Christina's POV
Slap!
My head snapped to the side, vision blurring, skin burning as if someone had pressed a brand into me.
I looked up to see Niall's furious eyes.
My fated mate just hit me.
Three minutes ago, I was daydreaming about redecorating this ridiculously expensive pack house. Two minutes ago, I accidentally knocked over a framed photo in his bedroom. A picture of my sister.
Now blood rushed in my ears— sharp, humiliating. Akira roared inside me, a storm of betrayal that stole my breath.
"You broke it!?" Niall spat. "This is the only picture I had with Beatrice. Your jealousy makes me sick."
"Are you fucking insane?" I gritted my teeth.
"No, you're the one who's twisted!" he roared."I already agreed to marry you, what more do you want? Beatrice left because of you! Because you forced the mate bond on me!"
The hatred in his eyes cut deeper than any slap.
"She was your sister! And now you covet what was hers? You won't stop until every trace of her is erased, will you?" He said in anger as he shoved me backward, into the coffee table.
I landed on the shattered glass. Pain lanced through my palm, and my blood smeared across Beatrice's perfect smile.
How bitterly fitting.
My cheek throbbed. My hand was bleeding. But nothing hurt more than the realization that my so-called mate had never loved me.
"It wasn't me," I said, one final attempt at reason. "I never forced this mate bond on you. I never asked her to leave."
Logically speaking, I understood why someone might blame me.
On my eighteenth birthday, I shifted and realized Niall was my fated mate.Stupidly, I wrote it all down in my diary. I planned to tell him when he returned from his business trip. If he couldn't accept me, I was prepared for rejection.
But Beatrice found my diary and made it public.
Privacy meant nothing to her. She broadcast my diary to everyone in the Crescent pack .
I was publicly shamed as the pathetic spare who dared reach above her station for her perfect sister's Alpha.
Then Beatrice graciously left for abroad, leaving behind a letter saying she'd discovered my secret and decided to let go and let him be mine.
Her generosity was as real as someone being generous with a credit card that wasn't hers.
And I was the villain who drove away The Crescent Pack's perfect princess.
To my family, I was a long-neglected player suddenly promoted to the first string—a strategic shift I was now duty-bound to appreciate. My parents didn't truly care which daughter married Niall, only that the pack alliance was sealed. Even if Niall had literally ripped my heart out, my parents would've handed him napkins to clean up.
It was as if my parents had always hated me. No matter how much I outperformed Beatrice in training, they always made excuses for her and found fault with me. I was bitter, ungrateful, someone who couldn't appreciate her dear sister.
My fingers clenched around the engagement ring. This pathetic symbol of our joke mateship.
Hot tears blurred my vision. I blinked them back fast.
I bolted for the door and got out before the tears came.
Niall grabbed my wrist to stop me. "Clean it up."
"What?"I stared him in disbelief, needing to confirm I'd heard him right.
"You broke the photo frame. Clean up the pieces." Ice-cold command.
Too bad I never was good at taking orders.
"No." I lifted my chin. Zero compromise.
His jaw clenched. "You sure you want to do this, Christina?"
"Yes. I said no." I stared him down without flinching.
If love meant grinding my self-respect into dust, then fuck love.
The air between us snapped, tension rising like a storm. He leaned in, fury blazing. "Last chance. Disobey me, and I'll end this bond right here—".
"We are over," I cut in.
Shock froze his face.
For a moment,the air went still.
He hadn't expected me to actually say it.
I yanked my arm free, breath hitching as hope for escape flared—only for him to seize me again, his grip bruising, his eyes burning with something close to hatred.
"This is on you, Christina!" Niall snarled, his tone that of a sworn enemy rather than the mate fate had chained me to.
"I, Niall Granger, Alpha of the Frostpelt Pack, reject—"
"Shut the hell up!" I snapped.