ZINA
"Your vows must an a lot to you considering it seems like you’ve forgotten that we are mates, as such being in the sa bed together is not exactly out of place."
Zina simply didn’t understand how words that were ant to elicit desire and awe in any woman could roll off so cruelly. Daemon NorthSteed had that exact kind of power... the power to make wonderful words sound like a curse.
"Your majesty, lest you’ve forgotten, it is you who made it clear that accepting this bond doesn’t an much else. I find that I am in agreent with you which is why we promised that in exchange of restoring your na, I will beco a High Priestess."
"You never made your move though."
"What?"
"The wolf chess piece, you didn’t make your move."
Zina rembered the ga she never played although that was in part because the pieces had clattered to the floor when he had shoved her angrily on the table. Why was he thinking of the stupid ga when she was saying very serious things at that mont? Did the man even know what was at stake for her?
Sybril’s words rang to her like a horrible poem.
All you’ve is the Temple.
Have you not considered being together with Daemon NorthSteed as his mate?
Truth be told she had considered it. Considered standing tall by his side. Considered being his greatest ally. She had considered every possible angle their relationship would be at ever since the mate bond happened and her heart had begun tugging in different directions.
Zina shut her eyes as she mustered the bravado of the gods to say what she was about to say next. She didn’t want to live a tug and pull life not after all the turbulent things that had happened to her for a long ti.
For once, she wanted clarity.
Staring him deep in his black bottomless pit of eyes, she breathlessly called to him. "Daemon NorthSteed."
The air charged around them turned colder as the temperature dropped mysteriously lower. His eyes on her flared with surprise, and even his normal sass was nowhere to be found. Zina waited for him to say sothing as the seconds ticked by and they simply stared at each other. Finally, his lips parted and her na rolled off deliciously from his tongue.
"Zina WolfKnight."
Again, they stared for seconds that almost stretched to minutes before Zina finally mustered the last bit of strength she had to ask him a question she dreaded knowing the answer to.
"Will there ever be sothing more between the both of us? Can we be true mates without this wall between us?"
"Never."
The answer ca almost imdiately... but it didn’t hurt as much as she expected it to. Maybe that was because in his eyes, she saw a raging storm that told her that the man before her also had a past of his own... for the storm in his eyes was very turbulent, and yet Zina didn’t see any of the hate he must have for her in them.
Zina realised sothing at that mont... how obsessed she was with his eyes. For soone that hadn’t seen in twenty-four years, she was beginning to understand that she was a failure when it ca to deciphering Daemon’s bland expression combined with the blank mask he always donned on.
But his eyes... Zina could read things about him.
Many said no man could resist the mate bond. Once the bond was accepted, what almost followed imdiately was the desire to complete the marking through mating. However one thing those people didn’t take into account was that there could exist a man such as Daemon NorthSteed who strived on an insane control to put everything in his life at their place where he wanted them to be at... and that didn’t exclude his mate.
The question was why was that? And how was it possible in the first place? It was in that question that Zina saw the huge gap between both of them. The fact that she knew nothing about this man save for the fact that she declared him a traitor. Before then... he must have lived a life. A big one at that.
"Why is that?" She asked.
He didn’t answer.
But Zina, the woman who had power over the future, vowed not to back down from peeling a layer of him.
Can you handle it though? The voices in her head asked.
"There must be a reason you’re confident you can keep at bay despite the bond we share..." Zina said breathlessly, taking a step closer to him. "Why is that? Perhaps you’ve done it before?"
The question had been only to taunt him, but his imdiate response was shocking.
"Of course I’ve done it before." He drawled nacingly. "Didn’t you hear that you’re my second chance at mate too just as I am for you?"
Zina, who had been once advancing to him, staggered, and his arm darted out to steady her waist as his dark eyes caressed her.
"Surely, you didn’t think you were the first?" He smirked, his grip on her waist tightening while his liquid pool of dark eyes burned her.
How could one man feel so close to her, and at the sa ti, so far away?
"What happened to the first?" She managed to ask amidst the inferno that was raging all over her body. Her ears were ringing and she was feeling feverish. She had almost forgotten about the wound on her back.
"Rejection."
One word, nine letters... and yet so powerful.
"Why are you scared?" His arm tightened even more on her waist but he didn’t draw her closer to him. "You were the one who wished to unravel through my eyes and now you can’t even look at in them. Are you terrified?"
Zina balled her fist by her sides, tipping her trembling chin up as she realised what this man was doing to her. He was intimidating her, breaking her without her knowledge. But Zina had gone through such notions before and she wouldn’t fall for them again.
For every intimidation he sent through her, Zina vowed to respond with a maddening defiance. And for every attempt at breaking her, Zina vowed to drive him mad.
She could see it clearly in his eyes that he wasn’t averse to her no matter how much he acted like he hated her. No, there was desire for her in him... he wasn’t totally oblivious to the bond, he was just a much fiercer fighter than most common werewolves.
"I am not terrified." She gritted in a shaking voice that burned her with sha.
He smacked his lips, hands still gripping her waist as he looked her over like she was an ant he could stomp easily. "You should be."
Zina abandoned reason as she covered the space between them, rising to her toes and wounding her arm around his neck. His eyes flared at the motion and Zina simply smirked. They were so close that their breaths mixed together... so close Zina could read the emotions tucked away in his eyes.
He wished to strip her of the power he had given her. He wanted to push her away even with the bond existing between them so Zina would only be able to respond whenever he called onto her like a dirty dog. Zina could see it all... all of his devious thoughts and plans. All of his desires carefully tucked away. All of his visceral want that trembled under a failing control.
"It is you who should be terrified of , Daemon NorthSteed." She drawled in a languid voice as her blue eyes were glued to his. "At every waking and every corner, I promise to drive you insane until you regret accepting this bond. For every hate you will show , I will respond with love. For every cruel word you will say to , I will respond with want. And for every ti you push away, I shall bare all my needs to you."
He stilled, and under the moonlight, Zina imagined they looked like lovers. Maybe they were lovers stuck in a twisted fairytale.
"You wish to manipulate and use your majesty." Zina continued, wounding her arm tighter against his neck until she managed to draw him down until their lips were almost eting. "Well please use , your majesty. For now I’ve a new mission, and that is to beco your Theta and your mate."
She didn’t even need to make the next move, because next thing, Daemon was smashing his lips against hers, and together, they drowned in unspoken vows and a broken future.
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