Almila
The person who entered hurriedly closed the door and left again, and silence settled over the room for a while. I could feel the pheromones flowing from Kayra's body gradually diminishing.
At one point he lifted his hand to my hair and gently stroked it; I allowed him to. Feeling this close to a man I had just met, feeling as if I belonged in his arms as though I had been searching for him for a long time, was hard to believe.
Especially when the man wrapping his arms around me was the future leader of the pack that had killed my father…
I felt as though I were betraying myself. I began to feel ashamed of the wetness between my legs, so I pulled back from his arms. He immediately fixed his eyes on mine.
He hadn't withdrawn his hand from my hair. I furrowed my brows and looked away.
"It isn't right for us to do this before we're married," I said, offering him the first excuse that came to my mind.
He didn't say anything after I said that, so I turned back to him. One of his eyebrows was raised as he studied my face. It can't be that surprising that I said that.
"Why? Have you never done something like this with anyone before?" he asked.
With that question, I looked away again. Even though talking about these things with this man right now felt pointless, there was no reason to lie.
"No."
Without looking at him, I continued to examine the room. This bedroom was larger than any of the rooms in the house where I had stayed with many others in the southern pack.
The northerners must have liked extravagant things. If even a bedroom was like this, I couldn't imagine how large the rest of the house was.
His hand in my hair slid downward, and then he spoke in that deep voice of his.
"Really? I find that hard to believe."
I raised a single eyebrow and turned to him in response.
"And why is that?"
He seemed to be choosing his words carefully, trying to maintain eye contact between us. When our gazes met again, he smiled.
"It's surprising for someone this beautiful to be a virgin. I'm sure many people admire you, whether they're alpha, beta, or omega. That's why I thought many people may have wanted to have sex with you."
Hearing that caught me off guard, and no matter how hard I tried to control my reactions in front of him, I failed. Then this time, he was the one who looked away from me and straightened the blouse I was wearing.
"Though, learning that I'll be sharing their firsts with my fated mate makes me more excited than I expected."
Unlike before, there was no harsh expression on his face as he said this, but this one was even more ambiguous.
He was being overly straightforward when forming his sentences, which made me feel strange with every answer I received.
After letting him adjust the blouse I was wearing.. rather, lingering there for a moment— I suddenly asked the first question that came to my mind.
"What about you? Have you been with others?"
He hesitated when he heard the question. Such a reaction could only have one answer. Still, he replied without dodging it.
"Yes. But none of them ever held a special place for me."
"Do I have a special place in your heart?" I asked.
I knew it was far too early to ask this question. But I didn't ask because I wanted to earn a special place in his heart, I asked because I was curious about what he truly thought of me.
Before answering, he got closer to me.
"I'm not sure. It's true that you are my fated mate, I'm sure of it. But is that the only reason that lies beneath this unbearable desire and lust I feel toward you? I don't know that yet."
This answer angered me. I had noticed the fact that the man standing in front of me was my fated mate as well, it wasn't hard to realize. But ever since I had understood it, I had been trying to reject that truth deep inside.
Why was the future leader of an enemy pack, someone who carried the blood of my father's killers, my fated mate? Was this a curse?
I clenched my teeth, and a faint grinding sound filled my ears. After a moment, his hand moved from my hair to my cheek, resting right over where my teeth were tightly clenched.
"Why? Do you think wolves from two enemy packs can't maintain a peaceful marriage?"
I looked into his eyes. Unlike mine, his eyes carried no trace of emotion. I knew that if I stared for too long, trying to catch whatever lay beneath, I would drown in that blue.
"Being the fated mate of someone who asked for my mother who lost her mate as a bride is not something easy for me to accept," I said, my voice heavy with anger.
At that moment, for the first time, I caught a trace of emotion in his eyes. It was as if powerful waves were crashing within those ocean-colored irises. First surprise, then anger.
"What are you talking about?"
Was he pretending not to know?
He must have learned something beforehand about who he was going to marry. Then why was he standing in front of me now, looking at me with such an angry expression? I couldn't make sense of it.
"There's no need to act like you don't know."
"I don't know," he said immediately.
He was serious. This time, I was the one who was surprised.
"How could you possibly not know something like that? When word came to us from the northern pack, the note clearly stated that they wanted my mother to be the bride."
When he heard my words, the vein on his forehead became swollen. I couldn't tell whether this information had angered him or embarrassed him. To pour out the fury building inside me, I kept talking.
"After killing my father… I thought you must have decided that taking his head wasn't enough for your revenge. So marrying and killing my mother, who left without her mate, must have seemed appealing as well."
My voice carried a mocking tone, and toward the end it grew sharper with anger. Yet all he did was grip my shoulders.
"I have assigned servants to your command. They are obliged to do whatever you wish at any moment. Don't hesitate to give them orders."
After speaking, he slowly released my shoulders, got up from the bed, and straightened his clothes. He picked up the jacket at the foot of the bed and put it on. Before leaving the room, he looked at me one last time.
"No one can enter this room except me while you are in it. You can spend as much time as you like, and then go out when you're ready. The servants will guide you."
He looked at me that final time, his eyes were gleaming with anger. I felt as though I had discovered a pearl in the depths of the ocean.
Then, for a while, I simply sat on the bed and stared out the window beside it.
The north was cold.