ACCIDENTAL KISS #2 AND #3

My brain short circuited. I think I had to undergo a full system reboot to recover from that kiss. I thought Accidental Kiss #1 was bad, but Accidental Kiss #2 was worse - and indisputably longer. I think I just overdosed on Mate.

{Mate ~ ❤️}

It's unfortunate, but I'm probably allergic to kissing Bell. My lips felt a little hot and swollen. Also, my brain function was definitely affected by him. This guy was going to kiss me stupid.

Here we were, in some kind of ancient treasure vault, filled with mountains of unspeakable wealth, and I was sitting on my boyfriend's lap accidentally kissing him?

I looked at the beautiful man in front of me. His golden eyes looked heated and his expression made my heart trip over itself. His growling had changed gears and was now a low purring sound. The black curse had spread like veins over the small hill of gold we were currently residing on. My hair flaring in all directions as I watched the way his mouth turned upward in one of those rare smiles, the black fumes burning up his cursed arm and into the dark wavy locks.

If this wasn't a scene straight out of the lycan legend, I don't know what was.

But IF this was a scene - like a real lycan legend scene, in a real lycan legend book, with the hand painted illustrations and calligraphy... exactly what scene was it?

Neither of us were looking like the hero character here. I'm not sure about Bell, but I hadn't suffered any trials and tribulations to get to this treasure. I hadn't even fought any monsters. Now considering the fact that we were here because Bell was the Tyger King residing in this castle and thus the master of these treasures, and I simply woke up in his bed. This looked pretty bad on us.

If I had to be absolutely brutal, Bell would be the big boss that the hero had to beat, and I would be the big boss's accessory! You know, the pet cat or beautiful woman he kept by his side. Omo.

This was terrible because in any lycan legend, it was precisely these two characters who would meet the most miserable end. But thanks to this sobering fact, I suddenly regained my faculty and when Bell, who had been just turning a lock of my hair around his index finger, leaned forward again. I was quick enough to scramble off his lap and stand up - effectively preventing Accidental Kiss #3.

You know what they say when dealing with accidents - "Prevention is better than cure." I mean, we can't keep stopping time just to kiss. Well, it felt like time had stopped.

Grrr.... you know what I mean! Anyway, I wasn't going to be sitting duck - even if it were a duck sitting on my Mate's lap.

{Mate ~ ❤️ }

Bell got up to his feet when I did, "What's wrong, princess?"

What's wrong? If we kept this up, some bright squirrel-eyed young hero was going to burst into the scene with his merry band of explorers and destroy us. I mean, name one good guy who made out with his woman on a mountain of money. I rest my case.

"I don't want to die the bad guy here." I told Bell point blank.

Of course I didn't expect him to understand me. Very few people in this world could understand me even after lengthy explanation, and even fewer would understand me immediately - and only sometimes. Yeah, it's lonely being weird. But I had grown used to this since I was weird all my life.

Bell's handsome face crumpled in confusion, "What do you mean, princess?"

How should I even begin to explain the truism of lycan legends and the way they charted our destinies as wolves? To make things worse, we were in the Colored Mountains - where lycan legends were just historical records.

Okay, first things's first.

"We can't kiss anymore." I told him.

If we accidentally kissed again, it would probably be game over.

"What? Why?" Bell demanded.

"Because you're a bad guy." I tried to explain.

Bell only looked stunned, and then he got mad, "Who told you that? Was it Ki?"

Now it was my turn to be stupefied. What had Ki got to do with this? I shook my head, "No, I mean it's your whole get up."

Now Bell stopped, it was like we were taking turns to completely not make sense to each other, "My get up?"

"This get up?" He flipped the lapel of his black jacket with a rebellious air and then he smirked, "So not this, but the Lorent Prince is okay?"

I shook my head in frustration. I was trying to explain about the lycan legends and the way we might run alongside our fate and choose our endings, but Bell kept throwing completely random things into the mix. Anyway, we couldn't kiss, even in his shiny elegant Lorent Prince mode because I didn't think I would be able to survive and Accidental Kiss #3.

"That and kiss are two different things." I tried to explain. I had meant to say "That and THIS" but it didn't come out right.

"What?" Bell frowned, and then he lost it, "I don't even know what the f*** we're arguing about!"

He started pacing, "Why is it that we can't even kiss without fighting?"

No,no, my luna got it wrong. We were fighting because we weren't kissing.

So to prove my point (which I totally forgot to say), I took the few steps so that he was right in front of me. He was taller, so I grabbed him by his jacket, and tugged down hard so that I could accidentally kiss him again.

I mean, if I were going to die - this was probably the best way to go anyway.

