The Desert Alpha's Mate

CHAPTER 4-THE PRINCE

"Aaaaaaaah!" Eleanor screamed. Startled by the two big brown orbs staring directly at her, merely an inch away from her face, she flails. With her sudden movement, she accidentally kicks the owner of those orbs. She doesn't have a clue where she hit him because all she knows is that the man gasped in pain. He jerked because of it and accidentally elbowed her in return...in her throat.

They both cried out in pain. Eleanor's cries were raspy and harsh as she coughed and desperately gasped for air through her injured throat. The man was curled inward, cradling his b*lls and whimpering like a wounded animal.

The door sprung open and two sturdy men rushed in. One of them instantly assessed the situation, while the other one rushed to the man, still whimpering on the floor.

"My Prince, are you alright?" One of the men asked the man on the floor while helping him to get up.

"I-I am fine," Eleanor heard him answer, while he awkwardly got up from the floor. Even though she was still having trouble breathing, she struggled to sit up and clutch the cloth covering her that served as her duvet. She put it in front of her and tried to make it her shield, in case these three men tried something on her. "Nice try, Eleanor. As if this piece of cloth can protect you if they try to do something to you," she chided herself sarcastically, trying to stifle her cough.

"A-are you alright?" the man called Prince asked her, even though he was clearly in pain himself. His face was bright red and he was still cupping himself. He started to walk towards her, yet as he approached her, her mind went into a frenzy.

"Stop!" she said in her throaty voice. Her voice is still recovering from the incident earlier. "Who are you, people? Where am I?" she asks them, while her eyes scan the room she was in, looking for a door or a window that she can exit if something goes wrong. But to her disappointment, she sees nothing. She noticed that the room she was in was not made of marble or cement. It looks like it was made of bricks and clay. The most dominant colors in the room were brown and gray.

All the furniture in the room was brown and the walls were painted gray. She didn't even know if it was paint or anything else, because it seemed that it had a different texture to the regular paints, but she didn't dwell on it further. There was not much to see in the room, there was only the bed where she was, a small table holding a lamp, and chairs. No fancy things, no electronic devices, and no windows. The room was shaped like a dome. The ceiling was round and curvy, with no fancy lights hanging. The only lights that illuminated the place were coming from the oil lamps, the one on the table and the other two hanging on either side of the dome. The only entry and exit that she could see was the door behind those three men.

"We are the ones supposed to ask you that, lady," the other man, who was silently standing in the corner after they barged in, suddenly spoke. He was a big and muscular man, and he seemed to be the oldest of the three because of the visible age lines on his face, but he was still fit and the scar on his left eye was giving him a bad guy look. The man was looking at her intently, eyeing her every movement. As if he could read whatever she was thinking.

"Uncle, let us call Shafi first. He should check on her, now that she is awake. I accidentally hit her in the throat so she needs to be taken care of," the one called Prince said. He was talking to the man who had just asked Eleanor a question.

The man looked at the Prince, "You need to be checked too, My Prince," he said.

"I will, Uncle, just let Shafi check her first," the Prince said. Eleanor saw him sitting awkwardly on one of the chairs inside the room. She saw that his gaze too, like the older man he called uncle, was not leaving her.

"Effendi Raj, please call Shafi. Tell him he is needed here," the older man ordered the other man who helped the Prince earlier. The one called Effendi Raj looked younger than the other man but not quite as young as the Prince. He was big and muscular too, but his aura was more friendly than the older man's. She saw the tattoo on both of the arms of Effendi Raj but she was not familiar with its designs. It looked like some sort of symbol encircling his arm.