Chapter 9: I hate you’s 1 FIA I woke up to the smell of leather and something expensive I couldn’t name. But it had to be liquor. My head throbbed. My mouth tasted like cotton and regret. I blinked against the dim light filtering through tinted windows and realized I was lying down in the back of a car. Not just any car. A limousine. The memory of the wedding hall slammed into me. The accusations. The lies. Hazel’s smiling face as the darkness swallowed me whole. I sat up too fast. The world tilted, and I pressed my hand against the leather seat to steady myself. That’s when I saw him. Cian sat cross-legged on the opposite seat, his back straight, one ankle resting on his knee like he was lounging in his own living room instead of a moving vehicle. He had a tablet in his hands, and his fingers moved across the screen with casual efficiency. He didn’t look up when I moved. Just kept scrolling like I wasn’t even there. The silence stretched. I stared at him, waiting for him to acknowledge me. He didn’t. Finally, he glanced up. His eyes met mine, and something that might have been amusement flickered across his face. "Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty." He paused. Then he laughed. Actually laughed. The sound was dry and humorless, more like a bark than genuine mirth. "Though that’s debatable." I wanted to say something cutting. Something that would wipe that smug look off his face. But my brain felt fuzzy, and words weren’t coming easily. Instead, I just looked at him. Really looked at him for the first time since this nightmare began. He was rugged in a way that seemed almost deliberate. His hair had stubborn curls that refused to lie flat, and they caught the filtered light coming through the windows. His grey eyes were sharp and cold, and when he looked at me like that, judgy and dismissive, they turned almost silver. Like winter frost. Like something that could cut you if you got too close. He went back to his tablet. I found my voice. "I-" I did not get to continue. He cut me off. "How do you feel?" The question came out of nowhere. Like he hadn’t meant to ask it. It was the kind of thing you said to someone when you cared, and he clearly didn’t. "Why am I in your car?" I asked instead. He didn’t look up. "Because we’re married. Or have you forgotten?" The words hit me like cold water. Married. Right. The bond hummed in my chest, that artificial connection the healer and the goddess had forced into existence. I could feel it there, this thread tying me to him whether I wanted it or not. "This is what you wanted, after all," he added. "No." The word burst out of me. "I didn’t want this. I never wanted this." Now he looked up. His expression was flat. Unimpressed. "Really?" "Yes." "Why then would you harm your sister and take her place?" I opened my mouth. The truth sat on my tongue, desperate to be spoken. I wanted to scream at him about Isobel. About the lies. About how they’d set me up and he was too blind to see it. But what was the point? He’d already decided. Everyone had already decided. They’d written the story, and I was the villain no matter what I said. I swallowed the words back down. "I’m not interested in you, Alpha Cian." His eyebrows rose slightly. "I’m sure that’s a lie." "It’s not." "But I assure you, Omega, I want nothing to do with you either." He looked back at his tablet. "But the situation is dire for me, and I’ve always been known to make do with the lemons life gives me." The casual cruelty in his voice made my stomach turn. He said it so easily. Like I was nothing. Like this whole disaster was just a minor inconvenience he had to tolerate. "Then reject me," I said. "Let’s get this over with. Hazel is the one you really want." He kept his eyes on the screen. His jaw tightened just slightly. "Yes. She was a Luna. She would be able to birth strong kids worthy of my seed." The bluntness of it stung more than I wanted to admit. "You’re just an Omega," he continued. "But you still stole her place, and the ritual the healer performed seemed to catch the interest of the goddess." He paused. Frowned at whatever he was reading. "I wonder why in seven hells she would believe that you and I could ever work." "You seem resentful," I said. "Observant." "Just do it then. Reject me. There aren’t many consequences for rejection." The lie tasted bitter. I knew better. I’d felt the pain when Milo rejected me. That hollow ache that settled in my chest and wouldn’t leave. But I’d survived it once. I could survive it again. "I’ve gone through one before." That made him look up. His silver eyes locked onto mine, and I saw something shift in his expression. Interest. The kind a predator shows when it spots movement in the grass. "I was told," he said slowly. "A sentinel from your pack. He broke your heart three days before your sister’s wedding." My chest constricted. Of course they’d told him. Of course they’d twisted that too. "Was that when you started