ready to map out his awareness. It seemed he had no idea how sharp of a knife his words cut into my soul. Or how deep into my veins they burrowed with everything my wolf had waited for five years to hear. He had no idea how deep into my blood they curved with cruel incision, that proved all my worries and made me want to recoil from him. Yet pull into him at the same time.

Tears of pain and arousal prickled at my eyes but I quickly fluttered them away.

His hips pressed closer to mine, nose scenting my neck with an indescribable sensuality to his movements. That heated my body in response to the heat radiating off his own. I stood unmoved refusing to betray my prerogative. Then the truest test came when he lifted his hand to let a finger slowly caress the corner of my bottom lip. Flickering like a light, in the center of a dark cave my body came alive. With need for him to reach out and touch me somewhere naked and sweetly delicious. He growled low, his body buzzed, it was sexy and his nose was buried in the crook of my neck. It wasn't shocking that we'd affect each other like so. It was part of our biological make up after all, but it was shocking how closer I yearned for him to be.

I'd never been touched in the way I wanted Brady's hands on me. I yearned for him though I couldn't bring myself to act on my desire. If he'd tried again, I knew I'd let him steal another kiss and whatever else he would want from my body. I think I was desperate for anything from him, so much I almost moaned a protesting sound. When his nose and hands left my body and pressed to the walls behind me. Caging me in like hurt little pup.

"What?" I asked.

He pushed his hands off the wall and body off me completely with a frustrated growl. Then impatiently rubbed his fingers down his groomed stubble. He leaned on the door for support to his weak body, and asked "Why don't you want me?" His broken tone actually sounded sincere and all the fight in me wanted to just wither away softly for all and love this man. "All I can read off you is lust, you're just in heat."

He spoke after he realized I wasn't going to answer him. "If I could I'd strip you bare and fuck you right now but you don't want me. Five years you stayed away yet I can't even help myself to you and it hasn't even been a day."

I looked him up and down taking in his disheveled form as subtly as I possibly could. I swear there was a strong primal part of me that just wanted to love him and perhaps even consider that I was over reacting.

I have no idea how it is possible but Brady looked better than he did in high school. He'd grown taller standing at two or three maybe five inches over my frame. The Victrolli Nevanji had grown a nicely shaven five o'clock shadow. That sat on his handsome face, which was framed by luscious hair, dark as midnight. He had a layered cut whilst mine was simple and pulled back into a basic man bun. His hair looked shorter than I remembered it to be and all I wanted was to run my fingers through it. Maybe even bring his face closer to mine by the back of his neck, while I was at it. Turns out, he was right, I was in heat despite not having my wolf awake in me for the time being.

"Malik?" Brady's voice shook me from my reverie.

"What is it about me that you hate so much?" he pleaded having taken my hand to rub butterfly circles on the inside of my wrist with his thumb. Him touching me wasn't helping with my traitorous beating heart or problem down below.

My eyes met his, they looked weak with remnants of blindness. I knew I could have kissed that ailment away, but I remained in control and stared. They looked sincere too and I was disturbed by how much he did not remember. Or maybe by how much he was pretending to not remember, I took offense to that alternative. I wasn't as gullible as he still remembered me to be, 'a simple minded child who believed into their tales and played into their tricks.'

I'd grown up, accomplished my own achievements outside of the pack and outside of his grasp. As a young adult who couldn't be controlled by the wrong head. I felt so offended by how selfish he still thought was my blood boiled. The resulting anger seeping into my blood stream deeper through my veins and back into my heart.

The gods really had forsaken me.

I clasped my fist in and out trying to contain the poisonous emotion but not much relief was coming up. I knew I was either going to punch him or kiss him. I wanted neither so I moved angrily over to the closed window. In a pathetic attempt to flee from his heat, that had affected mine to begin with.

The entitled Alpha blood followed me "Talk to me Malik." He stood too close behind me "You're killing me here. Literally." He begged, brushing his long fingers on the back of my neck.

Guilt buried itself in me and suddenly I started to feel pathetic as I thought of the words to describe why I hated him so bad. I tried to pull out memories and instances, of perfect explanation. However, none of them made much sense without bringing in a previous act that propelled the tension in the next act to hurt me. It would've taken me longer than a day to list them, in a way that could convey where the trauma came from. The only thing all these instances had in common is how raw and vulnerable they'd left me. I didn't have dates or other important details for him. The only stains that remained unfazed and untouched were feelings that had clawed under my skin, a very long time ago because of him.

I couldn't explain that either, because I knew that to everyone else my reasons for choosing death as a way out of fate. Once put into words of my inadequate vocabulary, unreliable reporting and somewhat social anxiety. Would be reason enough to render me immature, stupid and blasphemous.

And perhaps it was but all his teasing and taunting growing up made me hate myself. To the point of missing out of the normalcy of a typical childhood. Both at school and at the meadow with our peers. Not to mention high school, where I learnt that human kids were cursed to hate on instinct, peer pressure and word of mouth.

We stood in silence for over five minutes or longer.

"What will you do with Danielle?" I inquired.

He moved away from the window. I couldn't feel any emotion from the gravel of his standout and almost regretful hoarse voice when he said; "The arms of the pack are saddened and angry. They have decided on what will make them feel better." He stopped by the table as he half sat at the edge of it and went on. "Your friend's docket isn't a short one. She's not just involved, in fact the degree of her involvement in the lie makes her an accomplice to treason. To which the price is her head."