This time, I decided to try out whatever he had done in the earlier kisses back at him. I tentatively experimented by pressing my lips a little harder against his, and then his growling dropped to that low purring sound again, his arms wrapped around me, and he took charge again. Bell was very bossy when he kissed. Surprise, surprise.

Bell was the one who broke the kiss this time, "Princess?"

I blinked because I was brain dead again.

"I lo..." He started.

And then I woke up. Dammit!

I curled up under the lemony quilt growling quietly. I felt quite sure Bell was going to say something important. He even broke off the kiss to say it. My dreams could be so frustrating some times, but it was also very punctual. A few minutes later, my alarm rang. Oh. It was D-Day for my theater production!

I jumped out of bed and took my shower, but my brain was still caught in a time loop to all the times Bell and I accidentally kissed. Don't argue with me - they were all accidents - even the last one. That would be Accidental Kiss #3, even if this one was quite on purpose.

After a while, my brain did regain some semblance of turgidity, and I was stuck by how Bell's castle was something like from a dream or a lycan legend in itself. He had said he didn't build it, only claimed it for himself. I only knew one particularly infamous castle on White Mountains. Haha, wouldn't it be totally funny if the castle he claimed turned out to be that one?

And then it occurred to me that it was very probably exactly that castle - The Tyger's Lair. The old Tygers had mentioned it. It sounded like everyone had a turn living in it. Heller had jokingly said it wasn't the safest place to raise his family. Even within the lycan legends, it was described as a legend. Imagine that! A place that was a legend in a legend! But because it was so legendary, many things were said of it. It was said that the Tyger dwelt in it and could only be vanquished by a true hero. It was said that the Tyger had gone missing, or was just a legend that never existed. Certainly no one knew his face! And except for the dark curse which he wore around himself as a cloak, there was very little known about him. It was said that many have ventured into White Mountains in search of the Tyger's Lair, but only the true hero would make it to the Tyger's throne. It was also said that when the hero defeats the Tyger, he would gain boundless wealth and unimaginable powers in return.

But even with everything that was said, the lycan legends seriously forgot to mention that the "true hero" gained that boundless wealth and unimaginable powers by becoming the next tyger. Or perhaps the tygers themselves had hidden his fact from the rest of the world.

Did that mean Bell was the true hero? That was somewhat unexpected. I had always expected a true hero to be more... earnest and idealistic and shiny. Then again, now that I've met the other tygers/former heroes, I had to admit, they were rather different from how I imagined.

Anyway, while showering, I imagined if this was a lycan story, it would go like this:

THE TYGER KING'S BLUE ROSE

PROLOGUE (Because every good lycan tale had to start with a prophecy - in ancient lycan and in prose without any punctuation, as following our literary tradition.)

he who holds the blue rose with idonias ring

will be the mountain's next true king

CHAPTER 1:

once upon a time there was a tyger king who loved his blue rose

she was to him his everything and nothing else came close

they would kiss upon the rolling hills of gold

their new love blossoming towards a future untold

I quite surprised myself at how good I was at this. The words had just strung themselves together. This would be exactly the kind of enigmatic lines that the best Lycan Legends began with. It was exactly the kind that would leave the reader staring at the painted illustrations - was that like literal gold the lovers were kissing on? Or just a hill with yellow grass?

This was the beauty of the best lycan tales, you never knew if you should take anything literally. I'm sure in some copies, they would draw an actual tiger and an actual rose - just to make things less clear. Don't you just love how indeterminate lycan literature was?

But now that I was starring in one, (even if it were an imaginary one) I realized the bright and silver-lining to this undefined story - our "future untold" could become anything. I mean, with a opening like that, the story would either end very tragically or very magically.

When I got out of my bath to type all this into my phone, then just standing there wrapped in a towel and still slopping wet, I sighed at the words.

"That would be nice." I actually whispered aloud to myself.

I've never quite thought about it before. I mean, he was my soulmate and I was his soulmate, so yeah. He's mine. But... it would be nice if he really loved me - not that I needed to be his everything or anything like that. I mean, yeah... like if my mate would kiss me, but not just because we had a mating bond, but because he loved me.

What would I give to hear him say those words!

Okay, I've got this. I was the alpha! First, I'd make him stop getting mad at me all the time. Then at the opportune moment, I'd drag him to the amusement park and we'd ride the Ferris Wheel and watch the fireworks and fall in love and kiss. THAT WOULD BE MY FIRST KISS!

Okay, all this sounded far more logical in my head. Now that I wrote it down, I become aware I just sounded like a new level of crazy. Still, no matter how crazy I sounded, if there was just the slightest chance that it'll work... I'd still want to try. You know, to make Mate fall in love with me. Like even if I had to build an amusement park with a Ferris Wheel and order my own fireworks! All bow to the Queen of Hearts. Mwahahaha.

Oh man, the kissing probably did permanent damage to my cranium.