Dio [ 2 ]

His pulse was steady, but the tension practically crackled at his skin as he stopped himself from moving closer to me. Even though there was space between us, I felt suffocated and promptly backed myself against the wall, scouting my exits. It was either the door or the window. But, I couldn't bring myself to look away from him.

I knew that I was fiercely attracted to him. It had hit me like a truck when he held my hand, but I had to be serious.

He was the Alpha Tristan. He had the power to instil fear into people who had never met him and were hundreds of miles away from him. The stories I'd heard about him honestly kept me awake in fear. The victims of his cruelty didn't get the same chance I did. To have his hands do anything but inflict pain.

I couldn't possibly think that him being my mate would bring anything but fear and misery. Despite everything telling me not to, I wanted to reject him. I didn't want him, not really. "Alpha..." I ripped my gaze from him and steadied it shakily on my alpha. "What am I required for?" my mind was hazy, but I desperately wanted to leave the room.

Alpha Ramiel frowned at me and gave a sidelong glance at the seething man standing in front of his desk. I willed myself to not do the same. "Kara—you're required to show some respect. He's your—"

I knew I shouldn't have said anything at all, but I didn't even care about consequences at that point. "No." It was firm despite how shaky I felt, and more importantly, it was defiant. My chest almost caved in when his calm demeanour morphed into something tinged with deep anger.

He was always a calm and collected person, which was why the pack respected him so much. He showed compassion and was often very kind to me and everyone else. The guilt took me at a stronghold when I became fully aware of the weight of my rebuttal. I may not have respected him, but I did have an immense respect for my own alpha.

My hands came up instantly in an attempt to appease his anger. "I apologise." I backed myself so much against the wall, I was sure that in any second I'd turn into plaster and merge with it. "I didn't mean to anger you, but I can't do what you're asking of me."

The response didn't come from my alpha. "Asking?" his deep voice made my head spin. It was smooth and addictive. "No one has asked you to do anything."

I sighed in relief. Maybe he wasn't as bad as I thought he was.

"You don't get a choice."

No. I was right. I looked at him and could instantly tell that he was angry. It was powerful and echoed around the room, making it seem spacious when in reality, I felt like the walls were closing in on me. "I do have a choice." It was the first time I spoke to him and it sounded a lot more confident than I felt. "I'm not accepting anything. I have responsibilities and loyalties."

His eyes froze over and when he snarled, I knew exactly why he was thought of as a beast. We all had it in us, but he embodied it. You couldn't separate the beast from the man. I froze in fear as he stared me down.

"Loyalties?" he hissed. The power behind his voice nearly brought me to my knees. I gripped onto the wall to keep upright. "If that's a way to say there's someone else, you're looking for bloodshed." Alpha Ramiel straightened up as a threat was issued. "I'll rip him apart and turn this place upside down."

"Tristan—"

A growl brewed deep in his throat and he set his legs into motion as he stalked towards me. "Ramiel, you don't want me on your bad side, so shut up and let me talk to her."

I had nowhere to go when he stood in front of me, in all his furious glory. I knew that if he overpowered my own alpha, I had no chance. His hand lifted and I had to stop myself from flinching. He was the type of alpha that fed off fear. But, his hand gently gripped my chin and tipped my head backwards to stare him in the eye.

He was so tall and while I never felt short a day in my life, he made me feel small. It was like I was up against forces I would never win against.

"Who are you loyal to, αγάπη μου?" he spoke in what I guessed to be his native language as his thumb lightly grazed my bottom lip. His touch was electrifying and I had to fight against what my body was telling me to do. Pull him closer and kiss him until we were both dizzy.

"Everyone in this pack." I hated how breathless I sounded. My body betrayed me when I leaned into him, feeling the contours of his body against mine. He was warm to the touch, far from my expectation of him being as cold as the place he resided in. The North West wasn't called by its original name and instead was known as the Underworld because of its deathly notoriety.

His hand cradled my jaw with a sense of gentleness that left me halfway between wanting to lean into his embrace and wondering how a cold-blooded murderer could be so tender with his touch.

