Filed to story: My Kidnapper Is the Wolf King
Moonlight floods the room.
A low growl. Primal. Animal.
Bared teeth. Eyes glowing.
A whisper of fur. Two beasts. One black, one tawny. Both huge. A crash. Books cascade to the floor. A desk breaks. They’re fighting, I think.
Howls permeate the castle walls.
Amid it all, a thought.
I have not shifted.
***
I’m being torn apart.
My cheek is pressed against the floorboards. I whimper and push myself to my knees. A snarl makes my head rear up.
Callum and Blake have shifted. They’re both huge, the size of bears, though Callum is slightly bigger. The moonlight shines off their glossy coats. The desk is shattered around them, and glass glints on the floor in front of the fireplace where one of Blake’s bottles has smashed.
Callum has the scruff of Blake’s neck in his maw and as he bites harder, pain flares in the same spot on my neck.
“Stop!” I croak.
Callum’s head snaps toward me, and his growl dies when his green eyes lock onto mine. I feel him, sense him-his scent floods my lungs, and with it, a calmness settles over me. He’s still in there. He’s still Callum.
My eyes widen. Blake hurtles into Callum’s side. The tawny wolf flies across the room and slams into the wall by the door. He releases a whimper as he crashes onto the floor. Books, piled by the wall, cascade on top of him.
“Callum!”
I turn toward him, but there’s a thud, and Blake looms over me. His paws are huge, and his claws dig into the floorboards. I try to crawl away, but he sinks his teeth into the back of my dress and drags me across the floor. I land on my back by the foot of the bed.
“Blake, stop it!”
I try to get up. A great weight presses down on my stomach, squeezing the breath out of me. Blake’s body is stiff, his ears pulled back. Callum is on his feet, and the two lock eyes. Both growl.
I can tell Callum is still himself, but Blake feels different. Feral. Dangerous. His shadows, which exist inside me, move and spread in all directions, and I can make no sense of them. I shove him, and my fingers sink into silky fur.
“Blake. Get off me.”
My vision blurs as Callum paces back and forth. Every time Callum gets closer, Blake’s growl vibrates through me, and Callum inches back.
Another surge of pain crashes over me. My soul feels frayed, like threads of it are being pulled apart. I stiffen, then whimper. Blake’s great weight pushes down on my stomach, squeezing the breath out of me.
Sweet darkness pulls me under.
***
My face is pressed against something hot and hard, and the scent of male and forests fills my lungs. My skin buzzes, but I no longer feel as if my soul is being shredded apart. A soft sigh escapes me. I peel open my eyelids. My heart stills.
My face is crushed against Blake’s bare chest. Our bodies are flush, and one of my hands is slung over his waist, as if I clung to him in my sleep. Blake’s fingers brush the back of my neck.
Adrenaline surges through my body. I suppress the snarl that builds inside me as my teeth tingle. Something whispers.
Bite. Bite. Bite.
There’s something wrong with me. Panic swirls in my chest, and my breathing is fast. I’m going to. . . I can’t stop myself from. . . I open my mouth.
Blake stirs. He dips his chin, and panic flares in his eyes.
He is wrenched away from me. There’s the thud of bare feet, the dragging sound of Blake trying to find his footing, then a slam and a rattle.
I push myself to my knees. Callum presses Blake against the wall by the cold hearth. My eyes widen. Both are naked. Their clothes are torn in shred on the floorboards, among splintered wood and books and parchment. Weak sunlight strains through the window and highlights the shuddering muscles in Callum’s back.
“What the fuck?” he growls.
Blake’s hair is a mess, and though he manages his usual bored expression, his cheeks are flushed. His eyes lock onto mine.
“Don’t look at her.” Callum grips his chin. “Look at me.”
“Your cock is touching my leg.”
Callum makes a frustrated noise in his throat. He releases Blake, but doesn’t step back. “What the fuck were you doing last night? You were guarding her. Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“You don’t want to know what I think.”
Blake exhales. “She has a part of my life force inside her. Of course I was going to guard her.”
“Oh, that was why, was it?”
I tune out their bickering. I sit back against the side of the bed. The fur that hangs from the mattress is soft against my back. I tilt back my head, and feel the Northlands sun on my skin. Outside, the wind rustles the trees and stirs the loch. The tips of the mountains are shrouded with mist.
Some of the anxiety that has been knotting inside me for weeks unravels. I still have too many questions about last night, about what’s happening to me.
But a slow smile spreads across my face.
I didn’t shift.
“Please. I have no interest in your pet,” says Blake. “You shouldn’t have brought her here on the night of the full moon. What did you expect?”
“For you to exercise a little self-restraint-“
“Next time, I will strive to be the picture of composure that you were last night, Callum-“
As they continue to argue, I cast my gaze around Blake’s chambers. I’d not taken it in properly, last night. It’s smaller than ours and simply furnished, despite him being the alpha of this castle, and having the pick of any room he wants.
The bed I lean against is barely big enough to fit two people, and is pushed against the wall. The mess is the outcome of the fight between Blake and Callum last night. The clutter, though. . . that must have been here already. There are books scattered across the floor, among the remnants of the broken desk, but they’re also piled against the stone walls and stacked in the corners.
While he’s distracted by Callum, I pick one up, curious about Blake’s reading choices. It’s full of sketches of monsters-winged beasts, half dead humanoid figures, a water creature with entrails curling out of its body like tentacles. My eyes lock with those of a serpentine creature, that-from the smudges around its scaled body-seems to wear shadows like a second skin.
There’s a mark on its tail. It’s the same symbol that is inked on Elsie’s wrist. When I turn the page, the mark has been drawn in greater detail on the end of a hot iron. These are Night’s prisoners, now bound to his prison in the sky. I wonder if Blake is taking the rumors about Night’s acolytes, and the Night Prince seriously. I put the book down.
Numerous bottles of liquor stand on his mantelpiece, and one rolls across the floor, near Callum’s feet as he continues to berate Blake.
The scent of lavender hits me, as well as another floral smell I don’t recognize. Dried purple and white flowers scatter the floor-among bits of parchment. The lavender provokes an ache, deep within me, and I pick up one of the sprigs and twist it between my fingers. My mother used to stitch it into pouches, and place them beneath my pillow before bed. She said they would help me sleep, and keep the nightmares away. I wonder if Blake uses it for a similar purpose.
I drop it, and it lands on a sketch of a labyrinth with a hexagonal center.
“Can you two put some clothes on, please?” I say.
Blake and Callum both shut their mouths. Callum looks over his shoulder sharply. His expression softens. He releases Blake, crosses the room, and crouches down before me.
Still unclothed.