He glared down at his council members from his throne as they babbled on before looking away, finding her in the midst of the small crowd.

He made eye contact with Iris, a brow raised in question as he studied her hard face not missing the low hiss from her clenched teeth even as she gave a single nod.

His mate was fine and carefully locked up in her room. Serves her right for daring to disrespect him in front of the entirety of his pack members but his heart couldn't keep still, thundering against his ribcage.

"Alpha Damon." One of his council members stressed his name, snapping his attention back to them.

"You have to see reasons with us!" The man hissed at him with blazing eyes full of disgust.

"Reasons?" He asked cooly, fully relaxing against his throne.

What gave them the right to think they could challenge him in his pack?

Snickering, he began slowly tapping his index finger against his lap. "What reasons?"

"You are Alpha Damon Archer, the most feared man in the world of the wolves and humans and..."

Abruptly jumping to his feet, he glared right at the man below him. "Get straight to the point, Gerald."

"You can't get mated to a human!" Gerald forced out, an intense hatred in his eyes.

His eyes flashed and the humming court went quiet in an instance already sensing the change of mood in their Alpha except for Gerald.

"What. did. you. just. say?" He asked slowly, punctuating every word with his descent down the many steps from his high throne.

Gerald, not wanting to back down, straightened his spine and looked right into the Alpha's eyes, resisting the urge to bend his knees and bow in an instant.

"Making her your mate will weaken you and get our pack destroyed!" He continued to talk, putting more vigor into his words as the Alpha continued his slow walk towards him.

"I speak for the entire council members!" He began to splutter, his hands moving wildly as the Alpha's aura got thick in the air, already bending people to their knees and making their skin prickle.

Standing right in front of Gerald, his face twisted into a grimace and a frown all at once, he asked in a low deep voice. "You speak for the entire council?"

"Ye...yessss." Suffocated by the Alpha's intense aura, Gerald's face began to redden but his legs wouldn't bend in submission no matter how hard he tried.

"I see." He drawled out before gently placing a hand on Gerald's shoulder, his eyes glinting with a murderous glare.

"We...we came to the conclusion that...that..."

"That?" He asked between his teeth, watching his council members closely as the man suddenly didn't want to talk, his eyes darting around for help.

"Most...most Alpha reject their mates and still get married to a befitting Luna." The man started in a strangled but still confident voice.

His hand on Gerald's shoulder began to tighten.

"And?" He forced out, his eyes beginning to glow.

"And we thought to give you Iris, the daughter of the late Zain and the sister to your gamma as a wife, a befitting Luna for the pack."

His eyes went out of focus as this council member grew bolder in his utterance.

Slowly letting go of his shoulder, he took two steps backwards releasing his suffocating aura on them.

"Iris." He called with a blank expression on his face and noted the glee in the faces of his council members.

Resisting the urge to scoff, he caught Iris rising to her feet, a slight blush on her cheeks as she bowed.

"Do you think you are fit to be my Luna?" He asked with a tone of disinterest even as he watched her blush deepen and her deadly aura melt into a coy one.

"Alpha, I..."

"Do you think you are better than my mate?" This time, he asked with a tinge of annoyance, cutting off her irritating coquettishness.

At his question, her eyes widened slightly and she forced a swallow down her throat.

"I..."

Fully sneering this time, he glared directly at her. "Do you think you are better than the mate handpicked by the moon goddess herself just because she is human!?"

His voice dropped and all color got drained from Iris' face as her eyes began to dart around.

"Alpha, you go too far!" Gerald butted in.

"We are your council members because it is our duty to lead you into the right part and correct your wrongs!"

This man was clearly pushing the line and recklessly biting more than he could chew.

"Is my mate the wrong part then?" He asked, turning his full attention to the man, his chest getting stuffy at the rejection from his council.

"She is a human and a weak one at that!" Gerald fired back, getting his courage from the sly devil beneath his feet.

The Alpha's eyes began to glow as he turned to face Gerald fully.

"What did you just say?" He asked slowly in a hiss.

"She is below the smallest member of our pack and isn't fit to be a pack member not to talk more of being Luna and leading us alongside you!"

