A gruff voice from the council cabinet blared off angrily. All I could do was keep my gaze trained on the mosaic floor tiles. "Completely ridiculous!" It complained further.

The hairs on my body stood, awareness rose at the weight at the back of my head. I could feel Brady's tangibly laser sharp gaze cutting through me. It wasn't just my guilt that was imagining this but of all emotions, I expected and provisioned to spiral through me. Regret definitely wasn't one I expected to drown in.

Desperate to shed the sting of regret I astral led my mind back to all the horrible things. Brady had done to me throughout the years to remind me why I couldn't waiver. On why it was too late to make any other decision, besides sticking to rejecting him.

Council members; Dad specifically explained to the sectioned regular pack members how the Alpha. The real Alpha, Brady's dad had been diagnosed with incurable cancer. I hand the known this and news of that scared me. But they soon moved on, since his condition was critical. They talked in code about an invasion coming, for the briefest of minutes until they realized that they hadn't given me attention as of yet.

They didn't have many, if any open options on what they could do with me, without affecting their beloved Brady. Who was lacking the power to sustain his wolf let alone an entire pack. All due to the bond that hadn't been strengthened. To lead, he needed me and I was not willing to give up my life to serve someone who had made it unbearable.

The lot of them pondered with grief about what this crisis meant. It was because our Alpha was dying and Brady as the next Alpha without a mate was as good as a king with no crown. A President with no military backing, a Kardashian with no ass, an Instagram model without lip fillers. It was possible albeit significantly not the same.

No one, not even my family had yet interrogated me nor even directly spoken to me. It was as if they had forgotten about my presence amongst them.

The council was engrossed in all of their issues that extended far beyond me. They had internal crises that I couldn't even stand to focus on with my mind stuck on Dani's well being.

I was startled out of my stupor by the sound of The Alpha slamming a fist through the large oak table. The room grew eerily silent. I looked up and across the room saw Brady's unusually colored eyes. His neck veins were strained and blue. Jaw locked, his face was lit like a torch up to his chest. I could feel him, he was enraged; his blind gaze fell on mine heavily. It stung as though trying to compel me to beg for mercy from him specifically. I knew it was the effect of his Alpha blood working to make me submit to him.

I strained to fight the natural instinct to bare my neck and submit, so I strained until I couldn't anymore. A stretched second into my victory, I realized that everyone else in the room save for the blue blood had humbly fallen to their knees. So as to not draw attention, I quickly followed suit, humming with the other praise to him. Our hands fisted across our chests and bowed in submission.

He must've felt our submission because he called for one of his Betas to relay a message to his father, in the ear. His Father took over, from him. The real Alpha was much easier to submit to, I did not mind submitting to him at all. Alpha Victrolli commanded everyone up and out of the hall. Yet my entitled parents remained seated.

"Where do you think you're going?" the Alpha demanded, I shuddered and sat back down at once.

Brady readjusted himself in his seat making it near impossible to ignore his agony; the compulsion to reach out and cry out begging for forgiveness was growing stronger within me. I still didn't want to submit but gods, the regret was eating me alive.

"Son. Why did you do it?" the Alpha bellowed from above me all of a sudden

For the fight in me, I couldn't find a word.

He repeated himself; out of shame, I forced back the tears that were coming up and shot my eyes up to the mosaic ceiling. I stayed like that with my lips shut until I heard my parents begging for my forgiveness, on my behalf.

"Ma, Dad don't beg for me. Please." my mother's eyes were pained, begging me not to upset the bluebloods any longer. Dad just looked about ready to disown me, on the other hand, Sir Victrolli looked ready to strike me dead. You could tell he wanted to by the way his hand was dusted with swelling blue veins running up his arms. Not to mention the murderous shade of blue that was darkening in his eyes.

"Am I not good enough for you?" Brady asked in a deceiving tone. That if you didn't know him like I did you'd taste the heartbreak in it.

I let out a bitter scoff and pushed my hair back from my face and ignored him all the same.

Brady pushed back from his wheelchair, weakly treading where I was sitting. He looked so fragile and the regret pushed back to clog my throat. As he knelt before me putting all of his weight to his ankles and tried to graze my face with his ice cold fingers. His gaze was uncomfortably blindly fixed on my lips as he felt for my face. His fingers traced the left of my face shape slowly trailing over my eyes, nose, and jaw and when he reached my bottom lip I trained my features to wear the expression of disgust as I moved away from his scalding touch "don't touch me!"

He let out a breath of a defeated sigh and asked. No. He commanded in a grim tone we be left alone. Everyone started to scurry out.

