"He is the king!" she rages. "It doesn't matter how he signed it. You should think of him, speak of him, as if he's your king. And he should think of you as just another subject. He clearly does not."
She goes to my closet and throws open the doors, disappearing inside as she mutters about needing to buy me an appropriate wardrobe. I hear her pawing through my clothes in annoyance before she emerges with a black crepe top with pleated white sleeve cuffs and a prim peter-pan neckline. She jerks a pair of black tie-waist trousers off their hanger and throws the clothes onto the bed in disgust. "Get dressed. Your Father is waiting to speak to you downstairs."
She leaves and slams the door, and I immediately reach for my phone to check the time. It's ten o'clock, much later than I'm usually allowed to sleep, and the Daniels will be over for brunch at noon. I put as much hustle into getting ready as I reasonably can and still leave less time between then and now for Father to lecture me.
More likely, it will be Mother doing the lecturing while Father stands by, condemning me with glares of disappointment. And I'll shrink and feel small and apologize for things I can't control.
This isn't what you want. Pack your bags and go, right now. Take your car, live in it if you have to. I imagine getting behind the wheel and leaving everything behind.
Then I remember how I felt at the ceremony last night, how much I yearned to transform, and that fleeting moment of imagined freedom crashes down. I need to be with the pack. Not for security, but because it's my nature.
It's unfair that I have to trade away my future to belong.
I hear raised voices as I descend the stairs. They're coming from Father's study, and they're not voices I recognize immediately. The anger obscures the usually polite context in which I hear them, but it becomes crushingly clear as I approach the doors that Ashton is here early, as are his father and mother.
The argument goes silent as I enter, the eyes of my fiancé and two sets of furious parents falling on me, demanding answers to a thousand questions all once. If I can't deliver the right answers, right now, it will reflect badly on me. Unfortunately, I won't be able to give the right answers at all; they've already decided what I'm going to say and what my words will mean before I open my mouth.
Ashton's is the only face with any sympathy. He comes to me and takes my hands in his. "Darling. You must be so upset."
"Upset?" I look to Mother. Hasn't she told them all about the note yet?
"Being pursued so relentlessly by the king. He's abusing his power as pack leader. It's absolutely disgusting." He directs most of his statement to the room at large.
So, that's what the argument was about. Whether or not I'm being courted by the king or stalked by him.
Ashton's father, James Daniels, is like a middle-aged version of his son. A glimpse into the future of my marriage, and I guess it's not all bad. Thank goodness Ashton doesn't look like a constipated asshole when he talks to me, like James does. He asks, "What message did the king send you last night?"
Now, I'm double confused. I assumed Mother told them the contents of note. I open my mouth, considering how to not lie but also not reveal the entire truth. "It was an apology. For putting me under such scrutiny at the ball."
Ashton and his father exchange a charged glance. "And not an invitation to dinner?"
I cringe inwardly. Ashton asked the question as a defense of me, to his father. My fiancé expects me to back up his firm denial, but I can't and it's just going to make him look foolish.
I'm sure he'll love that, but there's nothing I can do to fix it, not with Mother and Father standing there, knowing full well what the note said. "He did invite me to dinner."
It's so quiet, the clock on the wall behind Father's desk ticks audibly.
"You're not going," Mother says firmly.
Ashton holds up his hand for quiet. His jaw visibly tightens. "Thomas, may we have the room, please?"
"Sweetheart," Mrs. Daniels wheedles. "Perhaps we should discuss this as a family. At ho—"
"Thank you, Mother," Ashton dismisses her tersely.
"Let's give these young people time to talk," Father says, holding an arm stiffly toward the open double doors, which he closes behind them as they file out, leaving Ashton and I to stand awkwardly in front of each other.
I don't know what to say. Worse, I don't know what he's going to say. I hope he's going to call off the pact.
Please, please let him call off the pact.
"You're not going," he says flatly.
The words knock the wind out of me. "Excuse me?"
"You're not going to dinner with him." He states it like fact, and that infuriates me.
I take a step back. And I realize this might be my salvation. If I defy him, give him a taste of what he can expect in our marriage…
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"He is our king and our pack leader." I straighten in indignation. "Or didn't you listen to the words we just said when we were kneeling in front of him?"
"Kneeling in fron—" Ashton turns away, one hand flexing. That gives me a moment of pause. Will he strike me? And if so, will anyone care?
He whirls on me, his lips practically white with fury, and jabs the air in an explosion of anger. "You do not lecture me on loyalty!"
I take a step back. It's the last concession I'll make, I decide. He can walk right through me if he wants. I don't care. I'm not giving up any more ground, despite the stomps he takes toward me to punctuate his statements.
"You ran from the pact your father made with me." Stomp. "You ran from the pack entirely." Stomp. "You allowed a usurper to make a spectacle of you, and now you think I'll allow you to go to his home and have dinner with him? Alone?"
Ashton looms over me, but I don't quaver. I stare up in to his furious eyes, unblinking.
"I didn't run from you," I correct him. "And I didn't run from the pack. I invoked an ancient right that hadn't been disclosed to us. It was your right, too!"
"And yet you didn't inform me of it," he seethes. "You waited until we stood in front of the Hierophant, and only then did you say anything about our right to leave to the pack."
That takes me aback. It never occurred to me that he might have wanted an out, as well. I denied him that. I suppose he has every right to be angry about it.
But not about whom I dance with or whom I see socially. Not when we aren't even mates yet.
"I'm sorry. I should have told everyone. But there's no going back now. And if I knew you would have wanted to—"
"I didn't want to!" He stalks away, running a hand through his hair in frustration, and turns back, one hand on his hip, his jacket pushed back. "Even if I had the choice, I would never have left. You shouldn't have left. And I'm tired of pretending I'm not embarrassed by what you did. From now on, there will be no more embarrassments. Do you understand?"
"Do you understand that you don't get to order me around?" I shoot back, braver now that he's across the room once more. "We have a mating pact, but we aren't mated. Not yet. And my pack leader has extended an invitation that's an honor, not a disgrace."
I hope it's a disgrace. One so bad, so awful that Ashton has no choice but to spare his family name and let this whole mating thing go.
"If it were any other king, or you were any other subject." Ashton curses, then lets out a deep, aggrieved sigh. "You're right. I can't stop you from going. But I also can't guarantee that I won't break our pact if you go. My father is a powerful man now, Bailey. He's on the council. Our family can't afford a liability. So, I would advise you to stop acting like one."
He strides to the doors and pauses, not looking back. "Make the smart choice, this time."
I sit, very still, on the brown leather sofa that my father has had since I was a child, and I listen to the raised voices in the hall.
I am going to Aconitum Hall.
I am going to see Nathan.