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1883 Words
“Where is Erina, mother?” Arden asked when he couldn’t find Erina at the venue as he scanned the visitors.
“I told her to get some napkins. She didn’t come back yet!” his mother said as she stood in front of the three girls, scowling and getting pissed by what happened.
“You did what, Mama?” Arden’s brows knitted,
His expression darkened.
“I just told her to get some napkins because I panicked! It’s not harmful!”
“This is so embarrassing for Arden, Mrs. Gunner!” Patricia, one of the girls, said as she looked at Arden, who just shook his head and walked out.
“Arden! Come back here!” Mrs. Gunner shouted as she followed Arden’s back using her eyes, who was already walking away; then she glanced at the girls and smiled apologetically.
“Oh, don’t mind him. He’s just in a bad mood.”
“I can’t believe that Arden chose that girl, Madame,” Ricia said while frowning.
Some of the servants handed Mrs. Gunner the napkin she requested. The servant shook her head, referring to Erina, who was not in the kitchen area.
“Here. And don’t worry, girls. My son isn’t serious with that girl,” she said as she handed the table napkin.
Some of the guests who are watching the commotion slowly brought their attention back to their own business as they started talking about Erina, who was already nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Erina?” Arden asked as he went to the corridors to find her.
The servant shook her head. “She’s not in the kitchen area, My Lord. We haven’t seen them there.”
Arden’s brows knitted while she thought about Erina, who was nowhere to be found. He went to the other side of the corridor when one of the guards of the mansion quickly went to her.
“A servant just reported that someone took Erina out, My Lord.”
As soon as Arden heard the news, he immediately ran out of the mansion and transformed into his alpha wolf form, revealing his enormous transformation as he used his sense of smell to locate and follow Erina’s scent.
With his speed, he quickly followed the men who abducted Erina, who was now kneeling in front of the two men; both of her pulses were tied, as her head was covered with a small sack, and her body was trembling in fear.
“Please, let me go,” Erina cried, hoping that they would listen to her.
“Finish her, now,” the other men said.
If the men hit her or hurt her, the first thing that’s on her mind is to perform a spell and kill them both. She needs to save herself instead of getting killed.
She was bracing for their attack, and her mind has already prepared the spell she was going to recite, but when she heard a growl, she stopped her words as soon as the men in front of her started screaming in pain.
Erina quickly used her hands to pull the sack out of her head to see what was going on. Her eyes widened when the enormous body of the rumored alpha werewolf flashed in front of her eyes while he bit the arm of the other man and tossed its body against the tree.
The other man used his knife and swung it on the werewolf’s chest, making it bleed, but the werewolf just caught his pulse and bit it aggressively as the man shouted when it ripped his arm.
Erina’s eyes narrowed. She has never seen such gore scenes involving ripping parts of someone’s body. The other man who was tossing pulled himself up and ran to the werewolf, stabbing its back.
The werewolf tossed the hand of the other man he was biting and walked towards the guy with narrowed eyes as he stepped backward nervously and stumbled down to the floor.
The wolf transformed into its human form and crouched down in front of the guy as he pulled the knife at his back and used its tip to graze on the fatal part of the guy’s neck.
“Tell me who’s behind this before I slit your neck with this knife,” Arden asked in a low voice, his eyes darkening.
“T-the Rockwell, M-my Lord,” he said.
Arden’s jaw clenched and he stabbed the knife into the guy’s leg, which made him shout in pain.
Erina was so shocked that she didn’t know what to do. He can see the familiar back of Arden with a knife wound as it bled, while the other man who lost his arm was growling in pain on the ground.
“Get the f**k out of my sight or I’ll f*****g rip your head out of you,” Arden warned as he stood and looked at the two men who were trembling in fear.
They forced themselves to stand up and hastily walked out. Arden turned to Erina, who looked so shocked at the violence she saw.
Her eyes drifted to the wound on his chest. The knife slit his skin; it was bleeding, and it looked deep. He crouched down to level her and slowly untied her hands.
“Your… chest,” Erina gasped, shocked that Arden looked unconcerned with his wound.
Arden slowly lost consciousness until he fell to the ground. Erina’s eyes narrowed, and she began shaking his body to wake him up.
“Arden! Arden wake up!” she shouted.