"No! Don't leave" I cried out "Respectfully Mr. Victrolli it would be kind to have my head severed." I looked the Alpha straight in the eye pleading with him. My wolf had been taken from me but somehow I could taste his feral heat and that scared me to the point of trembling. "Please."

My mother buried her visibly distraught and tear streaked face into dad's heaving chest. They left the room clutched to each other mourning me, my manners and common sense. I understood them, I imagine that if I were a parent and my child had done what I did, I'd react in the same way. Mr. Victrolli followed momentarily behind them; his wife's head in the same position mom's was on dad. The door was bolted shut from outside.

He stood to his feet and pulled me up with him, just as I was about to protest out of his grasp Brady pressed his thumb and index finger tilting my head by the chin and stealing a kiss from my lips. Just like that, just as I feared he would but I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. For some reason, his lips felt natural on mine, too natural and that. That didn't sit well with my pride so I pushed him off me by his chest.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Brady asked picking himself up from the large oak table he'd landed on.

"You are! I don't like you ok." I embarrassingly said wiping the forming of tears from my eyes because for some reason my heart was beating against my chest erratically. "You kissed me, why did you kiss me!" I cried, even as my skin was burned all the way to my chest. In a feral craving for his touch, I wanted him to touch me. Him Brady? I wanted him, I wanted to touch him too.

"You are mine, that's why you kissed me back," he replied.

"No." Deniability was my best friend here. "No! I didn't, there has to be a way to take it back."

"Why would you want that? You're mine, Malik." Deep and sure he insisted, "...you were given to me by the gods themselves."

"No." I protested vehemently.

"You belong to me." He kept insisting.

"I belong to no one, especially not you."

"Why don't you like me?" He asked, voice distance as though he was thinking out loud but confronting me to give him an answer, both at the same time. "I don't understand, I've never understood." He said, moving away from the table, using both hands to massage all over his head, face and eyes.

"I like someone else." I flat out lied. Spite was a devil's knight, and he was loose at the tip of my tongue.

Brady stopped abruptly and cut to my eye. That's when I noticed his eyes were back to that attractive shade of blue. "Don't lie to me again."

It only made me want to lie more, "I met him in college and I love him with my whole heart."

"Him?" His face remained impassive. "Yet, you denied being gay all through high school?"

"So what if I did? It's none of your business." I watched him slowly advance toward me like a hunter on the prowl. For some insane reason, I couldn't stop staring into his eyes even as they got closer. They were just so...

"But it is my business," and there it was, the entitled rasp in his tone.

"Just leave me alone ok?" I spoke, pushing his hand away from my waist. "You need to speak with the elders about finding a way to reverse the kiss."

He smiled as he placed a hand on my waist. "And why would I do that?" he stepped even closer and whispered even lower "this was meant to be."

His words true and magnetically flirty as they were I couldn't fall for them or let him see there was a part of me that shared the same sentiment. So I pulled his hand off my waist. I must've pulled him harder than I thought. Because his body was still weak and the impact was unexpected he stumbled and fell to the floor.

On basic instinct, I ran for the door, tried to unlock it and banged on it.

No one unlocked it.

I ran a tired hand through my hair waiting for him to pull himself together. "Tell them to open up I have to go check on Danielle," I told him, resting my forehead against the door. I just felt so defeated in the fight.

"Why don't you want me?" He said asked from behind me.

I didn't answer him, he knew, deep within him, he knew.

"You never even liked me back then too?" he said as I rattled the door code machine punching all sequences of possible pin numbers. My irritation was demonstrated perfectly by my silence yet he'd missed it again.

He easily brought his palm flat against the door a little above my head, his breath ghosted the back of my neck and despite myself, I shuddered. He held me by my hipbone, and trapped me to face him with a baseball space between us. I pursed my lips and shot my gaze to the opposite wall.

"So this boyfriend of yours from college..." he paused then restructured what he was going to say. "When you left I know you were a virgin..." He lowered his deep blue eyes to my most private region. "...did you?"

I understood his question perfectly, and I knew exactly how to hurt him. "Of course, many many times, all the times." This I said looking straight into his eyes. "I have no regret either."

Brady's sterling blue gaze fixed on me so deeply that I started feeling like a cheap cheat under his scrutiny. Instant regret pooled in the center of my chest but I swallowed down the need to fess up. Then I steadied myself waiting for his rebuke and hopefully his counter rejection.

Brady's tone sounded hurt, "You knew about us but you still chose to sleep with someone else?"

I meant to remain steadfast in my silence but I irked not to point out the obvious "You're one to speak on this, you felt made yet you still slept with those girls too."

Brady smiled, pushing his hips closer to mine. He released his palm from the door using it to tilt my chin upwards. "That was only because you were off limits," he whispered the last bit, close to my ear. "And I imagined you the whole time, at all times."