"What!" My heart constricted with pain, so much pain and guilt and regret. "Her head? That price is too high. Have you taken into account that her motivation was not political or economical?"

He shook his head, "It may as well have been. I've been scrambling about looking for my mate for years. Our enemies took advantage of that and attacked us. At a time we could have done better with a healthy and bonded Alpha ."

"It feels like you're just looking to punish me through her with that excuse. Because I haven't been home in five years but I would've known if we'd been attacked."

"My father's illness was and still is a closely contained secret. But how would you have known, if we'd been attacked?"

"Aside from the obvious destruction, my family would have." Which was true, my entire family served the pack in one way or the other.

"That's where you're wrong. They wouldn't have and for as long as you don't have clearance they wouldn't. Listen to me," His voice hardened as though bracing to lecture me. "The human government has secret agencies, for assigned special tasks. In this pack, we have different arms for the same. The fundamental mission for those arms is to refrain from burdening the masses with contemplations they can't help. The attacks we suffered fall under those contemplations. If any or all of your family members are an organ in the arms, they would know the rules wouldn't you say?"

"That makes sense but it still doesn't answer me about Dani?" I even my tone to express my true emotions.

"I did. You just haven't accepted my answer."

"Her head is a price too high, if anyone it's me who should be punished for the price of two. Please spare her life. I coerced her into this, she knew nothing. Please." I pled, fighting through the clog in my throat. "Please. Have me in her place."

"Your excuse is weightless Malik. You seem to have forgotten your first grade biology lesson. We're slaves of the moon not children of the sun. We live by a code of honor she spat at when she chose you over her Alpha and pack. She acted against blue blood. Do you need me to give you a refresher course on what that means?"

I didn't answer, I couldn't.

He carried on regardless, "You will be pardoned because you're mine...but her? Your friend will take a humble kneeling to accept her..." he swayed his hand through the air looking for a word "uh punishment."

I stood frozen in place unbelief circling my consciousness.

"You call beheading punishment?" I spat out fighting through the tears that were threatening to shower down my face when a knock resounded at the door. "Wait. Who's actually calling the shots here? Is it you or the arms?"

The answer in his silence was heartbreaking.

"And you wonder why I didn't want you!" I screamed. "Where's your humanity?"

Another knock sounded on the door but we both ignored it.

"We're werewolves!" Neck straining he defended his awful command the way he should've been defending my best friend.

"Yes. We're werewolves, of course, your highness. Pardon my memory, it escapes me that we're animals sometimes. Let's be real animals, why don't we? Ya! We're mates after all. So, let's get naked and fuck right here on this desk as they haul my best friend outsi..."

"Malik!" He used an admonishing tone.

That only worked to silence me, the rage however was thickening with despair. And I was panting long, deep and heavy with unshed tears.

He left the desk and went to open the door when one of the council members the one who'd yelled 'treason' earlier came in. "When her alpha fell ill she should've come forward with the truth. Offering up any information that would save her Alpha and us all." The man said. He was holding up two bullet letters in his left hand for Brady to receive.

"What is this?" Brady asked his eyes squinting at the written text.

"Sorry to bother you right now but a crowd is gathered outside calling for the standard punishment of your mate's accomplice." He spared a cold but odd glance my way as he continued. "They want it to be at your call and I'm afraid if we don't act now a riot will erupt."

Brady squeezed at his eyes and I moved closer to the table, "You can't execute without a trial." I demanded yanking the bullet letter from the counsellor's hands and looking over at the never-ending signatures demanding my best friend's death.

Brady spoke up just as the letter was pried from my hands by the council member. "Set up the court and alert everyone that as soon as the rains stop we will proceed. Attendance is mandatory."

"Brady!" I cried after him. "Please don't do this."

"I'm their next Alpha. It is my duty to."

"That's right! You're their next Alpha, they love you. If you forgive her and let her live, they will too." I tried.

"I don't have a choice! If I don't do this their allegiance and respect for me will be shaken. My reign has already started off on the wrong foot as it is. I have a mate who has been refusing me for five years. There's an accomplice out there who had a hand in what could have caused my pack's downfall. Our core is reliant on my strength but I'm not bonded so that places my pack at its weakest. You couldn't even fucking kiss me and they all saw. So no Malik. There's not a single reason in the world that could allow me or my council to let her live."

"There is a reason." I offered myself. "If you let her live I'll accept the bond. Please."

"Your blasphemy, Luna. It's astounding." The council member gathering items in the room commented.

"The bond is not yours to deny," Brady said.

"Please don't do it."

"It has to be done." He motioned for the council member to go ahead with the assembly before the execution.

I seethed, "If you do this, you will never have me. I will be loud about my rejection and when I bear your mark. Everyone in this pack will know their Alpha had to force himself on a mate. On what should be the easiest conquest. We'll see how much they'll respect you then." I warned a threat. "I promise."

His edged glare turned cold with disbelief, as though I'd betrayed him. "You wouldn't dare?"

"You bet?" I wiped away my tears harshly and begged him, "Please, pardon her life, the sin is mine to atone for. I'll do anything. Brady. Please." Then because I couldn't help it tears endlessly cascaded down my raw face. "Please."

"It's too late to save her now," his voice sounded exasperated. "... with or without my instruction, her head is coming off. The least I could do for you is to make her death humane."