Chapter 104: _ You’re My Mate

“A hypocrite,” he repeated plainly, leaning down slightly so his sharp face was inches from mine. “My mind compulsion is sloppy. It lasts twenty-four hours at best. I compelled you because I panicked by how ridiculously soft I got with you in that fucking draining! It was only supposed to buy me a single day to figure out what the hell to do with you.”

He took another step, trapping me against the stone wall.

“If my compulsion lasted almost a week,” Ivar whispered, his emerald eyes darkening, “it’s because you wanted it to. You let it stay. You didn’t want to remember because you were terrified of what it meant.”

“That is ridiculous!” I yelled, my breath coming fast and shallow. “What is that supposed to mean?!”

“It means you rejected the obvious, Petal. It means I kissed you, and you liked it, and your brain tried to run away from it.” He stated bluntly.

Bloody arse!

I stood there, completely speech-bound. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I stared at him in stupefaction.

Did he really just say that out loud?!

Before I could find a witty comeback to save my dignity, Ivar straightened up, turning toward the stone laundry chute tucked into the alcove. He casually tossed my bundle of dirty clothes into the dark opening, listening to them slide down into the lower washbasins.

I stood there dealing with my brain that was scrambling to process the arrogance of his words. My pounding heart warred with the heat blooming in my chest.

As we turned to walk back toward the main cloister, Ivar broke the silence again.

“I heard Zevaranthius came to see you two days ago.”

I blinked, thrown off by the sudden subject change. “Prince Zev? Yes, he dropped by before class. What about it?”

“Don’t talk to him again,” the Wolf Prince ordered flatly.

The sudden authoritative command set my temper off all over again. I stopped walking, planting my heels into the stone floorboards. “Excuse me?!”

Ivar paused, turning his head to look back at me. “You heard me. Stay away from the Tiger.”

“Why?!” I demanded, crossing my arms tight over my chest as the anger surged back to the surface. “Who gave you the right to order me around like I’m your personal property?! First you kiss my forehead, then you erase my mind, then you act as if you own me when you catch me speaking to Raice, and now you’re telling me who I can and can’t talk to?! You don’t own me, Prince Ivar!”

Something in Ivar snapped. I heard it… impossible as it sounds.

The arrogant but calm composure he had maintained completely shattered. I had never seen a man lose his cool so violently fast.

In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance between us. He grabbed my waist, shoving me back into the shadowed, ivy-draped alcove at the end of the cloister, pinning my back against the cold wall.

“BECAUSE I DO!” Ivar roared, his voice dropping into a feral snarl that vibrated straight through the stone behind my head.

I gasped, my hands flying up to press against his broad chest as he lowered his hood with a violent jerk of his arm.

His face was flushed, his jaw tight, his heterochromatic eyes burning with a possessive frenzy I had never seen in any being before.

“I own you, Elira! Can’t you see it?!” Ivar growled, his hands gripping my waist so tightly his fingers dug through the fabric of Miriel’s blue tunic. “You are my mate! The moment I laid eyes on you, my wolf snapped! It left me completely disoriented, terrified, and out of my mind! I tried to erase it; I tried to run from it, but I don’t give a damn anymore!”

The world stopped.

The air left my lungs in a single, painful gasp. The words echoed through my brain, shattering every piece of denial I had built up over the past weeks.

His mate.

Bren was right. The theory wasn’t just a crazy idea from a romance scroll. It was real. The wire in my ribs, the suffocating pull, the irresistible ache… it was the mate-bond. And unlike the others, wolf bonds were legendarily stronger, more feral, and far more uncompromising than any other mate bonds.

That was why he was surrendering to it so violently now.

Ivar’s calloused fingers cupped the side of my neck, his thumb pressing right over my pulse. I could feel the maelstrom of desire and magic exploding from his skin directly into mine, making my knees buckle beneath me.

“Tell me you don’t feel it. Tell me your soul isn’t screaming for me right now. Lie to me, Elira.” Ivar whispered, his breath hot against my lips as he stepped closer, pressing his broad body against mine until there wasn’t a single inch of space left between us.

I couldn’t. I couldn’t fight it, and I had no reason to. The intoxication of the bond was too strong, sweeping over my rational mind.

“I… I feel it,” I stammered, and as if they had been waiting for this all of their lives, my fingers tangled into the soft fabric of his shirt.

Ivar’s eyes flared. He lowered his face until his lips brushed against mine, teasingly soft. “What does that make us, Petal?”

“Mates,” I breathed, my eyes fluttering shut as a shiver wrecked through my body.

“A mate-bond isn’t complete until I mark you,” Ivar growled softly against my mouth, his hand sliding down to drag my hips tighter against his. “Once my mark is on your skin, every other man in this godforsaken academy will know you belong to the Wolf Realm. They will have to back off.”

I opened my mouth to tell him he wasn’t the only one—to scream that Raice and the others were tied to me too—but the overwhelming, feral haze wiped every logical thought straight from my head.

I lost my mind completely.

“Then what’s stopping you?” I whispered recklessly into his mouth.

Ivar let out a dangerous laugh that sent shivers straight down my spine.

“Last warning, petal,” he purred against my lips, his grip on my waist tightening as he lifted me slightly off the ground. “I am going to take you right against this wall.”

Instead of pulling away, I went up on my tiptoes, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pulled his mouth down to mine.