I smiled. I made sure it reached my eyes.
“If you want to show gratitude,” I said carefully, “I will sign this. I will become practically your slave. But one term here has to be changed.”
He straightened up. I saw his eyebrows lift. Like he couldn’t believe I had the audacity to negotiate.
“What?” His tone was amused. Like I was a child asking for something ridiculous.
I looked down at the contract. Found the clause about conception. Read it again to make sure I had the wording right.
“I do not want you to hand me your seed routinely,” I said. I looked up. Met his eyes and held them. “I want you to do it yourself.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Then he laughed. Short and sharp and disbelieving.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
He pushed off the wall. Took two steps toward me. His face had gone from amused to something darker.
“Now you are showing your true colors,” he said.
“Am I?” I kept my voice level. Kept my gaze locked on his. “I am just changing one term. I will accept the rest.”
“I will never have sex with you,” he said. Each word was deliberate. Final. “Even if hell freezes over.”
“It is just one term,” I said. “I will accept the rest.”
I saw his jaw clench. Saw the muscle there jump.
“I have always been of the opinion,” I continued, “that men did not mind the face behind the warm body on their bed. That they could sleep with anyone… with anything.”
He laughed again. This time it was uglier. Meaner.
“You have no shame,” he said.
“Why would I?” I kept my chin up. Kept my shoulders back. “In your eyes, I am the worst kind of monster.”
“Are you not?”
The question hung between us. I could feel the bond thrumming. I could feel his anger and disgust bleeding through.
“It is either that,” I said quietly, “or you can keep denying me sex but the rest has to go.”
I watched his face change. Watched the anger turn into something colder. More controlled.
He moved fast. Snatched the papers from my hand so quickly I didn’t have time to react. The movement was violent. Barely restrained.
“You clearly have not spent a long time here,” he said.
“I will not be changing my mind.”
“You will.”
He turned. Started walking toward the cell door. His footsteps were heavy against the stone floor. Deliberate.
I watched him reach for the lock. Watched his hand close around the iron bars.
My heart was hammering. I could feel the bond pulling tight. Could feel my wolf howling inside me to just shut up. To let him leave. To stop pushing.
But I couldn’t.
“What about your mother?” The words came out before I could stop them. “How long can you keep me here when I know she is dying to put a face to the title?”
He went still.
I saw his shoulders tense. Saw his hand grip the bars hard enough that his knuckles went white.
Then he moved.
He was on me so fast I didn’t have time to back up. His hand closed around my throat. Not squeezing. Just holding. The pressure was light but the threat was clear. Dman clear.
His eyes were red. Completely red. His wolf was right there at the surface. Close enough to taste.
“Are you threatening me?” His voice was low. Dangerous.
My throat hurt where his hand pressed. My wolf was screaming at me to submit. To bare my neck. To show him I wasn’t a threat.
I kept eye contact. No, I forced myself not to look away.
I needed to keep playing the villain. Needed him to see me as someone who would use any leverage. Someone who had no scruples. Someone who deserved everything he was doing to me.
Because if he saw anything else, if he saw how scared I was, how much this hurt, I would break. And I couldn’t break. Not here. Not in front of him.
“Why did that sound like a threat, Alpha Cian?” I kept my voice steady, kept my eyes on his.
His grip tightened, just enough for my pulse to leap against his palm. I saw the storm behind his eyes, the beast pacing just beneath his skin. His wolf wanted to break me, to remind me what I was – small, defiant, omega. His human side was the only thing holding that violence back, and even that thread was fraying fast.
The bond burned hot between us. Every breath, every heartbeat, every drop of anger pouring from him was mine too. I felt how much my words had cut him, how deep the wound went when I’d thrown his mother into the fire of my argument. I had found the one place he was still raw and dug my nails into it. Exactly what he expected me to do.
He released me. His hand fell away like a blade sheathed after the damage was done. He stepped back once, twice, his chest still rising like he was trying to cage something wild inside.
“You have until morning,” he said. His voice was hollow now, stripped of emotion. “Sign the contract as it is. Or stay here for a month. No food. No water. Nothing.”
I smiled, slow and deliberate. “Alpha Cian, we both know that’s a lie. You need me. You wouldn’t be down here, talking to me yourself if you didn’t. You need your pretty little prisoner to play the part of a good mate. So here’s my answer.”
I leaned forward, just enough to provoke his rage. “Come morning, I won’t be signing anything. So you either listen to what I want, or kill me and be done with it.”
FIA
Cian’s jaw tightened. For a second, the silence between us was louder than his threat. He moved toward the bars, the sound of his boots echoing across the concrete floor, heavy and deliberate. When he unlocked the cage, the metal screeched like it was screaming for me to run. But I didn’t. I sat still, watching him close the distance with that quiet fury that only he carried.
He stepped inside and the air changed. The cell shrank. Every breath I took felt shared, pulled from the same thin space between us. His eyes, a cold storm, locked on mine as if searching for a reason not to do what he said he would.
“What makes you think I won’t?” His voice was low now, quieter, but sharper. A blade drawn slow enough to make me feel every inch.
I tilted my head. “Because I just know.”
He laughed. The sound was sharp enough to draw blood. “You should know everything about me if you were so obsessed you trapped me in this marriage. You think I won’t kill you because we’re mates? Feel through the bond and tell me what you feel, because I want to do it.”
I did feel it. The rage was there. Hot and vicious and ready to tear me apart. His wolf was screaming for violence. For blood. For an end to this mess I’d created.
But there was something else underneath. Something he was wrestling with. Something that made him hold back even when every instinct told him to let go.
“Yeah,” I said. “You want to.”
I reached for his hand. He didn’t stop me. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled it back to my throat. Pressed his palm against the place where my pulse hammered.
“But you wouldn’t be holding on to control if there was no consequence for you.” My voice was steady. I made sure of it. “So as much as you visualize crushing my throat, you can’t. Why? I am not sure.”
That was not entirely true. Everything Garret had told me pointed to Cian being capable of anything. Pointed to him being the kind of man who would eliminate problems without blinking. But Garret had also said Cian valued things. His mother. His superstitions. Maybe that was the only reason I was still breathing.
“But,” I continued my lie. “I know that much.”
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