Chapter 817

Even though I have every intention of ripping out his throat and walking all the way home with his blood dripping from my fangs.

It's hours before Gabriel escorts me back to my room. Hours of laughing at horrible jokes about how lucky I am to be saved from the homeland I treasure. Hours of smiling at old men who ogle me in my ridiculous corset and openly compliment Gabriel on what a catch he stole from that heathen land, what beautiful sons I will produce for him. Hours of simpering women who congratulate me over and over on the luck I've had to be mated to this...monster.

As we walk back to the room, my head pounds – absolutely pounds becuase the entire time I endured the courtiers, did my best to hold my mask up as they actively insulted my father, called my mother a peasant whore, laughed at my aunt for calling herself a doctor - the entire time... Gabriel's wolf pushed. Pushed towards mine, sought to get to her, sought to bully her into accepting the bond and building the bridge between our souls. He snarled at her, and threatened her, and howled to her.

My head aches now with the hangover of the effort between negotiating my inner and outer worlds, both of which were an assault.

Gabriel doesn't say a word as we approach my door, instead simply grasping the handle and pushing it open. But the moment I step into the darkness of the room he moves, shoving me hard towards the bed and slamming the door shut behind him.

"Go," he growls as I spin and trip over my feet in my shock, trying to push him away as he moves with me, shoving me onto the mattress and climbing over me as I fall onto my back. "Submit, Luna."

"Get off of me!" I scream, shocked and terrified, any thought of my sweet Princess persona ripped from

me.

"No," he snarls, lowering himself so that his body is pressed along the length of mine. "You will submit to me, and I will mark you now so that you know who your master is, and -"

But my wolf snarls, ripping away my shock, and I remember my lessons with Blaze. I snarl too as I wrap my hands in Gabriel's shirt and throw my whole weight into my left shoulder, rolling Gabriel over onto his own back in the same moment that I shift into my wolf. He looks up at me, shocked, when he realizes what happened, but my teeth are already at his throat.

I only have the advantage for a moment, though, before Gabriel roars and hits me, hard, with the side of

his arm, sending me flying away. Not before my teeth graze his neck - but enough that my tiny wolf body goes flying across the bed, bounces once, and then careens to the floor where I hit, hard.

I yelp, my paws scrabbling for purchase, desperate to get up and see where he is -

But suddenly the lights turn on and I scurry around the side of the bed, desperate to know who's here -

who has come to my rescue. My eyes lock on Pippa, at the door,. staring horrified with her hands over her mouth as Elias roars and storms forward, grabbing Gabriel by the back of his shirt as he lurches for

me, hauling my mate back and away from me.

"Gabriel!" Elias barks, shaking his brother roughly, making him turn.

"Get your damn hands off me, Elias!" Gabriel roars, turning his head to snarl at his brother, his fangs long and ready to pierce. "She's my fucking Luna -"

Elias, to my shock, drops Gabriel's shirt and winds his hand back, delivering a heady slap across his

brother's face. Gabriel gasps and stumbles to the side, his hand going to his face.noveldrama

"Whether or not she is your mate," Elias growls, advancing again on his brother, "gives you no right to assault her. Even by Atalaxian standards you go too far."

"When she is my Luna," Gabriel snarls, standing and glaring hard at his brother, "I have a right to her body

"And she is not your Luna!" Elias shouts, taking a single solid step towards his brother and grabbing the front of his shirt, shaking him again. "You weakling, is this

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seriously how you would have your mate!?" He casts a hand out téwards me. "Trembling in fear!?"

I take a moment to assess myself, not very surprised to find that Elias

is right I'm trembling in every one

of my limbs, my little wolf paws sliding and struggling to find

purchase on the marble floor. Pippa snaps her gaze to me as well and gives a little cry of dismay, dashing across the room to me and wrapping me tight into her arms, pulling me half into her lap. I give a little wolf cry of dismay as my mind comes back to me, as I begin to realize how horrible and terribly close that was.

And that there's nothing to stop him from doing again.