And then realized all too soon.
My mate looked just like one.
Did that mean I looked like my mother?
Mason hung his head as he dropped my hand. “You knew?”
Cassius sighed; it was long and drawn out, as if he didn’t want to have the conversation. “You’re aware that I see all possible futures, but whenever it comes to those closest to me, there is only so much I can see, Mason.”
A trickle of blood ran down my lip. Mason reached out and caught it with his hand. “Is this why her blood tastes so good to me? Is she what brings out the vampire?”
I flinched when he said she.
As if I wasn’t his mate anymore.
As if I was this unreachable being that just happened to be sitting in front of him and in his house. I still felt that tether of connection between us, but I also felt pain, insecurity. I felt betrayal, and it was all directed at me.
I tried to climb into myself as I hugged my knees to my chest and looked away. When would I ever learn?
I was the problem.
Me.
People always left me.
Should have known. I was a freak.
He would leave too.
Just like them.
“You crave her blood because it is the very blood that keeps you alive, wolf.” Cassius said the words with venom, as if he was pissed he even had to utter them. “She is the only reason that Bannick was able to use Gadreel as an anchor to make you what you are today. You want to know why you are powerful? Why you are the true Alpha? Why you are alive and breathing today rather than crippled the way your disease would have left you? Look no further than the sacrifice she made the minute she was brought into this world — and bound, to one such as you.”
Mason closed his eyes as the room fell into a tense silence.
And slowly, one by one, people rose and left, not once making eye contact with Mason, but nodding to me, as if I was in the right. And he was in the wrong.
He didn’t move.
Finally, I stood, and tried to walk past him.
His hand jerked out and grabbed my wrist. “I was afraid. I didn’t mean—”
I pulled away and walked off whispering under my breath. “I’m going to go to sleep.”
I could feel the pain in Mason’s chest at our separation; the way his body ached to join with mine was so real that it made me catch my breath as I slowly made my way up the stairs.
I stopped when Hope gave me a look and then pulled me into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
“He was wrong,” she said in a small voice, “to react that way, but he’s wolf. One thing you need to know about wolves is they react. It’s what they were born to do, to react, to heal, and above all else to protect their clans.”
“What about their mates?” I suddenly jerked up my chin. “Doesn’t it matter who I am?”
Her brown eyes softened. “It does when he has to face his family again, a family he left a long time ago — a clan all but abandoned. He is the rightful king. How do you think they will react to his return? With the way he looks? With the way you look? Bad enough that he mated a vampire.”
I tried not to be offended.
“What’s worse… you have goddess blood mixed in your veins, and people tend to be fearful of what they don’t understand. Who’s to say you don’t destroy them all?”