Chapter Nine 2
“The victim was an omega, the omegas should judge him.”
“Yeah, get the fuck up, Kitty! You too, Andre!”
I just sat back—watching the argument unfold. I really did think this part would be harder, but my fates handed me the key to victory, and they didn’t even mean to.
Well, of course the blackmail material I’d been painstakingly collecting from my time as high priestess listening to secrets in the temple, to my nighttime snooping—that part was pretty important. But blackmailing people is easy. The hard part would be getting them to accept my authority. To look to me as their... queen.
Holding trials was genius.
The omegas needed an outlet for their pain, oppression, and frustration. The betas needed more from life than being the sidekick in someone else’s story. The alphas needed to know that when the ship when down, they’d have a place on the lifeboat.
And I had all of the above. All they needed to do to get it was stop fighting, and accept the inevitable.
“Daciana, do something,” Devin asked. “Change the judges. Make it fair.”
Looking to me for fairness in a trial that wasn’t legal in any way? Oh yes, they’ve accepted the new queen in town.
“All right, then,” I said, rising up. “So that Nyx can’t say he wasn’t treated fairly, we’ll go half and half. Five alphas and five omegas. Even if the alphas all vote non-guilty, it’ll just give Nyx a chance to explain more about what was going on in his head when he beat and tortured his teammate, because he was taking his stuff out on everyone else.”
They voted eight to two for guilty, and in a surprising but welcome twist, the community decided his punishment would be for Nyx to experience everything he put me through.
“The best thing about you being a pinata bitch,” I called as a despondent Nyx was carried out to meet his fate, “is that you can’t phase. You’re going to feel every inch of that wood, baby.”
I hopped off my throne. “Let’s break for breakfast, everyone. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
After leaving the mess hall, I left the academy behind—shifting the minute paw met grass. I ended up spending the rest of the day with my project out in the woods. They didn’t need me for the trials with Ava there to keep everyone in line.
That night, I retreated to my new quarters.
Dagem was a shady, blackmailing, treacherous bitch of a wolf, but she had excellent taste.
Impossibly soft royal-blue and purple cashmere carpet swallowed my clothes. Heavy royal-blue drapes blocked out the sun, leaving me drenched in the tinkling lights of the crystal chandeliers. A throne of a bed dominated the space. The headboard was covered in golden upholstery and topped with a crowning jewel—which was actually a crown—carved beautifully into the wood.
Instead of a rinky-dink wardrobe, I had an incredibly huge walk-in closet that could fit my entire dorm. A quick run across to the door led me to my attached bathroom. Inside was a gold clawfoot tub, an infinity shower, ceiling-high mirrors, and every scented bath potion known to man and wolf. Seemed Dagem didn’t see the need to bring them since paradise had plenty of fancy soap.
Sighing contentedly, I padded out of my bathroom and climbed into bed. Eventually, I would have to do more as headmistress other than threaten and blackmail the staff, and bask in my new quarters, but there was plenty of time to worry about that.
I tipped over the side, reaching under the bed, and then I remembered.
Mom’s letters are gone.
A wave of grief bowled me over, spilling tears down my cheeks. If hating your fate with everything in your soul was enough to break the bond, my bond with Orion would’ve imploded a thousand times over with the destructive power of the sun crashing into earth.
You can’t fall apart like this, a hard voice said. There’s too much left to do. You have to stay focused.
The internal pep talk did nothing to improve my mood. Flipping over, I drew the sheets over my head and willed myself to sleep.
I couldn’t cry in my sleep.
Creak.
My eyes snapped open. Some time had passed since I fell asleep, a glance at the clock told me that. It was the middle of the night, so what woke me? Holding still, my sensitive hearing listened close to... what? What was that?
Thud.
I stiffened. Someone’s here. The thought hit me before their scent did.
“Lights on.”
Light flooded the bedchamber, ripping a curse out of my intruder.
“What the fuck do you want?” I snapped, shoving up against the pillows.
Edric froze comically on the first step to the bed. Yes, Dagem had them put in a raised platform for her showy, over-the-top bed. The woman dreamed of being a princess when she was a little kid, and I’d put money on it.
“I uh—” Edric stepped back as if moving out of claw-range. He looked rough—like he’d been chained up for the last twenty-four hours. His clothes were all ripped up and haggard lines marred his handsome face. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
I rolled my eyes. “Obviously you’re not since I asked Ava to accidentally leave your chains loosened when they locked you up for the night, and not to stop you when you inevitably escaped. IF you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve gotten a weapon on your way up here.” I arched a brow. “Unless you’re a bare-hands kind of guy, which I admit, is a bit sexy.”
