“W-what’re you doing?” Despite me being indifferent to him, our bond was something that had turned into an inescapable cage, and it frightened me. Neither his hold nor his gaze softened. Xerxes watched the eerie and tensing of my body by his touch as my eyes notice the shake of his hands and the tight clench of his jaw. He didn’t like the fact that I insulted him by defying him in front of his wolves. I swallowed my fear of him to punish me and expanded the safe zone for myself, to not become the woman he could scare anymore.

“Why must you defy me, Katarina?” I glared at...