Page 55 of Heart of the Rebel Mate

There's something in his tone that unsettles me.

I lean forward slightly. "You left your position without explanation. You disappeared from the Council's inner circle, from politics entirely–"

"I still have eyes everywhere, my dear boy...and ears everywhere else."

"–I knew it! You never really quit, did you? Here you are. Still watching."

His fingers drum against the desk. "Old habits."

"Bullshit."

A ghost of amusement crosses his face, but it fades as quickly as it appeared. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You want answers," he says. "Fine. I'll give you one."

I wait.

He meets my gaze, and for the first time, I see something beneath the exhaustion in his eyes.

Fear.

"I left because I saw what happens to people who don't fall in line," he says.

The words settle in my chest like lead.

"That's vague," I say carefully.

"Good," he mutters. "It needs to be."

I study him. "This is about the Council, isn't it?"

His lips press together. He doesn't confirm it, but he doesn't deny it either.

"What did you find?" I press.

He hesitates. Then, with deliberate slowness, he leans back and folds his hands together.

"I started noticing discrepancies," he says. "Patterns in the Council's rulings, in the way certain individuals were... persuaded to comply."

"Persuaded how?"

His jaw clenches. "Some disappeared. Some suddenly found themselves aligned with the Council's interests. And some..." He exhales. "Some had their mate bonds manipulated in ways that benefited the Council's control over them."

A slow chill creeps down my spine.

Mate bonds.

They weren't just enforcing loyalty. They were engineering it.

I keep my expression neutral, but my mind is already racing. "This is some serious shit, Marc...you got any proof?"

He lets out a short, mirthless laugh. "If I did, do you think I'd still be breathing?"

No one says anything for a while.

Outside, the city hums faintly in the background—distant footsteps, the occasional car passing. But in this room, it feels like the world has shrunk down to just the two of us and the realization that we might be living in and working for a dystopian society and a dystopian government respectively.

Marcus shifts in his seat, then glances at the door again.

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