Romans & histoires Disobedience

“You sign, and the debt dies tonight. You refuse, and it grows teeth.” Arden looked at the numbers again. Looked at her phone screen, hairline cracks catching light. Looked at the long month stretched ahead like a thin bridge over a very black drop. Thirty days. Thirty days was a bone she could chew without breaking her jaw. “What exactly does obedience mean?” Maddox’s attention rested on her hands. “It means when we say stop, you stop. When we say come, you come.” Heat flashed under her skin. She hated that it did. She hated that Elio saw it, because his eyes flipped from amused to interested in a heartbeat.

“To decide that cooperation is too dangerous. That shared effort invites punishment.” A woman near the front crossed her arms. “And if it does?” “Then we face that truth together,” Lena replied. “Instead of letting one man turn us into separate problems he can solve one by one.” Someone laughed bitterly. “That sounds like a speech.” “Yes,” Lena said. “Because the alternative is silence. And silence is how obedience spreads.” She gestured toward the river. “If he fires again, he wants it to feel inevitable. He wants us to tell ourselves there’s no point resisting because resistance hurts.”

Then make her count after every strike until she loses her voice. The urge to punish her so badly consumed me to the brim. When I was done with her, she would never disobey me, not in this life, nor in the next. I detested disobedience. It is an unforgivable sin. No disobedient member of my pack lived to tell the tale. As my late father had said, disobedience led to disloyalty. And disloyalty led to betrayal. It leaves one party hurt beyond repair. Just like Amber had hurt me.

“In here, your pious act means nothing. Help me take a bath—or the night won’t end well... for either of us.” The silence stretched. I could almost hear him thinking, could almost hear the gears on his head turning, measuring the consequence of his disobedience. Then, at last, I heard slow, reluctant footsteps approach. He stopped at the doorway, shoulders tense, eyes unreadable. His defiance hadn’t disappeared—it was merely contained, smothered beneath obedience. “Good,” I murmured. He didn’t respond, but he stepped forward, movements rigid and precise, every gesture reluctant. I could feel the weight of his restraint, how much it cost him to simply comply.

When I jolted awake from the nightmare, the first thing I saw was the magnified face of the psychologist. Faced with the doctor my parents had hired, I cooperated unexpectedly well. Seeing that I was awake, she softened her voice gently. "Ronnie, can you tell me why, no matter what people do to you, you never resist? Why do you even hurt yourself?" I blinked, my tone perfectly natural. "Because only obedient children don't get beaten." Those clubs… those torn clothes… those pitch-black cellars… I had already experienced enough of the price of disobedience.

The chalk squeaks again. DISOBEDIENCE. My fingers twitch against the floor. I should be ashamed. I am ashamed. But beneath that, deeper and darker, is the sick, coiling heat of anticipation. He’s not done with me. Not even close. The chalk strikes the board once more. INSUBORDINATION. I can hear my own breath, shallow and uneven. The list keeps growing. DEFIANANCE. WEAKNESS. FAILURE. Each word is a lash, a reminder of every time I’ve tested him, every time I’ve thought I could resist.

"Jacob will always be someone I value the most, and he must receive all the respect he deserves." At this point, Chelsea was boiling with rage. She turned around and gripped Derrick's wrist in a vice-like grip. "You made him sleep in a place like this? The broom closet? Didn't I tell you to properly treat him with respect! It was already bad enough that his parents jumped—" Her angry roar echoed in the tiny room, completely enraging Derrick instead. He flung Chelsea's hand off, his veins bulging on his forehead. "Don't you put on that fake act with me. Weren't you the one who exiled him to a deserted island for years? Weren't you the one who said that he had to learn to be obedient?

I glanced at him and said evenly, "What I do here is none of your business." "You little—" Grayson's temper flared at my dismissive attitude. "I'm warning you, Ella. Don't try anything. Raven is my mate. If you touch her, I won't let it slide." I paused in my tracks, then turned back to look at him. "Grayson, you're pathetic." "What did you just say?" "I said you're pathetic," I replied, enunciating every word. "You broke your oath to the Moon Goddess. You walked away from what we had. And now you're warning me? Who do you think you are? Do you really think I still care about you?"

He commanded coldly. "Mr. Greyso-" "Isis, the association is striking today, you will be very lucky to get a taxi, so just get in the car." Out of helplessness, Isis obeyed when he pulled the door open for her. The drive was riddled with awkwardness. Inwardly she tried to understand why he would be so rude to her. She peered at him and saw that he was completely concentrated on the road ahead of him. She sighed, she hated this tension. It ate away at her, especially since she didn't know the reason for it. Isis was trying to work up the courage to say something but every time she parted her lips to say something, not a sound emerged.

Knox was left under no illusions, he was standing in front of the executioner of wolves, and it was terrifying. "Beta Knox and Beta wolf Karma, you are pure of heart and fair of mind, I can see no cruelty in your line, or that of your fathers or his fathers before him, your family has conducted their beta duties with honor and pride, will you accept the moon Goddesses mark upon your skin, and promise to continue your duties to the best of your ability, to stand at my side as a royal enforcer, to forsake all others and carry out the judgments handed down by me until you breathe your last breath and ascend to the realm of the Goddess when it is your time?" ''I do!" Karma and Knox growled in un