Chapter 42: My property

Magnus had been staring at his phone the entire time, but now he lifted his eyes to mine and stood up in complete silence. Standing there, he looked brutally out of place in the room I shared with Annie. Too broad, too dangerous, too massive for such a confined space.

Before he invaded it, I had never realized just how small this dorm was. For him, it was a toy box.

He crossed the floor in two measured strides and dropped onto a flimsy wooden chair with the cold aura of a monarch taking his throne. His eyes flicked briefly toward the steaming tea and the slice of pie, but he didn’t move a muscle to touch them. He just stared, waiting for me to speak, until the pressure in the room made my stomach twist into knots.

"S-so... I’ve been thinking a lot about our situation," I began, picking my words with agonizing care so as not to set him off. "And I’m certain that you, just like me, aren’t exactly thrilled about the bond that forced us together."

He let out a low, mocking scoff. Leaning an elbow on the table, he rested his temple against his knuckles. His dark eyes dragged across my face like a razor—sharp, slicing, leaving invisible cuts in their wake.

"Understatement of the century, breeder."

"I didn’t want this bond either. Especially not with you," I blurted out.

The words escaped before I could filter them, and regret slammed into me instantly as his eyes darkened to a terrifying pitch.

"And who did you want it with?" he purred softly, danger lacing every syllable.

"No one. I didn’t want a bond with anyone."

It was the unvarnished truth. I had mapped out my entire future—a quiet life without mates, without feral instincts, and without the suffocating vulnerability of a bond.

"You’re wasting my time with meaningless chatter, Lang," Magnus growled, rising from the chair in one fluid, imposing motion. "We are bound by this fucking mark, and nothing is going to change that."

Instinct took over, and I scrambled back two paces, putting distance between us. Every cell in my body was screaming at me to run.

"I have a proposition!" I stammered, holding my hands up defensively. "I... I propose we keep the bond a secret. We pretend we’re complete strangers and go our separate ways."

He froze mid-step, his expression darkening into something lethal. The muscle along his jawline flexed so hard I could see his teeth grinding beneath his skin.

"Repeat that."

"I’m proposing we forget about the bond and live our own lives," I repeated, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the hem of my oversized t-shirt.

I prayed with everything I had that he would agree. It made absolute sense for him. Why bother carrying around an unawakened, penniless, ordinary breeder when he could just walk away?

"Lang," Magnus said, his voice terrifyingly calm as he took a slow step toward me. "Were you dropped on your head as a child? Or did someone just beat the sense out of you?"

"Why would you say that?!" I snapped, my brows furrowing.

"Because you clearly don’t use the brain inside your skull. You are my bredder."

A wave of humiliation scorched my cheeks. He thought I was stupid, but I wasn’t. I was offering a clean, logical exit that benefited us both, and I couldn’t comprehend why he was stubbornly fighting it. He clearly didn’t care about me.

"But we aren’t compatible at all! You know that as well as I do!"

"Compatibility is irrelevant," he growled, closing the remaining distance until he loomed directly over me, his shadow swallowing me whole. "You don’t need to match me, Lang. You need to obey me. You are my property, plain and simple. The sooner you accept that, the less miserable your life will be. Just do as you’re told, and you won’t get hurt."

His words hit me like a bucket of freezing water. The harsh reality settled in: to him, I wasn’t a living being with thoughts, feelings, or a soul. I was a possession to be claimed and controlled.

"Well, I refuse!" I yelled back, my voice trembling with a mix of fury and fear. "I am an actual person, not a thing! I don’t care what kind of sick dynamic you had in your past—I am not going to be your obedient little doll. I had a life and plans of my own before you barged into it!"

Magnus closed the distance with a slow, agonizing deliberation, forcing me back toward the edge of the bed. He was stalking me like a predator herding its prey into a dead end. With every word that spilled from my mouth, the tension in his broad shoulders coiled tighter, his fists clenching until his knuckles turned bone-white.

"Let’s just forget each other!" I pleaded, my voice rising in a desperate rush. "What if this bond really is a mistake? You already had a fated mate, which means our mark makes no sense! What if the clinic mixed up the results, or—"

Before I could finish the sentence, he lunged forward.

A high-pitched squeal tore from my throat as I scrambled sideways toward the wall, trying to dodge his reach. It was a fatal mistake. My foot caught the trailing hem of the heavy window curtain, and a loud, sickening tear echoed through the room.

In the next split second, Magnus’s massive body slammed into mine, shoving me hard against the wall. A sharp CRACK exploded above us, followed by a shower of falling plaster and dust.

I blinked furiously, my lungs burning as I coughed against the cloud of drywall. Magnus let out a long, ragged exhale above me. When I finally forced my eyes open and looked up, my heart stopped.

He was holding the heavy steel curtain rod in his bare palm. It had been ripped completely out of the concrete header, bent into a jagged V.

He had caught it with a single hand—a hand now slicked with a thin, crimson streak of blood where the sharp metal bracket had sliced into his skin. He had blocked the impact. If he hadn’t shielded me, that solid iron pole would have crushed my skull.

I stood there, paralyzed, unable to process the fact that he had instinctively thrown his own body in harm’s way to take the blow for me.

Magnus slowly shifted his dark gaze up toward the gaping hole in the wall, where fine white dust was still trickling down onto the floorboards.

"You are a fucking disaster, breeder," he muttered, a note of grim, fatalistic exhaustion lacing his deep voice.