PlotlumeI tamed Rhys, a werewolf driven mad by moon frenzy and bloodlust.
I turned him from a feral beast who bit anyone in sight in an underground fighting pit into the sharp-suited, cold-faced tycoon Wall Street knows today.
It took me ten full years.
Then, from the day he slid on our wedding ring to the day he brought his first love home to our hillside estate,
it took him only three months.
The night I shouldered open the guest room door and found him nuzzling that girl's neck with his fangs, I didn't make a scene.
I just stood there, dazed.
My mate mark, the mark that said I was his one and only mate, flickered twice on my left wrist in the shadows where their figures overlapped.
Then, with a hiss, it crumbled to ash and was gone for good.
1
After the girl left, the faint perfume on Rhys's neck, another woman's, hit me full in the face.
He didn't say a word about it, as if it were all in my head.
He undid two buttons of his shirt, baring his broad chest, and said in a tone that brooked no argument, "She's only an old friend. She just got back into the country, and I'm looking after her."
Ten years. I taught him to wear a suit. I taught him to use a knife and fork. I taught him to hide his fangs and claws. I taught him how to become a man of restraint.
But I never taught him how to lie to me in such a calm voice.
I looked at him and asked softly, "Rhys, do you still remember our resonance?"
"My head hurts. Soothe me."
It was a power only bonded mates had. Through our mind-link, one could smooth away the other's pain from emotional swings.
He frowned, and a flash of impatience crossed his golden eyes. "Stop it, Sasha. I'm exhausted today. Where would I find the energy for that?"
There was fatigue in his voice, but it had nothing to do with work.
I held out my left wrist. It was smooth and bare.
No crimson mark that he had once kissed with such devotion, the one that said I was his only mate.
Not even a faint trace remained. Completely clean.
Rhys's gaze finally dropped to my wrist.
The impatience froze on his face. His pupils snapped tight.
"Where's the mark?"
He grabbed my hand like a madman and rubbed the skin with his thumb, as if he could scrub the vanished mark back into existence.
His grip was so hard it hurt.
"Where did you hide it?! Answer me!"
His roar rang in my ears. It was the wild beast in him that ten years of my taming had never fully erased.
I pulled my hand back, calm.
From the pocket of his expensive tailored suit, which carried someone else's scent, I took out a platinum earring that was not mine.
A name was delicately engraved on it.
"Cora."
I held it up in front of him and asked, word by word.
"Instead of worrying about my mark, shouldn't you explain what this is?"
He stared at the earring, and his whole body went rigid.
He looked like a dog caught stealing food by its owner.
No, he wasn't a dog.
He was a wolf.
A wolf I had raised with my own hands, who turned around and bit me.
I looked at his pale face and suddenly found it a little funny.
"What, you don't recognize her?"
"Need me to remind you?"
"Your first love, the girl who abandoned you in that underground fighting pit and ran away."
"She's back, isn't she?"
He didn't answer. He only stared at me, his breathing growing heavy.
I rested the earring in my palm and felt its cold metal.
"Rhys, you wore the wedding ring I put on your finger, and it took you only three months."
"To bring her back to our home."
"You kissed her the way I taught you, nuzzling her neck with your fangs."
"Just as you did to me countless times."
At last he spoke, his voice as dry as sandpaper.
"You saw?"
"Yes," I answered crisply.
"In that guest room."
"I didn't go in and disturb you."
"I was only thinking: I spent ten years turning you from a beast into a Wall Street tycoon."
"Turns out, it takes just one old flame to turn you back into a beast."
He stepped toward me, trying to explain. "Sash, it's not what you think. She and I..."