Rejected By My Mate, Now Mated To The Lycan King-Chapter 154

~ ROWAN

Guilt gnawed at my insides as I drove the rest of the way home in silence.

Nyssa curled up on the chair, her legs pressed to her chest. On another day, I would have been bothered by her shoes on the edge of my leather seats but when I glanced at her, all I could see were the dried tears on her cheeks and the look of utter betrayal on her face as she read the last line of that letter.

After reading it, she turned away from me, curling into herself. She sniffled softly for a few minutes, staring out the window until she finally fell asleep. She hadn’t blamed me for it yet, but she would soon.

"If you didn’t make this such a fucking big deal, she would never have gone searching," my lycan hissed. "And you forced her to listen to the goddamn letter."

I sighed. "I didn’t know that was how it ended. If I did, I never would have read it."

"You should have read ahead!" he snapped, slamming down the link and leaving me once again with my own guilt.

I glanced at my mate once more, sighing as I turned back to the road ahead.

I’d been driving all through the night and although I should’ve been exhausted, I knew that sleep was too far from me. We were a few minutes away from the palace but that was the last place I wanted to be. The palace brought nothing but stress to me... to us.

I glanced at the fork in the road coming up, the bend that would take me back to my life.

With a curse, I took the wrong turn.

"Go back to the palace," I said to Jeremiah via our mind link. "I’m not returning tonight."

"I... is everything alright, Your Majesty?"

"Yes. Tell Aria that I’m at home. She can come tomorrow, but not until mid-day."

I could sense his curiosity and hesitation through the link but he didn’t ask any questions. "Of course, Your Majesty."

I cut off the link and turned back to my mate.

No doubt she would be fucking pissed at me in the morning for taking her somewhere without her permission but she’d thank me for it, that much I knew. It was obvious she could use a day off, and I was going to give it to her.

My home was a brownstone on the edge of the forest, a few minutes away from the main towns. It belonged to my mother, and it was her little home away from the palace whenever she wanted to regroup. I’d turned it into my place of solace but in the last few years, I hadn’t used it much.

I’d been so busy that it just filtered into the back of my mind with everything else.

I stopped in the driveway, getting out of the car as quietly as I could.

Nyssa was still sleeping soundly when I opened her door and slipped my arms around her body, lifting her as gently as possible. She nestled closer to me, stirring only briefly before she continued snoring softly, her nose twitching as she slept.

I carried her into the house and up the stairs, placing her right in the middle of my bed before pulling back to admire just how fucking beautiful she looked in my bedroom, her hair fanned out over my pillow.

I returned to the car to grab her things, placing them at the foot of the bed before finally attending to her.

I pulled off her shoes and made sure she was comfortably wrapped up in the covers but when I turned to leave, I felt her hand wrap around my wrist.

"Please stay," she whispered, voice soft and barely audible.

I went still, all the blood immediately rushing to my cock. Fucking hell.

I knew it was not an invitation, but I could not help the fact that she was fucking gorgeous and she smelled like sin and pleasure wrapped up in a neat bow.

"Please," she added once more, eyes drooping from exhaustion.

"Of course, baby."

Pulling off my shirt with one hand, I left my pants on and climbed into bed behind her. My arm wrapped around her hips, hoping to remain that way but to my surprise, she turned in my arms, burying her face into my chest as she threw one leg over mine.

I hissed out a breath at her proximity, forcing air into my lungs.

"Is this okay?" she asked and I forced a tight nod, not trusting myself to sleep. "Thank you for staying."

"Sleep," I ground out.

Thankfully, she didn’t argue, she just closed her eyes and drifted back into sleep. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t sleep, not even if I wanted to.

Her breaths were soft against my skin, her fingers softly trailing down my bare chest in her sleep. She moved a lot as well, pressing her tits against me and her thigh over my cock. I spent the entire night with my eyes wide open, my heart thrumming in my chest as I tried to remind myself that this was for and not for my dick.

By the time the sun was beginning to rise, I was fucking exhausted.

I managed to close my eyes for what felt like a minute when suddenly, Nyssa gasped, wrenching herself from my grip.

I peeled my eyes open lazily to find her sitting up in bed, staring at the room in shock. "Where are we?"

"My house," I murmured, closing my eyes once more.

"What the fuck do you mean by your house?" she hissed, refusing to let it go. "What the hell is this place? This doesn’t look like the palace."

"That’s because it isn’t. I have many houses, Nyssa, however, I live in the palace because I’m the King."

She murmured a string of expletives under her breath and I groaned, knowing she wouldn’t let it go anytime soon. I glanced at the clock on the bed, wincing when I realized it was just five in the morning.

I reached for my pants, pulling them down until I was in nothing but my boxers.

Her cheeks flamed. "What are you doing?"

"It’s too early for this. We had a fucking long night and I would like to go to bed."

"I’m sleeping here," she argued, hands crossed over her chest. "It’s inappropriate."

"I’ve had my tongue in your cunt and all of last night, you were practically grinding on my dick. I think we’ve long passed the stage of inappropriate."

"How—"

"Besides, this is my bedroom. There are two more a few doors down if you truly don’t want to stay here. I am going to bed."

I closed my eyes, but I did not miss the scowl on her face before I did.

For a long minute, silence descended on the room. Only the sound of our breathing filled the air.

When I heard shuffling, I thought for sure that she was leaving but to my surprise, I felt the bed dip as her warmth encapsulated me.

"This doesn’t mean anything," she grumbled. "I’m just—"

I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into my chest before she could finish. "Shut up and go to bed."