Page 89 of The Alpha's Bullied Rejected Mate

Athena nodded, and her lips curved into a very soft and delicate smile.

“Dinner,” she breathed, and Marcus’s hands were at her chair as soon as she had finished speaking. He guided her in with careful reverence of a man. Only when she was settled did he take his seat and sit at the other side, the table stretching between them.

Marcus and Athena chatted away, laughing as they reminisced about old times.

“I remember.” Athena smiled, her voice soft with mischief.

“Especially that one year you fell off your horse mid-race because you saw a spider on it.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow.

“No. I’m pretty sure my horse lost its balance. It was sick and unstable.”

He tried to sound convinced. “The tournament got cancelled because of it, remember? It was marked as a major incident. Pack-wide concern.”

Athena’s smile widened, the glow from the candles catching in her eyes. “Marcus. You screamed.”

“I did not scream,” he pouted.

“You did scream. Like someone had set your hair on fire,” she laughed out louder this time.

Marcus let out a slow grunt that only made her laugh louder.

Of course she still remembered that.

She wasn’t wrong.

It had been his fourteenth Feast of the First Bloom. He had been competing in the annual horse-riding tournament with all the pride and pressure of being the Alpha’s son. Halfway through the race, a glistening, twitch-legged spider had crept up his horse’s neck, heading right for his hands.

The sight of it had sent a full-body shiver down his spine. He couldn’t let the others see him freak out; he couldn’t show fear, not when half the pack was watching. So he had kicked the horse’s side in a panic, trying to jerk it away and hide his flinch.

The poor animal had bucked, startled, and Marcus went flying.

The whole event was halted. Every adult rushed to check on him like an unusual force had hit him.

The Alpha’s son, injured on the race track—how dramatic.

He had only told one soul the truth, whispering it between gulps of stolen wine and mortified laughter later that night. And only that one soul had the right to tease him about it.

Athena.

His Athena.

And she had never let him live it down since he had told her.

He laughed at the memory now.

“I still maintain that the spider had bad intentions.”

She laughed again. That smile was still warm, bright, and untouched by time. “Right. A rogue assassin spider,” she teased.

Marcus’s eyes crinkled at the edges as he watched her laugh until her gaze fell to the table, and her smile faltered.

“You made all of this?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, sliding over his skin like fingertips.

“Yes,” he said, His fingers flexed against his thighs.

“Is it bad? Why are you looking at me like that?”