Almila
When I opened my eyes, my vision didn't clear for a few seconds; everything swam in a sea of uncertainty. I was sitting on something hard, and the surface beneath my hand was cold, unlike my burning body, and it was moving slowly.
Heat surged through me, I struggled to shake off the haze clouding my sight.
I slowly felt the surface beneath my hand, I noticed it was slightly uneven. I kept running my fingers across it, but when the movement beneath me grew stronger after I did that. I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision.
The surface under me gradually began to take shape. Within moments, I realized I wasn't sitting on solid ground at all, but on top of a man. My lips parted in shock.
"You are finally awake, bride."
His deep voice slid into my ear and sent a tremor through my whole body. I was sitting in his lap, right between his legs. Sitting in a bed with a man I didn't even know…
The white bed's red canopy curtain was half drawn, and the sheets beneath us were a complete mess, as if someone had been thrashing around on them.
The man lying shirtless among those tangled white sheets was the same man who had jumped into the ocean after me when I fell from the cliff. His black hair was scattered across the bedding, his ocean-blue eyes fixed on me.
A roguish smile played on his lips, but I couldn't find a trace of warmth in his gaze. One of his hands was wrapped around my waist, the other rested on my thigh.
When my senses finally returned, I tried to get out of his lap in a single motion, but his hand around my waist pulled me back down.
I fell right between his legs again, and because I landed hard, a low groan slipped out of him as he furrowed his brows and let his smile spread wider.
"This doesn't seem like a very smart thing to do, my bride."
Calling me his bride, confirmed that he was the northern man I was supposed to marry.
Like all northerners, he was very tall and his body was quite large. But unlike all of them, his skin was dark brown and his hair was coal black. Though, the look in his eyes was as cold as his body.
The pheromones that drifted subtly from him were the same ones I had sensed before falling off the cliff, only now they weren't nearly as dizzying or seductive.
Still, I could feel my body reacting as I inhaled the pheromones of the man beneath me.
"Who are you?" I asked, even though I already knew. He raised one eyebrow.
"I'm glad you finally came to yourself," he said. "But just a moment ago, you weren't acting like you didn't know me." His voice came out deeper than usual, thanks to the small chuckle he failed to suppress.
I frowned. "What do you mean? What did I do earlier?"
He tried to arrange an expression of surprise on his face, yet I still couldn't see a single emotion in his eyes. It was as if he was forcing himself to react at all.
He slid the hand on my thigh higher, and the one on my waist lower. I reacted immediately, bringing one of my hands to his throat. Another laugh slipped past his lips... mocking, insincere, yet somehow seductive.
"Calm down. You were the one who climbed on top of me a moment ago."
My fingers tightened around his throat as he managed to speak with whatever breath he could take.
Then what he said reminded me of the memories I had lost some time ago, the ones from right after he pulled me out of the ocean.
I remembered, vaguely, that he carried me out of the water, but everything after that was blank up to a point.
Then I recalled him laying me back on this bed, and that while I was still under the influence of his pheromones, I did something I didn't want to remember.
The moment started spinning inside my head, and my eyes never left his. Then I remembered much more.
As soon as he laid me on this bed, he was about to leave the room, but I stopped him.
I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down to kiss me. I remember that for the first few seconds, while my arms slid up around the back of his neck, he didn't react at all.
My tongue moved over his lip, then the corner of his mouth, then along his chin. Still, he gave no response.
I, on the other hand, had dug my nails into the nape of his neck, forced his lips to part, and pushed my tongue into his mouth. Then, driven partly by my own aggression, I'd gotten him to take off his white shirt and shoved him onto this bed.
I didn't want to remember anything more after that.
After I remembered those vile things, I didn't have the courage to look into his eyes for long.
His eyes were like the depths of the ocean, I felt like the longer I stared, the more I would be pulled in.
There was something not normal about this man. It felt as if he was trying to enchant me somehow.
How could I have done those things? I definitely hadn't acted like myself. And it was especially abnormal to feel such a strong desire toward someone who was destined to die by my hands.
"You look a bit too old to still be learning how to control your pheromones," I said as I tried to move off his lap.
But the moment he heard that, his entire mood shifted.
He grabbed my arm and, with a quick move, he reversed our positions. My back hit the mattress, and I frowned. Pinning my wrist to the bed, he leaned over me.
"And you seem unable to control your desires," he said.
Every feature on his face looked meticulously crafted, I couldn't stop myself from getting caught up in the sight of him.
But at the same time, I began fighting against that allure. I slipped my wrist free from his grasp, reached up, and grabbed a fistful of his hair to pull him toward me, then spoke.
"And you seem a little too pleased with this situation. But there's something you need to understand. I'm not someone you can obtain that easily."
I tightened my grip on his hair little by little. If I pulled my hand back, it was certain that a few strands would remain tangled between my fingers.
I didn't take my eyes off him, though that wasn't a very good idea.
When he leaned toward me, the shirt he was wearing —many of its buttons undone— slipped downward, revealing his muscular chest.
