Destined for Vengeance ✔️

Chapter 32

Ryleigh was right. Jade couldn't have both. She couldn't have Aaron and reject his life. Couldn't have him and hold onto the past. Couldn't have him and be a Shadow Walker. But that was the only thing that had ever defined her. If she changed it, she wasn't sure how much of her would remain.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had been living with that noise in her head for most of her life. She could handle it. She had to handle it. When she blinked her eyes open again, she knew they'd returned to their usual green. Her wolf was still pacing in her head, growling at the man in front of them, but she agreed to let Jade take the lead, if only because their dress was too expensive to tear.

"I'm trying," she said. She gestured to herself. "I've stuffed myself into this dress for you, which, let me tell you, was no easy feat. And my skull has more spikes stuck in it than a hedgehog. Everyone here hates me. And still I am here."

His eyes were hard and distant. It told her he was as disillusioned as she was, but just better at hiding it. "No one hates you."

"If you could but hear what they were thinking, you wouldn't be so quick to say that." She shook her head. "And you know, I think I could take it, if I didn't know you're thinking it too."

He frowned, his beautiful face marring in confusion. "You think I hate you?"

"No." She sighed. "No, but you think I don't belong here, just like they do. You think I'm going to make a fool out of myself in front of your parents. You think I'm wild. You worry that I have no control over my magic. And I embarrass you."

"You are mistaken."

"No. I don't need to be able to read your thoughts to know I'm right. Why the dress? Why the hair? Why the shoes? Why take my pendant?"

"There are rules at court."

He was growing impatient, she could tell, but she could not be bothered to care. She was impatient too. Impatient to get out of there. Impatient to get back to people who did not despise her. Impatient to get out of the death trap that was her dress. Impatient to collapse and cry.

"What if I can't follow the rules?" The question was as much posed in challenge as in earnest. She looked at him and laughed at herself. She ought to have seen this coming. One look at him, and she should have seen it coming. There wasn't a single hair out of place. His trousers didn't have a single wrinkle in them. His shoes were freshly polished. His jacket had probably cost more than her entire wardrobe – well, than the clothes she borrowed from Midnight Moon, because she didn't even own a wardrobe. His face was smoothly shaven, his hair perfectly under control, and there was that damned citrussy smell lingering around him.

"You will learn."

What if I don't want to? She swallowed the words again. Why was there so much she couldn't say? Was she going to have to bite her tongue for the rest of her life? Was she willing to? But she was getting ahead of herself. She first had to see if he wasn't going to reject her on the spot.

"Keep the silver, but at least give me back the chain," she said. Perhaps with some practice she wouldn't need it anymore. As long as she had the chain, she could always have a new one made. But if he kept it, that was it. There was no way she was going to get her hands on shift-metal.

"Why? So you can make another one?"

Her lips tightened. "It's mine and you have no right to take it from me."

Or did he? Did being the crown prince mean he was above the law? That was hardly fair, but she reminded herself she was in Royal Wolf territory. 'Fair' didn't apply.

He sighed and drew the chain from his pocket. He handed it back to her, pendant and all. She frowned at it, then at him, but took it.

"You are right. Still, I wish you would not use silver against yourself. It is not healthy."