Chapter 16

NATALIA.

I didn’t know who I hated more, my dad or Tomas. No, he didn’t deserve a name. He was a monster, a beast just like his nickname. So that is how I would think of him, as Beast.

“How could you go to him? Him of all people?” I accused as I stormed out of the guest room after pacing inside there for what felt like hours, but most likely was only a few minutes. Beast looked tired, his eyes were bloodshot, and I could see by the way he was slouching that no doubt he hadn’t eaten. But I didn’t care.

“Do you know I am more scared now than I was before? He most likely is going to come here and shoot me himself, then hold the funeral and tell people he would take revenge on whoever did it.”

Beast nodded, but then he cooked his eyebrow. “Is this what he did to your uncle? Did he shoot him? I thought you never knew how he died.”

Tears streamed from my eyes as I prepared to reveal the ugly truth. I knew a lot more about the fate of my uncle, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Somehow not revealing the exact way he died made it less real. I wanted to leave the painful memories behind when I left Russia.

“That was exactly what he did. He shot him in cold blood.”

“There’s a saying I’ve heard many times: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

If he wanted to talk about sayings, I knew one too well, which didn’t apply to my father at all. “Blood is thicker than water.”

“Yes, that one too,” he choked out.

Then he walked back to the sofa like standing up was too much for him. He looked vulnerable as he pulled at a loose thread on the cushion, but I didn’t want to comfort him. I wanted to slap him again, but he’d merely move his head to the side as if it had hurt. But I knew there was no way that it could hurt him. I knew, no matter what, it was probably like little feathers on his face. He was a freaking werewolf after all.

“So, you told him where I am?” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together.

He shook his head.

“Then, why did you go to him? Tell me.”

He exhaled. “I wanted to, but you stormed to your room. I know why, and I’m not blaming you. All I wanted to do was talk. So much has happened in a short space of time. I’m just as confused as you are.”

“Confused? How?”

I fell on my knees in front of him. He cupped my face and I titled my head to the side, leaning into his touch, as I accepted his comfort.

No.

I jumped up, remembering things that came to my mind in the heat of the moment. We were here on this island acting like lovers, then he showed me that he was a wolf, then I discovered I was an omega, and now my dad knew about us. Or did he?

“Did you tell my dad about us?”

“He figured it out.”

“Fucking great! Now, not only is my life on the line, but yours too.”

He nodded in agreement.

“I had no choice. I don’t know why they want you dead, and I’m not even sure if I can trust anyone on my side.”

“You have your men.”

I crossed my arms, and he raised an eyebrow as he looked at me. They were loyal and I trusted them with my life. We were more like brothers than anything.

“Yes, I have them, but they’re not powerful enough to protect us and there’s only a few of them.”

Beast wasn’t as powerful as I was making him out to be. He had men, but there were so many eyes and such a lack of trust in this business, that having men wasn’t enough. We both knew it. I started to pace again. Keeping myself moving was the only thing that was stopping me from going insane and into heat. As much as I was keeping my omega at bay, I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried to seduce him. Before I couldn’t think of anything but having him inside me. And I wasn’t even on the pill. Double shit. I hadn’t had my medicine since he kidnapped me. The stuff usually helped my libido, but now it was fading and my heat was coming on full force. I shoved the images down of Tomas naked and making me come. We had to figure out what to do.

“Our first fight!” He chuckled and then patted the cushion next to him like I was going to sit and giggle about what was happening with my father and everything else.

“Fight? You’re fucking kidding.”

We were on an island, ready to either run off into the sunset or be killed. Now that my father was involved, I had a feeling it would be the latter. Beast was a powerful wolf, but it meant nothing if he was facing the wrong side of a pistol.

“I don’t even know what we fucking are…”

“Mates. I told you,” he said, standing and grabbing my arms, making me face him. “Mates. We love each other. This is why I ran to your father. This was the only reason I ran to him for help.”

None of this made any sense. Wolves. Mates. Heat. It was something out of a fantasy story, one that parents told their kids when they were little about strange animals in the night, yet he spoke about it like it was nothing.

I couldn’t handle it. I felt like the island was spinning out of control, and nothing about this whole thing was real. My heart was racing, I was sweating, and it felt like the sun was raining down on me.

I wanted to make sense of it all.

“And I can trust you?” I pleaded with him. I needed to be able to trust someone in all of this madness.

“I’m surprised you’re asking me that.”

He pulled away from me.

I couldn’t imagine someone as powerful as him getting all emotional, but somehow, I felt as though I’d seen the closest thing to it.

“I need to get some air.”

“Don’t go too far,” he croaked.

With that, I swung the door open and ran down the stairs. I didn’t know where I was going or how far I would go from the house. I needed to be out of breath so I could stop the fucking omega side of me from taking over because it was driving me fucking insane.

This wasn’t the time to have sex or act like we were living a fucking fairytale. This was my life—real life—and I knew it was coming to an end. I hated him for doing this to us, for bringing my father into the equation without discussing it with me first, which was why everything about this scenario was all fucked-up.

We weren’t the conventional couple. We never dated and he didn’t take me to the prom. He was a cruel memory of my childhood back in Russia when I use to tease and torture him. Like the true bully I was. And he did the same thing to me online. Then, after drugging me and bringing me to the island, we had connected.

But had that only happened because there was nothing else to do?

An idle mind had driven me to his arms.

He told me that I was his mate. I didn’t even know werewolves existed until the other day, but I’m supposed to accept it and believe everything he said to me. Once upon a time, I did so with the man who raised me, until I found out that he was a fucking monster.

Now, I was lying in bed with a wolf.

There was something wrong with me. Somehow I managed to end up in hell, and not fucking heaven.