Page 119 of Bonds of Hate

Isnap awake too quickly again, sending my head reeling. It’s disorienting, and it takes a breathless moment to remember where I am and what happened.

Awareness slowly filters in, more gently than it should. The sheets are soft against my bare skin. I stretch carefully and a twinge of pain in my arm firmly brings me into the present.

I’m still in Ares’s room, though the bed beside me is cold to the touch. There is nothing but darkness around the drawn drapes. It must be earlier than it feels like.

But one look at the bedside clock reveals that it’s actually much later. I’ve been asleep for more than a day.

No nightmares, at least. I can’t recall if I’ve ever had them after sleeping here, which is not exactly a thought I want to dwell on for too long.

Poe is gone, though his scent still lingers faintly in the air. The memories of what happened between us flood back, but they don’t fill me with the shame or regret I would have expected. Instead, I feel...powerful. He tried tomanipulate me, to use pleasure as a weapon to extract information, but I didn’t break. I held firm. Even when he had me at my most vulnerable, I kept my secrets.

I’m going to need that strength if I run again.

Despite how I felt last night, the decision isn’t settled inside me. Without a plan and without resources, I might be damning myself to an even worse fate. I need a plan.

Especially now that I have a damn tracker in my arm.

My fingers trace over the spot where Poe implanted the little metal device. The wound barely hurts now. It was a total violation for him to do this without my permission, but that doesn’t bother me anywhere near as much as it should.

Poe’s intense desire to track my every move, his need to ensure no one steals me away, would be almost flattering if it wasn’t so toxic.

This tracker is the closest he’ll probably ever get to offering a wedding ring.

Rolling onto my side, I breathe in the mixed scents on the pillow. This moment feels like the calm before a storm. But I sense the darkness growing on some distant horizon.

I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent against the plush carpet. When I pull open the closet doors to purloin another one of Ares’s shirts, I’m surprised to find a small selection of my clothes hung up beside his.

Choosing a simple day dress in pale yellow, I try to determine how I feel about the fact that Ares appears to be moving me in. Then I decide it’s probably best not to think about anything at all.

The apartment is fairly quiet, but I follow the sound of murmured voices to the dining room.

Logan and Cillian stand over the dining room table, heads bent close together over what looks like a set of blueprints. Neither of them looks up as I enter, though Logan’s shoulders tense at my approach.

“Good morning,” I offer.

Logan’s head snaps up, his golden eyes flashing. “What are you doing out of bed? Hoping to get yourself kidnapped all over again?”

Of course, he would blame me for that and not the person who knocked me out. Not that I should expect anything less from him.

I give him a cool smile. “I think I missed dinner. Maybe I should just return to the harem.”

And maybe find a window to escape out of while I’m at it.

“The harem is still under lockdown,” Logan snaps, sounding like he wishes for nothing more than to send me away. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I briefly consider confronting him about the claiming mark, forcing him to admit that this whole thing has been a farce from the beginning. The lie might even go back to those early days of our courtship, when I was still starry-eyed and foolish enough to think I could fall in love with him.

Part of me wishes I understood how he could go from seeming so pleased with me to being so cold, but a larger part of me doesn’t care. His real Omega can deal with him. I’m beyond caring at this point.

“Where are Ares and Poe?” I ask.

Logan slams his pen down on the table. “That’s none ofyour damn business. You’re not a part of this pack, remember?”

The venom in his voice makes me take an instinctive step back. Before I can retreat further, Cillian clears his throat.

“They’re working with the demolition crew in the east wing,” he says, not looking up from the papers. “Assessing structural damage from the explosions.”

Logan shoots Cillian a dark look, but the beta ignores him, continuing to make notations on whatever he is reviewing.

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