to plot?" His voice dropped lower. More dangerous. "Stealing me from your older sister?" I couldn’t believe it. Even unconscious, even removed from the situation entirely, they’d managed to spin new lies. They’d taken my rejection and turned it into part of their narrative. Part of the story that made me the monster. "I didn’t even get to pack," I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended. "Don’t worry about it." He waved his hand dismissively. "My mother bought a lot of clothes for Hazel. You seem to be the same size. You’ll make do." "We’re not the same size." "Like I said. Make do." The finality in his voice made it clear the discussion was over. I was expected to wear my sister’s clothes. Sleep in her bed. Live the life she was supposed to have. And I was supposed to be grateful for it. He sighed then. A long, heavy exhale that seemed to carry the weight of his irritation. "Done." He held the tablet out to me. Not offering it. Just pointing it in my direction like I was supposed to know what to do with it. I stared at him. Confused. "Read it." I took the tablet. The screen was bright in the dim interior of the limo, and I had to squint to make out the words. CONTRACT. The word sat at the top of the document in bold letters. Below it, paragraphs of text laid out terms and conditions like this was a business deal instead of a marriage. I looked back at him. "What is this?" "What I demand from this union you forced me into." He leaned back against the seat, his arms crossed over his chest. "If you want a sliver of peace." I read. The words blurred together at first. Then they started to make sense, and I wished they hadn’t. He would offer me pumps of his semen on our first night because he expected a child as soon as possible. I would not have any Omegas tend to me. I would serve in Skollrend like any other servant. If I became pregnant, I would be entitled to benefits for the nine months I carried Skollrend’s heir. I was not to be nosy. I was not to question his decisions. I was not to embarrass him in front of his pack. The list went on. Page after page of demands and restrictions. Each one more degrading than the last. My hands started to shake. Heat rushed through me. Not embarrassment. Not fear. Rage. "You must be insane." I threw the tablet at him. Hard. Aiming for his smug face. He didn’t even try to catch it. Just watched it sail past his shoulder and hit the floor of the limo with a dull thud. The screen went dark. We stared at each other. The silence in the car felt thick enough to choke on. "Pick it up," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that came before violence. "No." "Pick it up, read it, and agree to the terms before we get to my territory." He leaned forward slightly, and those silver eyes pinned me in place. "Because I won’t be as civil once we’re there." "Civil?" The word came out as a laugh. A harsh, broken sound that didn’t sound like me at all. "You call this civil?" "Compared to what I want to do to you right now?" His smile was sharp. Cruel. "Yes." My heart hammered against my ribs. The mate bond pulsed between us, and through it I could feel his anger. His disgust. His complete and utter contempt for my existence. "You want to treat me like a breeding mare," I said. The words tasted like ash. "You want to humiliate me. Break me. Make me regret ever existing." "Now you’re catching on." "For something I didn’t do." "So you say." He tilted his head. "But the evidence suggests otherwise." "The evidence is a lie." "And yet here we are." He gestured around the limo. At the space between us. At the bond tying us together. "Married. Mated. Bound by the goddess herself whether either of us likes it or not." I wanted to scream. To cry. To throw myself at him and make him understand that I was innocent. That I’d been set up. That the real enemy was sitting back in Silver Creek right now, probably celebrating with Milo while I was dragged away to my own personal hell. But I looked at his face and knew it wouldn’t matter. He’d already decided who I was. What I’d done. No amount of truth would change his mind. "Pick up the tablet," he said again. "Read the contract. Sign it. Or I’ll make your life at Skollrend so miserable you’ll beg me to reject you within a week." My hands curled into fists. "I already am begging you to reject me." "Not yet you’re not." His smile widened. "But you will be." The limo turned. I felt the shift in direction, felt us heading somewhere new. Somewhere I didn’t want to go. Toward a life I never asked for with a man who hated me for crimes I didn’t commit. I looked at the tablet on the floor. At the contract that would seal my fate even further than the wedding already had. Then I looked at Cian. At the cold satisfaction in his eyes. And I realized that no matter what I did, no matter what I said, I’d already lost. The only question was how much more I’d lose before this was over. But I was no man’s bitch. "No."