"You owe this pack no loyalty." His alluring eyes steadied on me and his other hand wedged into my head of black curls as if he wanted to drill his next point into the core of my mind. I couldn't even protest against his touch. It was all-consuming. "Your loyalties lay with me now."

The pull wasn't strong enough yet for me to completely forget about everything else, and because of that, I was able to gather enough wits to speak exactly what was on my mind. "I don't owe you anything, Alpha. I want nothing to do with you."

All sense of desire vanished from his deep blues and was instead replaced by a spark of anger. He gripped my face tighter in his hand, not too much to hurt me, but just enough to remind me who exactly I was talking to. It was like every cell in his body was comprised of nothing but power, and he exuded it like the sun did the heat.

"Yet I want you—and I always get what I want." His declaration puzzled me to the core. The pull between us was like a branch, there but easily breakable. He couldn't have been that enamoured with me already, it was like he was enchanted. "Whether I resort to extreme measures or not is entirely up to you."

"Like what?" I challenged despite the fact I knew it was a battle I was most likely not going to win.

"Don't be so quick to provoke me." He murmured as he tilted my head so that the gap between us lessened, and I was intoxicated with his close proximity. "I would split your world in two and drag you under with me if I had to."

It sounded more like a lethal promise rather than him just throwing out an empty declaration. There were very good fighters in my pack, but I didn't quite believe they'd fare well against him. Killing was in his blood. His hands were lethal weapons and those exact hands were holding me in an embrace that was far too intimate for me.

"Get your hands off me." I reached up and tore his hands away from my face, sidestepping to move from him. He could have easily blocked me and pinned me against the wall with his body, but for some reason, he let me go as I stormed over to the desk, flattening my hands against it. "I can stay here if you allow me to. Alpha, please let me."

Alpha Ramiel had a face of stone and folded his arms across his chest. With a glance behind me, he shook his head firmly. "I can't allow that, Kara. The pack's safety comes first and you're jeopardising that." His eyes softened at my pleading expression and he frowned. "You need your mate, Kara. I would give anything to be accepted by mine. I won't subject anyone to that pain willingly."

At that, my resolve cracked a little bit. He had found his mate, and while we were all happy that our pack would finally have a Luna, she rejected him because she had fallen in love with a human. He was at his weakest in the weeks that followed, and that left us all vulnerable to the attack from the neighbouring pack that wanted to expand their territory. Alpha Ramiel may have been compassionate, but others definitely weren't.

I looked over my shoulder at him and I couldn't deny that the connection between us pulsed strongly. But I knew that it wasn't anything I felt willingly. It was a cruel twist of fate. "And if I don't agree?" I could feel him moving closer to me in protest and his silence scared me. "What about if I don't want a mate at all? You can't force me to leave everything I've ever known. My mother is here and I'm all she has. You're like a father to me, you can't possibly want me gone."

He battled with his emotions as he shook his head again. Something about it seemed final. "You can do as you please, but you won't do it here." His eyes hardened. "I'll send you into exile if I have to, Kara. You won't risk the lives of everyone in this pack, especially your mother, to do something as stupid as rejecting an alpha."

My heart plummeted in my chest and I gasped, bolting up as I felt the emotion overwhelm me. I truly had no choice. A life in exile wasn't a life at all, it would be hell. But it was like I was going there either way. I felt his presence behind me and I couldn't move. I stared at my alpha and sighed in resignation.

"I won't jeopardise the safety of this pack, but I can't be in this room right now." I turned around and came face to face with my worst nightmare. "I won't run, just let me see the flowers one last time."

He stared down at me for a long moment before he conceded with a short nod. It looked like he wanted to touch me, but he thought against it when I turned my head to break the eye contact. He could tell that I didn't want him, and a sick part of me wanted that knowledge to hurt him. He was getting a taste of his own medicine. I told myself that it was retribution for all the lives that he took.

When I left the room, I sighed in relief and leaned against the door for a few long moments. Beta Daniels, who was standing in the hallway stared at me with muted sympathy and when he passed me to open the door, he patted me on the shoulder in an act of comfort. I didn't say anything and instead hightailed it out of the house, storming up the hill to the field of flowers that often offered me solace in moments of loneliness.

