Bab 5: Chapter Five: A Mark to Remember
Kinsley’s POV
My first time sleeping in a bed, or waking up to the smell of food cooking from an actual kitchen, is a baffling experience at first. Terron gave me a shirt to wear to sleep and I was afraid he would want to share the small space but thankfully he must have slept elsewhere.
I notice the blanket and pillow set up on the couch in the living room but I don’t mention it. I can’t picture the spot being comfortable, or even the right size for an Alpha of his broad stature, but he hardly seems phased by it, knocking the bedding aside while I take a seat.
We don’t talk over breakfast. I’m thankful for the silence.
I don’t know what is normal to say the morning after finding your mate and being whisked away to his pack. Nothing seems fitting, but it’s also a little stoic. Terron is already brute, with his bulky appearance. His silence is tensile and heavy.
It must be an Alpha trait because his Beta comes over with a warm grin and kicks back into a chair nearby after helping himself to breakfast.
“How are the fated mates this morning?” Lucas asks with a beaming grin. “Did you clear the air after last night?”
“If we hadn’t, this conversation would be very uncomfortable thanks to you,” Terron murmurs.
Lucas doesn’t seem bothered by the banter. Something tells me they have had a lot of it through the years. When Lucas is here, Terron is calm and more relaxed. He slouches into the couch, tipping his head back as he exasperates a deep exhale.
I didn’t consider it before but maybe Terron is just as uneasy as I am about finding his mate.
I retreat to the kitchen, figuring out how to work the sink pretty fast while I do the dishes to clear my mind. This is a routine I recognize, stalling halfway through drying off a cup when I freeze.
It’s too familiar. I don’t mention it to the wolves in the living room but in all my years with Ace, I never encountered a sink or was forced to clean and put away dishes.
It feels so natural to me, though.
I bat away those feelings, working to find out where everything belongs in the cabinets when a light brush of a hand on my hip threatens to make me topple forward. I gasp in reflex, dropping the plate and jumping back when it threatens to land on my feet.
It shatters into thousands of shards around Terron and me.
“I’m so sorry,” I gasp, kneeling to clean up the mess. I hear Terron make a groaning noise and before I can consider brushing away the mess to clear his floor, I pull my newly clean hair off of my neck and submit to him.
Silence falls over the hut in an instant.
“What are you doing?” Terron groans. “Get up, little wolf. It’s okay. It was just a plate. I have others.”
“I’m sorry,” I pant, already breathless like I’ve gone on a run uphill. “I didn’t know you were behind me. I shouldn’t have broken your plate, I’m so sorry, Alpha. I will–”
“Don’t call me that,” he bites. His hand finds my wrist and he pulls me to a stand, his free hand pressing into my side to guide me clear of the debris of the broken plate. His eyes are serious and cold again. “Relax, mate. You don’t have to submit to me like that.”
Instinct takes over and I bow my head again; the pressure to do so is far too overwhelming. I can’t fight the urge to submit, to calm his nerves against me, even if they aren’t as severe as I think they are.
I’ve never been good at making a judgment in these situations but Ace would let me know in an instant if I had messed up. Though, the punishment was radically unpredictable.
I see flashes of his tattoos, of the scars he earned like trophies while taking down packs twice as big as his rogue army. He wouldn’t let up until I was unconscious or had been silent in my agony. Ace was ruthless in his approach to making me submit and hated the weakness it showed when I would.
I could never prevent the pain. It was natural for him to punish me.
His body faces me now, littered with scars and tattoos; the proudest Rogue Prince there ever was.
“Whoa, little wolf,” Terron huffs, his arms wrapped around me suddenly. “I’m going to help you sit back down on the floor. Okay? Your legs are giving out.”
I only become aware of the strike of fatigue when I hit the floor, my knees knocking together while I blink back memories of Ace that I never asked for. When Terron brushes my hair off my cheek, I flinch, picturing the Rogue Prince grabbing at my jaw to make our eyes interlock.
I didn’t need a mating pull or even any words to understand what he meant through his suffocating grasp.
Lucas shoots up from his chair in the living room, thrusting my focus back into reality.
Terron stands taller too, his eyes shifted off of me for the first time in a while. “What is that? Do you smell it, Beta?”
“I do,” Lucas growls. “There’s a rogue on our pack lands.”
My body goes taut with that claim. “It’s Ace, isn’t it?”
“Not that I can tell,” Lucas reaffirms.
He was attacked by the Rogue Prince. He would recognize his scent in a heartbeat. It doesn't ease my concerns just yet, though.
Most rogues have either worked for Ace before or are currently in his ragtag excuse for a pack. Ace could have sent a proxy to every pack in the hunt for me. Whatever that monster wants with me, he won’t stop until he has it.
He’s coming for me. I can feel it in my bones.
“Find the other warriors,” Terron barks. “Bring that rogue to me now!”
The Beta breaks into his wolven form halfway out the front door. I shiver at the sheer sight of his wolf, their power is in such raw form, unmatched by anything in a mortal frame. I could never picture myself having that kind of power. I’m too weak.
Terron pulls me from his kitchen floor and walks over the broken glass with little interest. He sets me down on the couch and when he intends to step away, I pull for him to stay. My hands instinctively turn into fists with the fabric of his shirt pulled through my fingers.
He doesn't mention it or push my hands away. Instead, he sits down beside me, forcing my head to lie comfortably on his leg. Playing with my hair calms my nerves too much. My eyes flutter shut for a second, every ounce of pent-up exhaustion from my entire life releasing over my body and mind at once.
The voices in the cabin interrupt my rest.
“I was just passing through, that is all!”
“Keep your voice down while my mate is resting,” Terron snarls. His warning isn’t meant for me but I wince all the same. “I want to know who you are and where you are going. Now.”
“Answer the Alpha,” Lucas cuts in. “Refusal means death.”
“I was–” the rogue speaks with such an unsteady tone, his voice rattling off in a mumble as he hesitates to finish his sentence. “That mark. I’ve seen that mark.”
I curl tighter, wishing I could fall back asleep in bliss before this situation was thrust into my realm of concern. Terron drags his fingertips across my neck, pushing my hair aside and settling over the small scar of a birthmark that rests under my ear.
“This mark?”
“Yeah, I know it well.”
“You’re affiliated with Ace Witfield after all,” Lucas snaps.
“What? No,” the rogue pleads. “There was a she-wolf in the last pack I was part of, at least a decade ago, who had that same birthmark.”
“What pack would that be?”
“Jonathan Linc is the Alpha.”
My eyes fly awake at his words.
Everyone is staring thoughtfully in my direction while something familiar washes over me.
“I recognize that name.”
Hadiah
-- Hadiah diterima Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone