OLEANDER
The moment I stepped into the room, I felt it, a presence that wasn’t mine.
My breath hitched.
I turned quickly to leave, but a hand caught mine in the dark, tugging hard.
Then, slam.
My back hit the wall beside the door, and I gasped, arching from the impact.
“Dante?” I stammered, my stomach twisting into knots.
He said nothing.
But I could smell him.
His cologne filters through the stale air.
Rich, clean, expensive.
It was nothing like anything or anyone else around here.
And then there was him.
His aura.
Masculine.
Overpowering.
It weakened my knees.
But the real question was, what was he doing in my room?
“In case you forgot,” he rasped, “this is my place. I can go wherever I want.”
He leaned in close.
Instinctively, I raised my hand to keep some space between us, but he caught it.
Then the other, pinning both above my head in one firm grip.
I shivered.
His breath ghosted across my neck—hot, minty, maddening.
No.
It shouldn’t be.
I hated this man.
I couldn’t understand what I was feeling.
Was it desire?
The heat swirling in the pit of my stomach, now pooling between my legs?
Definitely not.
There was no way in hell I would feel something like that for him.
I had planned to kill him, and I wasn’t backing down now.
It didn’t help that my body was currently betraying me, reacting on its own.
“What are you doing to me, Oleander?” His voice was dark.
I wished I could see his expression, but the room was so dim I could barely make out the furniture.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Why do you smell like…mate?” he grunted.
His nose slid into my hair, along my neck, across every damned inch of my face, sniffing like I was something warm and freshly baked.
Then he kissed my neck, slow and deliberate, nibbling at the sensitive skin there.
I winced when his teeth grazed it.
Did he just bite me?
“You are my second-chance mate, Oleander.”
“Mate?” I asked when I finally found my voice.
What the hell was he talking about?
What did mate even mean?
Dante didn’t stop.
He continued his assault on my neck before his hand came up to my cheek, guiding my face toward his.
Our lips hovered dangerously close.
I pressed mine together, teeth clenched.
My voice sounded too small, too weak.
“Let you go?” he scoffed, like the idea was ridiculous.
“Not when you smell like that.”
I didn’t even want to ask what he meant.
Dante was acting really strange.
If I hadn’t seen him murder my family with my own eyes, I might’ve thought he was just misunderstood, maybe even soft-spoken, or worse, caring.
But I had seen him.
I knew what he was.
A thick silence stretched between us.
Neither of us spoke.
Just breathing.
Listening.
Thinking.
Then Dante broke it.
“Mate?” He scoffed, like the very word offended him.
His grip released me, and a soft click sounded nearby.
Suddenly, light flooded the room.
I flinched, eyes clenching shut against the brightness.
Slowly, I blinked through the blinding white, trying to adjust.
My room, or rather, the room Dante had shoved me into, was in complete disarray.
Clothes were scattered across the floor like debris from a storm.
The mattress was torn open, foam spilling out.
Furniture overturned.
And on the wooden coffee table sat a still-burning cigar, smoke curling lazily into the air.
My stomach dropped.
I lunged toward it, grabbing the cigar and shoving it into the ashtray.
My eyes widened as I spotted the black, charred circle it had already burned into the table.
I turned to him.
What the hell was wrong with this man?
His eyes were bloodshot.
Hair messy.
His shirt was half untucked and clinging to his chest like he’d barely remembered to dress.
He looked wild.
Wrecked.
And somehow infuriatingly hot.
Dante could make anything look good, even when unraveling.
“Selene must be kidding me,” he snarled, his voice like gravel grinding against steel.
“How can she be my fucking mate?”
He jabbed a finger in my direction, his face twisted in fury.
“Her father ruined me,” he spat, “and now the goddess dares to tie me to her? Fine. Then watch me send her back in pieces.”
A chill ripped down my spine.
The darkness in his voice wasn’t a threat.
It was a promise.
Before I could move, he was on me.
I barely had time to blink before his hand clamped around my wrist and he threw me down onto the bed.
My breath left my lungs in a gasp.
I scrambled to get up, legs shaking, instincts screaming to run.
But Dante moved like a shadow, faster than anything I’d ever seen.
I lunged for the door.
Too late.
He was already there. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
He tossed me back onto the bed.
In an instant, my hands were tied, and my mouth was gagged.
Dante yanked off his shirt, then his belt, then his pants.
My breath locked in my throat, eyes bulging as I saw him for the first time.
He was freaking huge!
Too huge for a normal human being.
How the fuck had I taken such the first time?
Now, I think landing in the hospital right after it was justifying.
Dante palmed his cock that grew longer and stronger by the seconds.
“I am going to fuck you until all I hear is you whimpering and calling my name. But mating with you? Never!”
“I…I…” I choked on my breath, shaking my head frantically as he slid into bed with me.
He spread my legs apart, moving in between them.
“Please…!” Tears gathered in my eyes.
I thought of what Hex had told me earlier.
Even though I had no intention of obeying something as ridiculous as that, I swear I didn’t defy him.
I hadn’t done anything to do so.
“Stop moving bitch,” he growled, teasing himself at my entrance.
“I don’t want it,” I whimpered.
But all my pleas fell on deaf ears as he pushed into me.
I bit hard inside my cheek to stop from screaming at the invasion, and tears rolled down my cheeks profusely.
Dante grunted, adjusting himself.
He yanked off the gag and ordered in a cold voice.
“Moan.”
My lower lip quivered, and I stared up at him defiantly.
“You are a disgusting man.”
“You don’t want to?” He snarled.
“Then I’d force the words out of your mouth.”
About to speak, Dante pressed his hand around my throat, cutting off my air.
Involuntarily, I gasped for breath, struggling underneath him.
But he didn’t let go.
“I can never accept you as my mate. Not when your father carved a deep hole in my chest. Not when you have his blood and share every bit of his DNA. By the goddess,” he growled, thrusting even deeper.
“I’d make sure to settle the score as long as you are alive.”
My head reeled from the torture.
He kept fucking me like an animal in a rut.
Sweat from his face dropped down my body.
His face twisted as he was consumed with pleasure.
Or maybe it was anger.
I couldn’t tell.
Dante stilled above me, and I felt his cock pulsing, my pussy clenching around him, milking him as he released.
His seed was hot inside me.
“Disgusting,” Dante said as he pulled away.
I stumbled out of bed, a duvet clutch around me, and darted towards the room’s corner.
Nausea rose in my throat, and I forced it back down, sliding down the length of the wall.
“Why?” I let out in a shaky voice.
“Why me?”
Dante ignored me, walking into the bathroom.
He returned a while later, slid into his clothes, and left the room.
I watched dazedly at where he had been.
There was no escaping from this abuse.