As soon as the announcement was made, Leon left the gathering. No words. No explanations. Celine followed him, silent and tight-lipped, her pulse hammering as they moved through the corridors.
When they reached his chambers, she shut the door hard behind her.
The sound rang through the room. Leon didn’t flinch. He was already looking at her—like he knew she’d be right behind him.
Leon waited for Celine to speak first. Seated at his desk, a glass of dark liquor in his hand, he looked as if he had all the time in the world. As if her presence here wasn’t a disruption, but an inevitability.
A flicker of curiosity in his gaze. Amusement. Maybe even anticipation.
Her breath came too fast, her chest too tight.
“I can’t go with you. I-I can’t do this,” she said, voice raw.
Leon tilted his head, took a slow sip of his drink, and set the glass down with a quiet, deliberate clink. “And what gave you the right to defy your Alpha’s order?”
She swallowed, nails digging into her palms. “Please…I can’t go back there.”
Leon leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him like this conversation was entertainment. “And why is that?”
Because this was supposed to be my life.
Because Luke was supposed to be mine.
Because Lilith has taken everything.
Celine lifted her chin. “I don’t belong there.”
A low chuckle, almost too quiet to hear. “You speak as if that’s news to me.”
Her fingers curled into fists. “You don’t understand.”
Leon’s smirk faded. “Then make me.”
She hesitated. He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t even be asking. But he was. And the worst part? She wanted to tell him.
She forced herself to breathe, to steady the trembling in her hands. “I was… unwanted there.”
The words tasted like iron.
“My family, my pack—they didn’t want me. I was never enough.” She swallowed hard. “And now, I have to stand there, invisible, while they celebrate everything that was taken from me.”
A muscle in Leon’s jaw ticked. “Your mate.”
She exhaled sharply. “Yes.”
Leon stood. Slowly. Purposefully.
She could feel the heat of his body before he even reached her, feel his scent wrap around her, rich and dark.
He didn’t stop until he was too close—deliberately too close.
His voice was nothing more than a breath. “You hate them.”
Celine nodded and met his gaze. “Yes.”
“Then why do you sound like you’re still begging them to love you?”
Celine flinched. The words landed like a knife between her ribs.
She turned, but his hand caught her wrist, his grip firm but not painful—a tether grounding her in place.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
“You want to run?” he asked, voice softer now. Dangerously soft.
She exhaled shakily. “I don’t know.”
Leon’s thumb brushed against the inside of her wrist, where her pulse hammered against his touch.
“Or do you want to face them,” he murmured, “and burn their world down?”