Page 29 of The Alpha's Bullied Rejected Mate

She huffed out a frustrated sigh and pressed forward anyway, this time softening her voice.

“I have tried to explain to you for the hundredth time, you really do have the wrong witch. So let us go back to how we were living before.”

“Please,” she added.

Marcus finally looked up.

“Then why did you try to run away?” he asked.

“What?” She stared at him, confused.

“You escaped on your own free will. And exposed your son to the demons. Not me,” he shrugged.

“And all of this wouldn’t be happening if you had not approached us. We were living a very peaceful life. I need you to believe me. I am not who you are supposed to hunt,” she explained.

“Right. And you’re innocent. With that amount of magic you have,” he responded sarcastically.

She let out another sigh. He didn’t believe her.

“Do you know?” His voice dropped in a lower but sharper octave that brushed against her nerves like a live wire.

“Once you are a target, you remain a target. If I let you go, another hunter would come for you. And he might be brutal,” he strode toward her, “far more brutal than you think I am.”

He lowered his face to hers, “Do you think you can hide? There’s not a corner of this world where they won’t find you. Me letting you go would be sentencing you to death.”

Her heart pounded against her chest, not in fear, but in a certain feeling she violently tried to push aside. But his face was close, so close he was literally breathing on her skin.

He stood up straight and retreated to the corner of the room.

Finally, she could think again.

“You’re keeping us trapped here with those things circling us like vultures, and for what? To drag us back to a Council thatwould torture and eventually kill me, and do to my son who knows what?”

Marcus didn’t look at her as he checked his weapons, his jaw set in that stubborn line she had seen all too well.

“The Council doesn’t torture anyone. They provide rehabilitation for magical individuals who—”

“Rehabilitation?” Athena’s laugh was bitter. “Is that what they call it now?”

She lowered her voice again in desperation, “I have heard of your ‘rehabilitation centers’. I’ve heard what’s left of the people who—”

“Things have changed.”

The dismissive tone in his voice made her want to scream. She knew that tone, and once again, she was back at Moon Ridge Pack, facing the same Marcus who had once hung on her every word, who had made love to her with a reverence that had made her believe she was precious to him. Who couldn’t even be bothered to truly listen to her. And he had used that tone with her.

Her chest heaved with emotions. He didn’t care. But she wasn’t going to surrender so easily. She refused to be dragged to a Council or anywhere that would harm her son.

***

An hour had passed since Athena’s near escape.

“How long do you think the barrier can be maintained?” Marcus asked as he stepped onto the balcony.

He gripped the edge of the wooden rails and closed his eyes, tuning his senses to the tension in the air. The demonswere still out there. Lurking. She could feel them too—like shadows breathing against the ward.

“Long enough,” she replied, though truthfully, she wasn’t sure. The barrier could have drained faster than she had anticipated.

“I have called for reinforcements. We would be out of here as soon as they get here,” Marcus said, settling into a defensive position near the railing’s edge.