Page 82 of Depraved
He won’t take my phone calls. He won’t respond to my texts.
He’s been working with his office door locked so I can’t get in there and scream at him. Pounding on the door and yelling at him … I tried it once, but then a beta gentleman in a hard hat that Black had been meeting with opened the door with startled eyes.
Behind him, the office was trashed—bookcases smashed, a table overturned, curtains shredded. White wolf hair was everywhere.
I’d been too shocked to say anything to the beta before the door was slammed in my face, Black’s roar echoing across the marble front hall. I’d been too embarrassed to do it again.
Jonah’s tried to talk to me about it, but how do I tell my mate that I’m upset about another man? How the fuck does that work? There was this strange dynamic between the three of us, yes. Where they both shared me. But now … now …
“He’s pushing you away to protect himself,” Jonah said this morning before I screamed at him and kicked his ass out of my attic space.
But I couldn’t stand to stay in there—in the perfect nest that Black built for me—so I retreated to Jonah’s sick room, the green Victorian guest room. I’ve been hiding in here since midmorning, wishing I could turn back the clock.
I should have just left everything as it was.
This is what I get for wanting honesty and trust—no, not even that. This is what I get for feeling so sickened by guilt over the mistakes I made that I tried to demand something an alpha can’t give.
Fuck.
I feel as though I’ve been fed through a paper shredder and brutally cut into a million jagged pieces. My neck throbs where Black bit me, as if the mark is infected by my sadness. My hand clenches over my heart, and for a second, I forget that Matthew’s there as my head bows and I curl inward, the hammering ache in my chest too much to ignore.
My wolf whimpers but doesn’t dare show her face. I’ve been lashing out at her too.
I’m miserable.
Matthew goes to put a hand on my shoulder, but I shrug him off as he says, “Hey, I know Black can be a hard man to love—”
“Impossible.” I have another few choice words to say, but if I start in on them, I’ll yell. Scream until my throat’s raw. And then collapse into tears for the third time today. I’m too tired for that. I don’t want to go there.
Matthew clears his throat. “But he has admirable qualities. He always, always puts the pack—”
“I don’t want to hear it,” I straighten, not giving a damn if my shoe is uncomfortable anymore. I stride over to the full-length free-standing mirror and check myself. My hair is up in a French twist. I’m wearing a tea-length black dress—the color had horrified Georgia, but I insisted on it—because it looks like I’m going to a human funeral. I am, in a way. This is the end of Elena.
I check my carefully painted crimson lips and blink my extended eyelashes. I look respectable. But that’s the best I can say because my lips are drawn into a sour bow. I pluck two earrings up from the small side table I set them on and add them.
Matthew’s hand appears at my side, holding a ring box. I glare down at it, wishing it would magically incinerate. But it doesn’t. He pulls off the lid and then opens the inner box, displaying the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen in person. It’s the huge oval diamond I selected, surrounded by moonstones.
Of course Black wouldn’t even give it to me himself. Because this marriage isn’t about us. It’s about appearances. Pack hierarchy.
My throat feels raw and dry as I hold my hand up robotically and let the butler slide the ring onto my finger.
Then I follow Matthew down to the basement. I try to avoid the strange feeling that comes over me when Matthew proceeds directly across the carpet and opens the door to the storage room.
Shivers go up my spine, and a strange prickling sensation tickles my stomach. I stare into the shadows of the room as Matthew lifts a phone to his ear and dials. He holds up a finger to me, signaling for me to wait while he completes the call.
“Come down now, please,” Matthew says. That’s it. Nothing more. He hangs up the phone as my gaze is hooked onto the dark shadow of a room behind him.
Foreboding tugs at me. “I’m not going in there,” I say defensively, trying to discern what the hell is going on. We’re supposed to drive over to the new pack house. We’re supposed to practice a human ceremony and then whatever the fuck secret wolf ceremony there is so that I don’t look like a fool in front of nearly a thousand wolves tomorrow.
Why am I staring at a darkened doorway?
Footsteps sound on the stairs behind me, and I turn to see Jonah coming down in a tux, looking just as disoriented and confused as I feel.
But as I look at him, my stomach falls. Is Black going to make him part of the ceremony? Why else would he be in a tux? Is he going to make Jonah the best man or something? I know Pluto’s been sent off on a mission and can’t come back until the Night Wolves are eradicated, but … could Black really be that cruel?
I think back to this week, and I have my answer.
Yes.
