Bonds

-Maya's POV-

The door clicked shut behind Ms. Edwards, leaving a heavy silence in its wake. Relief washed over me, momentarily pushing aside the tangled emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface. I glanced at Alex who still wore that annoying smirk on his face ever since i sat in this office.

Wipe that smug grin off your face. There's nothing funny about this situation." I crossed my arms and glared at him.

Now, with just the two of us in the room, the weight of the situation settled on my shoulders. The initial shock of seeing Alex had given way to a complex mix of anger, frustration, and... dare I say it... a flicker of something else. When we were married, I was keen on letting him have his space even though I had wanted to make changes here, I had let it be but now? I was eager, maybe a little bit too eager.

"I wasn't smiling," Alex replied but he still had that smug look on his face. I knew he was somehow responsible for it.

"This was your doing wasn't it?" I pointed between the two of us, "Hiring the company I just got a job in to redesign your company."

He scoffed in his usual arrogant manner, "Don't flatter yourself Amaya. Not everything revolves around you."

His arrogance had been one of my favorite things back then but now, it just grated in my nerves. What annoyed me even more was that my wolf was purring, very happy to be near him again, acting like he had not been an asshole to us over the last four years and then what he did when I got arrested. I suddenly remembered my conversation, the words echoing in my head, I should never have told him I was still in love with him. And the worst part? A part of me still craved it. It was a maddening contradiction. He was just so infuriating that I wanted to pull my hair out and scream.

"Look," I said, pushing the jumble of emotions aside for now. "Let's just get back to why I'm here. The redesigns." I forced myself to focus, arranging the design plans on the table in a show of professionalism.

He stood abruptly, his movement so sudden it took me by surprise. "Where are you going?" I blurted out, momentarily thrown off balance.

"Out," he replied curtly, a bored undertone to his voice.

"What do you mean out?" My voice rose in disbelief. "We're in the middle of a meeting!"

"I have places to be," he continued, his tone dismissive. "And I'm not in the mood to continue talking to you if you're just going to accuse me of things." He paused, a flicker of something dark crossing his face. Then, under his breath, he muttered, "Maybel should have let you stay in that prison cell longer. Perhaps it would have fixed your attitude."

My breath hitched. His words were a slap in the face. The anger that had been simmering within me erupted in a fiery blaze. I shot up from my chair, knocking it over in the process.

"What did you just say?" My voice was a low growl, laced with a dangerous edge. My fists clenched at my sides, and my wolf thrashed. He had said the wrong thing, she couldn't lie still for that.

He met my gaze, his expression devoid of any remorse. Instead, his jaw tightened, his features hardening into an emotionless mask. "You heard me. Ever since you came back, it's been nothing but chaos. Why couldn't you just stay gone?"

His words felt like a physical blow, the air knocked out of my lungs.

"Three years!" I roared, my voice hoarse with barely restrained emotion. "You threw away three years just like that? For what reason? Couldn't you even manage a decent explanation, Alex? Your egotistical self wasn't even man enough to tell me, you just. rejected me? Broke my heart? Then, when I came back, you had my wedding bombed! As if that wasn't enough, you had to go after my father's company! I ended up in jail for it, he's still locked up, and they won't even let me see him! And you dare stand there and pretend it's all my fault?"

I was in his face now, the bridge between us practically nonexistent. He didn't flinch. His gaze remained fixed on mine, a cold indifference radiating from him that only fueled my anger further. It was as if the man I knew, the man I loved, had vanished, replaced by this emotionless stranger.

"I didn't bomb your wedding," he finally said, the words clipped and curt. "Why would I waste my time on something so... beneath me? The wedding of two irrelevant werewolves."

The shock on his face mirrored my own after the sound of the slap. I slapped him. I hadn't known my claws had extended and there was an imprint where blood was flowing down his cheeks but he didn't touch me, didn't retaliate. He simply stared at me, the shock slowly giving way to a stony resolve.

I stumbled back, putting some distance between us. "You are a bastard, Alex," I choked out, my voice thick with emotion. "I should have listened to my father. I should have never trusted you. You are the worst mistake I ever made."

Tears welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. My hands trembled uncontrollably, "And you know the worst part?" I whispered, my voice barely above a sob. "A part of me still wants to make that mistake again. Why? What did I ever do to you? Why would you throw away what we built for three years?"

Silence. The only sound in the room was the ragged rhythm of my breaths and the soft thud of a blood droplet hitting the carpeted floor. He held my gaze, his face an unreadable mask. The accusation hung heavy in the air, a question that seemed to echo into eternity.

Time seemed to lose all meaning as we stood there, locked in this agonizing mate. Minutes stretched into an eternity, punctuated only by the frantic pounding of my heart and the shallow gasps for air that escaped my trembling lips. The anger that had fueled me moments ago began to ebb, replaced by a hollowness that gnawed at my insides.

"Alex," I finally whispered, "Please. Just say something."

The silence continued, an invisible wall separating us. His icy stare held a depth I couldn't decipher,il of emotions that left me feeling utterly lost. Was it regret? Defiance? Or was it simply a calculated indifference, meant to inflict the most amount of pain?

A choked sob escaped my lips, a raw expression of the despair that threatened to consume me. The love I had once held for him, the dreams we'd shared, all felt like a cruel joke in the face of his silence.

How could someone I knew so intimately suddenly become such a stranger?

"Don't you dare cry," he finally spat, his voice, laced with a barely concealed anger, "You don't get to play the victim here, Amaya. wasn't the one who threw what we had away, you did."

"What do you mean I threw away what we had? You came back and tossed divorce papers in my face, rejected me then threw me out. How dare you stand here and tell me it's my fault?"

His silence returned and all he did was stare at me. Frustration boiled over within me. "You know what? F*ck you, Alex

With a resolute turn, I grabbed my bag and the scattered design documents, shoving them. ing them com haphazardly back into their folders. Every fiber of my being yearned to get out of this suffocating room, to escape before this man destroyed whatever fire I had in me. NôvelD(ram)a.ôrg owns this content.

I took a purposeful stride towards the door, determined to put as much distance between us as possible. But before could take another step, a hand clamped roughly onto my wrist.

"Wait," he rasped, his voice laced with a desperation that caught me off guard. I whirled around, my temper flaring anew.

My mouth opened, ready to unleash a torrent of words, a demand to be released. However the words died on my lips as he moved forward, leaving me no time to react. One hand shot up, cupping my face, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of my jaw.

The next, his lips crashed down on mine in an explosive, unexpected kiss.