10. Bonded in Secret
BONDED IN SECRET
Life didn’t return to normal. Not at all.
Damien’s scent didn’t wear off after I woke up.
It also didn’t wear off the next day. In fact, it sort of blended into my scent and just ...
stayed on me. The bite mark also didn’t heal like regular wounds.
It faded into a lighter red and then settled down, like an imprint sitting proudly on my scent gland.
I refused to accept reality at first, no matter how many telling signs were screaming at me what it was. I had seen marks on so many married omegas; it was also on Lady Astrid’s neck. But I told myself, stubbornly, that it would fade; I just had to wait for one more day.
Luckily, no major social events were arranged for these two days: mostly just some city tours organized by the embassy. Omegas and female betas from all the guest clans would be well-guarded and escorted by royal guards, so Leif would be safe even if I couldn’t go with him.
Nevertheless, guilt still gnawed at me when I had to tell Leif, through the door, that I was sick and couldn’t go with him the very next morning. Leif was worried, since I was rarely sick, and even if I did get sick, I would usually power through rather than take a day off.
I promised him it was nothing serious, and he hesitantly left. However, the next day it wasn’t so easy to persuade him to leave. And the third day, he was ready to barge in.
“Come on, Fenris, open the door!” Leif demanded adamantly. “I just want to see you!”
“I don’t want to pass it to you! It’s just a cold!” I said.
“Thyra said you haven’t even eaten since the day before yesterday!” Leif’s voice sounded deeply worried.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Open the goddamned door, Fenris!”
“Just ... leave me alone!” I snapped.
I couldn’t help it, because by today, I wasn’t completely lying about being sick.
Starting from yesterday, I was restless and anxious, as if something was amiss, something very, very important, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
It felt like invisible insects were crawling beneath my skin, making me want to claw my own skin off.
By nighttime, I had started to develop a fever, and the bite mark on my neck had become swollen, pulsating as though it had its own beating heart.
I lost all appetite, curling into a ball on the bed, shaking like a scared lamb, and generally felt like shit. Even the world around me felt darker and colder, and I yearned to have ... to have someone touch me, someone with dark brown eyes and raven hair and broad shoulders and strong arms ...
Damien’s face kept popping into my head, even when I tried my best not to think about him. I sniffed the hint of his scent emanating from the bite mark like a starved beggar, hoping there was more of it. I needed more of it ... I needed him ...
No, no, no, no ... These couldn’t be symptoms of Lovelorn disease, could they?
At this point, half of my brain already knew that the mark was, indeed, a mating mark, and not just some temporary mark. But the other half just refused to accept the fact that I was thoroughly, both literally and figuratively, fucked.
No one could get me to open the door. The servants and the chamberlain had all tried. Leif even threatened to have Sigurd kick the door open, but Sigurd and Thyra were my warriors first, so they didn’t dare to disobey me.
I buried my head in my arms, hoping Leif could just go away and leave me alone with my misery. This was my punishment for a lack of self-control; I knew that now.
Suddenly, a different voice came through the door. “Fenris.” Followed by three knocks on the door.
My eyes widened, then my heart leapt in exhilaration.
Damien.
“Fenris, it’s me. Open the door.”
I slipped off my bed, hesitantly walking up to the door. My hands were shaking.
I should tell him to go fuck himself, but what came out of my mouth was: “Are you alone?”
“Yes, it’s just me,” he said in a low voice, as though he didn’t want others to hear.
I swung the door open, pulled him in, and slammed the door shut again. I turned around, then we stared at each other for the first time in three days.
He looked great, beautiful as usual, in a dark and devilish way.
On the contrary, I looked like shit. My hair was all frizzy and dishevelled.
I was wearing a nightshirt that was sliding down my left shoulder, half-drenched in sweat.
My bloodshot eyes and dark circles looked like I hadn’t slept for three days, which wasn’t far from the truth.
Damien looked ... worried. “How are you feeling?”
“Shitty,” I said through gritted teeth.
He took a few steps toward me, but I stepped back.
“Fenris, you need to get closer to me to ease the ... symptoms,” he said awkwardly.
So he knew ...
“How is this possible?” I asked, my voice trembling. “I’m an alpha!”
“I don’t know ... I asked a physician, Apparently, this is possible; it’s just when it happens, the marked alpha usually wants to keep it a secret, so we don’t hear about it very often,” Damien said with a sigh.
