His Rejected Queen

Chapter 2.:

Ariana looks around, searching for the alluring scent which hits her nose. She can’t decipher where it comes from. The sweetest scent she had ever smelled in her life caught her entire attention.

“What’s wrong?” Her father asks her, watching his restless daughter abruptly scanning the entire hall. She searches for something, yet he can’t say what it is.

“Nothing.” She replies to him, pretending everything is alright. Ariana couldn’t focus as the sweet scent filled her nostrils, but she couldn’t bring the matter to her parents. They would take her back home right away. Ariana understands the meaning of the scent. Her mate should be somewhere in the room. She wasn’t expecting to meet him at the ball, especially since she hoped to meet the Lycan king and become his potential mate, but it didn’t matter anymore. Her mate is there as well.

Ariana almost instantly forgets about the Lycan king and focuses on the sweet, woody scent which fills the entire room and restricts her from thinking about the rest. She can’t sense anything else but the scent, which drives her crazy. The only voice she can hear in her mind is calling for her mate.

The music begins, people pour onto the dance floor when her parents finally find a place to sit. They are sitting in the corner, watching the guests of the ball slowly dancing in the middle. Daria specifically chooses this place to stay hidden, hoping no one would ask her daughter for the dance. The longer Ariana remains unseen, the better the chance they will leave this place unharmed and without the Lycan king taking a liking to their daughter.

“May I have this dance?” The tall man offers his hand to Ariana, asking her for a dance. Ariana lifts her eyes, only to meet with the most beautiful blue eyes she has ever seen. It is him. Her mate. She recognizes the sweet, woody scent coming from him. He looks at her with the same interest and Ariana knows he felt the same as she did. He smelled the same alluring scent coming from her body, binding them together.

Daria’s eyes widened. He found them and from all the girls in the hall; he had to ask her daughter.

“Of course, your highness.” Daria stands up the same as her husband, and they both bow their heads in front of the Lycan king. Ariana’s father isn’t short. On the contrary, at one hundred eighty-five centimeters in height, he belongs to one of the tallest guards in the capital. Yet, in comparison with the Lycan king, he looks just like a boy. Daria is way shorter than her husband.

Ariana stands up and accepts the offered hand of the Lycan king. He leads her into the middle of the dance hall where they dance. Every set of eyes looks at them, but they are ignoring them. His eyes locked on Ariana. She wishes to talk to him, claim him, but in the presence of his greatness, she can’t bring herself to say a word. She completely drowns in those icy blue eyes, which keep staring at her with no words.

The skin where their hands locked tingled. They both sense it, but he says nothing about it. He should claim her by now. Announcing that he had finally found his mate, his true queen, yet they were just dancing in silence.

The song had finished, and another one exchanged it. They dance to two more songs before he finally asks her to join him on the balcony outside of the crowd. Ariana forgets to account for the time as they are standing on the balcony in the fresh air, lost in those eyes. She isn’t feeling cold. Her werewolf blood keeps her warm while the snow softly lands around them. Ariana can’t hide her excitement. Her lasting wish finally came true. Not only meets the man of her life, her mate is no one else but the Lycan king himself.

“Be mine.” The Lycan king pulls her closer to him. They are still standing on the balcony, but Ariana notices the surrounding silence. The balcony door is closed and soundproof. Not even a single note escaped the hall. They are there entirely alone. She didn’t find it strange. Who would like to attack the Lycan king? It is already a suicidal mission trying to attack a werewolf, not to mention Lycan himself. No one in the entire kingdom and in his right mind would try to attack the king. Not without a proper army, and even with the army, there would be little chance of winning the fight.

“I am already all yours, your highness.” Ariana bows to him. She can’t stop staring at him. Those eyes staring at her are enchanting. The hunger in his eyes screams her name and she has no will to resist him. She wishes to be his forever.

“Marcus. Call me Marcus.” He is telling her. Ariana giggles. She forgets his name. Among the girls, they were always calling him a Lycan king or his highness. No commoner would ever call the king by his given name, yet he gives her the privilege.

“Marcus.” She repeats his name. The sound of his name tingles her on the tip of her tongue, which makes her giggle even more. He likes the sound of the bells when she smiles but he said nothing to praise it. Instead, he picks her up bridal style and carries her through the garden into the castle. No one stops them. No one is looking for them in the hallway or in the garden. They just vanished from the evening with no one noticing.

Marcus brings Ariana to one of the many bedrooms in the castle. Away from the dance hall, away from everyone. It is just the two of them.

“Can you turn off the light?” Ariana asks him shyly. She hadn’t been with the man before and although she partly knew what to expect, she wasn’t entirely prepared for what was going to happen. Marcus doesn’t care about the light. He dims the light, since he doesn’t need them to see, anyway. He sees in the night the same as during the day. His Lycan’s eyes offered him the perfect eyesight.

He crosses the distance between them, unzipping the dress on her back. The strapless vintage dress falls on the ground with a silent thud, unraveling her pure beauty. She wears no bra since her dress can’t cover it. Once the dress falls on the ground, she stands in front of him, only in her silky panties.

“Don’t hide!” He orders when Ariana’s hands automatically shoot up to her chest, trying to cover her breasts. His tone left no room for argument and his Lycan voice literally forced her to reveal herself to him. He stands there, watching her soft pale skin shining in the night lights. She looks beautiful, but not as beautiful as the dozen other girls he had had during the last week. He cares little about her feelings. A young silly girl who came into the castle with her childish dream of being a queen. What does it matter if she is his mate?

He places her on a soft and boneless bed, gripping the delicate wrist of a girl. With a simple snap of his hand, he could break those two hands. With his head buried in her smooth and tender neck, he lay on top of her. The girl beneath him clenches her hands into fists, almost crying from the pain of her first time. Her meticulously trimmed and maintained nails sink deeply into his back, leaving behind fresh red blood stains which almost instantly healed, just for her to leave marks on his back once again.

Marcus doesn’t care about her pain. A night of back and forth giving and taking, the bright red mark on the bed sheet, signifies her transformation from a girl to a woman.

Ariana woke up in the morning alone in the room. The maid knocks on the door before she enters. As ordered, she brings fresh water, food and a set of new clothes for Ariana. Ariana briefly refreshes herself, hoping she could join Marcus for breakfast, but once Ariana puts on her clothes and eats a few bites from the tray with the food, the maid leads her out of the castle and into the prepared carriage, leaving Ariana utterly confused. She thought she would stay in the castle by her mate’s side, but he sent her back home.

“Where have you been?” Ariana’s mother asks the moment she opens the door and enters the house with tears in her eyes. Daria stops herself from scolding her daughter. She knows exactly where she was the entire night. There is only one place where she could stay the whole night and come back in entirely different attire.

“He sent me home.” Ariana whispers in between her sobs. She can’t understand why she is back home. He belongs to her. She should stay by his side and not at home, away from her mate. He doesn’t want her or what happened? Her mind can’t process the pain of her broken heart. This isn’t the story she hoped for. This isn’t the mate she waited for.

“Did he hurt you?” Daria wants to know. The illusion of her daughter being intact while spending the night in the castle went through the roof the moment he came to pick her up for the dance. At least, she comes home in the morning, and it seems except for her broken heart, nothing else suffered any injuries.

“No,” Ariana answers her, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. Almost instantly, she dries her tears and concludes her following steps. She plans to return to the castle and have a talk with her mate. He felt it. Ariana knows he felt the same pull towards her. She read it in his eyes when they locked their gazes yesterday. At least, he owes her an explanation, or maybe all this is just a misunderstanding, and the maid shouldn’t have sent her back home.