Chapter 6
Her stomach dropped, which is not a good thing, is it?" His lips curved into that same sharp and dangerous smile. "For you?" he said. "No." Then he leaned down and his voice dropping to a whisper against her ear. "But it might be your only chance to survive."
The sunlight bled through the tall windows falling in sharp angles across the plush floor. Giovanni stirred, her body still humming from the fevered haze of the week prior.
Every touch, every whispered command from Russell and every late-night collision of instinct and desire had left her unsteady like a moth trapped in a storm of fire. She had thought foolishly and desperately that she had glimpsed something human beneath the mask of the Alpha. A man capable of tendernes even in his darkness.
Her fingers trembled as she held the small white stick between them. Positive... The symbol was undeniable. A life growing inside her and proof of a connection she had barely dared to hope could exist. Her chest tightened not from joy but a tangle of fear and hope. She had to tell him. She had to.
Her steps were quiet on the carpet not to make a sound and corridors were empty or so she thought. When she reached the study, the door was slightly ajar and voices leaking through the crack. She froze.
"...and she doesn't need to know the truth," Russell's voice was smooth and calm but every word sliced through her like a blade. "...biological necessity," Xavier's tone was clinical and almost amused. "Are you saying you'd sacrifice her status for the child?"
Russell's laugh was low, predatory. "The child is the Van-Doren heir. Nothing else matters. Once it's born, Giovanni will have no claim, no title. I'll exile her to the fringe packs before she can influence anything. The last thing I want is for my heir to inherit weakness. She will be a vessel, nothing more."
The words froze Giovanni mid-step. Her stomach lurched and her pulse hammering in her ears. The man she had clung to fought to believe could love her had been planning her erasure the entire time. Her body trembled while her hands gripping the doorframe. The stick was clenched so tightly, it threatened to snap.
Xavier laughed again but low and satisfied. "Efficient and calculated. You've thought this through." Russell's voice dropped, almost reverent in its cruelty. "Everything I do, I do for the pack. For the child. For the Van-Doren legacy. She's... replaceable."
Giovanni's hands fell to her sides as her breath hitched and ragged. The world seemed to tilt. Weeks of fevered nights, of the raw, unbearable chemistry she had thought was mutual, were nothing but a cage he had built around her. She had been a stepping stone for his legacy which is a "biological necessity."
Her wolf howled in pain, sharp, internal scream that no human sound could match. Giovanni fled before they could notice her presence. Each step down the hallway felt like running through fire and her body shaking with betrayal and fear. She needed air, space and distance. Anything to escape the suffocating realization.
She stumbled onto the balcony and the wind cutting through her hair, tearing at the remnants of fevered warmth she had carried from the bed with her fingers clutched the railing as she fought to steady her racing heartbeat. The city beyond looked unreal and detached from the jagged edges of her despair.
A memory from the past week clawed at her, Russell's hands on her skin and his voice low and commanding the flicker of something almost human in his eyes. She had thought she was reaching him but she hadn't reached a man. She had reached an Alpha who viewed her as a means, a tool and a vessel and not someone capable of love and care.
Giovanni's wolf shrieked inside her chest, clawing against her ribs and mourning a hope she had dared to nurture. Tears blurred her vision. She had been desperate for love and in that desperation, she had let herself believe in a mirage.
She did not hear Russell's footsteps until he was on the balcony, the long shadow of his frame stretching over her. He stopped a few feet away, watching. His presence was heavy, a predator contained only by the narrow line of the railing. "Giovanni," he said softly, almost cautiously. "I know you heard." Her spine stiffened, her fists clenching. "I did," she said, voice shaking. "Every word."
Russell took a careful step closer to her and said. "It's not what you think"
"No," she spat, the venom tasting like ash. "It's exactly what I think. You never wanted me. You just wanted my body and my fertility. I was... disposable." Russell's expression shifted slightly, a flicker of something she had never seen before, uncertainty, perhaps guilt or maybe surprise that she could see through him so clearly. "Giovanni, listen "
"Don't," she interrupted sharply. "Don't tell me anything. I know who and what you are. And I will not will not be part of this nightmare."
He hesitated then he moved closer. His golden eyes burned into hers, a blend of anger and desire that made her skin crawl even as it made her pulse spike. "You're carrying my child," he said, low, deliberate. "That doesn't make you disposable. It makes you mine. Everything I do "
"I am not yours," she snapped, stepping back, shaking her head. "I am not yours to claim, to use, to discard. I trusted you. I wanted God, I wanted... something real. And you only wanted control."
Russell's jaw tightened, his anger thinly veiled over something else something primal, something dangerous. "Control isn't a crime, Giovanni. You can't survive in my world without it. Without me."
Giovanni laughed bitterly, a sound that was half heartbreak, half fury. "Survive without you? That's exactly what I plan to do. You will not dictate my life, my child, or my freedom."
Her wolf surged inside her with a torrent of instinct, rage, and she felt a sharp clarity for the first time in the fevered haze of the past week. She would not be his vessel. She would not be a pawn in his war and is surviving meant defying him, she would do it.
You may also like
