Bound To Be Mates

18. Marked

 

Sitting in silence, I feel my mind blank. He's my... Father? What? How is that even possible? It should be impossible.  

I'm an orphan.  

He's a King. 

I'm not a Princess. 

"No." I answer, shaking my head. "No." 

Darius looks at me, that amused expression hiding behind cold eyes. "No?" He repeats, resting his hand in his chin again. "I recognise my own child, darling. You're the spitting image of your mother, with my eyes of course." 

"No." My eyes aren't cold like that. My eyes are scared and wide and blue. Not cold. "I don't have parents. I'm an orphan. I was never adopted." My voice is somewhat frantic. 

"Yes... I'm aware of that. Unfortunately, who we had assigned to adopt you was met with unfortunate circumstances and disappeared."  

Trembling, I wrap my arms around my stomach. This can't be happening. I'm just Lyrissa, the shy girl with a secret not to be told. Not Lyrissa with a planned adoption, Lyrissa with royalty as parents, Lyrissa as a werewolf. Not Lyrissa who doesn't know how to love, not Lyrissa who has a man in love with her. 

"You don't get it. I'm in love with you, and you don't get it." 

I'm Lyrissa who doesn't get it. 

Not this Lyrissa, the Lyrissa Darius wants me to be. Expects me to be. No. 

"I want to go back." I say, looking up frightfully. Darius observes me with a hard expression.  

"No." 

"I want to go back!" I scream, standing up. I don't want to be here!  

Darius rises to his feet. "You're forbid from leaving the palace." He declares.  

I growl, clenching my fists. "You can't keep me here! I want to go home!" 

"Why?" He challenges. 

I recoil. Why would I want to go back to a home where my legal guardian has beaten me into submission, and mentally tortured me for years? Why would I want to go back somewhere where everyone just knows me as the shy, quiet girl, if they've even noticed me at all. 

Why would I want to go back to a life like that? 

I know Darius is subtly offering me a chance at a better life. A life where I can learn to be a proper werewolf, where my room is bigger than a shoebox and has the things I've always dreamt about having. A place where I can learn to be myself around anyone I meet, where I can meet new people. 

A place where I can live every day of the rest of my life in peace. 

But something stops me from letting Darius keep me here. 

It's not the new school, or the people I've met at the school. It's not the orphanage- God, no, not the orphanage. It's not Iris, or Abbey, or Lindsey, or Kenny, or little Hana, though I would most definitely miss them. It's not anything like that.  

So why would I want to go back to a life like that? I reach up to hold my shoulder again. 

"I want to go back to my mate." 

Darius looks at me guardedly. 

"I want to go back home, to my mate." I repeat stronger, looking at the ground.  

"Don't you get it? You're my mate, and I'm totally in love with you." 

I want to go back to Jango, because I need to ask him how to get it. I want to learn to feel what he feels, and if I'm trapped here, it's never going to happen. No matter what I'm given, or who I meet, or where I live, I'm never going to get it if I'm not with him.