Chapter 18

Kimble

How could Josh betray me? It felt like the ground had crumbled beneath my feet. I had leaned on him so heavily, trusted him with everything, and then he plunged the knife into my back. And Talon… Talon was the one who pulled me from the edge of the abyss, just when I thought I’d been lost to the dark.

I didn’t want to appear needy, but over the past few days, touching Talon had become a necessity. I sought his body’s warmth.

I had never craved contact with anybody before. I was the only child of my mother and she made sure I slept away from her. And ever since I could remember, she only touched me when she wanted to beat me or ask me to do chores. I don’t recall her cuddling me ever. So I had to look after myself.

Whatever it was inside me that wanted to come out and break free—that was taken care of by her disgusting medicines. I was alone, inside out, and yet here I was, making a mess.

How could I roll to him and sleep on his chest every damn night? How could I find comfort in the wolf who had bought me? My logic failed me.

I would have been content if he were a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But Talon was a wolf in a wolf’s skin. He was sly, very shrewd, and not afraid to stoop low if he wanted things to go his way. That’s what he did. He would untie me every night without touching me because… whatever.

After he had killed that warrior who was flirting with me, I felt… aroused. This was the most bizarre reaction I’d ever experienced. At the same time, I was scared to look at any wolf around me, and they were equally scared to look at me. Overall, male wolves avoided me at all costs.

The servants in the manor had started hating me with more intensity than ever, some of them murmuring behind my back about how I was responsible for ousting Aria. How Aria was their Luna and I was the reason they couldn’t have her. And most importantly how I’d triggered Alpha Talon to kill an innocent wolf. He wasn’t innocent because he was talking roughly about his intention to have sex with me. Gross.

I felt like lashing out at them that it wasn’t my fault and that it was their Alpha’s doing. But I knew better than that. I stayed quiet because soon I was going to ask him to increase the price of staying in his bed. On my eighteenth birthday, I would ask him to touch me and each touch would obviously cost him the extra five thousand I had negotiated. I had done my math. In less than a year, I would be free. I chuckled at the thought that it had been me touching him every time so far.

Liam would drift into my thoughts sometimes. I had his number on my phone, but that number miraculously disappeared. I couldn’t help but compare him with Talon. Liam said he could marry me even though I wasn’t eighteen. That meant he could fuck me after the wedding. But Talon didn’t touch me because of a promise. And he could do anything to me since I was at his mercy. Or whim.

Nobody told me anything about Aria. Jackie visited me often and even she was tight-lipped about it. Eventually, I stopped asking.

I thought about Josh a lot. He was the only person who’d understood me well, but after Talon told me what he did, the last thread that tethered me to that feeling of love snapped. Still, I wanted to ask Josh about it myself. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.

As we drove through the dark woods, I was surprised that the Moonlit Choosing Ritual took place here. It was a little scary, to be honest. “Are you taking part in the ritual?” I asked. It had been on the tip of my tongue for a long time.

“Yes.”

I clenched my fists in my lap. “That means you’ll be choosing your mate.”

“Yes.”

My lungs seized. “Then what about me?”

He brought the jeep to a screeching halt. He turned to look at me and said, “I haven’t decided.”

Now I wanted to scratch his face. I seethed, “You want to choose your mate, and you want to keep me. How ridiculous is that? You’re practically telling me that you’ll cheat on your wife with me.”

He cocked his head and smirked. “Are you jealous?” He got out of the jeep.

Yes, I was. What? Wait.

“Heck, no! But that’s not right!” I said, jumping out of the jeep. Something inside me slammed like a whisper, a tendril, making me stop in my tracks. I sucked in a sharp breath.

He stopped and turned his head over his shoulder. “Is everything okay?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Yeah!” I replied, as I gulped in more air. The same feeling returned.

He stared at me for a few seconds and then sauntered toward a thicket just a few yards away. He stood there with one hand in his pocket, holding a torch with the second one.

I stormed to him and opened my mouth to reproach him, but he cut me off. “What do you think of that tree?” he said, pointing the torch to a cedar tree that was thick and sturdy and a little secluded from the rest. Its leaves susurrated in the gentle breeze, sparkling under the soft moonlight.

“Why are you showing me a tree?” I asked, irritated.

“Is it good?” he continued.

