27

A R Y A

➳

This was my first time in the armory. It was furnished in a modern style, in the center of the room was a silver, chunky metal table with a map spread out on it, the walls plastered with dozens of different weapons. There were steel benches to sit on, as I was doing now, and the overhead light illuminated the gray-lined room with a dim yellowish glow. There were no windows to see the daylight, but I knew it was just after nightfall, otherwise we wouldn't be gathering here.

My hand, in the process of lacing my boots, was reflected in the gleaming, highly polished, jet-black stone floor when I noticed someone sit down next to me and tie their shoes as well.

Reah and I weren't really close friends - if we were friends at all. It may have been me, since I wasn't really looking to talk to her - or anyone else - but I had a feeling there was something else. Like something about me bothers her.

I straightened up. "What did you actually want to tell me - you know, the day before yesterday in the forest?" I was astonished myself at my words. day before yesterday . It all felt so much longer.

Reah's hands paused briefly before continuing, finishing tying her shoes. Then she sat up too and looked at me. A smile on her lips, but it looked strained. "It doesn't matter anymore."

I raised an eyebrow. “But that seemed anything but unimportant . Listen, if this involves Xenos, you've got to tell me.” My hand clenched into a fist automatically at the thought that she might know something he hadn't told me. Mates didn't do that, did they? I gritted my teeth. I didn't care what mates did or didn't do - I didn't want Xenos and I to be like that.

My voice was anything but friendly and only put more obstacles in the way of being her friend, but I didn't care. I leaned over to her. 'You will tell me what you know about him. And don't think that..."

But I couldn't get any further as Xenos and Aramis just snowed through the door and interrupted our conversation.

So I withdrew, but before that I whispered, "This conversation isn't over yet."

Reah then drew her mouth into a line and stood up. Maybe I just blew the chance to be her friend - well, she'd crossed a line with me, too. Xenos was sacred to me.

X E N O S

➳

Arya was dressed all in black. She looked devilishly good in dark tight trousers, a fitted top and a wool cape with the hood pulled up.

"Can you teleport us ahead of the Skihlas?" She shouldered her bow and quiver. "At least we still have a little time before our watch starts."

I stepped before the portal in the armory that Reah held open for us. "Clear. How come?"

She smiled mysteriously. "You will see."

Without hesitating any longer, I grabbed her hand and pulled her through the glowing vortex circle. Not a second later we were standing in the middle of the forest, with the bright moonlight falling through the canopy of leaves.

"So what are you up to now?"

"Oh, I don't know..." Her hands ran provocatively under my cloak over my chest and she snuggled up to me. "Do you have any idea?"

"Oh, I've got quite a few." My hand cupped her neck and my mouth was already hovering in front of hers when my wolf urged me to venture further down and bite her neck. My jaw muscles twitched. “Calm down, goodness gracious! “

For a brief moment she snuggled even closer to me, wetting her lips, her sweet tongue touching my mouth and I was so close to just tossing her to the ground as a favor to my wolf by primitively mounting her and her to finally mark as mine.

But I didn't expect her to suddenly whisper, "Maybe another time." She quickly freed herself from my grasp and was already running. "Whoever gets to the guard station faster!" she yelled as she charged through the thick undergrowth.

I immediately broke out of my shock and rushed after her. I had never known how murky my life before Arya had been - never really. I had lived on, in a life made up of nothing but the duties of a king. But now, with Arya by my side, no two days were the same. She kept surprising me, playing with me, challenging me and bringing something into my life that I had forgotten. Something I thought only kids could have. “Fun”.

Her laughter echoed in the forest as I caught up and walked alongside her - a little behind though. “Shit she was really fast”. “You can try!”

She turned her head to me and grinned. “I will.” With an unnatural speed, she swung herself onto a fir tree and danced among the branches—jumping from tree to tree. And so fast that I almost lost sight of her. My wolf howled. “Let the game begin. “

➳

Arya was the first to finish, only a few seconds ahead of me, but she never missed an opportunity to rub it in my face, and I couldn't help but smile as she did. “She was cute.”

