Respect

AURELIA

“I can’t love you...” she whispered, tears shimmering on her cheeks. Her strength seemed to dissolve with those words.

“What?!” he barked, his hand clamping around her jaw, forcing her to look at him. “What do you mean, you can’t?”

“I won’t,” she answered.

Alastair’s anger surged. He’d bared his soul and battled the destiny spell with his love for her. Now she wouldn’t love him back? He’d given her everything he had.

“You think you fought for me, but you fought for yourself. You fought for your power, your control over the kingdom, and your control over me.

“I don’t like the darkness. I’m glad to be in control of myself again. But I can’t love a man who only looks out for himself.”

“You were tearing the kingdom apart. I know you wouldn’t want that on your conscience—”

“Don’t lie to me!” she shouted, stepping back from him, her disbelief clear.

“I’m not surprised you fought for yourself, but you don’t need to lie.

“You’ve been a man of power for so long that when it was taken from you, you fought for it.

“I don’t deny that you love me. The spell wouldn’t have worked otherwise. But your kind of love... I can’t live like we used to.

You never said anything to me other than a command. Then you expected me to blindly obey. I don’t care whether you love me. I can’t love a man who doesn’t respect me.”

She needed to say it. And he needed to hear it. Her words ignited a fire within him, but he knew she was right.

He’d never shown her any respect. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t shocked that she’d betrayed him.

“I told you I wouldn’t change for you,” he grumbled.

“I never asked you to change. You can show respect to others. I know you can. I don’t ask you to bow down to me. As you shouldn’t ask me to do so either. I’m not inferior.

“I might have let you believe that before, but never again.”

He scoffed. He was her king. One of them would always be inferior. That’s how it worked.

“I don’t— I...” He huffed and took a step away from her. “I’ve never answered to anyone, not in centuries.”

“You don’t answer to me. As I don’t answer to you. We share with each other. That’s a relationship.”

“What do you know about relationships?” he hissed, irked by the fact she almost made sense.

He knew what she wanted. And he wasn’t sure he could ever give it to her. He loved her, his mate, his little wolf, but it wasn’t enough.

“I know enough to know that if you’re not willing to share your life, your power, your throne with me, I don’t want to be here. If you truly love me, the least you could do is... let me go.”

His stomach dropped. A sensation he’d never felt before. A pang like an arrow to his chest. The mere thought of her leaving. She was his queen. She was his. She couldn’t go.

“Never,” he growled, grabbing her arm and pulling her to him. She tilted her chin up, her eyes glistening in the light.

“Do you see how you prove my point?” she asked softly, a lone tear streaking down her face. Alastair realized his claws had dug into her skin and immediately let go of her.

“Violence is who I am. I’m not gentle,” she scoffed humorlessly and shook her head.

“You can’t even listen to me. You, my dear king, care about yourself. You don’t want to let me go, so you’ll keep me here forever, even if I don’t want to stay. Love is sacrifice.”

“It’s the mate bond—”

“I feel the mate bond too. But I’m not happy with the way things are. And we both have the strength to leave each other. This is you. You’re the one keeping me here—”

She was cut off by a forceful grip on her waist. Gulping at the sight of his eyes flashing red, her mouth glued shut.

“Clearly you don’t want to be here. So fucking go.” His voice was low, deep, and demonic. Spiteful, in one word.

He squeezed her hips tighter, to the point where he knew they would bruise, but he kept going. “Go!” he roared, releasing her and watching her scurry from the room.

He slumped onto the bed, his heart constricted and his mind in turmoil. He’d never wanted to die so badly. He’d never wished that he wasn’t immortal more than in that moment.

Yet he would live with this pain forever.

He wanted the whole world to disappear, the whole kingdom to be set alight. So he destroyed every single thing he could find in their chambers.

Shredding the gowns that looked more pleasurable on his mate to pieces, he would find essences of her in every corner.

Alastair gave her a choice. She could have stayed. They could have been together. He loved her—he would have protected her. But that wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t it enough?

Why did he even give her a choice? He should have forced her to be with him.

Something inside him compelled him to let her choose. She didn’t choose him.

A tear slipped. Rolled across his temple as he lay. His hand caught it and lifted it up to his face.

She had made him weak. And now she wasn’t here. He had been so foolish to care for her, to love her. He had opened himself up to all of it, all the possibilities, for her. But she was gone.

