Zero Affection Behind His Vows Chapter 01

Zero Affection Behind His Vows Chapter 01 Zero Affinity
Three days into my mission to win Callum Roarke, he laid the warmest whitebelly pelt in Goldmane territory at my feet.
And the whole time, the affinity number over his head sat at zero.
At our sixth Emberfeast together, he asked me to take his bond in front of every beastkin there.
I was already nodding, the yes half out of my mouth, when a thread of whispering started up beside my ear.
Two sprites hovered there, and not one other beastkin seemed to see or hear them.
“That lion must be worn out. Six years of pretending with a human, gagging through every second of it, all to keep his little deer safe!”
“And the stand-in actually believes it. I’m dying!”
All the blood in me went cold.
No wonder that number hadn’t budged in six years.
At the same moment, the System went off in my head, flat and cold.
“Final phase initiated. Ten days remaining on your mission clock. On failure, you will be erased.”
I smiled, pulled back the arms I had been about to throw around him, and wiped my eyes.
“Sorry. I’m over this taming game.”
The two of them kept chattering away by my ear.
“Whoa. Did the human’s eyes just change?”
“About time she woke up. That lion only ever wanted the deer.”
“Grabbing popcorn. She’s about to snap.”
Snap?
No.
Details started coming back to me, one after another.
He had never once let me step outside Goldmane territory alone. Jackals from the outer clans would carry me off, he said.
Every time I brought up joining a foraging run for the pride, he would drag his rough tongue across my hairline and cut me off. “I’ll take care of you. That’s all you need.”
It had never been devotion. It had been a cage.
I walked back to the stone den he had built for me in a daze and started shoving things into a pack.
Halfway through, low voices carried in through the crack behind the den, the one that ran back toward the council chamber. One was Callum’s. The other came out cold and thin as a flicking tongue, and it belonged to Silas Vesk, who led the Viperkin.
I held my breath and edged half a step closer along the wall.
Callum kept his voice down. “She turned down the bond out of nowhere. Keep Clara in the deepest part of the Viper Pit for the next few days. Don’t let Wren Frost anywhere near her.”
Silas laughed under his breath, and his voice slid out smooth and cool.
“Relax. It’s been rough on you, I know.”
I stayed pressed into the shadow of the crack and dug my nails into my palm.
The whole thing was absurd.
Because of me, two clan leaders who had never agreed on anything, a lion king and a snake king, had ended up on the same side.
I kept listening, and every line went in like venom.
Silas spoke again. “The High Seer said she’d ruin Clara’s face and then throw her to the outland hyenakin. And you’ve spent every night sleeping next to that poison. I don’t know how you’ve stood it.”
“As long as Clara’s safe, none of it matters,” Callum said.
Silas laughed again. “She clings to you more every year. If she ever finds out, how bad do you think she’d get?”
The silence stretched a moment.
Then Callum answered. “She won’t find out. And if she does, if she so much as goes near Clara, I’ll take her arms and legs off at the joint and throw her in the pits for the rest of her life.”
I slid down the wall until I was sitting, shaking like someone had dropped me through the ice.
The two sprites erupted next to my ear.
“‘None of it matters.’ Oh, he’s down bad. Not naming names!”
“Am I the only one who thinks that whole conversation is messed up? He runs a six-year con on somebody and it’s fine because it’s for the girl he loves?”
“She’s a human. He gets rid of a threat and keeps his true love safe at the same time. Win win!”
“Look at the human’s face. Is she about to snap?”
“Forget the drama, girl. Run!”
Run?
I looked down at my thin human wrist.
I had no claws and no fangs, and in the Beastlands, that left me barely able to keep myself alive.
Running was the only thing left.
I pushed off the wall, got to my feet, and threw the rest of my things into the pack.
Three trails split off in front of me, and for a moment, I had no idea which one to take.
The sprites piped up again.
“Is she actually leaving?”
“Go already! You’re cutting into lion and deer screen time!”
“Hold on. Is that shape out there the lion?”
The shape came through the grass, and in the moonlight, it was Callum in his other form, a huge lion with a gold mane. He shifted back as he landed, night dew still clinging to his hair, and his face carried exactly the right amount of panic and regret.
“Wren, I rushed it. I thought you wanted this.” He reached for my wrist, and his eyes went bright and wet. “Don’t go. Come back to the den and we’ll talk it out. Please?”
The old me would have folded on the spot.
All I could hear now was that line from behind the wall about throwing me in the pits.
I took half a step back, out of reach of his hand. “It’s not your fault,” I heard myself say, light as anything. “I’m just over it.”
“Over it…?” His lashes flickered like the word meant nothing to him. “You don’t love me anymore?”