CHAPTER 102: CHAPTER 102 (LEON)

Chapter 102

Leon’s POV

I sank back into my chair, my head in my hands. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was all so carefully planned. The plan wasn’t supposed to fall through. It wasn’t supposed to have ended like this and I did not consider the wild card or a very irritating variable.

I had known from the very beginning. The moment I first saw Astrid, a quiet, scared omega trying to find her way in this huge world, I knew. The Moon Goddess hadn’t sung for me. There was no celestial pull, no fated bond. My true mate was out there somewhere, a faceless nobody I had no interest in finding. Because I didn’t want a partner. I didn’t want an equal. I only wanted her.

She was a masterpiece waiting to be sculpted. So talented, so beautiful, and so profoundly broken by her past. She was perfect. I saw the way she looked at mated couples, the longing in her eyes. It was so easy to play the part. To manufacture a connection. A few whispered words about destiny, a few staged moments of intense eye contact, a feigned gasp of recognition. She was so desperate for a savior, she drank the poison willingly.

I concocted a plan with a priestess. She felt everything akin to a mating bond but I felt nothing. She didn’t know though, that she had been fooled by me. And she will never know. She thought I was hers alone and I showed her I was.

My plan was flawless. I would be her protector. I would save her from her own weakness, from the shadows of her past. I would provide for her, give her a studio, and praise her art. I would make her so completely indebted to me, so reliant on my validation and my protection, that the thought of leaving would be impossible. I know her and I know she wanted a saviour. Something to call her own. Someone to belong to also. She wanted a prince and I made myself her prince. A prince who would mold her to fit him perfectly. She would be mine, not by fate, but by design. My possession. My most prized work of art.

And for a while, it worked. She worshiped me. She lived for my praise. She begged for my touch, even when I withheld it to keep her hungry, to keep her desperate. When I withdrew attention, she ran after me. She wanted me and I enjoyed seeing her beg for me. Beg for my approval. Beg for just a gaze or a smile from me.

But I never expected him. Kaeleen fucking Sterling. Her true mate. I had dismissed the possibility. What were the odds? A billion to one. But the universe, it seemed, had a sick sense of humor. He showed up, and the foundation of my carefully constructed world began to crack. The bond I had faked was nothing compared to the one that was real.

And she left. She chose him. After everything I did for her. After I gave her a home, a purpose. After I saved her from obscurity. She repaid me by running away, like a common slut chasing a new thrill. A whore who didn’t appreciate the gilded cage I had built for her.

My fists clenched on the desk. The hypocrisy was a bitter taste in my mouth. She was a slut. She was a whore who opened her body for any man. But she was still mine. Her body, her talent, her soul, they were all my property. Kaeleen was nothing but a thief. A thief who had stolen what was rightfully mine, and was now flaunting it for the entire world to see.

Wifey.

The word was a lit fuse.

My anger began to cool, to sharpen, crystallizing from a chaotic storm into a single, lethal point. Rage was useless without direction. It was time to stop mourning my loss and start planning its retrieval.

Kaeleen thought he had gotten everything he wanted but he wouldn’t know what hit him. I had brought all the pack families in America to my pack so we could unite against the bloody humans but he had been opposed to it. Fuck him.

He had no idea but I was going to destroy him. Starting with the woman he claimed to live so much. No one took what was mine. And when I am done with her, I’ll destroy his company. Each and every one of them. Rooting it down. And while I do that, I’ll destroy his pack.

I was already destroying them but he didn’t know. Kaeleen thought he was smart. Just because their pack has many influential people he thought he could best me. I’ll show him. I’ll destroy him.

A whisper of a scandal to a hungry journalist. A rumor of instability to spook the market. I would short his stock, creating a panic. I would lean on my political contacts to delay his shipping containers, costing him millions a day. I would dismantle his empire piece by piece, brick by brick, until he was nothing. Until he was ruined.

And when he had nothing left to offer her, no money, no power, no protection,who would she run to?

A slow, cold smile spread across my face. It was a true smile, the first one I’d felt all day.

She would come back to me. She would have to. She would walk back into this office, her confidence shattered, that powerful queen persona stripped away, leaving only the broken little bird I first fell in love with. She would come back to her savior.

And she would get on her knees looking so fucking precious. And she would beg me to fix it.

And I would. I would welcome her back. I would save her. And this time, I would make absolutely certain she never, ever had the strength to fly away again.

The game wasn’t over. It had just begun.