We were behind a fallen tree trunk right on the tree line and peered at the cave entrance of the Skihlafels Walls, which was guarded by the black, hovering demons. Since all of the warriors from Hell fell in the battle against Hades and Serdas, it seems that Echinda must have created some herself. There couldn't be many, especially as it took time to create demons out of thin air, even for gods - or blackbloods. Still, they were able to take out several werewolves in one war and cost us valuable time breaking into the cave as planned.

I concentrated on counting all the guards, noting when they rotated, while every minute I felt the throbbing thread between me and Arya, so fragile I almost feared it would dissipate at any moment. Ever since I found out that Arya was my mate and I could see the bond between us, everything in me has been urging me to cement it once and for all. I wanted to dig my teeth into the back of her neck and lick the print over and over again. I wanted to hold her in my arms and be damn sure that she wouldn't disappear, that she would stay with me forever and not change her mind about leaving me after all. “She should be fucking mine. “

That evening, that “night”, I had come so close. But even if she hadn't wanted me to see it, and even if I had seen the joy in her eyes when she had chosen me, I had seen a spark of sadness in them just as much. And it almost broke my heart. I didn't want to be the reason she lost her family. I didn't mean to make her sad - I wanted to make her fucking happy. She deserved to be happy.

And that's exactly why I hadn't marked them - at least not in the way I would have liked to. She needed time, time, to let the loss heal. And I'd be an ass if I didn't give her these.

So I gritted my teeth for what felt like the thousandth time, locked my wolf even deeper inside me and suppressed the hot desire that was more than inappropriate right now.

"I'd heard the girls in your pack talk about the ball several times today."

I didn't miss that either. "“Our” pack," I reminded her, but kissed her cheek gently to take the urging sting out of the demand. She would see for herself eventually. “She had to” the wolf in me growled. "What did they say?"

Briefly she looks at me, but then she directed her eyes back to the cave. "Oh this and that, the usual gossip, I suppose."

"Hm." I doubted that, it wouldn't be “the usual gossip” if she wanted to tell me about it.

"But there's something I wanted to ask you." She bit her lip and I bit back a growl. God I was so damn keen on her. I would have liked to grab her, rip her clothes off and do things with her that overshadowed the erotic acts in the broom closet. “Patience, dammit”. "Tell me."

Now her eyes flicked to me. "Well, Georgie once mentioned that you need a ball partner." She wrung her hands and if I'm not mistaken, her cheeks flushed. Yes, Arya was strong, tough, funny, sexy, but the more she opened up to me, the more often I got to see her softer side. A side she kept so well hidden that most people didn't even notice.

She looked up at me. "I was wondering if you might like to go with me?"

To say I was surprised by her question would be an understatement. “Who did you think I would go with?”

'No, it's not that. I..."

"You know I never even considered going with Cecilia, right?"

““Aee”, I realize that. I was stupid there, sorry.”

I lifted her chin. "You don't have to apologize for anything, remember?"

A quick, small, almost shy kiss on my cheek. My chest burned.

"It's just... I..." She shook her head. "I'm being childish, de-" she broke off when she saw my warning look. She took a deep breath. "I've never been on a date, you know..."

I knew it wasn't meant to make me so happy, that it wasn't something she was proud of. Still, I couldn't help but smile. “Your first date will be perfect, I promise you that. So perfect you'll be glad you waited."

She narrowed her eyes. "You like that, don't you? You like that I've never been with a man."

That sounded more like a statement than a question. And of course she was right, just imagining that only I had touched that skin, that only I was in it made me hard. I shrugged my shoulders. "No matter how many men you had, I would have always taken you." I leaned over and licked the blue meal on her neck, sucking on the soft skin as I had so many times before. "As long as you have no one else after me."

"You're quite possessive."

I straightened up and looked at her, but couldn't suppress the loud growl. "Do you mind?" Whatever her response, I wouldn't be able to hold back on that point. I did not want that.

She just looked at me for a long time. Then, as if astonished herself, she said, "No."

I pulled her to me and kissed her, biting her upper lip and trying to convey all the feelings I had towards her.

"When are we going to break in?" she asked after I pulled away from her and we went back to counting the dark guards and noting their patrols.

"If today's wake pattern is the same as yesterday and tomorrow's, then it will be the day after tomorrow."

I caught a glimpse of her nodding.

➳