He was destined to be alone for eternity. He had admitted that fact to himself centuries ago. When did he stop believing it? When did she make him stop believing that? She had given him hope.

Hope.

If there was one emotion he thought he would never feel, it was hope. There had never been any light in his future. There had never been any sign that he could have a better fate.

To think anyone could love him. To think he could trust anyone else. This was just another one of her manipulations. She had won, truly.

Aurelia had always craved adventure. She was ready to step out into the world, to seek what she felt was missing, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was leaving something behind.

She didn’t have much with her. The king would never let her back into the castle after she’d left him. No matter how far she traveled, he was always on her mind.

The look on his face at the end. He sounded so bitter, but she knew what it really was. And it broke her heart. But it didn’t change anything.

How could she stay there? After what she’d done? After the people she’d killed. After what the power had done to her?

She’d lost her soul. She couldn’t bear to give her heart to the king, only for him to break it. He would. That was a given. He didn’t understand what she needed.

She never needed him to change. She never needed him to obey her or bow to her. She didn’t even need his love. All she needed from him was respect. Something he was incapable of giving her.

Snow covered the trees that lined her path. Flakes settled on her cloak, showering her as the snowfall grew heavier. What a long winter it had been. Maybe it would be even longer.

She had no idea where she was going. She just knew she had to get away from the castle and the king; far, far away.

The hours turned into days and weeks. She found shelter at night, then pushed on, as if she was searching for something she knew. But she was aimless.

In the trees, night creatures lurked, ready to pounce on unsuspecting prey. The slightest scratch, the faintest howl, the panting of wolves.

She opened her eyes to drown out the sound of her misery, only to hear her paranoia. Or his paranoia. They were one and the same.

A branch snapped. The wind rustled the leaves. And the sounds grew louder.

“Who do we have here?” a voice asked, playful yet menacing. A pack of snarling wolves surrounded her. She was their queen, she supposed. But could she still call herself that?

Her hood hid her face as the moonlight shone down on them, revealing their features. They all began to shift back as their leader had done and licked their lips.

“I smell wolf and fae. I can’t tell...” another one said.

“Definitely fae. We’ve been hunting them since they came back. She reeks of magic,” a short blond man sneered.

She didn’t speak. Her voice felt dry in her throat. Leaving her mate had left her aching. Through her lashes, her eyes met with their leader.

His smirk shrank as he looked at her. He studied her.

She was defenseless. She had the strength of a stronger-than-average wolf, especially after mating with the king, but she still couldn’t take on the group alone. She could barely beat two.

Their muscles were evident in their naked states. They could easily tear her apart together. The leader passed around clothes to the others and began to approach her.

There was no point in using her power. She was too scared to. Never again. She’d rather die than succumb to it again.

It didn’t matter whether she was immortal. Maybe that was worse. She could feel everything. If they chose to attack her, they would keep going until she was dead. They could go for hours.

And the pain would intensify and consume her. They could even fuck her, leave her there in the middle of winter, broken and alone. Death would have been a better scenario.

The leader tilted his head as he pulled the hood off her head. Her face was on display for all to see.

She wondered how beautiful she looked now, with her tear-swollen eyes and the bruises on her jaw.

“Wolf claws,” he said, eyeing the marks on her cheeks where the king had dug in, still visible even now. “Someone get to you already?” he taunted.

“My mate,” she replied, the word sending a shudder through her.

“You’re a wolf?” he asked. They were fae hunters. Ordinary wolves from villages that banded together to hunt the fae. Even now.

“Yes,” she muttered. “Can I go?” He seemed to be considering it as his eyes scanned her face. Then, suddenly, a sly, cunning smirk spread across his face.

“I know who you are... my queen,” he announced, startling the other wolves.

“A long way from home. Trouble with the king? He finally kicked the hybrid trash off her throne. It wasn’t a very long reign, was it?”

“Queen?” Several voices asked, shocked.

“She doesn’t look much like a queen without her crown,” a wolf snarled.

“No throne, no power,” another wolf taunted.

“Hybrids shouldn’t exist. Wolves are superior to the fae. You shouldn’t be alive to make more half breeds.” She knew there was no changing their minds now.

Before the fae came, no one alive could remember or recognize their scent. She would never have been stopped. She would be unmistakably wolf. Now, she could be identified as a hybrid.

Closing her eyes, his hand struck her jaw. If this was her breaking point, at least she would shatter free.

She whispered subconsciously, “Alastair.”