Page 28 of The Forbidden Wolf

The Tower Room. That’s what Ruby had called the suite when she unlocked the heavy wooden door and ushered me into the small but luxuriously appointed living room. Her eyebrows had scrunched up in a genuine display of concern over my feral state of distress before she’d left. But it hadn’t been enough to stop her from locking the door on the way out.

She was bound to her duty. Same as me.

I stared at the small chandelier hanging from the center of the tall domed ceiling above the perfectly round bed in the perfectly round room where Sebastian and Kiana were supposed to be… finalizing their arrangement.

The rose petals sprinkled all over the fluffy white comforter reeked of Sebastian’s cloying, misguided romanticism. My twin never had any intention of honeymooning here. But then, Sebastian never had any intention of mating with my twin. The rose petals were for me. The silk sheets were for me. The unlit candles were for me. Of all the rooms in the hotel, he had chosen the one with its bedroom in the top of the Plaza’s northeast turret as if this were a castle and I were a princess.

You are.

Yeah. Rapunzel.

I rolled over on my side and stared into the living area. More rose petals adorned the carpet in a straight line from the bed to the door. Or from the door to the bed, I should say. Sebastian hadn’t meant for us to waste any time. And though I hated him now as I’d never hated anyone except perhaps myself, images from my dreams kept barging into my brain, as if the director had called for reshoots in this new and improved setting.

Luckily, amidst all of the other horrifying images flashing through my head, those were nothing more than the sort of single-frame subliminal messages Evan claimed frisky animators had cut into Disney movies. But my life was no movie. Unless there was something out there I’d missed about a girl being held captive by her sister’s fiancé’s family and utterly abandoned by her own.

They just left me.

They had no choice.

I picked up a rose petal and held it over the edge of the bed. It floated gracefully to the floor. Nothing at all like that stupid chicken wing I’d dropped when Sebastian tried to justify his actions by claiming we were fated. Anger burned in my empty belly. To lie about something like that… knowing his word would always have more weight than mine… putting me in the position of having to call him a liar in front of both our packs…

We were not fated. I’d have felt something like that the moment we met. Something deep, something urgent, something absolutely necessary for my continued survival. I might not have been able to leave Manhattan without him. I certainly couldn’t have entertained the idea of running away with Charlie. And it would have been impossible for me to accept the notion of mating with Blaze. But I had.

Not me.

I paused with another petal between my fingers. Are you saying Sebastian is your fated?

No. But he’s what you deserve.

I deserve a monster who kidnapped me at my sister’s wedding?

My wolf curled into a tight ball and sighed. Can’t explain. But Blaze is all wrong.

No. He’s perfect. He’s exactly what I need.

Would you still think so ten years from now when your friends have all moved on? When they have mates they picked out for themselves? When they’re too busy with their pups to even see a movie once a month?

Yes, I growled. Because I’d still be free. And my pup would be free. Not an Alpha Heir.

My wolf didn’t respond. Probably offended that I didn’t think being an Alpha Heir was anything to aspire to. But I didn’t want my pup to grow up like Kiana. I didn’t want them to spend every single day in training, denying themselves the simple pleasures of pizza and popcorn. I didn’t want them to think of nothing but the acquisition and maintenance of power. I didn’t want it to be a surprise every time they smiled. I wanted my pup to be kind like Charlie, and funny like Evan, and passionate like Jayla. I wanted a rebel. I wanted—

A human?

I pushed off the bed and pulled back the gauzy curtain covering the window tucked behind the corner of the gilded headboard. There was one on either side, each with a spectacular birds-eye view of Fifth Avenue, but one angled toward downtown while this one angled toward the park, and beyond that, the Bronx, though I couldn’t actually tell where one borough ended and the other began. City lights had a way of flattening distance just like the stars in the sky. Kiana and I might as well have been lightyears apart.

Her face would haunt me for the rest of my days.

I could have handled her rage, her violence, her accusations that I had yet again stolen the person she needed most. But I’d received none of those. Nothing at all. My twin never said a single word. Not when the Elder Wolf called me over to ask if I felt the same about Sebastian. Not when I told the truth and said no. Not when Sebastian said that was impossible and refused to continue unless I took my sister’s place. Not when I said no.

Kiana had stood perfectly still in her beautiful gown, clutching her bouquet like a lifeline while Sebastian and the Alphas argued over who belonged to whom now. Fated or not, Sebastian had every right to reject my sister and claim me instead, though gods only knew why he would do something like that. It was just a walk, dammit. Not mentioning it to our fathers was the only small point he’d scored. Sebastian had made it sound as if he’d simply come to this life-altering conclusion the moment I entered the ballroom.

I pressed my throbbing forehead to the cool glass and looked eighteen stories down to the little street off Fifth Avenue where our caravan had parked this afternoon. A small plaza boasted a sparkling fountain, and on the other side of 59th Street stood the gold-leafed statue of William Tecumseh Sherman atop his majestic steed. That’s who Ruby said he was anyway, though she couldn’t say for certain what he’d done, or why he was being led by an angel. She only had a servant’s worth of education on human matters, and frankly, as an Alpha Spare, mine wasn’t that much better.

Yes, I finally answered my wolf. I want my pup to be a kid. To go to school. To learn all the things my friends had to teach me. To play in the park with other kids they don’t think of as better or worse than them.

Ha. Then you don’t want a human.

I turned to face the black mirror hanging on the living room wall a few feet from the door. My wolf stared back at me without blinking, her stark white fur muted gray by the darkened screen. She grew larger and larger as I approached, until her pointed ears brushed the top of the frame. It had been years since we faced each other this way and never one on one before.

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