Jessamine
There’s someone in my room when I return by morning. I know it because I smell him. Crisp winter and spice. Shoving my mother’s journal into my satchel, I twist the door knob and stop short when I see Alpha Kier in my bed, ankles crossed over the other, his hands locked behind his head.
His hazel eyes drop to my feet covered in black boots and rise from my riding pants to my tight shirt. They heat and he sits up. “Where were you?”
I shut the door behind me. “Since when do you care where I go? And did no one ever teach you that it’s bad behavior to lie on the bed with shoes?” He’s always had that terrible habit. Not that he ever noticed that every time he slept in his boots, I’d take them off for him.
Alpha Kier shrugs. “It’s fine if I say it is.” He brushes down on his…I pause, my breath slowing as I notice it for the first time. He’s wearing the black sweater I knitted for him. “This is oddly…comfortable.”
He raises his gaze and I look away abruptly, not trusting that I’ll be able to keep the unbothered mask I have on right now. The past day has been emotionally grueling. From the moment we shared in his study to shattering my mirror, and digging up my mother’s grave and finding the journal in the rucksack where I’d kept it. After yelling at the woods for hours, venting out my frustration, I’d opened the journal and found that I couldn’t understand shit that was in it because I can’t fucking read the language of the Dawnish.
I’m so irked, if anyone so much as pokes me, I might actually start crying. Again.
“What do you want?” I ask without looking a him, dumping my satchel on the chair. “I’m not going to talk about what happened in your study, so don’t even bother.”
He stands from the bed, tucking his hands in his pocket. “I didn’t peg you to be a coward.”
I turn my head to him. “Call it whatever you like, I don’t care. Get out of my room if you’re here to annoy me.”
He walks to where I stand by my armoire and he leans in, cocking his head at me like he’s trying to read…me. Alpha Kier’s hand lifts, crossing the space between us, and he brushes the skin under my eyes. “You’ve been crying.” His nostrils flare. “And why do you smell like horse ass?”
I swat the annoying man away. “I went to see my mother. You know, dug up her grave, just so I could hug her again.”
He looks at me like he believes I’d actually do that. I snort, walking deeper into my room. “It’s her death anniversary soon. I went to…” My voice trails off and he pretty much assumes I went to have a chitchat with her. Or whatever people do on days like that.
“What was she like?”
I glance at him. “Why? You couldn’t find anything on her and now you’ve come to gain intel from me?”
He blows out a breath. “I suppose I dug that hole for myself. I just…want to know more about you, Jessamine.”
“No, you don’t,” I assure him, pulling out my hair from its bun. “That’s what every man says when they’re looking for something quick. You want to know more about me, hang around enough to take note. I have a life, and while you’re at the center of it, there are other things that are just as important. You want answers, you find them. You don’t walk into my bedroom to ask what my favorite color is—not that you even know what it is.”
“It’s pink, isn’t it?” he says, the pride that he could easily deduce that out evident in his voice.
My boots come off next and I respond without even looking. “No. It’s hazel, because your eyes are. You are not even trying, Kier.”
“You don’t think you’re demanding too much from me? How else is a man supposed to prove that he cares for a woman?”
“By not shoving his tongue down another woman’s throat just so he can satisfy his sexual urges. I wasn’t even gone for one hour and you already had another woman in your arms,” I blurt, frustration taking a hold of me, and I suddenly realize what I’ve said, what my admission means. Heavens, I’m losing control of my feelings too much these days.
Alpha Kier’s lips part. “Moira came on to me. It had nothing to do with what I wanted.”
I glare at him. “You have striking features. Women are going to come on to you every fucking day. Your excuse for letting her is invalid. If I hadn’t interrupted, you would have taken her to your bed and heaven knows if she’d have orchestrated a pregnancy to keep you tied to her. I wonder if you men only ever think with that head.”
He pauses. “Are you mad that I kissed her?”
I scoff. “Me? Mad?” I ask, and he flinches when I bang the door to my armoire loudly, hanging my towel on my shoulder. “Why would you even think that?”
“Well, let’s see, because you don’t look mad at all?”
“This,” I say, drawing a circle in front of my face. “Has nothing to do with whoever you want to take to bed. And no, I’m not demanding too much from you. The least you could do is be…” I catch myself before I can utter the word, “faithful”, because why on earth would he be? We’re not mated or anything.
Alpha Kier grabs the doorknob of my bathroom before I can escape into it. “Be what, Jessamine? I can hardly be faithful when you keeping teasing and turning me down. I’m a man, with needs you keep igniting. You make me so…hungry,” he whispers, his eyes flicking to my throat. “And you leave me with nothing. Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I couldn’t possibly leave you now—not that I want to.”
My mouth dries as he palms the door on both sides of my head, and I hold my breath to steady myself. He smells like heaven and it really doesn’t help that the angle he’s caught me in has me staring at his mouth. I swallow, ignoring the flush of heat that creeps up my neck and I force myself to look at his collar. “What do you mean?”