“You asked a physician?!” I freaked out.
“I didn’t tell her about us, obviously!”
So this was true. He had marked me as his mate. My life was over.
“We can discuss all this later, but now, we should do something about your symptoms. Three days is way too long for a newly marked ome ... I mean a newly marked wolf to be away from the alpha.”
He almost said, “a newly marked omega.” I scowled at him.
Damien approached me again, and this time, I didn’t step away. He tentatively extended his right hand, grabbed my forearm, pulled me closer, then hugged me.
I stood there, being wrapped in his embrace. His scent undulated around me, like the most exquisite symphony. The scorching anxiety and restlessness gradually faded, and I felt ... good.
My body gradually relaxed in his arms, and I rested my head on his shoulder, inhaling his scent ravenously. Unnamed emotions filled my chest, and I had never felt like this before, vulnerable yet satisfied, as though I was finally in a haven after a long, arduous journey.
“I hate you,” I whispered into his shoulder.
“I know.” He chuckled, almost indulgently, running his fingers through my hair.
Damien’s scent seeped into my every pore like wine, rich and intoxicating, and I was half-drunk within a few seconds. I couldn’t believe another alpha’s scent could smell so alluring to me. I wanted to smother my whole face into his neck, but my last shred of pride and dignity held me back.
He hadn’t let me go, though. His hug was gentle yet insistent, his hand pressed against the back of my head, as though encouraging me to smell him as much as I wanted. But after a while, once my need was slightly quenched, I began to realize how awkward our positions were.
I pulled back, not wanting to show how much I craved his scent ... and perhaps his hug. I pointed at the mark, saying frigidly, “How do I get rid of this thing?”
He said, “The same as any mating mark. If you are cut off from my scent entirely, it will take about three months for it to fade, but it’s dangerous; you may develop extreme Lovelorn symptoms. In the worst cases, you may die.”
Die from “heartbreak,” that was what people often said about omegas or betas who were rejected by their alpha and suffered extreme Lovelorn symptoms, so much so that they just faded away with the mark.
I was barely functioning after only three days. Three months ... that would be the worst kind of torture. Not to mention I couldn’t just stop seeing Damien ... Unless I got Leif to withdraw from the candidate list and went home without achieving anything that we’d set out to do ...
“Or,” Damien continued, “we can do it slowly. If we never fuck again, but you are still exposed to my scent from time to time, we can minimize the symptoms of Lovelorn disease while letting it fade. But it’ll take longer, a lot longer.”
“How long?”
“Six months to a year ... More toward a year.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I blurted in panic. “How am I supposed to hide this for that long?! And I can’t just stay in Nocturne for a year!”
“We can discuss the details later, but for now, you can cover the mark with a scarf or a high collar, as for the scent ...” He pulled a small phial from the satchel hanging from his belt, which contained a transparent liquid.
“I got this scent mask for you. It’ll entirely mask your scent, give you a generic alpha smell.
People who know you well may notice your scent has changed, but strangers wouldn’t notice anything. ”
I hesitantly took the phial. “Where did you even get this? I thought scent mask was illegal.”
“I’m the prince, I have privileges,” he said smugly, with a subtle tilt of his head. “But this perfume will start to wear off in three hours, so you need to reapply it regularly.”
“Leif will notice my scent changed ...”
“Well then, you’d better come up with a good lie.” He shrugged.
I put the phial away, still glaring at him. “I’m not going to thank you. Why the hell did you put a mating mark on me! This is not something you can just hand out to anyone you fuck!”
“It’s the first time I’ve given it to anyone, okay? It was an accident! Besides, I wasn’t the only one responsible there. A mating mark requires a willing receiver to form. You invited me to mark you, remember?!”
I’d be lying to say I didn’t remember that, in the heat of passion, I might have bared my neck in an obviously inviting way ... I didn’t know what had gotten into me ...
Maybe I was just ... born wrong in some way.
“You can go now,” I said frigidly, turning away from him, even though my instinct was yelling at me to grab him, hold him, and never let go.
I hated this feeling. I’d never been so needy since I was like ... five.
Damien seemed unimpressed by my attitude, but he didn’t argue. Right before he exited the room, he suddenly said, with an amused chuckle, “We could have become the biggest scandal the Nocturne court has seen in at least a century. Are you sure you don’t want to just let it explode?”