He had a well-built body, and because his skin was so dark, his defined collarbones, chest, and abdominal muscles were striking. As hard as it was to accept, my gaze occasionally drifted to the parts his open shirt exposed.
A short while later, I felt his hand in my hair. Unlike me, he didn't grip it, instead, after placing his hand at the back of my head, he drew my face closer to his.
"I already own you, bride. With your consent, too."
"Are you sure?" I asked without wasting any time. His expression, unlike before, was quite serious.
"I'm sure. But there's something else I want to be sure of," he said, his voice deepening noticeably toward the end of the sentence. I frowned.
"And what is that?"
"Can you really withstand my pheromones?"
After saying that, he suddenly intensified his pheromones, flooding them outward so abruptly that my entire body was shaken.
I couldn't stop my body from reacting to his pheromones. At first, my entire body tensed and began to burn as if engulfed in flames.
I had never felt such an intense heat even during my rut. My ribcage lifted slightly, unable to withstand the speed of my heartbeat. My chest collided with his, and I clenched my teeth and tightened my grip in his hair.
All the while, he kept watching me. I couldn't read the expression on his face. He was almost like a craftsman searching for flaws in his own work.
After a while, his pheromones became so overpowering that my head fell back and muffled moans slipped through my clenched teeth. I fixed my gaze on the ceiling.
When I realized that I couldn't escape his pressure by resisting alone, I let my entire body go and began to release my own pheromones, more wildly and freely than I ever had before.
Within a short time, my pheromones mixed with his and created an even heavier pressure in the room.
I felt a warm liquid run from my nose to my upper lip, my eyes burning. At the same time, my vision darkened until I could no longer see him, but I heard a sharp groan as he grabbed my waist and pulled me toward him.
"Mate."
He whispered that word into my ear, shaking my entire being, what I had feared came to pass.
My whole body burned as if it had been waiting for this moment, and I breathed in the scent of us intertwined.
After that, I couldn't stop myself. I leaned into him and sank my teeth into his neck. When I bit down on his adam's apple, he let out a hoarse groan. His voice sounded like music to my ears now.
I reached for his lips and sucked on them, then slowly took his lower lip between my teeth and bit down.
He responded, sucking on my lip, and after a moment slipped his tongue into my mouth. Our tongues danced for a while.
I became drunk with him, as if I disappeared and someone I never wanted to be took my place. His free hand suddenly slid into my underwear, and moaning into his mouth, I pressed myself against his hand.
He began rubbing his hand there without sliding his fingers inside. His movements gradually quickened, and just like him, I drew closer and kept grinding against him.
Unlike mine, his body was ice-cold, and as his freezing fingertips continued to roam there, I lost myself completely.
The moans slipping from between my lips grew more frequent. He leaned toward my lips and kept whispering.
"I finally found you. I've been waiting for you for years, my mate."
Even though I didn't want to admit it, that was the only thing on my mind as well.
I had found him, my fated mate, and he was someone I had never wanted him to be. Even making eye contact with him should have been considered a sin, yet now I was doing this with him.
As his free hand slid from my waist down to my hips, he gradually quickened the movements of his other hand.
His cold fingers began to warm beneath my burning skin. He was touching places I had never even touched myself, places that had never given me any pleasure, and offering me a desire that had never been granted to me before.
I lost myself in his hands. I had already stepped outside the person I was and become someone else entirely. For a moment, the world revolved only around him and the version of me caught between his hands.
I braced myself by gripping his neck and leaned my face toward it. He rested his head against mine, releasing broken moans into my ears.
Our pheromones danced with each other, perhaps preparing to become one.
"What's your name?" I asked, breathing against his neck.
He gave a low, quiet laugh near my ear. My entire body tensed at that sound.
"Aren't you a little late to be asking that?"
I frowned and brought my hand between his legs. When I grasped that hard bulge, he drew his head even closer to mine and moaned.
"Tell me your name."
"Kayra," he said, then turned his head and breathed in the scent of my hair. I waited for him to breathe my scent.
"Aren't you going to ask mine?" I asked softly.
"Almila. I already know your name."
Hearing my name from his lips sent a powerful shock through my body, as if I had been waiting to be called by him all along.
I couldn't bring myself to ask how he knew. But at that exact moment, the door opening startled me.
Kayra pulled my body closer to his, he quickly tugged part of the sheet up, wrapping it around both of us to cover our bodies, especially mine. He pulled me toward him, I wrapped my arms around his body and clasped my hands behind his back.
After I realized the door had opened and someone had entered, I turned my head the other way and pressed it into Kayra's neck.
"Sir, um—"
Hearing the voice of the man who entered made my body flinch even more, and I shrank into Kayra's arms. I had never felt this vulnerable before.
Kayra's body went rigid, and he pressed one hand to my head, pulling me even closer to him.
"Get out of the room!" he suddenly roared, and as I sat there in his lap, I pressed my legs tightly together. Feeling the wetness, I buried my head deeper into his neck.