His fingers rise to his throat and he tugs down the collar to reveal a small scar on his neck. Up close, it looks like arched teeth marks that form a crescent, but when I lean my head against the door, it looks like a tattoo. Or to be precise, a mate’s mark. For some reason, in this moment, I remember what his blood tastes like. Spiced, rich, cinnamon. My stomach hits the ground. “What is that?”
He cocks his head, the gold in his eyes overpowering the green in the soft morning light that flits in through the window. “You’ve marked me.”
A self-deprecating laugh escapes my lips. “Mark you? Surely, you’ve hit your head somewhere. Last I checked, I don’t even have—”
“A wolf?” he finishes, leaning forward. “That’s why I’m here.” He inclines his head toward my dressing table, and for the first time since I entered my room, I notice the ivory wonder of a dress on the table. “We leave for Aldenwood tomorrow. You will wear that for the Howling.”
“I WILL NOT attend the Howling, and you WILL NOT force me to be where I do not wish to be.”
Alpha Kier’s intense gaze cuts through me like a knife. “You want to be Luna, you will attend the Howling with the rest of Neredia. I have the council’s unanimous decision to banish you and reconduct the Selection, their singular reason being your status and your inability to even summon your wolf. A very valid reason.” He taps the mark on his neck. “This proves otherwise. An Omega’s wolf would never surge in front of an Alpha without being called upon. Not to mention one who claims she is wolfless.”
I can’t form words, not as my gaze narrows on the mark. I really…did that? Me? Jessamine? I marked Alpha Kier as mine?
His breathing changes, and his hand leaves his collar, cupping my neck. “I cannot continue to defy my own council to keep you here. You very well know what will happen if they think their King has gotten distracted by a woman, so much so he no longer heeds the advice of his people.” He forces me to stare into his eyes. “They will kill you, and though I hate to admit this, I’m starting to like you enough to execute them for it and take the name ‘Tyrant’.”
Tyrant had been his father’s known name, and I know just how much he’s worked to gain their trust. But…going to the Howling with him, it’d mean facing the truth. If mother lied to me…I don’t even want to think about it. She taught me everything I know. She raised me the way she knew how. I only know who she said I was, and I fit myself into the picture she created. Going to the Howling confirms doubts. Going there could unravel everything and prove that I don’t even know who I am.
And not knowing who I am leaves me vulnerable, subject to the whims of this world. It doesn’t matter how invincible a character is, the author wields the pen and controls the outcome. You are the author of your story, Jessamine. Do with it what you wish. She said that to me the first time I’d cried about being inferior. The first time I’d cried about not having a wolf.
If she lied to me…
“This is the only way I can keep you safe,” he whispers, rubbing my thumb against my temple in slow, calming strokes that have my anger and frustration reducing to a steady ache between my legs.
“And if I don’t shift? What if I do and I’m still an Omega? You’ll only have succeeded in making a ridicule of me. Don’t make me do this, Kier. I don’t want to go there.”
He tilts his head to the side, exposing more of that mark he claims I gave him. “You must. The council decided to scrap the rest of the tasks set for the Selection, leaving only one that is sure to weed you out, just in case I still declined their decision.”
My throat tightens, and even if I can already guess what it is, I ask, “What is the last task?”
“Pitting you against each other, to determine the fiercest, the strongest. A duel—”
I smack his chest. “I’m going to lose! Why would you agree to something like that? I can’t shift, and even if I could, Moira and the rest have years of training and experience that I do not! You’re sending me to my death! They’ve been itching to kill me, and you’ve gifted them the opportunity to!”
He snarls, catching my hand. “The tasks were decided upon before I even knew you. How was I to know you would come along? It would have happened anyway! I have no fucking choice!”
“You are king, Kier! What you say is the law, and you know that if you stood on it, they’d choose otherwise. You’re letting your fear of being perceived as a bad ruler consume you. You’re letting everyone walk over you!”
“Don’t fucking talk to me like that!” His words are a guttural growl laced with malice, and I shove him off me, anger tightening every single muscle in my body.
“Get the hell out of my room and take the stupid dress with you! Why gift it to me if I’m going to die fighting for you anyway? Fuck,” I cuss for what might be the second time in my entire life. “Why am I even doing any of this for a man whose image and power matters more than my own life?”
“Beats me,” he retorts, almost immediately, and I rear back, feeling like I’ve been hit.
I walk past him, grabbing a dagger off my dresser, and in a fit of rage, I stab the dress, ripping it down to the beautiful corset, and I don’t stop until I’ve cut the entire front in half. I whirl and toss it at his head. “Get. Out. Of. My. Room!”
He snatches the dress, fisting it in one hand and he storms towards me, stopping a few inches away from me. His breaths are so hard, they ruffle my hair, and when he bares his teeth at me, I think he just might bite my head off.
But he doesn’t. He walks right out, ripping the door halfway off its hinges, and mumbles under his breath, “Fucking witch.”