16: Her Stubborness

Prince Caspian Romanov

The air crackles with electricity between us. The pull is intense. I fight for control, but now, my vision is tinged red. My animal side is taking over.

The thought of her with some other guy, even just for a simple lunch, drives me crazy. Her hiding my mark on her, even a temporary one, just snaps my control.

My lycan takes over.

I inhale her incredible, magical scent deeply to calm the beast in me. “Tell me you’re not seeing anybody. Tell me there’s no other man.”

She’s mine.

I can hear the thunderous drum of her heartbeat, the heated blood that rushes through her body, the ragged breathing that matches my own. But she remains silent. It doesn’t matter. She belongs to me. If there’s another man staking a claim on her, I will crush him.

I will destroy anything that comes between me and her.

The graceful curve of her neck looks so tempting as I run my nose close to it and breathe in her scent deeply one more time. Her scent manages to calm me and excite me at the same time. The red in my vision clears. I have my lycan under control now, but I crave the taste of her again.

I want so badly to touch her and run my lips on the soft, smooth skin.

I want to lick her and saturate my tongue with the taste of her.

I want to sink my teeth into her soft, supple flesh to mark and chain her to me forever.

I ball my fists tighter and pull back a little before I give in to temptation.

The long, thick sweep of her dark eyelashes flutter against the top of her pink delicate cheeks as she opens her eyes to gaze back at me.

I’m struck again by her brilliant green eyes.

“Your eyes, they’re back to normal,” she breathes in wonder.

She’s staring up at me in awe like I’m the most amazing thing she’s ever laid her eyes on. Like she wants me.

“What are you?”

That’s a question I’m not willing to answer yet. She’s a human, and that makes our situation…delicate.

“Let me touch you. Tell me it’s okay for me to touch you now,” I say instead. I want to touch her more than I want anything else right now.

“No,” she manages to say breathlessly.

I sense her excitement, and I can smell her arousal. Her eyes are begging me to take her, yet her sassy mouth is telling me to stay away. She’s killing me.

“You’re scaring me,” she says, but her eyes are burning with passion and defiance. Such a contradiction.

“No, you want me,” I groan. I want her so badly. Why won’t she tell me she wants me too? “Now tell me you want me.”

She’s warring with herself, and I’m going to make sure that I win. She was mine the moment she was born. No one else is going to have her. Every delectable, beautiful inch of her is mine, but I want her to come to me willingly. I will have her come to me more than willingly.

I want her to crave me the way I crave her. Desperately.

She remains quiet, so I tell her, “I know you want me, princess. Do you know how I know?”

She gives a small shake of her head. No. The expression on her beautiful face is half dread and half curiosity.

I tell her anyway. “Because I want you too. I want to worship your body. I want to taste you. I want my mouth and my hands on every part and every inch of your body.”

A strangled whimper slips out from her parted lips, and I bite down on my bottom lip to hide my smile. Oh, she wants me. ~Bad~.

“So why don’t you just let me, princess? Just let me do what I want with you. I promise that you will love it.” I can imagine all the things I can do to her already. “We both know you’re going to give in sooner or later. We both know it’s going to happen. It’s inevitable.”

She must have seen my smug smile, and my words somehow piss her off for she tips her chin up in determination and her eyes gleam with stubbornness.

“Do you say things like that to all the girls? Does it work all the time?” she asks. “You’re a manwhore. I don’t do manwhores.”

“Ouch! Stab me, why don’t you?” I say, clutching my chest.

“If you think you can have me like all those skanks you surround yourself with, think again.”

She slides a brief look at the girls who so recently were flocked around me like doves. They’re still standing there as if they’re waiting for me.

Some of them are glancing over, shooting my girl a dirty look. Girls these days are more overtly aggressive in getting what they want.

“Don’t hold your breath, though,” she continues. “Hell would freeze over before I let you lay a finger on me.”

With that, she ducks underneath my arm, flips her hair, and walks off.

Feisty. I like.

I glance over my shoulder to watch her stomp away like a queen-child. She is fuming. Her hips sway as she walks away. It’s not done intentionally or in an exaggerated way like some girls do. That’s just the way she walks, and it’s as sexy as fuck. I can’t take my eyes off of her, damn it!

I can’t help the grin from forming on my face. I never had to work to get a girl before. This will be interesting. I live for challenges, but I’ll be damned if I have to wait for years, the way Constantine waited for Genesis before I claim my erasthai.

I watch her disappear from view before I push myself off the wall to stalk back to where I left my bag. I weave through girls standing in front of my bag and books.

“Caspian, we can continue with our project in my room, if you want. We won’t get interrupted there,” says my project partner, Sienna.

“No, I have a class in ten minutes,” I tell her as I sling my backpack over my shoulder.

“What about later? I’m free the whole day.”

“I’m busy,” I inform her as I walk away.

I can’t think of any project right now when my thoughts are taken over by my sassy, beautiful, green-eyed princess. My erasthai.

Just thinking about her makes me feel things I’ve never felt before. No wonder meeting and claiming your erasthai is such a big deal. You can claim only one mate, and I’m glad I never marked anybody else. I’m glad that I waited for her. It took me only a couple of centuries. Man, I’m so whipped.

She wants me, and I’m going to use that to get what I want. Her. She can’t refuse me for too long, can she?