CLAIMED BY THE ALPHA PRINCE

3: I Did It To Save Your Life

THREE: AMERIE

I woke up disoriented. My whole body felt like lead, and even though my thoughts were still all over the place, the first person I thought of was Axel.

What the hell? I jerked upright as the memories from earlier came flooding in. The disciplinary meeting, the attack, and the arrow… I raised my hand to stare at where the arrow hit me, but there was nothing there but a fading black mark.

Just like I felt no pain, too.

What the hell? Was that a dream? A hallucination? No, it definitely wasn't. Everything still feels fresh on my mind, but none of it makes sense. Why couldn't I feel the pain? Why has the wound healed? And most importantly, what is this room?

I looked around the room of white with streaks of gold. It was devoid of furniture except for the bed frame, mattress, and a lone chair in the corner of the room. I frowned, and I tried harder to remember how I got here and how I survived that kind of attack, but the harder I tried to, the more my head hurt.

I was even more alarmed when I looked down at my body and realized I was dressed in a pair of baggy tee and joggers that were definitely not mine and clearly masculine.

The door opened, and I instinctively shrank back, but it was just Axel, and he looked like he was carrying the burden of the world on his slumped shoulders and narrow eyes.

“You're awake,” he pointed out after closing the door behind him, and he leaned against the door as if he couldn't bear to be in close proximity with me.

That makes the two of us.

“Obviously, Sherlock,” I replied with a tight smile, “what am I doing here? What happened? How did I survive the attack?”

“It's a bit of a long story, Amerie.” I ignored the fact that he just called me by my first name for the first time because the tone of his words carried so much weight, and it… It made me worried.

“Just get it out. Am I… I’m not in any sort of danger, am I? Pretty sure that'd make you excited though.”

He didn't take the bait of what would have become a long bickering session. Instead, he rubbed his hand on his face before running it through his head. My heart dropped. Axel was never serious about anything. If it was affecting him this much, then it must be bad.

“Wolfe…”

“I marked you.”

“What?”

His eyes dropped to my neck, and I raised my hand to where I felt a tingling sensation. I felt four bite marks, and I slowly started shaking my head.

“No…” I whispered, “Tell me this is a joke. Tell me this is one of your crude pranks.”

“Trust me, I'd be glad if it was. Marking a human girl is detrimental to my future as the alpha king. This is just as bad as having no mate, but the worst part? I can't even mark any other person because I've already marked you.”

“Then why did you do it in the first place?” I rose from the bed and walked up to him, “Why did you mark me… why did you…”

“Because you were dying,” he snapped, “marking you was the only way to save you. If I hadn't sunk my canines into your neck the second I did, you'd be dead by now.”

“Now, isn't it a better option to be dead than to be bound to you for life?” I whispered harshly before I started pacing the length of the room. I couldn't believe that the night that had started as a random disciplinary meeting ended with me being marked by the one person I couldn't stand.

“And why did you even care if I die or not?” I stopped in his face again, “You hate me. I'm certain it'd have been good riddance to bad rubbish if I had died.”

“Trust me, Wolfe, I wouldn't have cared if you died any other way, but that arrow was meant to take my life. You got hit instead of me, and that made it my responsibility to cure you.”

I scoffed as I started to pace again, “How noble. And now we're in this bind because of your noble decisions. Good!”

I tapped my finger against my teeth as I moved feverishly around the room. There must be something. We can't just allow this to happen. He was no random alpha; he was the alpha prince. Bearing his mark meant my life would be upended in the most horrible way, and I'd have to step into the shoes of… No… no way. There must be something… I stopped short as a solution came to me. It wasn't even a complicated one; it was the most basic solution, the simplest one, and I wondered why we both didn't think of it instead of getting unnecessarily worked up.

“Just reject me, undo the marking,” I couldn't stop the smile from spreading across my face, “it's that simple, isn't it?”

He looked at me as if he couldn't believe I just uttered something that stupid, “It's a public claim, Amerie. I marked you in the presence of three high-ranking council members. I can't take that back. You should know this as the self-acclaimed genius of our sociology class.”

I glared at him before I resumed my pacing again. Of course, he marked me in front of an audience. Of course, it can't be undone, and I was now bonded to him for life. But that was none of my business either. This whole thing started because of him, and it's a good thing that I wasn't a wolf, so I just had to remove myself from the equation while he finds a way to deal with this alone.

“Thank you for saving me, even though I wouldn't be at the risk of dying if it wasn't for you in the first place, but I'm not going to get involved with this whole mate and marking bullshit. I'm a human girl, so your laws don't apply to me. I'm just going to leave now, and I'm going to forget that this night ever happened.”

I nodded for him to leave the door, and to my surprise, he actually moved away, but my hand had hardly closed around the doorknob when he spoke.

“A lot of powerful people out there don't want me to become king, and now that I have a mate, fake or not, they'd want to eliminate you just to weaken me.”

Dread shuddered down my spine, and my hand tightened around the doorknob as I turned to look at him.

“What are you talking about?” I asked even though I understood what he meant. I understood pack politics and power tussle enough to.

“I'm saying that if you denounce the mark and walk out of this building right now, you might not make it to the parking lot.”