I Drugged the Snake Beast Alpha… And the System Screamed I Chose the Wrong Mate Chapter 11
Preparations for our bonding ceremony took more than a month. Jasper sent invitations to every citadel in the region.
Before the ceremony, Chloe arrived in Silverpeak Citadel. Her seven shifter mates came with her.
She looked worn. She’d lost weight, leaving her chin sharper and her eyes too large for her face.
“Sloane, I really do envy you.”
I glanced at the seven gorgeous mates flanking her and couldn’t quite manage to take her seriously.
“Pretty sure I should be envying you. Seven handsome shifter mates? You’re putting the rest of us to shame.”
She gave a thin, bitter smile.
“Can we talk? Just the two of us?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“Don’t be gone too long.”
The warning came from one of Chloe’s mates, a snow lion shifter. His stare was cold, his
the kind that seemed to weigh down the air.
When we were alone, Chloe grabbed my hand. Her eyes were desperate.
“Sloane, will you help me?”
“I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to go back. To my world.”
I stared at her.
I knew she’d come from another world. But she’d never talked about wanting to leave.
“Why? You seem like you’re doing fine here. You’ve got seven mates who…”
Her face crumpled, like something inside her had finally broken.
“I don’t know if you can understand.”
presence
“Where I come from, I was just a normal college student. I never expected any of this. In my world, marriage is between two people, equals. No one gets forced into it. No one gets claimed like property.”
“Here I have seven mates, and they’re all powerful, and not one of them has ever asked what I want.
Silas is the only one I chose. The rest claimed me, dragged me away, forced the bond. I’m not a
person to them. I’m something they pass back and forth.”
“I can’t live like this anymore. I want to go home.”
[Every time I read a shifter-world novel, this hits me. You take a modern woman who grew up with equal rights and drop her into a world where she gets claimed and fought over. Eventually, something in her is going to break.]
[If she can’t handle it, how is this any different from being trafficked? Just because the men are good-looking doesn’t change what’s actually being done to her.]
[I suddenly feel terrible for the FL. No wonder the author dropped this story. The whole premise
collapsed under its own weight.]
I pulled Chloe into a hug.
“Do you know how to get back?”
“If I die here, I get sent home.”
Her eyes lit up for a fraction of a second. Then the light died.
“But they watch me in shifts. I can’t even manage that. Even dying is a luxury I don’t have.”
“You’re the only person I could ask.”
She gripped my hand like it was the last real thing in her world.
I held on just as tight.
“Okay. I’ll help you.”
