Chapter 32

I felt like the room was spinning. Beta Quinton marked me? I hardly ever interacted with the man. Adrian always made sure I never really interacted with any males in the pack. Beta Quinton was one of the usual tormentors, and he would help with punishments and things of that nature, but to be given the chance to mark me? Something about that felt off... But then again, I really didn’t remember that night well. It was all a blur. It could have very well been him, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to say for sure.

The door to the room opened slowly. Kinsley walked in with the Beta just behind her. Her mascara was no longer smudged and running down her face, so I knew she had taken a moment to clean herself up and get her composure, but there was little she could do about the handprints from the Alpha King on her neck.

“Alpha Adrian, Alpha King Rhys, I was told you wanted to see me?” The Beta asked, but there was obvious confusion on his face. I might not have been involved with much that revolved around the pack, but I did know that Beta Quinton was almost never involved in things of this nature.

“The gig is up,” Adrian said coldly. “The Alpha King is most displeased with your decision to mark the girl. But if you beg for his forgiveness, and accept your punishment, I’m sure he will go easy on you.”

“Marked her?” The Beta’s voice shook. “I didn-”

“Enough lies!” Alpha King Rhys snarled. “I want my mate. She is mine, and I DO NOT SHARE!” He paused for a moment, and I knew it was his way of trying to contain his rage, and he was barely hanging on. “You will accept Grace’s rejection, are we understood?”

Beta Quinton nods, but the fear in his eyes was so palpable, I started to feel my own nerves set in. Beta Quinton was not a good man, I knew that, but was he really the one who forced his mark on me? I mean, he could barely look at me in the past. Was that because he regretted marking me or was there more to it that I just didn’t understand. He didn’t have the same lustful look in his eyes as so many of the other men in the pack.

“Grace, prepare yourself to reject him.” The Alpha King prompted coldly.

I nodded, but my palms were clammy, and my heart started to race. Oh god, I would have to say the words out loud. I hadn’t even thought of that till now. I hadn’t said a word aloud since I was a child! It only ever got me in trouble and what if this only got me in more trouble?! Oh god, oh god, oh god.

“Grace, come on, do what we discussed, reject him.” The Alpha King demanded.

I knew he was trying to keep his calm for my sake, but he was reading my hesitation like a book. I was not the girl he wanted me to be. No matter how much he said it, I was sure I wasn’t his mate. His mate had to be strong and beautiful. And I couldn’t even speak, even when my life seemingly depended on it. If I wanted to stay with the Alpha King, I had to do this, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t make myself form the words.

“How typical of Grace,” Adrian sneered. “Can’t ever just follow simple directions.”

I felt my face flush and tears began to flood my eyes. I was useless. I had always been nothing but useless.

“Shut up, Alpha Adrian,” The Alpha King growled. “Don’t talk about things that you can’t even begin to understand.”

“I’m just saying, this is just a taste of how she was in our household. Always so disobedient. It’s a wonder that anyone would want to mark her at all.”

“Yes, one time I asked her to use the blue dishes at a party and she couldn’t even do that!” Kinsley added in. “She put out a mix of colors, using the cream dishes and the blue. Oh goodness, it was so distasteful.”

The Alpha King rolled his eyes and looked at me expectantly. I made eye contact with Beta Quinton who was trying so hard not to show his panic, but his eyes were wide with fear and his whole body was shaking.

“Pl-please Grace, j-just get i-it over with. Re-reject me.” The Beta pleaded.

But as I stared at him, I couldn’t help but think he was an innocent man. At least in this specific regard. The way Adrian had ‘known’ it was him just really didn’t make sense to me. I suppose the Beta could have confessed it to him, but the Beta didn’t seem to be the kind of man to do that, so there was something here that we were missing.

“Grace?” The Alpha King’s impatient voice drew my attention back to him.

I looked at him this time, begging that he’d understand what I was trying to convey. The only thing he seemed to get though was that I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t convince myself that I should speak. I didn’t know what would happen if I did, but I knew that I couldn’t.

“See?” Adrian spoke up again. “She wanted to bear his mark. Such silly talk about how she was forced into it, now seems so silly. Clearly, she still wants him, and she be moved back to the pack immediately.”

Beta Quinton stood up and bolted for the door, he knew that he was being setup and he knew the price he would end up paying. He was one of the smarter ones in the pack, but the panic in his movements was obvious and uncoordinated. “I won’t die for her!” He exclaimed in terror.

Even in his panic he was fast, but Alpha King Rhys was faster. He shifted his right hand into his wolf’s paw, which I didn’t know he could do. His claws were long and sharp as slashed Beta Quinton’s throat from behind, catching up to him in only two steps, killing him instantly.