I stared, my mouth closing and opening like a fish. Did I hear that right? "Excuse me?"
"You're going to be my wife, Amara." And he said it again. I did hear that right. God, was I dreaming? It felt like I dream. It's not everyday you get a good-looking man like this asking you to be his wife. I was probably still sleeping.
"Amara!" Kaison's sharp tone snapped me out of my thoughts. He was looking alarmed, his gaze pinned to my hand.
I had been clutching the table knife so hard it tore into my skin and my blood was all over the table cloth. "Oh, shoot." I hissed in pain and dropped the knife. I didn't even realize I was doing it.
Kaison was standing before me in a second. He leaned down on one knee and if I wasn't staring at the way my blood was pouring out in floods, I would laugh at how ironic this was. He yanked at my hand until I let it drop in his. "Why did you do this to yourself?"
"I didn't do it on purpose!" I said heatedly then snapped my mouth shut when he gave me a scathing look. "You just surprised me with your comments about marrying me."
"You think it's odd?"
"You don't?" I practically screamed at him. "You don't just go up to any stranger and ask them to marry you! That's crazy. You don't even know me."
Kaison's brows furrowed like he didn't understand a word I was saying. Which probably in werewolf land, it was odd to actually know a person before proclaiming marriage. But what did I know? I was just a dumb mortal.
Kaison stood and walked to the door. Opening it, he snapped a few comments at the person standing guard there. The guard came back a few moments later and handed Kaison a bottle and strips of cloth.
Kaison walked back to me slowly, and I had to physically drag my gaze away from his body. He knelt down again at my feet and that gave me a thrill. There was nothing quite like having a man kneel at your feet. It gave me all sorts of tingly pleasures.
I gave him my hand again and he pressed the cloth he had dipped in the alcohol on my hand. I winced but he held still, wiping at the scar effectively. He looked a little queasy at the sight of it and I frowned. "Do you get sick at the sight of blood?"
"No." He said but I didn't believe him. He focused intently on wrapping my hand, I felt like he was going to laser it off with the amount of concentration. When he was done he set my hand on my lap, and I was glad that I hadn't spilled any blood on my beautiful dress.
"Why were you in the forest that night?" He asked, referring to how I got into their part of the world.
I swallowed. The grief was still a sharp pang in my chest but it was getting easier to ignore it. Not. "My father died and-"
"You are angry." Kaison spoke. He was staring at me like he was trying to figure me out.
"Yeah." I replied. "How do you know?"
"I can read your emotions. Mates can do that." He explained and I immediately went tense. Kaison must have noticed because his eyes narrowed at me.
"I'm not your mate, Kaison." I said slowly. Maybe he didn't understand when I said it the first time.
"Alpha. Call me Alpha." He growled and I would be deathly scared if I hadn't started laughing. I was laughing so hard the cut on my hand didn't hurt anymore.
"You have to see how crazy this is?" I giggled uncontrollably. "I should call you Alpha? I can't do this anymore, I'm sorry. I'm going back home. You should find a werewolf mate, Kaison-"
I could tell he was angry and his eyes flashed a vivid crimson. "I am not a patient man, Amara. You'd do well to take that into consideration when you open your mouth."
His face was mere inches away from me and if I wasn't currently being threatened by a werewolf, I would have indecent thoughts about how soft his lips were looking. Who was I kidding? I was already thinking that. "Ok, ok I'm sorry."
"Alpha. There, you happy?"
Kaison- Alpha or whatever his name was nodded. This guy was completely mental, I thought. I needed to get out of here. I needed to go back home. I'd take Grandma's wrath over this. This insanity. I just needed to play it safe until I got the chance to escape. If playing it safe meant sucking up to Kaison, then so be it.
"I'm not exactly what they call a good catch in my world." I gestured to myself. My barely tamed hair and my bland brown eyes. "Why would you want to marry me?"
I noticed that Kaison only had two emotions; indifference and restrained anger. Now he was looking at me like I was a speck on his finger, not a human being at all, but rather a chore he needed to get done with and move on to the next task. "The moon goddess has willed it so. I must marry you or I might lose my power. An Alpha without a mate is unworthy."
Of course. Every person I had ever met had a selfish reason for keeping me. My grandma wanted me in her house because of my dad. My cheater boyfriend wanted me because the person he actually wanted wouldn't give him the time of day until she saw him with me. Even my dad probably kept me around because I was the only remaining part of the wife that he loved so dearly.
I smiled. If Kaison really could read my emotions, I wanted to make sure he read me being happy. "Oh well, fantastic. I'll be your wife."
Kaison rolled his eyes. "I don't need to feel your emotions to know you're lying. You're horrible at it." Kaison leaned back, his deep blue eyes roving all over my face. "Get some rest. We'll continue this conversation in the morning."
The door opened before I could say anything else and Elion walked in, a small amused smile on his face. His eyes zeroed in on my bandage. "What have we got there?"
"Escort Amara to her room." Kaison said indifferently, his gaze already leaving me.
I stood up, slightly pissed at his lack of emotion. Marry me this, marry me that and he hadn't even cracked a smile or a frown asides from hauling me by my neck. I didn't know what to make of these werewolves and their twisted mentality. All I knew was that I wasn't spending the night here. I'd rather be in the forest, with nowhere to go than to be forced into marriage with this monster.
Elion hooked his arm around mine, not as a friendly gesture but as something to keep me in place. Like I could outrun him. I remembered seeing his wolf, and it looked like it could tear me apart on accident. "Come on, princess."
I winced at the pet name, and the grin on Elion's face. I didn't make conversation, and he didn't either. He dropped me off at my room, waited until I went in and shit the door behind me before I heard his footsteps walk away.
I immediately sprinted to the window and looked out. My room wasn't that high up from the ground and I was hoping the fall wouldn't be too drastic. I wasn't going to chance it by running out the door, so the window it was.
I slipped out of the pretty dress and ran inside the bathroom to fish out my other clothes. It' s not here again, Dinah must have taken it away. I grunt in annoyance, walk back into the room with the corset half suffocating me. I pull it off and slip a thick cotton nightdress over my head. I find a pair of riding breeches and slip them on; it's better than nothing.
The window was a little difficult to open, probably hadn't been open in a long time, but I shove it open like a set of doors. I look back into the room, the pretty room where I felt like a princess and not human meat who was being carted off to sell. I'd miss this room.
All I knew was that I wasn't going back to grandma's. I'd find a way to live on my own. I looked out the window and the so called short drop now seemed like a hard plummet to death. The walls were Stony and rough, so I figured I could climb down instead of jumping down.
I swung my leg over, finding a place where I could put my leg in the wall and began climbing down. It was tricky to do it, even trickier when the cut on my hand started hurting. I climbed all the way down and dropped in a heap on the grass.
My cut had started bleeding sometime during the fall because my bandage was now vivid red with blood. "Shit." But I didn't have time to focus on anything. I had to get out of here before anyone noticed I was gone.
I could see the beginning of the forest from here. And I hoped that if I escapes into the net of trees, I'd manage to put Kaison and his wolves off my tracks. But before I could move another step, an arm yanked me back.
I stopped breathing as I felt the knife against my throat.
"Look what we have here." The voice said. I didn't know what to think. Unlike with Kaison and his wolves, he sounded genuinely scary. "A little butterfly."