“I know what life I’m getting into.”
“I don’t think you do.” He leaned back, and the leather chair creaked under his weight. “Will you humor an old man telling you a story?”
“Why? Do you know any old men with good stories?”
He ignored me, which was probably best for both of us, and went on. “When I was a very young man, not long after I was Awakened, there was a woman in our pack who was young and willful, not unlike yourself. She fought against her king and her pack every step of the way, believing the rules of conformity shouldn’t apply to her. She felt she was too special to be bound by a hundred generations of tradition.”
“In other words, she was a teenager.”
Callum smiled at this. “Yes, very much so. Well, this girl fell in love, as girls of her age are wont to do. Girls of any age, really. We are all ruled by love, Secret, make no mistake of it. Love will make fools of us all in turn.”
It was my turn to say nothing.
“The boy she loved was a good kid. Polite, charming, and he loved her a great deal. I’m sure this feels like a story with a happy ending, but I’m sorry to say it isn’t. They loved each other, and through a twist of fate, she found herself pregnant at only seventeen years old.”
My blood went cold.
“The boy wanted to take care of her, but…died tragically.”
Yeah, I bet he did. Having a hole chewed in your neck by a vampire is a very specific kind of tragedy. I continued to sit in silence. Any urge to interrupt had vanished when he’d told me the girl’s age. I just wanted him to finish.
“After he was gone, we believed she would mourn but that her love for her child would be greater than the loss she felt for her man. He was human, after all, and he was destined to die before her and she knew it. But time passed, and when the child came, we knew something was wrong.”
“With the child?” Shit. Shut up, Secret.
“No, with her mother. Her grief over her loss had driven her past the point of consolation. She believed the child was an abomination, when it was just a beautiful little girl.” He smiled sadly. “She gave all of herself to the wrong man, and when she lost him, she lost everything that made her who she was. His death broke her, and she never fit together again.”
“I’m not my mother,” I whispered.
“No. I could have told you that, my dear. You are stronger than Mercy ever was. Your identity is not entwined with your love for the king, that’s as plain as day.”
“Then why did you need to tell me her story?”
“Because I don’t think you’re marrying Lucas for the right reasons. I want you to think about what you’re doing. This is something you can’t change once it’s done.”
“I’m prepared. The mate bond has already been activated.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t make this decision lightly. I know what I’m doing, and it won’t break me.”
“It may not break you, but consider the story from another angle. What if you are not the girl? What if you are the dead boy and the fractures you are creating are destroying someone else?”
Callum could have reached his hand inside my mouth and squeezed my heart to pulp with his bare hands and it would have made my chest hurt less than his words had.
“What are you talking about?” I was barely able to wheeze out the sentence.
“I don’t think you should marry Lucas because I don’t think he’s the one you’re meant to be with.”
I had started shaking my head before he was finished saying Lucas’s name. “You’re wrong. Everyone has said it’s perfect. I’m royalty, so is he. I’m pack protector. We’re soul-bonded, and now our mate bond is active. I’ve proven I deserve to be his wife.”
“I’m not disputing whethe
r or not you deserve it. You do deserve to be at the head of a pack. I know all about how you dispatched Marcus Sullivan. I know, too, you were forced to fight your own mother in the end, who was madder than ever thanks to her attachment to yet another wrong man.” Callum wove his fingers together and rested them on his stomach, still toned even though he was pushing forty. Fat werewolves didn’t exist. “You are Alpha material, Secret.”
I fought against the swell of pride that grew larger in my chest. This guy was playing me like he was Hendrix and I was a guitar. He’d found a weakness I hadn’t known I had, and he was poking at it until it was raw.
“I don’t understand your problem then.”