Chapter 2: Aftermath

The grand ballroom felt like a gilded cage long after the last guest had whispered their way out. The silver flash of the bond had faded from the air, but it was seared onto the back of my eyelids. Every time I blinked, I saw it. Every time my heart beat, I felt the phantom echo of hispulse alongside my own, a frantic, discordant rhythm that was slowly driving me mad.

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window in the guest wing, my forehead pressed against the cool glass, trying to numb the dull, throbbing ache that had taken root behind my eyes. It had started an hour after Silas had rejected the bond—a persistent headache that no amount of darkness or quiet could soothe. My stomach churned, and a hollow, restless feeling gnawed at my insides. This was the mate bond’s punishment. The price for being near, yet unbearably far.

‘He is ours,’my wolf whined, a pathetic, mournful sound in the confines of my mind. She paced, agitated, pushing against my skin, wanting to run, to find him, to make it right. ‘Why did he push us away? It hurt.’

“Because he is the Alpha,” I whispered to my reflection, my breath fogging the glass. “And I am his nephew’s fiancée. Because it’s wrong.” The words tasted like ash. Logic was a feeble shield against the primal truth screaming in my blood.

A soft knock came at the door. I flinched, my entire body tensing. “Who is it?”

“It’s Elena.”

A sliver of relief allowed me to breathe. I opened the door to find my best friend, the pack’s resident Beta doctor, holding a small medical kit. Her kind, intelligent eyes were full of concern. “I heard what happened,” she said softly, stepping inside and closing the door. “The whole pack has heard. Let me check you over.”

“I’m fine,” I lied, the words automatic.

Elena gave me a look that said she knew better. She guided me to sit on the edge of the bed and pressed cool fingers to my temples. “Elevated heart rate. Pupils slightly dilated. Low-grade fever.” She sighed. “Classic mate bond rejection symptoms, Chloe. And they’ve only just begun.”

Tears pricked my eyes, born of pain and humiliation. “What do I do, Elena? He looked at me like I was… nothing. Less than nothing. Like a stain on his family’s honor.”

“Silas Blackwood is bound by chains heavier than any of us can see,” she said, her voice gentle but firm. “The weight of this pack, its traditions… and now this.” She shook her head. “But this bond… it’s real. Your body isn’t lying.”

Before I could reply, the sound of raised voices from the hallway below drifted through the slightly ajar window. One was Lucas’s, petulant and angry. The other was lower, a calm, steady baritone that sent another unwelcome shiver down my spine—Silas.

“—an absolute disgrace!” Lucas was snarling. “How could you let that happen? In front of everyone! She made a fool of me! Of us!”

I crept closer to the window, my heart pounding a sickening rhythm against my ribs. Elena shot me a warning look, but I ignored it. I had to hear.

“The bond is not something one ‘lets’ happen, Lucas.” Silas’s voice was dangerously quiet, a stark contrast to his nephew’s hysterics. “It is a force of nature. Control your tone.”

“Control mytone? What about controlling your… your… reactionto her? Everyone saw the way you looked at her! Like you wanted to devour her right there on the floor!”

A wave of heat flooded my cheeks. Had he? In that split second before the ice returned, had that been hunger in his eyes?

“You will not speak of this again,” Silas commanded, and even from a distance, I felt the faint edge of his Alpha power, a pressure that demanded obedience. “The matter is closed. You will proceed with the engagement as planned.”

“As planned? With my fiancée who is apparently my uncle’sfated mate?” Lucas’s laugh was bitter. “You must be joking. The elders are already in an uproar. They’re waiting for you in the study. They want this… situation… handled.”

Handled. The word made me feel like a rabid animal that needed to be put down.

“I am aware of my meeting with the elders,” Silas replied, his voice dropping, becoming deadlier. “And you will remember your place. The engagement stands. It will provide stability. Is that understood?”

There was a sullen silence from Lucas. Stability. For the pack. Not for me, not for the bond screaming in agony between us. I was a pawn, a tool for stability.

The voices faded as they moved away. I slumped against the wall, the headache intensifying into a sharp, stabbing pain. Elena put a supportive hand on my shoulder.

An hour later, a different knock, this one firm and authoritative, sounded at my door. Marcus, Silas’s head Beta and right-hand man, stood there. His expression was unreadable, but not unkind. “Miss Chloe,” he said. “The Alpha requests your presence in his study. Immediately.”

My blood ran cold. Elena squeezed my hand. “Do you want me to come with you?”

I shook my head, a strange calm settling over me. The pain, the humiliation, the fear—they coalesced into a brittle shell of defiance. “No. I’ll face him.”

I followed Marcus through the silent, opulent hallways to the heavy oak door of Silas’s private study. Marcus opened it for me and closed it behind me, leaving me alone with him.

The room was immense, lined with bookshelves and dominated by a massive mahogany desk. Silas stood before the fireplace, his back to me, his broad shoulders tense. The moment I entered, the bond roared to life. The headache lessened, replaced by a dizzying, magnetic pull. My wolf howled with joy. ‘Close. He is close.’

I could smell his scent more intensely here—winter air, whiskey, and power—and it was like a drug. My body yearned to move closer, to bridge the few feet between us.

He turned slowly. The storm in his eyes had been banked, replaced by an arctic chill. He looked as impeccable as ever, but there was a tightness around his mouth, a faint pallor to his skin that hadn’t been there before. The bond was hurting him, too.

“Chloe,” he began, his voice carefully neutral.

“You requested me, Alpha?” I interrupted, my own voice surprisingly steady. I would not let him see me break.

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “What happened tonight… cannot happen again. It was an anomaly. A… biological mistake.”

A mistake. The word was a physical blow. I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. “A mistake?” I took a step forward, unable to help myself. The air between us crackled. “It felt real. It isreal. I can feel it… pulling at me. Can’t you?”

His gaze dropped to my hands, which were trembling, then flicked back to my face. His own breathing seemed to have quickened almost imperceptibly. The space between us felt charged, alive. Every cell in my body was screaming for me to close the distance, to touch him, to make the pain stop.

For a heart-stopping second, I thought I saw the ice in his eyes fracture. I saw the same desperate hunger from the ballroom. He took half a step towards me.

Then, he stopped. He fisted his hands at his sides, his knuckles white. He took a deliberate step back, putting the solid weight of his desk between us, a physical and symbolic barrier.

“What I feel is irrelevant,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, harsh whisper that was meant for my ears only. “What matters is the good of this pack. You will marry Lucas. You will forget this… feeling. You will control it. And you will never, everspeak of it again.”

The finality in his tone was absolute. The brief flicker of connection was snuffed out, leaving me colder than before. The pulling sensation in my chest twisted into a sharp, wrenching pain.

I looked at this powerful, tormented man who was chaining us both to a fate he claimed was for the greater good. The defiance in me solidified into something harder, colder.

“You think I wanted this?” I asked, my voice quiet but laced with a venom that surprised even me. “You think I asked for this… this torture? To be bound to a man who is too much of a coward to acknowledge his own soul?”

His eyes widened a fraction, shock and something that looked like pain flashing within them. I didn’t wait for a response. I turned on my heel, my body trembling with the effort of walking away from the source of both my agony and my solace. As I reached the door, the throbbing in my head returned with a vengeance, a cruel reminder.

The bond was a shackle. And he had just thrown away the key.