“Yes!” I snapped. “But why are you suddenly interested in the tree?”

He turned to gaze at me. “Because the girls will be tied to them for the Moonlit Choosing Ritual. One tree for each girl.”

My jaw dropped.

He walked toward the cedar tree he was looking at. When he reached it, he touched its bark and brushed it with his hand. “In the Choosing, each girl will be stripped naked and blindfolded before they tie her to the tree. There are seven she-wolves participating in the Choosing this year.” His eyes fell on me. “And there’ll be a dozen wolves contesting for them.”

“Naked?” Jealousy ripped through me at the thought that he was going to see them naked. To stop myself drowning in this irrelevant emotion, I wrapped my arms around myself.

He smirked. “Yes, naked. And blindfolded.” He circled the tree as if inspecting it. “The wolves will have to fight each other to reach the girl they choose to mate with. We might injure each other severely.”

Gods above. So he was going to fight for a she-wolf. It was good that he would have his mate. Then he might forget about me and maybe set me free. But despite all the self-counseling, I felt… betrayed. I blinked away my stupid tears. Why was I even thinking about it? Yeah, I had officially gone mad. Swallowing down my emotions, I asked, “Werewolves have mates. So why this Choosing Ritual?”

His dark gaze grazed me. “Mates are extremely rare in our community. Barely ten percent of us find mates. All the participants in the ritual are the ones who haven’t found their mates or have already rejected them because they are from families who seek political alliances.”

“What does the strongest Alpha in North America seek?”

A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips as the intensity of his gaze increased to the point where a nest of butterflies fluttered wildly in my belly. “Why do you want to know? Are you in love with me or are you getting horny already?”

I blew a strand of hair dancing on my cheek. “You’re right. I don’t want to know. Just take me back. Obviously, once your mate comes, I’ll have to move out of your room. So tell me where I should go. Back to the servants’ quarters?”

He looked away and walked behind the tree without answering me. A moment later he said, “This is a nice thicket. The ritual will take place over here.” Then he peeked his head from behind the tree. “Do you want to know what we do after we choose our mate?”

“I don’t care!”

“I’ll tell you anyway. We claim them and fuck them while they are blindfolded in front of everyone.”

Air whooshed out of my body as I froze, my eyes fixed on him. “You what?”

“And the she-wolves look forward to it,” he added with a smirk.

He walked toward me with a calm demeanor and stopped right in front of me. I craned my neck to see his face, my body betraying my logic as it shivered in his presence. “Once we reach the mate we’ve chosen, we claim them by fucking them in front of the Elders.” He brought his hand to my cheek but fisted it and took it back down. “The mating is done in the presence of the Elders so they can give their blessings to us, so they know we’re mated. This time the ritual is going to see some of the most powerful names in the history of werewolves. There are three Alphas contesting along with four she-wolves of Alpha bloodline.”

The shock was too much to bear. So he couldn’t see that I was physically shaking for no apparent reason, I turned and walked to the jeep. He followed me back. While walking back, he asked, “Did you like the tree?”

He was asking me about the fucking tree when I abhorred this whole shitty ritual, or rather him participating in it. “Yeah,” I managed to speak through the hoarseness in my throat.

“Why don’t you guys just choose someone to marry outside the ritual?” I asked after a while as we drove back.

“The law doesn’t allow us.” He veered his car into the driveway. “This ritual is like a marriage license in the human world. The male stakes a claim on the female and marks her with his cum and his bite.”

“Bite?” A delicious anticipatory shiver ran down my spine as I snapped my head to look at him.

He didn’t turn to look at me. “Yes, we pierce our fangs in their flesh where the shoulder meets the neck and inject our venom in their blood, which is our mark in our mate. Our smell gets infused in her body, which keeps other wolves away from her.”

Staking a claim. Goosebumps pebbled my skin. I needed to get out of the car because suddenly the place seemed too cagey for me. “Good for you,” I breathed.

As soon as we arrived at his manor, I opened the door and slammed it before rushing up the stairs and into the bedroom. I had lost my appetite for dinner or for anything else.

“The ritual starts tomorrow at midnight,” he informed me, coming after me.

I stopped in the middle of the room, clenching my fist tightly. “Okay…” I mumbled.

I knew what I had to do.