CHAPTER FIVE

Isabelle stared at the trees as they sped past, her mind wandering with the animals in the woods. She watched the birds as they flew in the sky. Free. Unencumbered by the misery that currently plagued her. She wondered what would become of her, what he would do to her, how her life would become.

She turned her head to the side, stealing a glance at the man who was now her husband. A man who had a reputation that rivaled that of Lucifer. A man that her father had soullessly sold her off to without regard for her thoughts and wishes. Not that she had much expectations in that regard.

Isabelle stole another glance at him, her eyes catching the grays at his temples as they shone in the setting sunlight. He was a handsome man, she would give him that, and she knew that he broke more than a few hearts in his younger days. Even at his advanced age, Isabelle thought to herself how he would have no trouble having any woman he wanted...and yet he settled for her. She wondered why. She wondered where his mate was. She wondered if there was any truth to the rumors. She wondered if the same fate would befall her.

And yet there was something about him...something intriguing, something about him that called out to her, that labeled him a predator and warned her to run. Isabelle looked over at him and gasped loudly as she found that he already had his eyes on her. Isabelle mumbled an apology and looked away, returning her gaze to the passing trees and bright skies as the color rose in her cheeks.

Khalil chuckled and sighed heavily. “If you have questions, you should ask them.”

Silence.

“We are going to be married for the rest of our lives, Isabelle. Do you plan to be silent till the day you die?”

Isabelle spared a glance at him, forcing herself to hold his gaze for a few seconds. She opened her mouth to refuse, to tell him that she had no questions, that she was satisfied to remain in the dark, that the questions running to her mind didn’t exist. But curiosity got the better of her.

“Why?” She asked, forcing herself to look into the face of the man that was now her husband.

Khalil cocked a brow at her and regarded the beautiful creature seated with him in the back of the SUV. “Why what?” he asked tentatively.

“Why me?” She asked.

Khalil sighed heavily and turned to face her. “I am not sure I understand what you are asking me, my darling...” he replied, smiling as Isabelle blushed at the endearment.

“Why did you choose me?” Isabelle pressed. “You said so yourself, I am weak, I would prove to be a liability to you.”

Khalil shrugged. “True, but I also said that I do not need a warrior, I am capable of protecting myself, my mate, and my pack.”

“So, you’re telling me that you married me for an alliance with my father?” Isabelle asked, refusing to believe that her father’s reason was true.

There had to be something more. There had to be something deeper. Something for her to hold on to. Something more that told her that she hadn’t been traded like livestock to this strange man who was staring into her soul.

“What do you want me to tell you, Isabelle?” Khalil asked, enjoying the way her name rolled off his tongue. “Do you want me to tell you that I married you because I love you? Because I don't.”

Isabelle bristled at his tone and swallowed heavily. “I—”

“Or do you want me to tell you that when I laid eyes on you, you were so beautiful, so irresistible that I just had to have you?” Khalil asked coldly, his eyes holding hers captive. “Because that would be false as well. I have seen women more beautiful than you are.”

Isabelle looked away. She had always known that she wasn’t the most beautiful woman, but to hear it so blatantly from the man who she was bound to forever held a different kind of pain that she didn’t like.

Isabelle opened her mouth to speak, to press the issue, to know what had truly transpired between her father and him, but instead, she nodded and looked away as she blinked back the tears that had sprung unbidden to her eyes.

He was cold, she thought to herself. Cold and unfeeling. Was this how she was to live? Was this how his mate had lived? Maybe this was what had killed her?

“Where is your mate?”

The words flew past her lips before she knew to stop them. Isabelle felt the air in the vehicle freeze as the question hung in the air.

“What?”

Isabelle struggled to breathe as his eyes threatened fire and brimstone. But she had already started...she might as well finish.

“You’re old. That means you have met your mate. Where is she? What did you do to her? Are the rumors true?” Isabelle asked in a rush.

Khalil took a deep breath, forcing his anger back. The words at the tip of his lips burned him, as memories of the past assaulted him. He knew what the rumors said about his mate, about him, about how ruthless he was. Some of which were so absurd that he had no choice but to laugh.

But he couldn’t laugh now. No...not when his freshly minted bride was seated across from him looking up at him with the most beautiful pair of brown eyes he had ever seen, eyes that were filled with worry, filled with fear. Fear that she would become what the rumors said happened to his first mate.

“I am not that old...” Khalil eventually replied, his eyes turning steely as he hid his emotions. He bristled at himself, wondering why he couldn’t have come up with a better retort.

“How...” Isabelle started and took a deep breath, vaguely aware that she was pushing boundaries that she wasn't sure she should be crossing. But this was her life, and she would be damned if she would not ask the questions she needed answered.

She tried again. “How old are you?” She asked.

Khalil knew she was young. Her young twenty-three to his thirty-three. Very young, and a part of him wondered why she had never met her mate. He wanted to answer her, wanted to be honest with her, but a part of him refused. The part that wanted to get to know her better, the part of him that responded to her charm and her beauty...the same part that belonged to his late mate. The part he promised himself would be reserved for her alone.

He took a deep breath and steeled his resolve. “Old enough for you to know that you are not to question me,” he said.

“I—”

“Be quiet.”

Isabelle bristled at his tone, instant fear and regret filling her. She began to wish that she had remained silent, that she had not spoken. Now, it seemed that her curiosity only served to antagonize him.

“Don’t forget yourself around me.”

“I’m sorry...”

“You should be grateful to me, happy that someone wanted you enough to bring you out of the captivity that was that house.”

Khalil knew that he was going too far. He knew that he needed to stop before he did irreversible damage. But he didn’t care. He was too far gone. At first, he had simply wanted to discourage her questions, but not anymore. Now, he was trying to convince himself that he didn’t want her, that he didn’t want anyone who wasn’t his late lover. He got his reward in the tears that ran freely down her lovely cheeks, and her bright brown eyes that had been filled with mild fear and curiosity before were now filled with deep sadness.

“I’m sorry...” Isabelle said again, not sure what it was she was apologizing for.

“This is nothing more than a marriage of convenience, you will do well to remember that.”

Isabelle nodded her head absently. She desperately tried to see the good in her future with this strange man, but the more she looked into the future, the more bleak it appeared.