Page 9 of Rogue Alpha Prince

With my heightened hearing I notice that someone gasps, and I could swear it’s my mother, witnessing my humiliation from the balcony. The one who taught me how to be a strong, independent woman.

I can’t even look in her direction, too ashamed of my position and the future it holds.

“Something wrong?” asks the Rogue Prince with a smirk.

“No. Your Highness.”

He tightens the arm he has wrapped around my waist, crushing me to his hard torso and probably hard dick, which fortunately is separated from me with many layers of clothing.

I hesitate before finally stealing a glance at my mom—who is held tightly by my brothers—and my heart almost breaks.

“Hold on,” he says with his husky voice that I am already growing to like, much to my dismay—and jerks the reins with his free hand.

The horse starts moving violently. My only choice is to wrap my arms around his torso, feeling his naked, warm skin on his back, under the fur cape he has attached with all the leather straps and metal clasps.

I don’t know what to do with my head—so close to him that I don’t have a natural choice other than nestling it on the top of his chest, which seems way too intimate. So, I tip my chin up to look at his face and black, semi-long hair instead, trying with all my mind not to think about sex.

It’s pure hell with the mate-bond pull to him I feel when our bodies are so close, me straddling him, horse’s movements hopping us up and down, up and down…

I know he knows I’m staring at him, but a long time passes before he finally lowers his eyes to mine. At the same time, he squeezes my waist, and I let out an involuntary gasp.

“We’ll have our fun tonight, don’t worry,” he says with a weird glint in his gaze.

I search his eyes because I truly don’t know what he might mean. Fun? Not the wedding, that’s for sure. The sex, maybe? I hope so. Because all my other ideas of his understanding of ‘fun’ end up with me hurting, bleeding, and barely alive.

Well, we cannot exclude the possibility of the same image after sex, too.

I shudder at the thought and lower my gaze, putting my head on his chest after all.

It dawns on me that some of the old tales we tell our pups describe this foul smell that rogues are supposed to have, warning us of the feral beasts they become.

I inhale his intoxicating smell. It calms me. Fresh air, dark green forest, everything that an actual werewolf should smell like, confirming, despite the name—they are no longer true stinking rogues. He is a future king of a real kingdom, not some degenerate behind the border.

Under all that werewolf, alpha-blooded smell, there is one scent luring me in that I couldn’t pinpoint before.

Lemons.

I wrapmy arms around him tighter despite all the knives between us. I’m basically hugging him, but I don’t care what he thinks about it because I simply need it right now.

And I have a right to use his body as I please the same way he will want to use mine later tonight, right? Either way, if he didn’t want to hug me, he should have given me my own damn horse.

“You are thinking too loud,” he says, making me stiffen.

What does he mean? Can he hear me, like true mates sometimes can? No, that’s impossible if we are not mated, marked, and officially claimed. It was just a saying. He doesn’t even know I am his mate.

It is for the best. Now that I can think calmly, something tells me he would not be glad about it. He could even kill me. Who knows, maybe he doesn’t want to have a weakness like that. He’s definitely one of those guys, and I definitely need to keep an eye on this and make sure our mate bond stays a secret. Yes, he would kill me. I can feel it in my bones.

“So, you met your mate?” he suddenly asks me, freaking me out even more.

“Yes, Your Highness, but our fathers already started negotiations at that point, and all my other sisters are too young for you.”

The best way of lying is to stay as close to the truth as possible—and technically—there’s no lie in what I just said.

“You are too young for me, too. Thank God you are not a virgin, at least. I don’t need a kid to teach.”

So, it’s true that rogues worship the God of Night, not the Moon Goddess. He sounded almost like a normal human with that ‘thank god’ comment, which is funny considering he’s probably never met a normal human before.

I keep my head on his chest, so I can’t look at his features to try and guess if he’s being serious about my age right now. He probably is.

---