Chapter 120: _ My Rogue Mate

I pulled my woolen cloak tighter around my shoulders, slipping through the dark arches of the alcove behind the old clock tower. I avoided every torch-lit corridor, dodging two passing squads of Discipline Wardens with the practiced stealth of a shadow.

I knew he would be here. He was always here.

Corvus d’Vael was the most pathetic creature in the entire realm. Ever since my first year when we first felt the spark of a fated mate bond, he had haunted this abandoned corner of the academy like a loyal, beaten dog waiting for a bone.

The Flame God had a sick sense of humor. Binding a Princess of the Dragon Realm to a boy whose family made their living hammering iron in Cindervale was an insult. But while the gods controlled who received a mate bond, I controlled whether I accepted it.

I had denied Corvus for a whole year. He had begged me, pleaded with me, practically laid his neck under my boots for a single bite, wanting nothing more than to sink his fangs into my skin and seal our souls forever.

I had taken his body in the dark whenever I was bored or needed a release from the pressure of court life, but I never gave him my mark. I was never going to make him my prince. My heart, my future, and my soul belonged to Remus. Corvus was merely a tool—a secret, dirty little weapon to be ordered around and punished when he failed.

I stepped through the archway, catching sight of him standing near the crumbling stone balustrade. He was staring out into the foggy courtyard, rubbing his arms against the cold, looking so hopeless that the sight temporarily soothed the blinding rage sizzling in my veins.

Look at him, I thought with a cold smirk. Worshipping the floor I walk on.

Corvus turned. The moment his eyes caught mine, his entire face lit up with a pathetic burst of joy.

"Vaela!" he gasped, rushing toward me before I could even take another step.

He grabbed my waist, pulling me against his chest, and slammed his lips onto mine in a starved kiss. He tasted of rain and cedar, his hands trembling against my back as if he couldn’t believe I was actually standing in front of him.

I let him kiss me for two seconds before I shoved him off me, wiping my mouth with the back of my leather glove.

"Touch me like that again without permission, iron-smith, and I’ll have your fingers cut off!"

Corvus flinched, stepping back, but a hopeful, foolish smile still lingered on his lips. "I’m sorry. I just... I’ve been waiting for hours. I was afraid you were angry with me after what happened yesterday..."

"Angry?" I let out a hysterical laugh that echoed off the damp stone walls. "Angry doesn’t even begin to cover it, Corvus! You ruined everything! You completely botched the entire plan!"

Corvus’s brows drew together in confusion. "What are you talking about, Vaela? I did exactly what you asked! You wanted the markless commoner humiliated in front of the whole school, and that’s what I did! The entire Quadrangle watched her getting taken in the cloister! It doesn’t matter who she was with—the whole academy sees her as a whore now!"

"Are you completely brain-dead?!" I shrieked, taking a furious step toward him and poking him hard in the chest. "She was with Prince Ivar, you incompetent ape! She wasn’t dragged out in chains with a common-born Cindervale boy like we planned! She was claimed! Marked! Prince Ivar froze a third-year’s legs in the courtyard today and declared her a future Queen of the Wolf Realm! My plan didn’t ruin her... it bloody crowned her!"

Corvus swallowed hard, stepping back as I towered over him with unbridled fury. "Vaela, listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me!" I barked, my blood boiling beyond all rational control. "I gave you one simple task! One! And you ruined my chance to wipe that trench rat out of Remus’s life!"

Without thinking, driven by the humiliation of Remus’s rejection in our quarters, I raised my right hand and delivered a blinding SLAP straight across Corvus’s face.

CRACK.

The sound echoed in the secluded alcove. Corvus’s head snapped to the side.

I waited for him to drop to his knees. I waited for him to apologize, to whimper, to beg for my forgiveness like he always did whenever I lashed out.

He didn’t.

Instead, silence fell over the alcove. Slowly, Corvus raised his hand, brushing his fingers over his reddened cheek. When he turned his head back to face me, something in his eyes had terrifyingly changed.

The desperate dog was gone. In his place stood a man whose gaze had turned into pure determination.

I took an involuntary half-step back and a sudden prickle of unease kissed the back of my neck. "Corvus...?"

"I have taken everything from you, Vaela," Corvus said. His voice wasn’t rising. It was lower, deeper, and far more menacing than I had ever heard it in twelve months. "I let you treat me like dirt. I let you call my family blacksmiths. I let you sneak me into dark corners like a dirty secret and throw me away when you were done. I took it all because I loved you. Because I thought if I served you faithfully, you would eventually see me."

He took a slow step toward me. The air in the alcove grew suffocating under the pressure of his dragon mana.

"I can take your temper. I can take your cruelty. But what I will not take... is watching you be so condescending to me because of another man. Not to mention a prince."

My breath hitched, but I forced my chin up, desperately trying to maintain my dominance. "Don’t you dare speak to me in that tone! I am a Princess of the Dragon Realm, and you are a—"

"I am your fated mate!" Corvus roared, stepping right into my space.

I gasped, stumbling back until my spine slammed hard against the pillar.

"It’s always the royal boys, isn’t it?!" Corvus sneered, towering over me, his broad shoulders blocking out the dim moonlight. "That’s why you refuse to accept our bond! That’s why you’ve kept me hidden in the dark for months! Because you’re holding out hope, aren’t you? You think if you wait long enough, one of those arrogant royal bastards is going to look at you and put a crown on your head! You want to dump me for a prince!"