A blanket of silence fell on the entire court room as the Alpha's eyes glowed even brighter but Gerald continued talking, his face twisted and his lips up in a sneer.

"You have to reject her and get married to Ir..."

A backhand from the Alpha across his cheeks threw him to his back.

"HOW DARE YOU!" The Alpha growled before hunching his back, his bones cracking and clothes tearing as he quickly morphed into his gigantic golden wolf.

With one powerful leap, he descended on the sprawled Gerald, clamped his teeth on his neck and tore it off in one sweeping movement, detaching his head from his body before tossing the head to the side.

Gerald's eyes were still wide with raw fear, his mouth frozen in a scream that never emerged as his detached head got drained of all colour.

Turning to look at his trembling council members all on their knees with head bent in submission, he mind linked them all.

[Let this be a warning!]

[My mate is equal to me and holds the same command as I do! You all will acknowledge her as your Luna even now!] He boomed in their heads, his black eyes flickering at the chattering of teeth around the court room.

[Anyone who dares to rebel against her will meet a worse fate.]

And with that, he disappears from sight only to appear right in front of her locked door.

Morphing back into his human form, he snapped his fingers and a maid morphed out of thin air with a clean cloth ready for him.

With a bow of her head, she dissolved back into the shadows.

He raised his hand to knock but paused on remembering the order he gave.

Suddenly, an intense bitterness crept up his chest. How could he be so heartless and demeaning towards his mate.

Pushing the door open with a stuffiness he couldn't describe, he burst into the room but stopped dead in his tracks.

His eyes wide and his heart beating really fast as he took in the scene before him.

Was this how it felt to be anxious? Heartbroken?

She laid painfully still, barely breathing with her hands cuffed to her back.

"Mate?" He called out but his voice came out shaky and breathy, startling the shit out of him.

He blinked but didn't waste time pondering on why he suddenly sounded so weak as he strode towards her.

Dropping to his knees, he touched the cuffs and unlocked it, breathing a sigh of relief as the metal thing fell to the floor with a clang.

"Number 3...shit! Mate?" He called gently, easing her hands back to her sides, rolling her to face him.

He shut his mouth against the growl rumbling in his chest at the metal gag he had commanded Iris to put on her.

How could he do this to her?

His hands hovered over her swollen face, his eyes going in and out of focus as he resisted the urge to touch her face when all he wanted to do right now is hold her in his arms.

Guilt. He felt it eat right into his heart.

How could he do this to his better half?

"Mate?" He called again and this time more firmly but her eyes remained shut.

Immediately touching her now bluish upper lip, the iron rod loosened slowly till it rolled off mouth, a drool of saliva going with it.

Without hesitation, he lined his slender fingers over her still parted lips before snapping his fingers in the air with enough energy that his wrist almost snapped.

"What is this?" He thundered the moment a maid materialized from the shadows.

"I do not understand what you ask of, Alpha."

"Shut the fuck up!" He growled, turning his neck to glare at the maid who stood a little behind him.

"Why wasn't she served?" He asked initially wanting it to be a yell but his voice broke as he looked back down at the weakened human in his hold.

"I am sorry Alpha but you asked her to be gagged and nobody can go against..."

"Fuck off and get me some water this instant!" He bellowed and the maid eased back into the shadows.

Carrying her gently from the cold floor, he placed her in the middle of the queen sized bed in the room before snapping his fingers in the air again.

"Get me a healer."

There was a knock on the door almost instantly.

"The healer is here, Alpha." The chubby woman with a permanently bent back hurried to his side but he just nodded at the lady on the bed.

"What are you still standing for?" He boomed.

"I can't heal humans." She bowed even lower.

Resisting the urge to kick something, he ordered in a forced low voice. "Then do something!"

"She just needs water, food and enough rest."

Snapping, he bent over and wrapped his hand around the healer's throat, his hiss of words following.

"What do you think you are doing?" He asked, glaring at her face.

"Telling you the truth." The healer replied calmly in a voice already used to the Alpha's explosive behaviour.

"How the fuck does she need water, food and rest if she is unconscious." He hissed right into her face forcing her to straighten her back to meet his now mismatched eyes.