I stared at the daffodils and the splash of colour other flowers brought to the field. The reason it felt like home so much was that I often tended to the flowers, as did my mother. She often told me that nature could cure all ills, including heartbreak and she had her fair share of that. She had met my father before he found his mate, and when he did, he left without looking back. Years later, my mother hadn't found her mate, but I knew she was still holding onto that hope.

I sunk down onto the field and closed my eyes to hone my other senses. I listened to the birds and the way the flowers felt under my skin. My heart ached at the thought that it would be the last time I'd be able to see nature like that in all its glory. I knew nothing about the North West, and from the way people described his territory, it definitely resembled a dark, cold place.

My fingers brushed against the petals and despite feeling so at peace, there was nagging at the back of my mind. Part of me wanted to go back to him, but he truly scared me. I couldn't look at him without thinking of all those stories. There was nothing good said about him—ever.

No one bothered me for the next few hours, and I knew that word had probably spread that I was his mate. I would steer clear of any woman that was mated to such a monster, so I couldn't blame my pack at all. I wanted to see my mother, but I knew that she would refuse to let me go and I would agree with her. Alpha Ramiel made it clear to me what would happen if I refused to leave. I couldn't bring that pain to her, not in a million years.

The solitude was short-lived, and when he came to find me, I could feel him before I saw him. There was a shift in the air. Anyone could tell when a powerful alpha was in their vicinity, you could practically smell their dominance. I leaned my head back and tried to ignore his presence for a bit longer.

His broad frame blocked all the sunlight that glowed against my skin and I willed myself to not meet his eyes, no matter how much I wanted to. "It's time to go, αγάπη." He extended a hand down to me and I stared at it for a long moment before pushing it away, standing up on my own. If he was upset, he didn't show it.

"I need to pack some clothes and get my passport." I murmured even though I didn't want to speak to him.

"Ramiel gave me your passport already, and it's winter in Greenland, so I'll have the appropriate clothes for you before we get there, okay?" he replied calmly, standing a good distance away from me. I thought of how alone we were and how no one else was stood on the field except for us. The first thing I thought of was how easy it would be for him to snap my neck and no one would be able to stop him.

His calm demeanour switched completely when he smelled my fear. "There must be something I'm missing here because I don't understand why you're so scared of me." The crease between his eyebrows deepened and his eyes darkened. "I've done nothing but show you kindness today."

I didn't say anything back because I had nothing to say. I could hardly tell him that I was picturing him killing people by the dozen. He was so notorious for the fact that death surrounded him, he was like the grim reaper, he all but pulled the souls of his victims out of their body as he dealt the final killing blow. I wasn't a stranger to violence, but he was a whole other level that made me, for the first time in my life, fear death.

He took my silence offensively and scoffed as he walked in front of me. I followed close behind and stared at the point between his shoulder blades. His strength was visible simply in the way he walked. He walked with purpose and he looked like he was a master of war.

War and death. They were the best words to describe him. They came in a lethally attractive package.

I hated the fact that I was so attracted to him. As we walked, I battled between wanting to have his hands all over me and pushing him so he tumbled down the hill. The image alone made me laugh and he turned around with a curious expression on his face, and there was a hint of a smile there too.

The Alpha opened the passenger door when we stopped at the cars, and I wondered just how far I could take it with my pettiness. I could sit in the backseat instead, but before I could even comprehend it, he lifted me into his arms and placed me in the seat. It all happened so fast that I only realised it happened when I heard the chuckle that he released.

"This is kidnapping." I snapped, crossing my arms across my chest.

He stared down at me with an accomplished smile on his face and leaned in close enough to make me hold my breath. "Call it what you want—I call it getting my way." He then slammed the door shut and my eyes followed him as he crossed over to the other side.

Every fibre of my being was hyper-aware of his presence and he exuded sheer masculinity that was simply tantalising. He sensed my attention on him and tilted his head to look at me. Dark blue eyes sparkled with a hint of pride.

"Buckle up, beautiful." A slow smirk pulled at his lips. "It's a long journey to the Underworld."