Chapter 66: ⁶⁶: Dark Magic.

Athena’s POV

I looked at Kael, my smile slowly fading. I was feeling like something had changed about him. I couldn’t explain what it was, but something was there.

The way he was behaving now seemed completely different from the way he had acted during our previous meetings. Before, there had been an ease between us, an almost effortless understanding whenever we were alone.

But now... He seemed distant, reserved, cold.

What had changed?

"Why do I feel like you’re acting differently, Kael?" I suddenly asked, my thoughts escaping before I could stop them.

The moment the words left my mouth, I wanted to face-palm myself.

Why had I asked that?

We were bound just by an agreement, nothing more. I had no right to question his behavior or expect him to treat me a certain way.

And, just as I had expected, he looked at me with an unreadable expression.

"Am I?" He scoffed, almost as though he found my question amusing. "I think the way I’m behaving right now is exactly how we should behave."

I stared into his eyes. The warmth and faint glint I had become accustomed to seeing whenever we were alone were gone. His eyes were cold. The same coldness he showed everyone else.

I was still trying to understand what had happened when he suddenly caught my hand and pulled me toward him.

I collided with his chest. My breath caught.

"We just have an agreement which requires us to be intimate without any strings attached."

He slowly reached up and tucked a loose strand of my wet hair behind my ear. There was something unsettling about the way he looked at me, something that sent a chill down my spine.

"Don’t forget what this is," he said quietly. "We have an agreement. Nothing more."

I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong. That was all we had ever promised each other.

Yet until now, I had felt that there was an easygoing understanding between us. Whatever this arrangement was, neither of us had treated it as something that needed to be constantly defined.

But looking at him now, I realized that something had changed.

"Which means," he continued, his voice growing colder, "I don’t have to pretend that there’s anything more between us. I dont have to care about my behaviour with you" He bent down his lips near mine " You are just my cock slave Athena moonvel nothing more, my breeding vessel which I will use and discard once I get my heir."

My heart turned cold. Something about the way he said it made me question my decisions for a brief moment. Who was real? The Kael from just hours ago or the Kael infront of me right now?

But just as quickly as those thoughts appeared, I pushed them away. Whatever was going through his mind didn’t concern me. The only thing that mattered was making sure our agreement remained intact.

"I know, Alpha," I said back to him.

I held his gaze, refusing to let him see the effect his words had on me. "I know exactly what I am to you. I know I am just your breeding vessel, and I like it. If it is the price for being yours then I can be anything."

I forced a small smile. " I’m willing to accept anything."

I took a deep breath as I felt his grip tighten around my waist. "Your breeding vessel, your cock slave, your slut whatever you want to call me."

My hands trembled at my sides as I said those words, but I refused to let it show on my face.

Nothing was going to faze me; not his harshness, not his coldness, not the way he seemed determined to remind me that, to him, I was nothing more than part of an agreement.

Before I could say anything else, Kael pulled me closer. I gasped in surprise as I felt his lips on mine.

There was nothing gentle about the gesture, not just a teasing nibble. It was impulsive and heated, it felt feral, forcefull, lustfull fueled by all the tension that had been building between us.

His hand moved to the back of my head as he held me close deepening the kiss, our lips interviening like they wanted to be one, the taste of medicine that I had on them, metalic and sour mingled into our mouths and stinged my tongue. I instinctively pushed against his chest, but he didn’t immediately let me go pulling me even more closer.

I moved my hands aswell holding his shirt in a tight grip with one hand while the other went up feeling his back muscles in the process before I slipped my fingers in his hair as well trying to deepen the kiss even more.

I was feeling my legs tremble at the way Kael devoverd me when pain suddenly shot through my already injured lip. Without any warning, he had bit my already injured lip. Overwhelmed by the pain I bit his lip back, once and hard, not leaving it till I felt the taste of his blood on my tongue.

He also didn’t back down, his hand which had been on my waist till now moved up before he palmed my breast giving it a harsh squeeze.

I flinched and pulled back, my eyes filled with anger.

"Kael!"

The sharp sting made my eyes water. My mind was already overwhelmed when I noticed something strange.

The pain in my injured lip was disappearing. Not fading gradually. It was vanishing. I touched my lip in confusion. The soreness I’d been feeling only moments ago was completely gone. Was it his Alpha blood? Could his blood really have healed my wound that quickly?

I barely had time to process the thought before Kael pulled me closer again.

As if fueled by my defiance Kael suddenly turned more feral, he slipped his fingers through my hair slipping his tongue into my mouth before I could even comprehend it.

The sudden movement made me lose my balance. We stumbled backward and fell onto my bed. The old wooden frame groaned loudly beneath our combined weight.

Pain immediately shot through my back. My eyes widened. My wound. I’d completely forgotten that the injury on my back and abdomen were not covered.

Panic rushed through me. No, I couldn’t let this continue. Not with my wound in this condition.

But the way Kael held me, not giving me a second to even breath I don’t know how that was possible.

My mind was in panic when a knock suddenly sounded against my bedroom door. "Athena, are you okay? What was that noise?"

I froze. It was the pack-house manager.

Another knock sounded. "I already ignored another loud noise from your room earlier but now I am worried. Are you all right?"

My heart began pounding. Kael still didn’t care. I desperately needed to get him away from me before the manager opened that door.

Because if she walked in now, there was no way I could explain what was happening.

Without thinking any further, I pushed Kael away from me and quickly got off the bed. I turned toward the door, trying to steady my breathing.

"I’m fine, Miss Renee! I was just cleaning my furniture!" I called out, my heart pounding as I prayed she wouldn’t insist on coming inside to check on me and also thankful that she had interfeared at the right moment.

Thankfully, she didn’t ask to come inside.

"Okay, then," she replied through the door. "Just make sure you do it quietly from now on. Don’t disturb your neighbors."

"Okay, Miss Renee."

I waited until I heard her footsteps disappear before finally turning back toward the bed.

Kael was already standing. The bite mark I had left on his lip had completely healed, proving once again just how powerful his wolf’s healing abilities were.

Seeing it only made me miss Anna even more. I lowered my gaze, trying to push the thought away.

"We’ll have to change this," Kael muttered under his breath, but I still heard it.

I frowned. "What do you have to change?"

I had no idea what he was referring to, but Kael didn’t answer.

Instead, he ran a hand through his hair and took a step toward me.

The moment I looked at him again, that cold expression had returned to his face, the same expression he’d been wearing since the moment he’d entered my room.

"Athena, something strange happened today." His eyes moved between mine as though he were trying to read my thoughts.

"I was reading an ancient book, and do you know what I found in it?"

I stared at him in confusion. How was I supposed to know what he’d found? "What did you find?" I asked anyway, already knowing that was the answer he wanted from me.

His cold eyes remained fixed on mine. For several seconds, he said nothing. Then he finally spoke.

"Dark magic."

My heart skipped a beat.