As she frowned, Ryston said, “Just take them off, Rezz. You can control your beast. You didn’t have Mating Fever. Hell, you didn’t even want a mate. We had to hold you down in the testing chair. You fought us every step of the way.”
Caroline’s lip trembled and she was wringing her hands in front of her waist, the small tell making me want to pull her close and comfort her. Before I could stop the fool, Ryston kept talking.
“You said you were going to give her up. Now you can. You can go back to hunting with the security team and Caroline can choose another.”
My beast did come out then. Within two seconds, I grew. Big. So big that Ryston’s eyes widened, and Maxim yanked their mate behind him.
“Oh, he’s healed, all right,” Rachel said with a laugh. However, she was the only one in the room who was the least bit amused.
“God, all I hear is how much you didn’t want a mate!” Caroline’s voice cut through everything else. The beeping of the machines in the other room, Maxim arguing with Rachel to stay behind him, the doctor telling me to calm down.
Her tone was quiet, but there was steel behind the words. Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she reached for the cuffs on her wrists. “Fine. Here. Take them off. Go hunt, or fight, or whatever it is you want more than you want me.”
I whipped my head toward Ryston, wished looks could kill.
“No. Mine.” My beast wrapped his hands around her cuffs, holding them in place. I needed more than single words to tell her what she meant to me now. What a fool I’d been, believing, even for a moment, that I could resist her. Not want her. I’d been irrational.
I took a deep breath, then another, willed my beast back, but I could still speak with simple words. Now that she’d lured the beast out, revived him, whatever it was that my mate had done, my beast was back in full. Rested. Eager. Ready to claim.
“You said you were giving me to another because your beast was gone. You were being honorable.” She twisted her wrists to get away from me, and I didn’t want to scare her, didn’t want to be the kind of mate who forced his will on a female. Not now. Not ever. No matter how much she hurt me.
She backed further and further away from me. “But you didn’t want a mate at all. They had to—hold you down? Literally, strap you to the chair and force you to go through with it?”
Fuck. Her eyes were round, glassy as if she were going into shock. Tears fell from them as she blinked, sliding down her cheeks. Gods save me. She lifted trembling fingers to each side of her face and wiped them away as if they were acid on her skin. I relaxed my muscles, opened my fingers from the tight fists, tried to speak and explain with more than the one syllable words I was capable of when my beast was in charge. But with each step, he grew stronger, not weaker. My mate was hurting. In trouble. Lost. And my beast raged with helplessness. Every instinct I had was to scoop her up into my arms and take her away to a hidden place, somewhere where I could curl my body around her and keep her safe. Warm. Mine.
“First, Ryston’s an asshole,” Maxim stated, interceding on my behalf, and I had to agree. Ryston was hurting my mate with his claims.
Except his words were truth. I had not wanted a mate. They had forced me to be tested, strapping me down and holding me there against my will.
“I’ll agree to that,” Rachel chimed from behind Maxim’s back.
“Mate,” Ryston said slowly in response, that one word a clear warning, to which she crossed her arms above her big belly and scowled right back at him. She knew she was safe, that her mate would never, under any circumstances, harm her. Just as I would never hurt Caroline. Except, now I had.
Lady Rone had been claimed by her mates in the traditional Prillon ceremony. Their collar was around her neck. She wasn’t going anywhere. They could argue all they wanted, their relationship was solid. Permanent.
But Caroline had only been with me for a matter of hours. Yes, we’d fucked. She wore my cuffs. But she had thirty days to walk away from me. To leave me. To judge me unworthy. She wasn’t truly mine. Not forever. Not yet.
I closed my eyes and breathed, willed my beast back. When I felt my beast retreat, allowing me to take control, I looked at Caroline again. She was waiting, another tear sliding down her cheek.
“I didn’t want a mate,” I said. “That’s the truth. But only because I was broken. I had no beast. I was no good for you.”
Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “Now, though, you’re all better. Your beast is obviously back. You can go to battle or whatever it is you do. If you didn’t want me, and didn’t want to give up fighting, go ahead. I won’t stand in your way.”
She was blunt and abrasive and my beast loved that. I had to assume that was part of the reason he’d come back. But this tone? It was defensive. She was pushing me away to protect herself. I didn’t like it. Not one bit. It was my job to protect her.
“Did you want me, Caroline? Did you run to the testing center to be matched? Were you a volunteer for the Brides Program?”
She glanced at the ground, then at me. “No.”
“You had no choice, same as me.” I angled my head toward the others. “They forced me into the testing chair.”
She laughed. “How? With tranquilizer darts?”
“I’m big, but without my beast, they were stronger.” I narrowed my gaze at Ryston. “No longer.” Fair warning, fucker.
“I chose to be a bride instead of going to prison. I was tested, yes, but I had the final say. No bride from Earth can be matched without her consent.”
“That’s true,” Rachel murmured.