Chapter 85. The Sacred Link

He nodded, sipping again from the bottle with casual indifference. “She would never run, never disobey me. She agreed to comply, wherever and whenever I wanted her. I had everything I wanted—except her complete surrender. She made me work for that, too.”

Tears pooled in my eyes. My vision blurred as I finally understood the depths of her sacrifice. All those times she had vanished for hours, the secrecy and the hushed whispers when I was too little to comprehend. I had never questioned her. How could I have been so blind?

I forced myself to speak, though my words shook with fury and grief. “How could you do that to her? Rape her like that?” My voice rose an octave, the four-letter word of violation burning on my tongue. The enormity of the horror she’d endured came crashing down on me, making me choke on my own breath.

He regarded me with something like exasperation, then answered calmly, as if describing the weather. “Natalie was my mate. I took what belonged to m