Page 152 of A Female Alpha for the Lycan Prince

If this doesn’t work, then we will both get hurt,I point out.

I know, I’m still not happy with the human, but his wolf is genuinely good, and he promised me his human is whole-heartedly in this. I think it’s worth trying.

I rub my temples. She’s right. I gave Marius my promise that we could try to become friends for now. Retracting from my promise now would only leave a bad taste, besides… I don’t want to retract. I want to give us both a chance. I want to see if there is still a glimmer of hope for us to make it work.

I’m too proud, and I know it. It’s my alpha blood making this even harder for me. I have forgiven my father for neglecting me for years, and my great-grandmother for not being in my life at all, and my grandfather for lying to me. I have even forgiven my pack members for questioning my authority just because I’m a woman.

This here is different though. I assume that’s because we are mates. I expected him to be by my side and accept and cherish me. But he didn’t. And that hurts me more than anything else.

I would have cherished and loved him, and helped him through his trauma as well as I could.

Still, I genuinely want to give him a chance… or I wouldn’t be here. We can work on everything now, and maybe we both needed to have our mate bond almost be severed for us to grow into the persons we are now. I faced my grief without relying on my mate, and he faced his trauma without depending on me.

There is just one more thing I need to know. It's something I had on my mind ever since I saw Marius kissing that she-wolf.

“Say… Marius,” I start earnestly. “How many women have you been with since we found out we were mates?” I know, technically, I would have felt it if he betrayed the bond, but our mate bond became so weak over time that I can’t be certain unless I hear it directly from him. I feel like I need to know to be able to move on together with him. I know he has been quite the womanizer before, and I assume it’s been part of his coping mechanism from the years of sexual abuse he faced. Betraying the mate bond is grave for wolves… yet I want to know now instead of later, even if it will slow down our progress.

“None,” he says promptly.

“What!?” I look at him, surprised, not allowing myself to succumb to the glimmer of hope. “I promise, I’m not asking to hold this against you. I just want to know so we can move on from it.”

“I’m not going to lie,” he says quietly, looking flustered. “Right at the beginning, when we first met, I was so shocked at having found my mate that I rushed away, ready to grab the next-best woman. But she didn’t appeal to me at all, and I left without doing anything. I couldn’t get you out of my head… all the time, I kept thinking of you.”

It’s still bad enough that he tried, but I admit to feeling relieved now. At least he respected the mate bond a bit. “And that girl you kissed during Eric’s party?” I ask curiously.

He winces. “I didn’t want to kiss her,” he stutters. “I know I sound pathetic, but she kiss-attacked me out of the blue. I… I did flirt with her though.”

“Why?”

“I was jealous because you were so… beautiful, and everyone at the party noticed how beautiful you are,” he points out.

“You’re aware of how pathetic that reason is?” I want to know.

“I’m absolutely aware of it,” he admits. He turns to look at me, his gaze is sincere. “I did a lot of shitty things, and I’m not denying that I seriously considered making this mistake too. But I haven’t had sex with anyone since we met.”

I let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” I say, more to myself than to him.

“I didn’t realize how much I had been suppressing what happened to me,” he says after a while. “How deep this trauma really went. Then when I met you, it all came to the surface again. And you took the brunt of it. I will forever feel sorry for that.”

I rub my temples. “Alright,” I say after a while. “We need to make a clean break here.” He looks at me, shocked and horrified. I shake my head. “That’s not what I mean,” I reassure him. “We both know what’s happened during the last few months, and that things haven’t run smoothly between us. And I’m sure there will be times when we need to sit down and talk about this, but there is no use in bringing it up and rehashing the bad memories during every meeting.”

“Are you sure you’re alright with this?” he asks, looking at me anxiously. It surprises me to see him so insecure around me. For the first time, I’m aware of just how many emotions he has suppressed during the past months… and now, he suddenly seems so vulnerable.

“I might backpedal occasionally, and be petty sometimes over the past,” I admit. “But for now, I would like it if we just got to know each other outside our recent history. I know nothing about you, and you don’t know much about me either. So, that would be a good start. Let’s pretend we have no history with each other, and just found out we are mates.”

He nods, his eyes lighting up with hope. “I would love that.”

We fall into silence again, but this time it’s far less awkward. When I look back at Marius, I can see how he’s staring at the illuminated water around us and the fish swimming around. He looks so beautiful, and graceful. For the first time in a long while, I allow myself to look at him properly, to take in his beautiful and soft features, his graceful body, the perfectly trimmed beard… and those eyes. Deep, beautiful, but with a hint of sadness.

The room itself is dimmed. Lightning strikes close to us.

“This is like something out of a horror movie,” he mutters all of a sudden.

“Absolutely,” I agree. “Is this the moment we get attacked?”

“Where is the axe murderer going to strike next?” he asks.

I laugh. “I didn’t know you were into horror movies.”