“People like us. A different version of my kind. The only difference was your family can not shapeshift. Your youngest cousin, by some birth defect, managed to be born half-wolf half-human. Your uncle wanted to be like us! That was why he took me and killed my fucking family. That was why he kidnapped all those poor werewolves to learn our source of power and steal from us, but he failed. Because our powers are naturally engineered by the moon-goddess and no experiment by humans, even one with our blood, can alter that.”
Nadia slowly rose to her knees, holding his gaze in shock. She wanted to accuse him of telling lies but she knew right in her gut that he was telling her the truth.
“Do you want to know the irony of all these? The moon-goddess made you my mate, giving me the power to make you full-blooded Were – something your uncle had maimed and killed for more than a decade!”
“What is a mate?” she asked in a voice filled with dread. For some reason, the thought of her tasting her food more intensely than usual and the newly found ability to see in the dark flash in her head. She swallowed, extremely frightened now, her body shook from it.
“You are to me what Amèlie is to Xavier. You are my destined lover. We are bonded for eternity."
“Like your wife?” she asked in a hesitant voice.
“Yes, but much more than that… our bond is stronger," he said and his voice grew a little huskier and his eyes much more intense. Nadia wished she could submit to the feelings he was commanding in her but she knew what he felt for her was physical. He was ashamed of being mated to her. She would always be some kind of guilty pleasure to him and that was not something she wanted. And the part of being some wolfless clan was just plain insane. A memory from when she was very young surfaced like a panorama of events. She had gotten sick in class and the school couldn't reach her parents on time. The administrator had ordered for her to be driven to the hospital and her father had gotten there before she saw the doctor, making quite a scene. She remembered her mother agitatedly asking if they had drawn her blood. She didn't know then what was happening and now she suspected it might be because her family was hiding something. Her uncle had recommended a doctor afterwards. She never thought it was strange that her entire family had one doctor then, but it wasn't something she was ready to delve into with Angel.
“So you are saying I can’t just break up with you and walk away from this madness?” Nadia said, trying to sound irritated despite wanting to go to him and making him stop shutting her out.
“You can try, but it will not end well…” he rasped and the emotions swirling in his eyes cleared. It was as if he just applied a shutter and the only thing she could see was a detached, emotionless man. Nadia felt crushed.
“What does that mean? Don’t hold back now—” she retorted, trying to speak as chilly as he sounded but her voice shook, marring the effect.
Angel walked back to stand beside the bed and lowered to sit on it, levelling his gaze at her.
“Do you want to sever our bond and walk away from me, permanently?” he asked. Nadia swallowed, holding his gaze. Her chest heaved and her heart hurt at the very thought of it. “Before you answer that question, let me tell you one more thing. I have known that you are my mate since the very first time I saw you. I didn’t come to you. I never initiated mating with you…”
“Angel, it was an accident. Why wouldn’t you believe me!” she cried.
“Even so, that accident solidified our bond. You mated with me. You claimed me as yours. I could have warned you but you already know that choice was taken from me.” Nadia couldn't help the tears that filled her gaze at the recollection of how she had left him there in chains. “Now to answer your question, yes, you can choose to get up and walk out of here but in order to stop me from following you, because I will not have a choice in the matter, you are my mate. You will have to perform what we call a rejection ceremony where you speak words to reject me and I will either choose to accept or not. If I choose to accept and we both have feelings for each other because I am an alpha of the wulfblood clan my pain will be yours. Your pain will be yours. You may or may not survive it because you are from a wolfless, rankless lineage. The thing is, someone like Amèlie , a human, can reject Xavier with a wulfblood and get to walk away from it, Xavier would not even feel any pain except he loves her and the depth at which he does would be what would harm him. But you, rejecting me, could be very lethal to you. It would be excruciating but you might survive it.”
“What if you reject me…”
“I will not do that…”
“Why not? You don’t even like me!”
“Don’t say things you have never heard me say to you, Nadia—” he snarled. Nadia’s lips trembled.
“You should reject me and let me go,” Nadia whispered. Her heart clenched with so much pain she parted her lips to draw in a breath.
“I can not do that…” Angel replied in a tense tone.
“Why not?!” she cried in evident pain, wanting him to say it was because he wanted and loved her but his reply made her gasp.
“Because you will die if I do that,” he said. Nadia gaped at him in shock.
“What? You will kill me?”
“No. You will die instantly if I open my mouth to reject you, Nadia. The chances of you surviving is nil – nonexistence. I will not do it. What you do from here on is on you. But know this, until we severed our bond, I can not leave your side."