Page 13 of Shadowed Bond

“So, I’ve noticed you don’t attend any balls. Your brother Renji and Carter attended the last one, and Renji and his girlfriend Shahira ended up being mated.”

“You noticed? What? Were you looking for me?” he asks, clearly trying to deflect the conversation.

“Why don’t you attend?” I push, refusing to let it go.

“I have better things to do.”

“That’s not a proper answer,” I say as we both get into the car.

“It’s the only one you’re getting.”

I place my water bottle in the cupholder and lean back slightly. “Have you found your mate?”

Ares scoffs. “No,” he growls.

“Then why avoid it?”

His grip tightens around the steering wheel as he turns the engine on and reverses out of the bay.

Interesting.

For all his irritation, Ares Westwood is not indifferent. Not really. He carries his emotions like weapons, blunt and badly sheathed, but he has feelings.

“I don’t intend to find her,” he says just when I thought he wasn’t going to respond.

“You don’t want to find your fated mate?” I ask, surprised.

“Yeah, and that’s why I avoid all females on Blood Moons.”

I blink, trying not to laugh. That sounds… He glares at me, and I clear my throat. “Could be a guy,” I point out, trying to lighten the mood.

Nope, it does not work. He simply gives me a deadpan glare. “I know what I’m into, Arden, and I know females. Just don’t need a mate.”

Riiiiiiight.

The rain taps softly against the windshield.

“Why, though? Why don’t you want to find your mate?” I ask.

His gaze hardens. “Because in the middle of a war, the last thing anyone needs is another weakness.”

The air between us stills.

I hear the words exactly as he means them, and I wish I didn’t.

“And women are weaknesses?” I ask, voice calm, trying not to think of my father ordering my sister to be killed because she was a female.

His eyes meet mine, as if sensing my annoyance, and for one moment he hesitates.

Then, because he is Ares Westwood and apparently incapable of choosing self-preservation, he says, “If they’re your mate, yeah.”

I almost laugh because the arrogance of it is so utterly male, so painfully predictable that it annoys me so badly.

“How charming,” I say, my voice clipped with frost.

“Wasn’t trying to charm you,” he replies dryly.

“Yeah, clearly not.” I pick up the water bottle and take a few big gulps. “Perhaps you should say attachment, not weakness.”