The Cursed Alpha’s Mate by Moon Flood
Chapter 31
Not everyone’s mate takes them to the sparing ground and arms them with knives but mine had to be special.
“If I came at you with a knife, is this how you’d defend yourself?” I kept my mouth shut to keep myself from drooling.
If anyone came at me with a knife, they wouldn’t have such a magnificent chest on full display to distract me.
“What was that?” His brow raised.
“What?”
“What is it you said about my chest?” My eyes darted to his face in time to catch a flash of a smirk which made my heart sink. I took a step back, burying my face in my palms when I realized I’d said the words out loud. Mortification made me burn from the inside out.
“Am I distracting you?” His voice was thicker, perhaps from holding laughter or something else.
“Oh no, it’s just –” I took another step backwards and tripped on thin air. I flayed about for a second before strong arms caught me and pulled me to a magnificent, sweaty chest.
“Fu- uucck.” He exclaimed and let me go almost immediately. I steadied and then realized I’d let my knife fall to his feet.
“Oh my god. Oh my god.” I felt my gaze blur as panic slammed into me. He was bleeding and he had a knife stuck on his foot. A knife I dropped.
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I bent down to take out the knife with shaky hands but he leaned forward and yanked it out.
“I’m bleeding.” His words had a foreign emotion in them. He raised the blade with shaky hands and I assumed he was shaking with anger which made me take another step back.
“I swear I didn’t mean it.” I could feel hysteria setting in, making me want to run. “I would never willingly hurt you.” Believe me! I wanted to scream and plead with him.
“It’s not healed yet,” he said again in that strange voice that sounded neutral but was filled with something I could not decipher.
“It’ll heal. I can – I can get the doctor if you want me to.” I’d do anything at this point. The injury was not so deep but it would still take a few minutes to heal but from the look of things, he wanted it to heal immediately.
With all the things that had happened between us, we were only now making progress. It almost ruined our relationship before it even started but in the last week, I could feel him begin to accept me even though he didn’t say the words. I felt the change in him but I went and did something wrong again. He would surely say I did it on purpose, H*ellbent on ruining his life.
“It has been a long time since I felt pain.” I quietened when he handed me the knife. “It has been a long time since I had an injury that didn’t heal in a few seconds.” I retrieved the knife from him with shaky hands.
“What are you saying?” I asked when I still could not make sense of his words or mood.
“I did something terrible in vengeance and I earned myself a curse. Immortality. I didn’t just get immortality, I got immunity. I could not be hurt so I could not be k*lled. I’ve had to live out my curse but you’ve hurt me.”
“I didn’t mean to?” I apologized and asked at the same time.
“No, you didn’t mean to. Just the same way you didn’t mean to break my curse.” His words stung but I may have read the wrong meaning into them because his tone still remained neutral. “Thank you.” I stilled.
“For hurting you?” I asked incredulously.
“For breaking my curse.” His hands wrapped around my waist and pulled me into a soft and light kiss. It was the sweetest kiss we ever shared and it made my head spin in the three seconds it lasted.
After that, he made me run around the track field and took me to a boxing ring while I was dying to catch my breath. I could only throw weak, feeble punches so we focused on my posture that day.
It continued to the next day and then the next week. I had a day interval between every two days to let my body rest before going back into the same routine.
Training consumed my time these days. I trained mornings and evenings. In the morning, Valens woke me up at the crack of dawn and made me do push-ups and in the evening, Jabari took over my training.
One evening, while I warmed up for training, Valens walked in and my heart leapt into my throat. He had taken off his tie, popping open the first two buttons on his shirt and rolling the sleeves of his shirt. I couldn’t explain why but I felt he looked undeniably sexy this way. I had only seen him during training this week and he missed it this morning and I missed him.
He climbed into bed late every night when I was already far too gone into sleep. I always knew the time he climbed into bed because my body gravitated towards his and I think he did the same because we would somehow be entangled with each other before long. Unfortunately, he slipped out before my eyes blinked open every morning and I only got to see him for the short one hour sessions we had to train in the mornings.
“Is Jabari not coming?” I asked when he stopped before me.
“Would you prefer him to?” He asked in a light tone with an undercurrent of something sharp.
“No,” I answered truthfully then acting on Artemis’ courage and the longing I felt for him all week, I stepped closer to him. Placing my hands on his shoulders, I raised myself on my tiptoes and placed a kiss on his lips. A kiss which should have been light if his lips didn’t take mine in ravenous hunger, his hand dropping below my waist as he grabbed me and squished me to himself.
“You missed me.” He declared when we broke apart. I chuckled under my breath at that.
“I missed you,” I admitted because I had.
Maybe because he had a domineering presence that made it hard to breathe around him or maybe it was the fact that we were mates, but he somehow made my breath short and my body felt his absence all the time.
“There is no way for you to contact me when I’m not with you.” His voice took on an irritated edge. “Come along.” He took my hand and pulled me with him. My shorter legs found it hard to keep up with his long strides so I broke into a semi-jog to keep up with his pace.
We got into his new car which stank of money. It was a gift from the alpha of a wealthy pack. A ‘congratulations on finding your mate. I’m making my existence known so I’m invited to the mating ceremony’ kind of gift. Although the note with the car came with only hearty congratulations, the intentions were clear.
I’d received a beautiful diamond set from the Luna of a neighbouring pack with a note that read: ‘Congratulations on finding your mate, Luna Aysel. I hope you will wear these diamonds at your Mating Ceremony as I’d like to see them on you on such a special occasion.’ Sneaky yet direct.
Valens had the diamonds returned the very day I opened it. “No idiot clothes my mate but me. I can afford to adorn you in diamonds myself!” The gift seemed to be an insult to his pride somehow and he’d told Jabari to make sure whoever sent it never stepped feet into Redville pack.
At the mall, he pulled me to a store. He pointed out a phone which the people had on display and the workers fell over themselves to get it for him. We got it, got a sim and they set everything up there. When we were about to leave, I spied the bill for just a single phone and I screamed out loud.
“What is it?” His eyes darted around.
“Is that the price of the phone?” I asked, transfixed.
“What else did we buy?” He sounded annoyed so I knew that I had to drop it. I looked at the small phone in my hand. It was nice and slender but it cost an arm and a leg.
“That’s – that’s a lot of money,” I said to myself.
“I am the king of werewolves. There is nothing like too much money to me.”
I thanked him for the umpteenth time as we walked out, his words playing in my head.
He could only claim his father’s throne when he broke his curse. The throne of the alpha king sat collecting dust for years.
King. He called himself king.
With these thoughts in my mind, I walked out of the store but bumped into a large chest. When I looked up, I counted six stocky men before us.