had done to me, and I felt invisible hands dragging me under.
I was drowning with no one to save me.
My breathing turned ragged, but I clenched my teeth and shoved the door open. I avoided the shower area and went straight to the sink.
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