Mated to the Alpha: Sold to the King

Chapter 97: 0097

Kaelen POV

I sat behind my desk, staring intently at the silver blade resting in my hand.

Beyond the floor to ceiling windows, the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky in deep shades of orange and purple.

Pity.

She just pitied him.

Darius’s words from yesterday kept replaying in my head, echoing over and over until they became impossible to ignore.

I couldn’t stop wondering...

If she wasn’t drawn to me the way my wolf was hopelessly drawn to her, then maybe I could earn just a fraction of her attention another way.

It was twisted.

I knew it was.

I wanted to bleed just enough to see if she would panic. I wanted to know if she would rush to my side and look at me with the same concern she had shown an ordinary guard.

The rational part of me, the part that carried the weight of the throne, fought against the thought with everything it had. It called me a pathetic fool for even considering something so childish.

But desperation won.

Against my better judgment, I pressed the sharpened edge of the blade against my wrist.

Just as I was about to drag the metal across my skin, the office door burst open.

A furious looking Darius strode into the room, but the instant his eyes landed on the knife pressed against my wrist, his steps faltered.

The anger on his face vanished, replaced by complete confusion, and for several long, tense seconds, neither of us moved.

We simply stared at each other in heavy silence until he finally spoke.

"What the hell are you doing with a knife?" he asked as he stepped closer.

"Nothing," I answered flatly, snapping back to my senses before casually tossing the silver blade onto the desk.

"Nothing?" Darius repeated with a disbelieving scoff. "You were literally about to slice your own wrist. What the fuck do you mean, nothing?"

When I didn’t answer, his patience seemed to snap.

In three quick strides, he crossed the office and slammed both hands onto my desk with a loud thud, leaning over it until he was directly in front of me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he demanded.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," I said casually, and to be fair, it felt good seeing him lose his composure like this.

"You..." he growled, his jaw clenching. "I know exactly what you were about to do, and I know exactly why."

I met his glare with one of my own, my jaw tightening as the tension between us crackled.

"Then why the hell are you asking?"

Something flickered across Darius’s face for the briefest second before he buried it again, but that tiny shift drew my attention to his shoulder. That’s when I noticed the fresh white bandage peeking out from beneath the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.

"So I wasn’t the only one who had that brilliant idea," I said bitterly.

At that, Darius glanced down at his shoulder before looking back at me. The corner of his mouth twitched into the faintest smirk, and that tiny expression alone was enough to piss me off.

It confirmed everything.

He had let his guard down on purpose. Or worse, he had injured himself too just so she would have a reason to touch him.

"Was she the one who wrapped you up?" I demanded, barely keeping my anger under control. "Is that why you’re standing in my office right now? Just to rub it in my face? Huh?"

"That isn’t completely far off," Darius admitted smoothly.

The smirk disappeared just as quickly, replaced by an expression as cold and hard as stone. He leaned forward, his gray eyes boring straight into mine.

"Did you know her wolf was suppressed?"

My pupils instantly dilated, and seeing that, Darius let out a sharp, humorless scoff before taking a frustrated step back and dragging a hand through his hair.

"So you knew!" he barked, his voice echoing through the office. "All this time, you fucking knew and you kept it hidden. But you’re worried, aren’t you? You’re terrified she might actually be the one I’ve been looking for."

Yes, I was worried. So what?

At this point, it hardly seemed to matter anymore. He was already this obsessed with her anyway.

"I can’t believe this," Darius muttered, staring at the floor for a moment before his head snapped back up. A dangerous gleam flashed in his eyes. "Then she’s really the one. She’s the woman I’ve been searching for."

"This doesn’t prove a damn thing," I snapped, finally losing my patience as I shoved myself away from the desk and stalked toward him, aggressively closing the distance between us. "As long as her wolf remains suppressed, we can’t know for sure."

"Then we’ll reverse it," Darius said flatly.

The words hit like a physical blow. My nails dug into my palms as I clenched my fists so tightly they started to tremble.

"Prince Kalu will be here tomorrow," Darius continued. "Surely he can do his wizardry shit on her and reverse whatever the hell was done to her mind."

He wasn’t wrong.

Kalu could reverse it.

But just thinking about the possibility that she really could be the woman Darius had been desperately searching for made me want to burn the entire world to the ground.

It wasn’t like her wolf being suppressed was affecting her daily life anyway. She was perfectly fine the way she was.

"I don’t want to," I whispered.

The refusal hadn’t even fully left my lips before Darius snapped.

His fist shot toward my jaw with blinding speed.

The impact cracked through the quiet office, sending me stumbling backward, but my wolf surged to the surface almost instantly. I recovered just as quickly and drove a hard left hook straight into his ribs.

The room erupted into chaos.

We tore into each other with nothing but fists and pure, territorial rage. Furniture scraped violently across the floor as we traded blow after blow. Darius slammed his weight into me, trying to drive me into the wall, but I used my size against him. I ducked beneath his arm, caught his momentum, and slammed him hard onto the desk.

Papers exploded into the air, and a heavy glass paperweight crashed onto the floor, shattering into pieces.

I loomed over him, pinning his body against the desk while my knees locked over his thighs, keeping him trapped beneath me.

My claws slid into the sensitive skin of his neck, drawing thin beads of crimson blood. My chest rose and fell with every heavy breath as I glared down at him, my amber eyes glowing with barely restrained dominance.

"Why keep starting a fight knowing you will lose?" I growled but Darius didn’t even flinch.

Despite my claws pressed against his throat and the position he was in, he simply stared back at me with that same cold, unreadable expression.

"You should really be careful with your next meal, Alpha," Darius said quietly, his voice carrying a dark edge. "You know, for some unknown reason... it could very well be your last."

A dark chuckle escaped me as I dug my claws in a little deeper. I knew he was bluffing.

He was just mad right now.

Before I could say another word to dig the wound even deeper, a familiar scent drifted into my nose, causing my head to snap toward the open office door on instinct, only to find Ella standing there, completely frozen in place.

Her eyes were wide, and a faint blush had spread across her face. She stared at us for a brief second before quickly turning around and walking away without saying a word.

For a moment, I couldn’t understand why she looked so flustered.

Then my eyes slowly dropped back to Darius beneath me.

The position we were in.

The way I was straddling him while pinning him against the desk.

...

Ah, fuck.