𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍✔️

PROLOGUE

  "YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL when you cry."

He ran a hand down my cheek; callused and cold. I shivered in disgust, yet my eyes remained emotionless and averted to the filthy stone floor.

I was nothing but a toy to him, a punching bag for his every misguided, liquor-fuelled outburst, a plaything for his lustful, intoxicated desires.

He lowered his head into the crook of my neck, nose brushing the side of my throat, breathing in my scent. Even the thought of him disgusted me.

He let out a small sound of ecstasy, like a dog receiving praise, his stale breath fanning across my skin and in turn causing the fine hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

Everything about him made me feel sick to my stomach. The way would he moan my name, the way his greedy hands roamed freely upon every pillar and plane of my body. I was helpless against him.

"I can't stop thinking about you." He breathed.

— But my mind was elsewhere; somewhere far, far away from here. Someplace safe.

For the past three years, this monster had claimed to be my moon-bound mate, but before he took me to this dreadful place deep within the shroud of the night, I had heard that when you and your mate touch, it's electric.

When I was young, I would stay up past my bedtime, sitting before the hearth alongside the females of my pack. For hours they would talk, and I would listen, long into the night, long after the moon had reached its highest peak.

The mated among them would speak in hushed whispers to the unmated about the sparks, and how when you found your one true soul, no one else would ever compare to them. Once mated, there was no going back, they'd raise hell from beneath our feet and tear the kingdom from the clouds before they allowed themselves to be separated from one another.

— And that was how I knew. That was how I knew that the monster before me, was not my mate. There were never any sparks, only the blinding lights that flashes before my vision with every heavy-fisted strike. The only touch he ever gave me was bittersweet and violently violet.

He shoved me backwards; hard. My back slammed against the wall, a cry escaping my lips as my skull cracked against the stone.

My eyes darted up in an instant to see him staring back down at me with lust-filled hate. A lone tear slipped down my cheek.

He gave a sickening smirk, "Cry for me, Arden."