Only then did the healer show a bit of fear, sweat trickling down her face.

"She is...not..." As if thinking better of it, the healer clamped her mouth shut.

"She is not what!? Speak!" His eyes blazed, squeezing even tighter as it darted back to the still body on the bed.

Opening her round eyes really wide as if it would stop her from choking to her death, the healer finally consented.

"SHE IS NOT UNCONSCIOUS." She blurted out loudly and hurriedly.

"What!?"

On hearing the woman's words, she squeezed her eyes tighter and grabbed the bedsheet like her life depended on it.

"You...Mate?" The terrorist called, his voice hardening.

Imagining his mismatched glowing eyes narrowing at her, her heart quivered as she struggled not to give herself out.

"How dare you lie to me!?" He thundered and she almost gave out a yelp, the air in the room pressing against her lungs.

"I would never tell such a lie, I swear it, Alpha." The woman's sure voice minutes ago began to tremble, sounding almost deprived of air.

She wanted to look, she wanted to confirm if he was actually choking her to death but she couldn't risk it, not yet.

She needed a medical personnel close to her so she could sneak some weapons into her clothes.

"Then prove it." His voice dropped and at the same time, she heard something hard hit the ground.

If her eyes weren't closed, it would have popped off her sockets.

Her military senses were all high on end and she could feel a set of intense eyes on her.

She struggled to keep still, not to let her lashes flutter, not to let her fingers twitch but how could she stop the perspiration from beading on her forehead?

Her trainers didn't get to that part of the training and she really needed to get out of here.

A chuckle made her almost jolt out of the bed.

It wasn't the fact that he was suddenly chuckling, but the fact that this dark pussy wetting chuckle was almost an inch from her ear.

"Hey mate?"

Her heart leaped right into her throat then dropped down to her belly.

"We can do all these dramatics later but right now, I need you to get your ass up and wet your lips."

Tears of frustration, shame and anger were minutes away from sliding down her cheeks.

She wanted to peek up at him and tell him to go fuck his mama's ass but held on to the faintest shed of hope she had.

Suddenly, sweet tingles spread all through her body, pooling at her chest.

Fuck this monster!

Extra concentration, more patience, she told herself. After all, she had done it before, just now.

But he didn't stop, she felt the tips of his fingers all over her face and down her neck.

STOP!

She had a hell of a fit in her head but he didn't stop, taking her limp hand in his and attacking every knuckle with the fluttering touch of his lips till it felt like her heart was about to combust.

But she endured it still, determined to escape this strangeness.

His smile against the palm of her hand when her lashes fluttered made her fight back a curse so hard that she grimaced.

"If I hadn't just torn off the head of one of my council members, I would have kissed you right on the lips."

What the...

She snatched her hand away from him so quickly that she forgot she was supposed to be unconscious.

The belly deep laughter from him made her tremble with fury. Enough fury to boil him alive.

This was kidnap! Against her human rights!

But she didn't think this terrorist would know that.

"Time's up mate, you have to gain some strength."

But she pressed her eyes shut, refusing to succumb to his order.

"Mate?" His voice turned frosty out of the blue and she felt her heart get sick with concern.

Fuck this cultist! He just messed with the workings of her heart, she knew it!

She knew that he did something to her mind. She wanted to scream, wanted to claw at herself for getting worried about it.

"If you don't open your eyes at this moment..." He paused, his threat hanging in the air.

She tensed, her muscles going stiff as she felt her heart about to stop beating.

The image of him punching the sexy guy in the nose chose that moment to surface in her head and she felt herself swallow, almost feeling suffocated.

What would he do to her?

Drive a knife through her skull?

Dig out her eyes?

Set a fire around her bed till she got suffocated by the smoke or get roasted like a pig?

Each horrible thought created a graphic image she couldn't stomach.

Wait? Why was she still thinking? Why wasn't he saying something?

And just then, she realized that she had all her thoughts displayed on her face.

FUUUUUCCCCCKKKK!!!

She truly felt the tears bubble from her tear duct.

"If you don't open your eyes at this moment, I will kiss the hell out of your blue lips till it regains its colour."

The fuck!