She pushed his body until Arden lay straight on his back and she clearly saw his wound on the chest.
“s**t. I know this scent. He’s poisoned. It’s the reason why he easily lost his energy and consciousness,” Erina said as she smelled the familiar scent she had already encountered in the forest.
She pulled Arden’s body and groaned when she pulled him up; her hand snaked around his waist to balance him; her other hand holding his other hand, she hung around her shoulder to carry him.
Erina winced exhaustingly as her eyes tried to find a place where she could place Arden until she saw a small cave, enough to cover their bodies in the thickness of the snow.
She put his unconscious body on the ground and went out to find him in the thick of the forest.
If I let his wound heal, he’s going to die anytime soon if the poison conquers his entire body! This is not part of my mission, but everything will be useless if he’s dead!
But at the back of Erina’s mind, she’s willing to help him because Arden showed up to save him from the men who tried to kill her. She’s just returning the favor.
It took her an hour to find the herbals she needs. As soon as she gathered it, she took a rock and started crushing them into pieces, squeezing it until the liquid came out while she was reciting a Latin spell as he put those crushed herbs on Arden’s chest where the wound is.
She repeated the cycle and treated his wound at the back as well, ripping the hem of her long gown to use it as his bandage.
She breathed heavily after an hour of treating Arden’s wound. She felt relieved that she successfully did it, which means she learned the spells, witchcraft, and rituals taught by her mother Aurora.
She senses that the snow is starting to get thick. She found some dried leaves inside, along with some wood, so she used the two rocks to make a fire out of it. She just pressed them into each other until they sparkled and she created a cloud of smoke. She crouched down and blew against it until the fire started mingling with the smoke.
She stood and carried Arden’s body again so he could get warm by the fire beside the bonfire she made. She sighed and sat beside him as she watched his face, still unconscious.
She separated his furrowed brows and frowned.
“Mother, I didn’t sign up for this.” She murmured to herself.
This isn’t what I expected. I am supposed to hate him, bear his child, then run away, but why am I with him in this cave after we saved each other’s lives?
Yes, I saw that he’s indeed the cruel Arden Gunner everyone’s talking about, the menacing alpha wolf who killed our entire kind, but I couldn’t help but question him about why he chased after us and saved me.
Does he care? My life is nothing compared to the lives of the witches he brutally killed. Sure, he can just let me die and choose another girl for himself and bear his child, but he showed up. He saved me.
Erina was confused for a while, knowing that Arden had indeed saved his life. She expects him to be cruel to him, just like his mother treated her poorly, but she didn’t expect that Arden is quite gentle.
Is it because I looked like your first love? Are you a fool? Just because I resembled her, then why did you come running to save me?
Erina smirked sarcastically and shook her head as her fingers trailed down his nose until he was grazing the side of his perfectly angled jaw.
“This King is really handsome, just like what Aurora said to me…” she whispered.
She has never seen a good-looking person who embodies darkness as if a demon who’s attracting angels using his charm. It’s his greatest weapon—that he looked attractive despite the menace he’s wearing as a crown.
“Now we’re even. You saved me. And I saved you,” Erina said as her fingers went to his chest, her eyes admiring his massive body.
“Knowing that I’m going to bear his child one of these days, I don’t think he’ll fit. With his stance and the violence I’ve seen, I knew that he was not gentle at all. He might rip my body apart,”
Arden heard a familiar voice and a finger trailing on the cracks of his stomach.
He slowly opened his eyes and found the familiar face from the past, which is Arena, until it slowly became clear and he saw Erina.
“If you think I’ll rip your body apart like what you’ve seen, then that’s not how I f**k at all,” Arden said in a raspy voice.
Erina’s eyes slowly narrowed when she realized that he was already awake and that he had heard her words.
She cleared her throat and swallowed as Arden saw the flush on her face. Arden felt the warmth of the fire in front of them. He looked at it curiously and noticed that his wound on the chest had already been treated too. The bandage used is just too familiar, so his eyes drifted to her dress.
“Uh, I don’t have anything, which is why I ripped the hem instead. I’m sorry. I know this dress isn’t mine, and I ruined it.”
“You know how to treat a wound?” Arden asked, disregarding the dress she was talking about.
Erina nodded slowly. “Yes…”
- Writer
