I returned to the palace after my meeting with Klaus, who didn't forget to remind me of the importance of preparing for the test.
"I won't miss the chance to watch you dazzle everyone,"
he said with an optimistic smile.
I reached the palace gate and raised my hands with childish joy,
"Finally!"
The guards opened the gate and welcomed me in a unified voice; I returned the greeting and rushed to my room. I showered quickly, feeling my eyelids grow heavy.
I put on comfortable clothes—red shorts and a t-shirt—and threw myself onto the bed. "How comfortable," I whispered,
"Why can't life always be like this?" Then I
drifted off to sleep, thinking about everything that had happened to me.
Not moments into my peaceful sleep, the maid woke me with her quiet but firm voice:
"The Alpha wants you in his office
immediately."
I raised my head slowly, feeling my eyes refuse to open.
"Can't the meeting be postponed?"
I looked at her and saw the signs of flat refusal on her serious face.
"Fine, I'm coming,"
I said, giving in. She nodded and left.
I got out of bed, my wet hair dripping on my shoulders. The cold air hit my face, reminding me that I had forgotten to close the window.
"I'm going to get sick now,"
I muttered softly. I put on my slippers and walked out swaying, heading toward his damn office, trying to get this over with as quickly as possible.
I pushed the door open, rubbing my eyes and staggering toward the center of the office, saying:
"What is it?"
My voice sounded as if I had spent the entire day drinking alcohol until I was wasted. I heard a faint murmur,
"How cute,"
which came from Arin.
I raised my hand to wave "hello" to him and looked for Knight.
I found him staring at me scrutinizingly before his expression shifted from calm to sheer rage, pointing at my clothes:
"How could you come out like this?!"
he said nervously.
"What? Really? Is he jealous now? And why would he be jealous anyway? I think he's mentally ill or something; his actions make no sense."
I replied indifferently:
"These are pajamas. What makes you angry? Are you jealous?"
I said, pointing my finger at him.
I sighed with boredom, turned toward the sofa, and sat down waiting for him to start talking.
"Not much time has passed since your arrival, and you've already caused a problem,"
he said in a cold voice, but anger was clear on his features.
"Oh, did the news reach you that fast?"
I said sarcastically, "Or was that handsome man with the huge muscles the first to complain?"
I saw Arin slap his forehead in frustration, and I realized I had said something stupid.
"I think my brain stops working when I'm sleepy,"
I said foolishly.
He clenched his teeth hard and closed his eyes while trying to control himself.
He exhaled slowly, then said in a low, cold voice:
"The penalty for attempted murder is not to be taken lightly."
I looked at him in astonishment.
"Murder? I didn't try to kill her. It was just a fair duel, and I ended it quickly."
I was about to add something, but he interrupted me:
"My subordinate was there, and he saw everything."
I blinked several times.
"Is he spying on me?"
Anger rose in my body. "Look," I said sharply,
"I didn't try to kill anyone. They were the ones who provoked me, and I only responded to their provocation."
I folded my arms in annoyance and added:
"They deserved what happened to them."
I saw him watching me, his arms crossed in an 'X' shape, with a suspicious calmness.
"The calm before the storm,"
I thought to myself,
"but I'm ready." He hummed and remained in his suspicious posture. I stared into his eyes with resentment, ready to accept any punishment.
"After tomorrow's test, I will think of a punishment that suits you,"
he said in a tone that wasn't devoid of malice. I huffed in boredom, and he was about to add something when he was interrupted by a series of consecutive sneezes from me.
I realized then that tomorrow would be a difficult day. I finally stopped sneezing, trying to regulate my breathing, and held my head tightly, muttering:
"Damn, this doesn't bode well at all."
A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I closed my eyes tightly, trying to stop it.
I calmed down a bit and exhaled hot air from my mouth.
I removed my hands from my head and opened my green eyes to see Arin beside me, his face filled with concern.
"Are you okay?"
he said, and I nodded to him in gratitude for his concern. He placed his hand on my forehead and said in alarm:
"Damn, your temperature is high."
He scanned me with increasing worry while my vision grew blurrier.
I looked ahead, trying to hold myself together, and saw him approaching me slowly. For a moment, I glimpsed a flash of concern in his eyes that quickly disappeared.
"I must be starting to hallucinate,"
I thought. I stood up, trying to stay steady, wanting to get out of there.
"I must leave, I don't want anyone to see me in this weakness."
I was about to leave, but the wave of dizziness intensified to the point where I could no longer hear anything around me.
I leaned my hand against the door so as not to fall, but my legs failed me.
I prepared to fall to the floor and lost consciousness completely, only to feel his hands catching me before I touched the ground.
