That is how you formed a bond with him.
Just like the one you formed with me.
No... no, this couldn't be happening. I was still trying to get rid of one of them, and now there were two. What was I supposed to do now?
"Alpha, could you come here?"
I had been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn't even heard Soren enter the room.
Arkan looked at my face for a long moment. Then he rose to his feet with a deliberate movement and turned to me.
"I'll be right back," he said. Then his gaze shifted to Kongar, who was standing beside me. "Take care of her."
There was a clear note of command in his voice.
Kongar's body tensed instantly, and his eyes darkened slightly.
"She is my..." he said, stressing the word my as if forcing it out. "... master. I always take care of her."
His voice had turned sharp.
A deep growl rumbled from Arkan's throat, and his body trembled slightly. I, on the other hand, slid sideways across the bed, trying to put as much distance between myself and both of them as possible. At that moment, he turned his eyes to me, and I saw the blue in his gaze shimmer faintly.
"I'll be right back," he said before walking out the door.
Soren, meanwhile, stood by the doorway, grinning at me. I truly couldn't understand what was so funny.
"We'll be right back, Luna," he said, then followed Arkan out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, the room was swallowed by silence. I looked around. It resembled a hospital room; the walls, the furniture, even the patient gown they had put me in were completely white.
Wait a minute...
Had someone changed my clothes?
The moment I slowly sat up and rose from the bed, Kongar caught my arm to steady me. His speed was astonishing. Only a second ago, he had been standing on the other side of the bed, and the next he was beside me. I wished I had a power like that. Then I could have escaped this place without looking back.
I walked to the mirror in the corner of the room and examined the spot on my neck where he had bitten me. There was no trace of a wound left. However, a faint dark mark caught my eye against my skin. I stepped closer to the mirror and looked more carefully.
My breath caught.
There was a black crescent moon mark on my neck.
Had someone tattooed my neck while I was asleep?
What kind of nonsense was this?
"Where did this tattoo come from?" I asked Kongar without taking my eyes off the mark in the mirror.
I could see Kongar's reflection behind me. His head was slightly bowed, his gaze fixed on the mark on my neck. For a brief moment, I noticed his eyes darken. He didn't seem pleased about this. At least we agreed on that much.
"My master—"
"Kayra. Call me Kayra. I don't like being called 'my master,'" I said, cutting him off. Then I turned to face him and leaned my back against the mirror.
Before Kongar spoke, the yellow in his eyes glimmered faintly.
"Of course, Kayra..."
His voice softened noticeably as he said my name, and he pronounced it slowly, as though savoring every syllable. That simple way of saying my name was enough to make my heart race. Was that normal?
In the next instant, he appeared right beside me.
"That mark..." he said, tracing his finger slowly over the crescent-shaped tattoo on my neck.
A shiver ran through my entire body at his touch, and my heart began pounding once again.
"...shows that he has accepted you as his mate and that the bond between you has begun."
I couldn't accept that. And I couldn't stay here either. I had only just met that man. Where had this mate business even come from?
Kongar tilted his head slightly, as if he could read my thoughts.
"I know you're confused, Kayra," he said as he lifted my chin gently with his hand. When our eyes met, the intensity in his gaze made my heart quicken for a moment.
"I tried to keep you away from him. I even kidnapped you. But you chose to go after him."
As he spoke those final words, I felt the fingers holding my chin tighten slightly. But the moment he realized what he was doing, his grip loosened.
What else could I have done? I couldn't trust either of them. It was the only decision I had been able to make at the time, and honestly, I didn't regret it. Even so, an uneasy thought stirred inside me.
I hoped I wouldn't regret it later.
"What am I supposed to do then?" I managed to ask.
"For now, there is nothing you can do," Kongar said.
At his words, I lowered my head in despair.
"I mean..." he continued, and the slight pause in his voice caught my attention. "The first stage of this bond must be completed first."
I lifted my head and looked at him again. The same calm smile rested on his face.
Then he walked over to the window and gazed outside.
"How am I supposed to do that?" I asked. "I don't even know what's real and what's fiction when it comes to all this werewolf stuff."
He turned his gaze from the window back to me.
"You must bite him on the neck as well," he said.
His smile widened slightly. For some reason, that expression always filled me with a strange unease I couldn't explain. It felt as though what I saw on his face was more than a simple smile, as if something else were hidden beneath it.
"And what exactly will that do?"
The moment the question left my lips, he appeared beside me. His sudden movement was enough to make me flinch.
"It will bind him to you as well," he said.
That was exactly what I did not want to hear. Why would I want to tie him to me even more?
"That way, the first stage of your bond will be complete."
I wasn't sure I wanted to do that at all.
"And then?" I asked, unable to look away from his eyes.
"Then..." he said.
As that single word left his lips, his eyes began to darken slowly. He turned his back to me.
"...the rest will unfold on its own."
His voice had grown low and rough.
I could see his hand clench into a fist, and the familiar unease stirred inside me once more.
I had just opened my mouth to speak when the door flew open with a loud crash, slamming against the wall. The sudden noise made me jump. Kongar rushed past me so quickly that my hair whipped across my face, blocking my vision for a moment.
