Master

Chapter Sixteen

As I woke up, the throbbing pain in my neck set in. My eyes shot open as I remembered a similar pain. My fingers grazed my sore neck and confirmed my suspicions: Master Baekhyun had marked me. Again.

"I marked you while you slept," said Master Baekhyun, who I had just realized was leaned up against the wall looking out the window.

"Why didn't I feel it?" I asked.

"I injected you with painkillers beforehand," he answered. "You're welcome." He walked over to the bed and sat down. "Anyways, there's been a change of plans. Instead of leaving in a week, we're leaving today."

I was confused by this. "Why?"

He took a deep breath. "Because it's come the time in my life where I am expected to be married. To be fair, I should've been married nearly a decade ago, but that's besides the point. Anyways, my parents have arranged for me to be married to another pure blood vampire, so we need to get down there as soon as possible."

All of this came as a shock to me. He spoke so nonchalantly about the situation. "Y-You're getting married? This week? To whom?"

He answered all the questions. "Yes. Yes. And I don't know."

"Why can't you just pick your own wife instead of getting married to a stranger?" I asked.

Master Baekhyun sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "It's not that simple. We live in the middle of the tundra, and the most company I get is you, LuHan, and dead bodies at the morgue. I don't know anyone that I could marry."

I stared at him for a moment. "Who's LuHan? W-What this about a morgue?"

"I work in a morgue for a living," he clarified. "LuHan's my coworker. Did I never tell you about that?" I shook my head. "Oh. Well, now you know."

He yawned briefly before continuing, "So, yeah. We'll leave as soon as you get ready. A week's worth of clothes should be enough, so get packing."

He began walking out of the room, but I stopped him just as he was about to cross the door frame.

"Master," I began. "Since you're going to have a wife, does that mean that we won't be having children together?"

He let out a chuckle and looked back at me with a smirk on his face. "Nice try, Inell," he said. "But we're still having children together, whether the new wife likes it or not." Then he walked out of the room.

Well, it was worth a shot.

I got out of bed and went to my own room. There was no hassle in choosing what outfit to wear since there was only one choice: a white shirt and black skirt.

I got seven changes of clothing and packed them up. I then went into the bathroom and started washing up, but the sharp pain from the mark was still there. The bite looked similar to the last one: bruised with dried blood surrounding the fang marks.

I don't understand why vampires feel the need to scar their slaves to show everyone that the slave belongs to them. I suppose it's just their possessive nature taking over, but it still doesn't make sense to me.

I finished up and headed downstairs with my clothes. Baekhyun was sitting on the couch waiting for me.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, wincing at the pain in my neck. "Why'd you have to mark me right before we started traveling?"

His expression turned solemn. "Because when I saw you, all I could see were the scars Xiumin gave you. You didn't even look like mine. What would my family think if they knew who the scars were from?" He seemed to get more frustrated the more he spoke. He sighed. "Anyways, let's just get this over with."