327: [Bonus chapter]To Mark His Mate

[Bonus chapter]To Mark His Mate

Believing Oriana was already in deep sleep, he was later startled to find her nuzzling against his nape. His body stiffened, but even before he could say a word, her hand distracted him. Her hand was boldly caressing his broad chest.  1

"Aren't you sleeping?"

"I am dreaming," she replied, her voice still raspy from sleep. 

"What are you dreaming about?"

"Tasty food."

Amused, Arlan wondered if this feisty lass was sleep-talking or flirting with him. The next moment, a groan left his mouth as the woman in his arms bit his neck. Even before he could react, her hand moved to explore his chest, her bold hands daring to go underneath his shirt. The top buttons were undone, giving her hand liberty to explore the contours of his muscles before tracing his collarbones. 

'She is a pervert even in her sleep.'

Before her hand could move deeper inside his shirt, he grabbed her hand. 

"Do you want me to go back on my words?" he spat out through clenched jaws and gritted teeth. 

He got no response, informing him that she was indeed asleep, but her next action and words made him a little riled up. She bit him again and frowned.

"It's tasteless."

'Me? Tasteless?' He could not help but find her gall unbelievable. 'Did she really just bite me and call me tasteless? Does she want me to put salt and pepper on me like I'm food for her to eat?'

Arlan gently pulled her head back, allowing him to get a better look at  her veiled face. Her eyes were closed and she was clearly sleeping, which means her words and actions had no deeper intention. 

For a moment, the urge to remove that veil from her face tickled him, but he had given her his words and had no desire to break them. 

However, her unintentional movements had stirred something inside him. Not to mention, the sensation of her soft body pressed against his, the sweet scent of hers that seemed mixed with something else.

No, in fact there was really something different about her scent and it was growing stronger since a while ago, his senses were being greatly affected by that strange and enticing addition to her scent. 

All of those were enticing him to taste her…

His gaze darkened and it traveled down from her face to her beautiful neck. Her head was slightly tilted back, exposing the sweet curve of that fair and smooth skin, the thin blood vessels visible underneath, but his gaze stopped at a particular blood vessel which was thumping lightly along with her heartbeats. 

The inviting sight was impossible to resist. 

The darkness in his eyes deepened as he moved his face closer towards her neck. The sleeping woman didn't know what kind of danger she was in. Arlan had seemed to have lost himself to temptation,  a part of him urging him to surrender to the beast inside him. 

To mark his mate. 

To brand her his.

'She is mine. My mate.'

Like a man possessed, enchanted by the beauty in his arms, Arlan found his mouth pressed against her neck, his teeth ready to pierce her skin. 

The moment his teeth grazed her skin, her body flinched. A muffled cry escaped her lips as her hands tightly gripped on his shirt.

'What—'

Arlan stiffened, her reaction jolting him back to reality. He immediately withdrew his head and stared down at her neck in horror. 

'What the hell was I about to do?'

His dark eyes returned to their normal shade, and he noticed two tiny teeth imprints on her neck. Just a little more force and his teeth would have drawn blood. He cursed himself inwardly, but amidst his frustration, there was relief.

Though he initiated marking her, he fortunately retreated at the nick of time.

Arlan once again lowered his head, moving his mouth to where her skin would surely bruise in the morning and licked that little sweet spot to soothe it. He found her body soon relaxing.

'She's still asleep?'

He moved his head back to look at her in disbelief. 

'How can she sleep so deeply? What if I marked her? How can a woman be so careless?' 

The more he looked at her defenseless state, the more he felt frustrated. 

'What if it was not me and someone else here? She would be so easy to take advantage of! Could it be that from disguising herself as a man, her senses have dulled against men? What makes her believe she is safe among men? What happened to a woman's sharp intuition? No, no, she can't be left like this. There are plenty of perverts in the world.' 

His gaze turned determined. 

'There is no way I could let her out of my sight now. She is meant to stay by my side forever, protected, even if she remains as my servant.'

The frustrated prince stood up, carrying his sleeping mate in his arms. In a blink of an eye, the two of them appeared inside the guest mansion of Megaris. He carried her to the guest room assigned to her and put her to bed. After leaving her in the care of Seren's servants, Arlan stepped out of the room. 

By now, the people serving Seren and Drayce had understood Oriana had a special status, not only to the King and Queen of Megaris but also to the Crown Prince of Griven. No one could dare belittle or disregard her.

Drayce was inside his study when Arlan came for him. 

"Still awake?" the prince asked with no greeting. "You could bear to leave your wife alone at night?"

"She needs to rest before we start our journey tomorrow," Drayce answered and looked at him with a displeased gaze. "You should learn to control your powers. It ended up extinguishing all the oil lamps and candles in this mansion, almost scaring Seren and everyone else."

"You cleaned up after my mess mere seconds after my mistake, so it doesn't really matter," Arlan said with a light smirk on his lips and sat down in the chair as if he owned the place. 

Drayce offered him a bored gaze. "Spit it out." This man would not come to him this late for no apparent reason.

The prince's playful expression turned serious.

"I almost marked her tonight."

pqdm.com