Page 57 of Lycan King's Captives
“This isn’t just about you,” she says through gritted teeth. “This is about me, too.”
“How?”
“I am your wife! And I deserve some attention.”
“I know that, but she is my mate, so you’ll have to find attention elsewhere,” I reply.
She crosses her arms in front of her chest. “It’s always Sienna. That’s all it seems to be these days.”
“We both know this cannot work between us any longer; it stopped working long ago.” I peer around the room for a moment before saying anything else and then finally meet her gaze again with an unapologetic expression on my face.
“I know what I want, Carina,” my voice is gentle yet firm as if speaking to a child who has yet to understand reality.
“And what you want isn’t me.” She finishes bitterly before rolling over in bed so that her back faces me.
“No, it’s not. I’ve never wanted you; you were an arrangement, you don’t want me either you just want freedom from your father, I am not blind,” I reply. It took me a couple of days to figure it out, but it makes sense, she is almost rational when she is alone, yet the moment she hears from her father she becomes overbearingly cruel, and cunning.
“Am I right?”
“More than you know,” she answers.
“So you’ll sign the divorce papers?”
She laughs bitterly. “Not a chance. You may feel trapped with me, Xandros, what you don’t realize is, I am also trapped with you. However, you are wrong about one thing, I have actually come to love you. Despite what you may think,” she says softly, wrapping her arms around herself.
I sigh. “And for a time, I thought I could love you, Carina. Now I realize I was only fooling myself.”
“Do you love Sienna? Or is it just the mate bond?” she asks.
I furrow my brows.
“I love everything about her, it’s who her parents are that I have the issue with.”
Carina laughs. “Yeah, well your mother is a handful. A loveable one, she is better than mine, anyway,” she whispers the last part.
“So you’re willing to break the treaty for her?”
“I’m trying to find a way I don’t have to, yet you are making that impossible, Carina. We have a month to work things out, after that I will declare war on your father’s kingdom, for her,”
“And your mother?” Carina asks.
“That I haven’t figured out yet,” I admit. “Sign the papers.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?” she doesn’t answer, instead moving to the bathroom. Why is she being so difficult? What does her father have against her or her mother?
My mind is a mess as I stroll the halls of the castle.
32
As soon as Xandros departs, Queen Adina springs into action, putting me to work. And no matter where I go or what I do, his Beta follows. It’s like having an additional shadow, one that refuses to detach even when the sun is gone. However, his presence I don’t mind, it is a distraction. I feel it around lunchtime, a guttural gnawing, not only from my stomach but the bond as well. It’s as if it senses Xandros’s absence, causing an uncomfortable throbbing.
Just as I sit to devour my lunch, a simple egg sandwich, Queen Adina waltzes into the kitchen. “Did I say you could eat yet?” Her voice is venomous, dripping with scorn. Her eyes feel like they could burn holes in me.
“I always have lunch at this time. It’s when it’s scheduled,” I protest, turning my gaze toward Javier, he remains motionless and impassive.
“You’ll eat when I say you’ve earned the right. Now get up!” Queen Adina’s words echo around the room. She leads me to the foyer, where a maid is waiting with a bucket of water and a toothbrush. She points to the driveway lined with a rock wall. “You are to scrub every rock and boulder. When you’re done, you may have lunch,” she dictates, leaving me outside, the enormity of the task sinking in. The driveway is over quarter mile long from the front door to the iron gates!
