The Defiant Omega's Secret Contract of Rejection

Annette POV:

The heavy oak door of the shrine slammed open.

The sound was a physical blow, a violation. It ripped through the sacred silence I had so carefully constructed. Cold wind rushed in, carrying the metallic tang of blood and damp earth, guttering the candle flames I had just lit for my mother.

A tall silhouette stood against the harsh afternoon light, a figure I knew as well as my own heartbeat. Creed Wright, my mate.

His knight-aspirant training leathers were stained with mud and what looked like fresh blood. In his arms, he held another warrior, slighter in build, their helmeted head lolling against his chest. Unconscious.

My heart seized. I had been kneeling on the velvet cushion, gently polishing the obsidian memorial tablet of my mother, Eleonora Allison. The silk cloth in my hand stilled. I instinctively straightened my back, shielding the tablet with my body as if it were my mother herself.

I looked at Creed, searching his face for an apology, for any sign that he recognized the sanctity of this place.

There was none. His blue eyes, the same eyes that once looked at me with adoration, were now filled with a frantic impatience that cut me deeper than any blade. He didn't see a shrine. He didn't see me. He saw only an obstacle.

"Annette!" His voice was a command, not a request. "Stop kneeling! Get over here! Savage is seriously injured!"

Savage.

That name again. His "comrade-in-arms,"a rogue warrior of unknown origins who had joined the knighthood six months ago. The one he spent more time with than me, his own mate.

I rose to my feet, my legs stiff. The cold from the stone floor seeped through the thin soles of my slippers. "Creed," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "This is my mother's memorial shrine. Not your battlefield infirmary."

He frowned, as if I were the one being unreasonable. "I know that, but it's an emergency! 'He' needs treatment, right now!"

He strode into the shrine, his heavy boots echoing on the sacred stones. He was heading for the long, narrow table where I had laid out offerings of incense and white lilies. He was going to put that bloody body on my mother's altar.

"Don't you dare!" The shriek tore from my throat, raw and unfamiliar. I lunged forward, spreading my arms to block his path, to protect the altar.

The sudden move caught him off guard. He stopped short, and the person in his arms let out a pained groan.

"Annette, are you insane? Move!" Creed's face twisted with anger.

"You're the one who's insane!" My voice trembled with a rage I hadn't known I possessed. "Do you intend to defile my mother's resting place with a stranger covered in blood?"

Pippa, my loyal maid, rushed to my side, her small frame trembling before the force of Creed's Alpha presence, but her eyes glaring at him with defiance.

"I don't have time to argue with you!" Creed growled, his patience gone.

He tried to shove me aside with one arm while still cradling the warrior with the other. I grabbed his arm, my nails digging into the hard leather of his vambrace. "There are a dozen empty rooms in this castle! Why here?"

In our struggle, the body in his arms shifted. The helmet, already loose, wobbled precariously.

Desperate to get past me, Creed wrenched his arm free. The force of it sent me stumbling backward, my shoulder slamming into the cold, unyielding stone wall.

And at that same moment, the warrior's helmet clattered to the floor.

Time stopped.

A waterfall of pale, golden hair spilled out, cascading over the shoulders of the warrior's uniform.

In the flickering candlelight, the face, smudged with dirt and blood, was revealed. Delicate, feminine features. A soft, full mouth.

My breath hitched. My eyes widened in disbelief.

Coralie Savage... was a woman.

Creed froze, his body rigid. The anger on his face melted into shock, then into pure, unadulterated panic.

I lifted my head, my gaze traveling over that unfamiliar female face to lock onto Creed's. I saw the terror in his eyes. I saw the way he instinctively moved, as if to hide her, but it was too late.

A cold, horrifying truth exploded in my mind.

He had been lying to me.

He knew. He had always known the "brother-in-arms" he cherished so much was a woman.