Filed to story: My Kidnapper Is the Wolf King
“I. . .I am.”
Crawling over me, he rests one forearm on the pillow by my head, and nudges my thighs further apart with his knee. Breathing deeply, expression strained and full lips wet, he guides himself to my entrance. He groans when he pushes inside. My back arches, and a soft cry escapes my lips at the delicious pressure, the pinch of pain. He pauses when he fills me completely, closes his eyes and presses his forehead against mine to give me a moment to adjust to his size. He thrusts. It is deep and slow, and a rough grunt scrapes against his throat.
Sweat beads across my face as his scent floods my nostrils. I dig my fingers into the hard muscles of his back and kiss his neck. I need him harder. Faster. I curl my ankles around his back, and rock my hips against him.
He scrapes his teeth against the column of my throat and brings his mouth to my ear. “My way, remember, Princess?”
He moves tortuously slowly, drawing soft moans from my lips with each thrust. He’s trembling, and I know it’s because he’s holding himself back. I try to respect his wishes, I try to be gentle, but my hips move of their own accord, and my fingernails pierce his back. My teeth ache and there’s something wild within me that wants to tear into his flesh.
Bite. Bite. Bite.
I fear myself. I’m worried that if he doesn’t give me what I want, I’ll give in to this strange primal urge that is taking over me. Sweat beads on my brow as I suppress it, and the fever rises within.
“Please,”
I gasp. “Please.”
He groans, and it’s like my plea snaps something within him. He thrusts harder, deeper, and reaches the place inside me that I need him to touch.
When his mouth falls to my shoulder, and his teeth press against my skin, and his shoulders shudder beneath my hands, I get the sense that the urge to bite has come over him too. He wrenches away and claims my mouth instead.
I’m lost to him. To the sound of the mattress creaking, and his shallow grunts, and the dominant, branding thrust of his tongue.
Tonight melts away. I’m no longer under threat from the king, or being bitten by Blake, or a pawn, once again, in a game between men. I’m free. I’m powerful. I’m here with Callum, taking pleasure from his powerful body, while he struggles to maintain control.
“Come for me, Princess,” he growls.
My back arches up from the mattress as I come wholly, completely, undone. All the fear, the darkness, the pain from this night is expelled from me. His pace increases, becomes fevered, before his back muscles spasm beneath my fingertips as he too groans with release. His face dips to the crook of my neck.
“You’re mine,”
he mumbles against my ear as his heart thunders against my chest. “You’re mine.”
Yet, as my orgasm ebbs away, and I stroke the back of his neck, I can’t ignore the slight protest within my soul. A small voice whispers through my bliss.
It tells me I belong to no one.
Chapter Eleven
Darkness.
Tendrils of shadow wind up my legs and coil around my arms.
I cannot breathe. I cannot see. I cannot. . .
My eyes adjust. Cold stale air floods my lungs. A corridor stretches into the distance, lined with doors. I approach one of them, and touch the symbol carved into smooth stone above the lock. It’s a key with two crescent moons in the bow. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s the same mark that I saw in the chapel.
Something moves behind the door, and I jump back.
Distant footsteps approach, and I turn my head. Someone whistles. The tune is familiar but off-key, and I cannot place it. Fear grips my heart. Every instinct in my body tells me to run.
I edge away from that sound.
I run.
I must be dreaming, but I cannot shake the feeling that if I’m caught, there will be consequences.
“Where are you going, little soul?”
A male voice echoes around me, and my blood turns to ice. There is something cold and powerful in his tone, inhuman. “You have found me, when many cannot, and yet you run.”
I turn to the nearest door, and try to push it open. It won’t move. I shove my shoulder against it so hard I think I bruise the skin. I suppress my cry of frustration as laughter resounds all around me. I fight the cold panic that threatens to debilitate me. I hurl myself at the door again.
“Please,”
I whisper. “Please open.”
The scent of dark pine crashes into me as someone else throws themself against the door at the same time as me. It crashes open.
An arm hooks around my waist as we hurtle into darkness.
I jolt into my body-only I’m made of stone. I cannot move. I’m a statue in the palace gardens. I’ve been here before. I’m dreaming. I try to scream, but my lungs are stone and my lips are hard and my mouth tastes like old cemeteries.
Courtiers wander around in the moonlight. They comment on the neatly trimmed hedges, and the smell of the roses. Some of them look up at me.
“She almost looks alive,”
says a woman, before she and her friend walk away.
Blake saunters into view with his hands in the pockets of his breeches.
“Fascinating,” he says.
Get out!
I want to scream.
Get out! Get out! Get out!
I’m paralyzed, powerless, trapped in this stone cage.
His eyes glint in the moonlight.
“When are you going to fight?” he asks.
***
I wake in the middle of the night.
I feel a strange pull toward the corridor, as if something I need is outside our chambers. I untangle myself from Callum, slip on a robe, and pad through the shadows. I open the door a crack. I breathe in sharply. Blake stands by the wall, at one with the shadows. His hair is messy, and his shirt is only half buttoned up. His bootlaces are undone, too. He puts a finger on his lips.
He reaches into the pocket of his breeches and pulls out a small pot. “Apply this to your wound.”
The word
Moonflower is written in elegant calligraphy across the label.
“My wound? The bite you gave me, you mean?”
He shrugs. “With any luck, it will fade the scar.”
Fade,
I note.
Not get rid of entirely.