Scarlett
“Leave my hand, Klaus,” I warned him, not wanting to feel any spark or any excitement to be precise. He looked into my eyes, trying to decipher the emotions in my eyes but I didn’t want to be understood so I averted my gaze from his dark brown orbs.
My right hand raised and impinged on his left cheek, my nail digging into his skin causing the blood to pop out and I heard Marcus gasping. “You demand obedience but I seek the truth and respect,” saying that, I turned to walk further leaving both cousins alone.
As I strode, his shocked and pained face appeared across my eyes. I did hurt him but he was doing the same thing since the day I came to his pack. The way he touched his cheek after I slapped him, he couldn’t believe that I actually did that.
“I’m the most stupid girl alive in the universe,” yelling this out aloud, my knees knocked over the ground and I broke into tears. Despite how he kept hurting me again and again, I tended the slight pain I gave to him in comparison to what he did to me.
His fake promises and lies seemed so sweet that in a corner of my heart, a little girl was seeking her happily ever after with her mate. I knew that I was playing hard to get so he won’t take me for granted but in the end, I got to know that he was never mine in the first place. He was never trying to get me but the powers.
The tears trickled down my cheeks, my eyes burning with the flames of pain, and my heart broke into a million pieces that will never be fixed again. He was betrothed to someone else, a female Alpha, exactly how he must have wanted.
I wanted the ground to swallow me so I could escape from this pain. Hoisting my head to the sky, I screamed out at the top of my lungs, “are you having fun, Goddess? After mating me to the already engaged person? After snatching my sister from me? After making my family abandon me? After leaving me alone?”
The frustration caused me to say irrational things but at that moment, I couldn’t care less. If I would keep it inside of me anymore, I would burst out from the pain I was feeling in my body and heart. It ached like someone had stabbed my heart with a wolfsbane-coated sword.
I cried for a while until my eyes emptied all the tears and they dried up, swelling my eyes and face. His pine and cinnamon scent filled my nostrils and I heard his slow footsteps coming closer to me.
Standing up from the ground, I galloped in a different direction, not wanting to face him when I was at my lowest.
“Please, stop, Scarlett,” Klaus shrieked, following me. I was sick of these boys and their running behind me.
For once, I wanted to disappear from this world and wanted to sleep till everything got fixed. He kept chasing me and the next moment, I found him standing next to him, blocking my path.
“I don’t want to talk to you, leave me alone before I lose the hold of my wrath and kill you,” threatening him, I tried to take a different path but he held me from behind just like he did the last time when he followed me here the first time.
His alluring scent sent the shivers down my veins, I could feel his heart thumping in his chest against my back but this time, I won’t misunderstand it. His heart was racing due to the run, not because of me.
“I was so scared of you getting to know about this by someone else and it turns out that my cousin betrayed me,” he whispered in my ear, still, holding me.
Pushing him away, I faced him. “And what did you do to me? Wasn’t it a betrayal?” I was shaking completely due to the unbearable anger and pain.
He grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Do you think that it didn’t hurt me?” He raised his voice but didn’t use his alpha voice to make me obey him.
“Why would it hurt you to have a powerful female Alpha wolf and a mate to warm your bed?” I scoffed, understanding his intentions.
His eyes shaded to the darkest shade of brown and his grip on my shoulders loosened. Being mates, we could feel each other’s pain so I knew that I hurt him but didn’t he do the same?
“How can you say so, Scarlett?” The hurt floated in his dark brown orbs, and his facial features hardened as he swallowed a gulp down his throat. “Never in my worst dreams did I think that my mate would think so low of me, you hurt me, Scarlett.”
“Wow. You’re so good at manipulating, my mate,” I sarcastically uttered. “As if what you did to me didn’t hurt me.”
Taking a step closer, he muttered in a sincere tone, “I’m so sorry, Scarlett but that wasn’t my intention ever to hurt you. Please, give me a chance to explain everything.”
I clenched my fists and raised my hands to maintain the distance between us. Opening my fists, I exhibited my hands to his face. “No, Klaus. Not this time. Every time I give you a chance, I end up hurting myself. I’m tired of your lies and fake promises. You promised me to improve and I guess you’re improving at lying.”
“I know that it’s hard to trust me after whatever I did but I didn’t betray you, I never lied to you, my love,” he said, cupping my cheeks and my body apparently reacted to his touch.
Closing my eyes, I let the pain swallow me and the tears started burning my cheeks proving my theory of empty eyes wrong. “You left me alone when I needed you the most and you entered my life when I was broken just so you can break me into more pieces,” I managed to speak, avoiding the sobs.
“I’m sorry, Scarlett. I knew that you were hurt and in pain and needed me but I ignored you and pretended to never care but in reality, I was hurting myself, too,” he accosted and pulled me in a soothing embrace.
“M-My grandfather fixed my engagement when I couldn’t even walk. I was too young to understand anything, you can’t expect a toddler to protest when he got engaged,” he began, caressing my shoulders in soothing strokes.
My heart wanted to trust him but my experience doubted him. He wasn’t wrong if it was true but he could break his engagement as soon as he found out that I was his true mate and this thought wanted me to dismiss the idea of trusting him.
“I grew up with the hope of getting my mate and calling off the engagement with Amber but then-” the way her name rolled out of his tongue burned my heart with jealousy.
He started stuttering, “then, then…on my eighteenth birthday, my father and grandpa told me that we’re the lowest in the rank and the Dark Moon pack is the highest. If we break this engagement, our pack will face war and as you know, we can’t afford to have a war. I can’t see my whole pack suffering for eternity because of my selfish reason.”
I could feel his pain as he enunciated and his low voice showed me how uncomfortable he was talking about this. I couldn’t help but brace my hands against his back to calm him down.
“Trust me, I tried so hard to protest them and call this engagement off even before I met you but in the end, I had to give up on the hope of finding my mate and getting the love of my mate but then, on your birthday, I found my mate and things got complicated,” he said with guilt, heaving a sigh of relief and tightened his grasp on my shoulders.
I pulled myself away from him, staring into his eyes. “It would have been better if we would have never met, your life wouldn’t have got complicated because of me,” I uttered guiltily, lowering my head.
His thumb held my chin high before crushing his lips against mine. He started savoring my lips and I couldn’t resist the urge to taste his lips for one last time before I’ll have to reject him. One last kiss and our tongues danced in a melodic rhythm.
Circling my arms around his neck, I lifted my toes to taste the sweetness of my mate’s mouth who wasn’t mine though we were fated to be with each other.