'I Am In No Need of a Mate'

Someone was in there. With her.

Talia didn't know when and how this person had appeared inside the locked chamber in a blink of an eye. She couldn't even sense the person coming close to her.

Maybe the wind outside was too strong, or perhaps, the curtain wasn't hung properly by a servant so that it fell after it fluttered once more at the mercy of the wind. The light coming from the moon shot through the gaps of the uncovered window, spilling the silvery light inside the chamber.

Earlier, the darkness enveloped the whole chamber, but once the light from the moon continued to spill inside, Talia finally grew accustomed to the darkness. The faint light enabled her to make out the person who was standing before her.

He was tall... Very tall that the top of her head had barely reached the tip of his chin. And yes, the person was a man. With broad shoulders and a bigger figure than her father, She knew that he was not an ordinary man. No one could enter the chamber unless they were allowed to or when it was time for a daily prayer that the temple followers would participate in.

Talia knew that her father wouldn't allow anyone to enter this place. Not when such an important event was to take place in the Temple.

The man was emitting a dangerous feeling that Talia had to give herself some time to calm down. But even breathing has become a challenge when you're in front of a Tarvan.

Talia remembered the book that King Guillo ordered her to read about the Tarvans. From that book, it described and told her what they are – beings who inherited the blood of gods and had the strength and beauty that resembled one as well.

His face was obscured from the shadow that filled in the front of his body as the light behind him made it much harder for her to see what he looked like. Talia wondered if he was as strikingly handsome as what the books described them.

The moment the distance between them was diminished, the world around them tilted and shook. The blood inside her veins started to boil up as the birthmark of a crescent moon on her thigh burned.

As instantaneous as the pain came washing over her, Talia also realized who he was.

'My mate.'

Amongst most other girls, if not all, Talia was the odd one. The rare one if she wanted to appear special. For she was the mate of a Tarvan. Not just any Tarvan, he was the Lord of the Beasts, the being who controlled and created all beasts and monsters that lurked in the world and beyond the Scarlet Forest.

If only she didn't bore his mark, her fate wouldn't have been entangled with him. she could have been just an ordinary person with an ordinary fate.

Talia mostly blamed the Tarvan who gave her his mark for robbing her of her freedom. Since the day the mark appeared, it was also the day she was unable to freely live her life, subjected to being shaped into the perfect bride of this man.

When the mark first appeared, it was just a small, faint scar. But ever since the mark started to get clearer and clearer that it was useless hiding it. Everything also became clearer. Especially after 'he' appeared before Talia when she was only fourteen years old.

'I am in no need of a mate.'

Talia could still remember his words when he first appeared before her. It was a sudden rejection on their first meeting. At that time, he was still shrouded by darkness, so mysterious that even after meeting him once, now twice, Talia still couldn't see his face.

His words then cut deeper inside her young heart.

Talia stepped backward. "Are you here to claim me as your mate?"

Her groom, whose name she still doesn't know, didn't say a word.

But she could feel his gaze piercing through her as if he could see the deepest recesses of her soul.

Talia stared back at him, allowing her eyes to glance back at what she believed was where his eyes were located. In that tense moment, She wished she had stared at him.

Because the moment Talia lifted her eyes to look back at him. She felt the truest fear for the first time in her life. She feared her father when she was young. This, she learned from the several times she was forced to stand with her back to him while he whipped her until it bled just because she was not up to his standard. Because he feared that she wouldn't catch the Tarvan's attention after being rejected once.

But the fear she felt for the king was reduced a lot less than the first, second, and third time Talia was subjected to his punishment.

However, the fear Talia felt towards her father and the fear she felt towards her groom and mate was incomparable as the earth compared to the sky. 'Has he found out my plans? That once he rejects me one more time, I will use this opportunity to leave and run away to the farthest land?'

That was impossible.

Talia only made her decision and planned her escape a few days before that night. There was no way he could have found it out. This man, who never bothered caring for his bride and rejected her already.

And even if there was a possibility, a very tiny one, that he had seen her reluctance to go through this marriage... It won't change her desire to get out of that place.

And so, boldly, Talia asked him once again, hiding her eagerness deep within her soul. "Are you here to claim me as your mate?"

The shadows lurking around them moved. Her palms were already wet from sweat. Her nerves were on overdrive as she waited for him to answer. A tiny part of her heart wished he would say the one world she hoped he'd said when she was fourteen. But the emptiness inside wanted to hear him reject her.

Then, Talia finally heard his voice, saying, "Not yet."

His cool voice drawled as he spoke. It was a deep masculine voice with the airs of mystery and coldness and power. It sounded exactly like the voice she heard three years ago and in her dreams.

Talia finally relaxed. She allowed herself a slight smile of glee under the cover of the veil, ignoring the tiny bit of whisper of disappointment inside her heart.

Strangely, the shadows froze along with the man whose face and name she didn't know.

However, Talia was so caught up in her joy that she didn't sense the peculiarity that happened in that split second as she drowned in her happiness.

'Finally, I could gain my freedom.'

Talia's wish has been granted. At last.

As she started musing, the air suddenly whizzed softly. And before a gasp or scream could leave her lips, the man before her, the Tarvan and the Lord of the Beasts, unexpectedly leaned closer.

He took her hand and she flinched at the coldness of his touch and under her widened, watchful eyes, he raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it.

It was so light and cold that Talia almost had the illusion that ice had touched her skin for a moment there.

Talia blinked once.

Then, he disappeared.