Chapter 6 6

I stared at the knife in my hand, confused. Shit, why did I do that?

I vaguely remembered pulling it out of his pocket, but I didn't even think through the action and now..

The realization of what I had just done dawned on me as the knife clattered to the floor.

I was shaking all over. The room was deathly silent and I was too scared to look him in the eyes.

I fell to my knees. “Please, King Alaric, please," I begged, "don't kill me."

My heart wouldn’t stop beating hard in my chest and my thoughts were all over the place.

Would he kill me? I knew I didn’t really have anything going for me right now, but I still want to live. I wasn’t ready to die yet.

“Please spare my life," I begged again , tears running down my face in rivulets. Was this how I was going to die?

The sound of someone laughing stopped me cold. I listened closely, not daring to look up at him.

I scanned the room from the corner of my eye, checking to see who it was that could be laughing in this moment.

There was no other person.it was just the two of us… so that means…

My heart beat hard in my chest as I struggled to make sense of the situation.

Seconds ago, I had held a knife to his neck and now… he was… laughing?

I finally looked up to confirm that my ears weren’t deceiving me, because I might have started hallucinating sounds from the shock of the day.

I wasn’t. There he was, King Alaric. In all his glory. He stood there, bent over, hands on his knees, struggling to keep himself standing upright all the while laughing his head off.

Damn, was he actually insane, literally?

They called him the mad king, I thought that was figurative.

The thought instantly bothered me. I didn’t want to be married to a mad man. The last one I was mated to was sane, most times at least, and see how that one ended.

I won't survive an actually disturbed one.

I didn’t even want to think about it.

He reached down and dragged me, and I shivered as sparks and warmth filled the spot where our skin touched.

“I see that there’s a wildness in you, huh?” He smiled, looking me up and down.

Was that supposed to be a compliment? I didn’t know, but I stayed quiet.

He used that same hand and turned me around, like he was trying to buy meat in the farmers market.

He eyed me a little longer than I liked but he finally nodded. “Keep it; you'll need it here.”

I looked at him, confused, but he just turned and walked away.

Literally just unhanded me and off he went, shutting the tent flap behind him.

Leaving his knife at my feet.

I remained there for a while thinking it over. I don’t think the image of him laughing was going to be out of my head anytime soon.

It looked… nice. His laugh was electrifying. In that moment, he had looked nothing like the fierce warlord he was rumored to be, the same one who had told me I was his mate with that dead look in his eyes.

I shook the thoughts out of my head. There were some things I might just never understand. And maybe I didn’t really want to understand them either.

With a sigh, I picked up the knife, dropped it under my pillow and made my way out of the tent. I stood at the entrance and looked around, wondering which path would lead me back to the kitchen or to any of my new friends.

I just wanted them to repair my emotions like they had the last time.

I started down the path that I thought had led me here, but soon enough I realised that I wasn’t getting anywhere.

I'd seen this particular tent four times already and the warrior's mate was already glaring at me.

With a sigh I headed to some of the guards doing their patrol around the camp. I guess I’d have to ask them, for direction.

I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. It was either that or roam this camp unsupervised and I knew better than anyone that being around adult male wolves, who had most likely been starved of sex for months was not the best idea.

It took a while before I actually summoned the courage to walk up to anyone of them.

I finally walked up to a group of guards that seemed like they weren’t doing anything important in a corner.

“Hello.” I called, trying to keep my voice steady, even though I was bursting with nerves.

My fight or flight instincts were kicking in, and right now all I wanted to do was hide away somewhere.

One of them turned to look at me and the moment I locked eyes with him my heart sank.

His eyes were blood shot red and they told me everything I needed to know about his current situation.

He was drunk. I instinctively stumbled back as the rest of them also turned to look at me.

They were all drunk. What sort of bad luck do I even have? How could so many things happen to one person in a day?

“Well boys, it looks like we have ourselves some nice company.” One of them said, as the others whistled in response.

I tried to give them a reassuring smile as I slowly backed away from them, but for each step I took, they took backward, they took two forward.

It wasn’t until this very moment I realised how deserted this part of the camp was. I hadn’t been paying proper attention to my surroundings and now this was happening.

I should have known better.

I was too busy trying to look for a way to escape to realise that they had gotten really close, not until it was too late.

My heart sank as I felt someone grab my arm roughly. It was the first guy that had turned to look at me.

“Where are you going darling?” he asked, looking at me through those beady little eyes of his.

“The party’s just beginning.” Another one said, grabbing my other arm.