Page 11 of Purchased

For now, I have to deal with the mess that has been made of my mate. I have to make up for the years she spent being told that her instincts are wrong, that she is trouble, that she is bad. It is going to be hard to get her in line and not be mistaken for those beige monsters.

She looks at me, so beautiful and so mistrusting.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Armand de Lune,” I say. I’d already told her my first name, but a full title is better. I refrain from telling her that I am the alpha of the ancient de Lune pack. Better to explain that to her when she knows what she is. The fact that she once understood she was a wolf and had it beaten out of her makes me incandescent with repressed rage.

“French,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Is that where we are going? France?”

“Yes, to the countryside,” I tell her. “I have a home there that I think you will find comfortable. It is the seat of my…”

“A home,” she says. “One of many?”

“Yes.”

“Must be nice.”

“And your name, little one?” I try the question again now that some of the tension is thawing a fraction.

“Beatrix.”

“A gorgeous name. What’s your last name?”

“They don’t let us have last names,” she says. “A last name is a family name, and we are orphans with no family.”

“Your full name will be Beatrix de Lune soon enough.”

She stares at me, her eyes dark in the low light of the car. “Are you going to adopt me?”

The question is designed to throw me off, I suspect. Could she be so innocent, or think me so old that she would be my child? She is eighteen, and I am ten years her senior. I see her smirk as I look at her, and I know it is a joke. Good. She has a sense of humor. That is an excellent sign of a lively mind and a capacity for healing.

“I am going to marry you, little one.”

“No,” she says, the word carrying a sort of finality and weight I would not have expected from a young woman in a car with a rich and handsome man.

“No?”

“To marry a woman, you must ask for her hand. She must give herself to you. You’ve purchased me, Armand. That is more binding than a marriage.”

* * *

Beatrix

I am young, but I am old enough to have learned that men like to tell you they will marry you before they defile you. They like to tell you that they love you, too. They will say whatever they need to in order to crawl between your thighs. Men are consummate liars and charmers. You can trust nothing they say.

I spent too many nights trying to comfort girls who had unpleasant interactions with local men to trust one of them. The matrons told us to stay away, but not everyone listened. We were red-blooded young women with no families and a yearning to be loved. That went very wrong for quite a few of the girls.

I don’t understand why this man is bothering to lie to me. He has already spent his millions on me, already has me in his grasp, and obviously has no intention of letting me go.

The game between us is over. I know what he will want from me. I see the knowledge in his gaze when it runs over me, inspecting me. He tries to hide his lust, but the air in this vehicle is so thick with it I feel as though I am drawing it deeper and deeper into my bloodstream with every breath I take.

He smiles, his dark eyes flashing with amusement. This man is a brute, but he is an intelligent one. Not just smart in the matter of books and such, but with a brain that clearly enjoys challenge and chaos. I find myself warming to him in that little look, even though I do not want to.

He is my owner, my oppressor, my captor. He, and men like him, are the reason the orphanage is able to run the way it does. They now have ten million more dollars to hold girls captive—if the director doesn’t steal it all.

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