When I brushed it aside, the sight before me stole my breath.
Kongar was holding a little girl in the air by the collar of her dress with one hand. She kicked and punched at the empty air several times.
"Put me down!" she shouted.
But Kongar seemed not to hear her. His eyes had gone completely dark.
In the next instant, he hurled her across the room.
"No!" I screamed as I ran toward her.
I don't know how I did it, but I managed to catch her just before she hit the floor. Clutching her small body tightly against me, I squeezed my eyes shut and braced for the impact.
But instead of hitting the hard ground, I landed on something soft.
"Are you all right, Kayra?" Kongar asked.
His cold breath brushed against my ear.
When I opened my eyes, I understood what had happened. He had caught us before we struck the floor and positioned his body beneath ours to shield us from the impact. Now he was lying completely underneath us.
The little girl slipped from my arms just as a frantic woman rushed into the room.
"My daughter, where are you—" she called, but before she could finish, she saw her daughter getting to her feet and ran to her, pulling her into a tight embrace.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice trembling with worry.
I pushed myself off Kongar and rose to my feet, turning to him without making any effort to hide my anger.
"Why did you throw that little girl?" I demanded.
As Kongar adjusted his bow tie, he first glanced at the little girl, who was clinging fearfully to her mother. The moment she felt his gaze on her, she pressed herself closer to her mother and buried her face against her shoulder. Kongar, however, remained perfectly calm, as if there had been nothing unusual about his actions, and turned back to me.
"She frightened you, Kayra," he said simply.
There was not the slightest trace of regret in his voice.
Trying to suppress the anger rising inside me, I walked over to the little girl and knelt down in front of her.
"I'm sorry on his behalf, sweetheart," I said softly.
At first, the woman still looked tense, but when she saw the way I approached her daughter, the hardness in her expression gradually began to fade.
The moment the little girl lifted her head and looked at me, I recognized her immediately. She was the same girl who had come to me when I was hiding beneath the table in the dining hall.
"Luna," she said, sniffling. "None of this is your fault. You saved me."
The moment the words left her lips, she threw her arms around my neck.
My first instinct was to pull away from the sudden contact, but her small body was trembling in my arms. In that instant, all of my hesitation melted away, and I wrapped my arms around her, gently stroking her back.
"Shhh... it's okay now," I whispered.
When I lifted my head, I met her mother's eyes. The worry and anger that had filled her expression moments earlier had been replaced by a warm smile.
As the little girl pulled away, her fingers brushed the place where I had been bitten, and a hiss escaped my lips before I could stop it. The burning sensation, which had seemed to ease a moment ago, flared back to life.
"Are you all right, Luna?" the woman asked anxiously.
I could only nod, but the pain in my neck was growing worse by the second, becoming more unbearable with every passing moment. My breathing turned uneven, and I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths, but it did little to help.
Kongar moved swiftly between the woman and me, scooping me into his arms as if I weighed nothing. In only a few steps, he carried me back to the bed and laid me down with surprising care.
"Wait here," he said.
Then, without hesitating for even a moment, he turned toward the door and was gone in the blink of an eye.
It was the first time he had left me alone since we met.
The burning in my neck felt as though it were spreading through my entire body. I writhed across the bed, turning from side to side as heat washed over me. Sweat covered my skin, and each breath became harder to draw.
"Mom, what's happening to Luna?" the little girl asked, her voice trembling with fear.
"Nothing is wrong, sweetheart. Go back to your father," the woman said, trying to sound calm, though she could not hide the worry in her voice.
The little girl looked as though she was about to protest, but under her mother's firm gaze, she lowered her head and left the room reluctantly.
The woman approached me carefully and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"What's happening to me?" I asked with a groan.
"The Alpha bit you," she said, as if I truly needed reminding. "Because your bond has not yet been completed, your body is reacting to it."
I was about to respond when the door flew open once more, slamming against the wall, and Kongar appeared at my side in the blink of an eye. A few seconds later, I heard Arkan's deep growl, followed by the sound of him rushing into the room.
The moment Arkan stepped inside, the woman beside me quickly rose and moved aside.
Arkan stood directly in front of me.
The blue glow in his eyes drew me toward him like a tide. I could feel my body straining to reach for him, yet I fought against the urge with everything I had.
These were not my feelings.
Kongar suddenly stepped between us and lowered his head, blocking my view until all I could see were his bright yellow eyes. For some reason, that filled me with an unexpected surge of anger.
At that moment, Arkan was the only one I wanted to see.
"Remember what I told you, Kayra—"
Before he could finish, Arkan let out that deep, mesmerizing growl that sent a shiver through me and seized Kongar, throwing him aside.
Wait a minute...
Mesmerizing?
What was I even thinking?
Arkan sat down on the edge of the bed and gently tilted my head to the side. Then he ran his tongue slowly over the bite mark on my neck from top to bottom.
A soft moan slipped from my lips at the unexpected sensation. I bit down on them, trying to suppress the sound, but I failed.
At the sound of the door closing, I realized that both the woman and Kongar were gone.
Arkan, meanwhile, continued to lick my neck with a low rumble in his throat, punctuating the motion with gentle nips.
And now, I was alone with him in this room.