Page 208 of Rogue Alpha Prince

He never leaves my side at first, then only a couple of times for some pack matters when Claudia and Atlas come to see me in the evening.

I feel bad about Cain neglecting his pack, his Kingdom, his people… No matter how many times he says he has everything under control with mind-linking and the laptop that his Beta takes every day for charging. I get that he does that for me, but… what’s the point?

I know he needs to prepare the pack for the harsh winter months, and I can’t help him with that. I don’t want to help him with that, but… I can help him return to his life, even when I don’t see a point in mine anymore.

So, I start asking for permission to bake, not for my benefit but for his.

And it works. We start spending a healthy amount of time apart, and Cain starts to feel fine with me being alone sometimes. It’s not like he wouldn’tfeel if something was really wrong through the mate bond anyway—so I’m surprised I have to trick him into leaving my side in the first place.

He starts by leaving for the fighting pit and then for the morning office meetings with his officers, and soon, his day goes back to almost normal, and I have time to do what I need.

Every free time I have I take one of Cain’s knives, cut my palm, and concentrate on healing it to the point it stops bleeding but the skin is still open. I wait for the scar to appear and then try to heal it too. It takes me a lot of trial and error before I learn how to stop it at the right time, and even more time to be able to do anything about the scar. The first few times I had to cut over it again to be able to concentrate on the healing. But the longer I wait, the bigger the scar is, and the harder it is to heal.

“Look what I stole from my father's bedroom for you!” Cain enters our room in an exceptionally good mood on my twenty-first birthday that no Rogue, including him, knows about.

I pull on our mate bond through the mark, and I can feel him so… happy?

I stand up with a smile and a knife behind my back. He almost caught me at my daily practice.

“What do you have there?” he asks with furrowed brows and takes a step toward me, with his hand behind his back too.

He is in his warrior gear with combat boots, leather pants, straps with knives, and a sword attached by the handle to his hip—except the fact it’s already October, so I miss summer and his shirtless days. I touch his covered but very muscled chest anyway with my free hand.

“You first,” I nod at his hidden arm.

With a beaming smile, he pulls an old leather-bound black book in front of my face, and I have to take a step back from him to look at it properly.

“Oh wow, is it the first edition?” I rotate it in my free hand, itching to read it.

“Yes,” he is towering overme again. “I know you love military books and hate my father, so I thought stealing it from him would be the best of both worlds.”

“It’s perfect, thank you,” I give him another small smile and put it on the bed behind me. “Now, my surprise, I guess.”

I pull the slightly bloody knife out from behind my back, and his smile falters.

He looks at me very, very unamused. “Asher…”

I can catch fear in his emotions, so I immediately put my hand back on his chest in what I hope is a comforting gesture. “Cain, I wouldn’t… I love my life!”

He rolls his eyes with annoyance and bites his lower lip before slowly drawing it between his teeth.

“Do you?” He looks at me again, pressing his weight on my hand.

I… I do, right?I lower my eyes realizing he is right. I did lose myself after all that happened. I even hate myself sometimes for all the choices I made even if I know I would make them again in a heartbeat… for him.

“I loveyou,” I look up into his intense navy-blue gaze and feel so vulnerable after unintentionally saying this simple truth I was hiding more from myself than from him.

It’s no longer hiding under all that lust. I don’t have any excuses anymore because it turns out it was just lust, it was just a mate bond. But now? I don’t have any doubts in my mind that this beautifully terrifying thing that is squeezing my stomach right now is undeniably love.

The biggest love of my life.

And he is standing here with his unreadable face and chiseled chest, so firm under my fingers, with no words escaping him, making me even more nervous.

“See? It’s weird when someone is saying it to you, right?” I ask awkwardly and take my hand off his body.

He catches it by the wrist and leans down to catch my lips too. I let him because I crave any reaction after what I said, even a forced one.

But this kiss… It’s socharged with emotions, slow at first but then quickly picking up pace, not forced at all. Raw. And searing hot.

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