I felt him lightly slapping my cheek, and I barely heard his troubled voice calling my name, begging me not to lose consciousness.
I tried to open my eyes to catch a glimpse of his worry and confusion spread across his handsome face. I smiled at my own thoughts and heard his shout to
"wake up"
before the blackness engulfed me. I relaxed in his arms, enjoying his warmth, and felt him carrying me before I lost my senses entirely.
I felt myself gradually returning to life, but not through light; rather, through the coldness of water that invaded my body.
I opened my eyes slowly and found myself in my underwear, in his arms, with cold water flowing over my body.
He was holding me, and his closeness was numbing me, preventing me from moving any of my limbs.
Feelings of shame and anger wrestled inside me, while the numbness prevented me from resisting.
After opening my eyes in a blur, I looked at him.
His hands were surrounding my face, and his closeness was confusing me.
"Are you okay?"
he said in a low voice, his face getting closer to mine, his eyes fixed on mine.
"Do you feel any pain?"
he said, and I could feel his warm breath on my face.
My feelings were wrestling, but I couldn't move.
His closeness was numbing me, and my breathing quickened.
I was shivering under his hands from the coldness of the water, and in that moment, I realized he was shirtless.
Drops of water were falling from his hair, and his body was strong and sexy.
My cheeks turned red, and I closed my eyes, cursing myself for my deviant thoughts.
"Did the heatwave return?"
I heard him ask. He placed his hand on my cheek and said:
"Strange, you are fine, so why are your cheeks red?"
he said in wonder.
Then he understood that the reason for my red cheeks was my shyness of him.
He cleared his throat in embarrassment, took me out of the water, placed me on the bed, and wrapped me in a towel that smelled of his scent. I realized I was in his room, so I closed my eyes, trying to sleep.
"I hate being sick,"
I thought to myself.
My fever began to rise, and I started muttering incomprehensible words.
He approached and sat beside me, checking my temperature.
"This isn't good,"
he said in a worried voice.
Moments later, I heard the voice of the palace doctor. I felt a prick in my arm and heard him say:
"When the IV is finished, she will be fine."
The doctor prepared to leave, while he returned to sit beside me.
I smiled internally, unable to believe that I was important to him, and surrendered to sleep.
I opened my eyes slowly, feeling dizzy.
The sun was piercing through the curtains, filling the room with a faint light.
A strange scent filled the place—a scent I could never forget, the scent of Knight.
I felt warm, but I also felt confused.
I remembered what happened last night; I remembered how I lost consciousness and how he carried me.
I felt ashamed, but I also felt relieved.
I was in his room, on his bed, under a heavy cover, and I felt a warm body beside me.
I tried to move, but I felt weak.
I felt the warmth of his body surrounding me. He was sleeping beside me, his hand around me, and his scent filling my nose. Shame dominated me, but I couldn't move.
I felt him move slightly, then I felt his heartbeats increase. I felt that he had woken up, but he was trying not to show it.
It was a strange moment of silence, but it was a silence full of meaning.
Knight's Point of View:
The cold truth flowed like a basin of ice over my head. This truth was something I could never have imagined, a truth I could not accept.
The masks had fallen, and the strong image of "Sera" had collapsed, revealing a truth I didn't know:
she was human, weak, breakable.
At that moment, I didn't hate her; instead, I felt fear.
Fear for someone I thought was invincible.
I saw her swaying, and her last words,
"Damn, this doesn't bode well at all,"
were enough to confirm my fears.
Her strength was fading, and I felt that something was wrong.
Her body was falling slowly, as if she would collapse at any moment.
My eyes couldn't accept this sight—the sight of her collapse.
I rushed to her without hesitation and caught her before she touched the ground.
She was light, lighter than I expected.
The lightness of her body symbolized her fragility, her weakness that I hadn't realized.
"Sera, don't lose consciousness!"
I shouted her name, but I didn't know what to say.
Thoughts were wrestling in my head as I carried her in my arms.
I was carrying my mate whom I don't accept, but I cared about her.
The fever was exhausting her, and I had to do something fast.
Time passed slowly, and every minute felt like an eternity.
Her life was in my hands, and I was responsible for her, even if my feelings toward her were contradictory.
This experience shattered all the barriers I had built between us.
It was a shock to me, but it was also a moment of revelation—a moment in which I realized that Sera is not just a strong mate, but a human, a being in need of someone to care for her.
My hands were trembling, not out of fear of her, but out of fear of myself. That truth was harsher than a fever ravaging a slender body.
I hated her; yes, I hated her, but those same feelings were teetering on the edge of suppressed desire, like a sharp blade I couldn't grasp. Her helpless presence in my arms awakened contradictory, buried emotions—emotions I never dared to admit to myself.
