Page 15 of Betrayed Bullied Mate

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Two hours later, after a dinner of dry, flavorless venison that I have to force myself to swallow down, I’m tucked into the huge four-poster bed with Aris just a few feet away on the couch.

I’m staring up at the ceiling with my hands on my stomach. I’m still wearing my full ensemble because I realized I only had what I was wearing when Varun’s lackey kidnapped me. My leggings are digging into my hips, and I’d kill to take them off, but I can feel Aris’s presence like it’s filling the entire room.

I can’t stay still—sighing, tossing, and turning, and I can tell through the forming bond that he’s still awake. I hope he’s just as uncomfortable as I am. He could go and sleep in any other cabin or just let me share with Eva, at the very least, but he’s forced us into this situation.

“Can you please stay still?” Aris says, his voice floating through the dark room when I sigh and flop onto my side again.

“No,” I say curtly, turning onto my other side. The pillows smell stale, but the bed is insanely comfortable. I reach up and pull the underwire of my bra away from my side, where it’s spearing me painfully.

“Just go to sleep, Linnea.”

“Go sleep somewhere else, Aris, and you won’t have to listen to me exist.”

“Please, just give me a break. Aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to rest?”

“I would love to rest,” I say sarcastically, bobbing my head against the pillow. “If there weren’t a blood-thirsty beast in the room with me.”

“I’m the least of your worries,” Aris deadpans, and then, a moment later, “and shifters aren’t blood-thirsty. You’re thinking of vampires.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I know what you are, Aris.”

“Enlighten me.”

“You’re a bully,” I say, hating how my stomach clenches at the memory of high school, at flinching away from him and his cronies when they came down the hall.

“That was forever ago.”

“Time doesn’t matter for stuff like this. Like it makes things hurt any less.”

I think of my parents and wonder if Aris is thinking of his.

“Okay,” he says. “Yes, I was a bully in high school.”

“You’re still a bully.”

“I am—what have I done? I am not a bully.”

“You kidnapped me. You’re forcing me to sleep with you—”

“—I am not forcing you to sleep with me. For your information, I would never have to force a woman to sleep with me. Making you sleep in the same cabin as me is not bullying.”

“—It is bullying. Because I don’t want you here, Aris. And yet, you won’t leave.”

“For hating me so much, you sure love saying my name.”

“It’s like a spell. If I keep saying it, I can cast you out. Like a demon.”

Finally, the discomfort of my clothes gets the best of me. As quietly as I can, I slide out under the covers and shimmy off my leggings. I reach up behind me and release my bra, suppressing a sigh of relief at the feeling.

“What are you doing?” Aris’s voice is strained.

“Nothing,” I say, “just stretching.”

“Linnea,” Aris says, and I can hear his thick swallow. “I’m—you know shifters have enhanced eyesight, right?”

“So?”

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