I stripped her of her shirt and shorts, leaving her in her underwear, with innocent features I wasn't accustomed to.
I was afraid of losing control of myself, of this desire sneaking stealthily through the cracks of my hatred for her.
Her temperature was high, and the cold water was a harsh necessity.
I held her and slowly lowered her into the bathtub.
I felt the cold hit her body, and I felt her shiver in my hands like a weak little bird. Her eyes were closed, but I knew she felt the cold, just as I felt the turmoil raging within me.
When she heavily opened her eyes and looked at me in a blur, my feelings were clashing, but reality was stronger than any emotion. I looked at her and found myself in an intimate position with her. She was in her underwear, while I was shirtless, and the cold water submerged our bodies. I felt shame, confusion, anger, and every negative emotion imaginable.
But after I took her out of the tub, her comfort was the priority. I placed her slowly on the bed, trying to control myself—my desire to get closer to her, and my fear of losing control.
Her words came from her lips like disconnected threads, fragments of scattered memories. She was delirious, the fever ravaging her body mercilessly.
I didn't hesitate to call the palace doctor to examine her. He administered an IV and told me she would be fine once it was finished.
I lay down beside her after making sure her temperature had dropped, watching her intermittent breaths.
Every breath she took was enough to reassure my heart, until I drifted off to sleep unconsciously, as if her weak body possessed the power to silence my internal conflict.
From the room's window, the first threads of dawn were slowly creeping in, but they weren't enough to dispel the darkness hanging over my heart.
She woke up slowly, as if trying to gather the scattered pieces of her soul. Her face was pale and exhausted, and her eyes carried a blurred look—a look reflecting the pain she had endured.
I felt my heart contract as if an invisible hand were squeezing it. This pain wasn't physical; it was a different kind of pain, one telling me that I had begun to care for her.
This truth was difficult—a truth I didn't want to admit.
"Sera, are you okay?"
The words left my lips in a faint voice, as if I feared breaking this fragile silence between us.
My words were simple, but they carried an implicit admission of concern—a concern I didn't know existed.
She looked at me with a gaze filled with doubt and curiosity, perhaps wondering why I was here, beside her, in this situation.
I realized I was in a difficult position, one that would change our relationship forever.
I didn't know what would happen, but I knew I no longer saw Sera the same way.
She was no longer just a mate; she had become something more complex—something I feared and desired at the same time.
The flush on her cheeks wasn't just a result of recovering from the fever; it was like a brand that revealed her feelings and her memory of that intimate moment we shared.
Her face was still pale from illness, but that shy blush rising to her cheeks was stronger than any evidence of her recovery.
It told me she remembered—she remembered everything.
I pretended not to notice and turned my face toward the window.
When our eyes met, I felt my heart contract—not out of fear, but because it realized the moment it dreaded had arrived.
"Please... put something on."
I felt shame wash over me, a shame I had never known before.
I realized I was wearing nothing but my trousers and that being beside her like this was a violation of all the boundaries I had set for myself.
I stood up slowly, feeling the weight of her gaze following me. I didn't dare look at her; instead, I moved toward my clothes slowly, as if avoiding facing reality.
Features of coldness settled on my face—the coldness that was a mask I had perfected wearing all my life.
I turned my back to her as I left the dressing room, ignoring the blush of shame I felt rising to my cheeks. I ignored her look, which was full of confusion, and headed toward the door, intending to leave—intending to escape this situation that had become more complicated than ever.
The moment my hand was on the doorknob, and before I left it behind me, I heard her quiet voice—a voice I didn't know could be this calm and peaceful.
"Knight... thank you for taking care of me."
I froze in my place, as if her voice had bound me with invisible chains. I didn't realize my concern for her was that obvious.
The thanks she offered wasn't just a thank you; it was an admission—an admission that she noticed my care, a care I didn't want anyone to see.
I felt shame, confusion, and the urge to flee from this situation, but at the same time, I felt something else: a sense of satisfaction, a satisfaction I had never known before.
I didn't know what to answer, so I turned to her slowly and looked into her eyes. It was a look full of thanks and gratitude.
I looked at her for a long time, my eyes contemplating her pale face, which was slowly regaining its health.
I tried to gather my scattered thoughts, but her quiet voice and simple words,
"thank you,"
were still ringing in my ears.
"You won't take the test until you get better."
My words were cold and brief, devoid of any emotion. I said them as if I were talking about something unimportant, as if ignoring everything that had happened between us.
But in truth, this decision was difficult for me.
I turned my back to her and prepared to leave.