He gaped at me. “You told her to— You wanted me to escape?”
“I wanted to see what you’d do if you escaped,” I corrected. “And what you did was sneak into my room. Again. So I repeat, what the fuck do you want?”
“Uh... I...”
“I remember you being more articulate than this.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to chat,” Edric snapped. “I came to leave you something, and then I was going to go.”
“Go?”
“Away. From here. From the academy. From this Alice in Wonderland hellscape. All of it,” he said, boldly climbing up and dropping down on my bed. “You offered everyone else a one-way trip over the gates. I was taking mine.”
“But not before you left me something...” I eyed him. “Were you going to take a dump on my pillow? Masturbate in my panties and leave me to find the evidence?”
Edric rolled his eyes. “Will you cut it out with that shit? Luame help me, why are you like this?”
“Trauma,” I replied, shrugging.
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, well... that would explain a lot. And it’s why I have to say I’m sorry.”
I stilled. “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”
“The letters.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I stopped speaking. Stopped breathing.
“They weren’t supposed to burn them, Volana, I swear. When Paxton stole them, I realized what they were and said he had to put them back. We couldn’t fucking mess with a dying mother’s last words. That’s j-just”—his voice cracked—“something you don’t do.
“Badr refused to put them back, but Orion said it’d be fine. That we’d only threaten to burn the letters to get you to tell the truth,” he said. “I told them that if it’s only going to be a threat, we should take the real letters out of the envelopes and put in blank paper, so—”
“Did you?” I cried, leaping forward and grabbing his arm. “Did you keep the real letters? Where are they!”
“Volana...” Edric looked away. “No, we didn’t take out the real letters. What you saw was real. They’re gone.”
Hope left me like a steamroller flattened my body. There was none left as I slumped over—empty.
“Badr said it was too risky to try and fool you with blank paper. You might notice that your scent wasn’t on them. You’d see the difference. Blah, blah, blah. They were terrible excuses,” he said softly, “and I guess I never really believed them from the start.”
“Is that why you came here?” I rasped. “To tell me you were smart enough to figure out they were lying bastards? Whoopee for you.”
“No, Volana.” A warm hand on the back of my head made me jerk back, eyeing him suspiciously. Edric drew back immediately and reached into his pocket, sliding over his phone. “I was worried they would end up going too far, so I took these when they weren’t looking. Just in case. I know it’s not the same but...” Edric tapped his phone and the screen woke up. On it was a picture of the letter Mom wrote me for my eighteenth birthday.
I reached out, my hands shaking as I cradled the phone. I swiped across the screen, the tiniest trickle of hope filling my chest as letter after letter looked back at me. Most of them were taken at weird angles and in poor light as if Edric was trying to conceal what he was doing, but I could see them. I could hold them again.
“Why?” I croaked, lips trembling.
“Because Paxton’s, Nyx’s, and Badr’s parents are all alive and well, and Orion hates his folks with his entire soul. Only I know what it’s like to...” Edric drew something out of his pocket. Well-worn and wrinkled, he smoothed the letter on his thigh. “To only have sheets of fucking paper left of the only person who has been there for you from the beginning.
“I told you, Volana, there are just some things you don’t do. I understand why you’re punishing us. If anything, you’re going easier on us for destroying the letters than I ever would be.”
I nodded, cradling the phone to my chest. “Thank you,” I whispered. I was shattering my badass reputation. I was making a saint out of someone who’d been nothing but a devil, but— “Thank you, Edric.”
“Castor really hurt you, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.
Meeting his gaze, I nodded. “You’re not a complete and total bastard, are you.”
Edric chuckled. “Don’t get carried away. I’m going straight to the alpha council after this and telling them I’ll only help them take the academy back from you if they pay me my two million.”
“Smart,” I mused, tucking the phone under my pillow. It was mine now. “You going to tell them before or after you take off to the Bahamas that you’ve got no idea how to do that?”
“After, of course. If you’ve taught us all anything, Volana, it’s the benefit of good timing.”
A little giggle burst out of me, over as soon as it started. I felt my wolf stirring in my chest—the signal that it was time to cut this short.
“But seriously,” Edric said, sobering. “Why did you want me to have a chance to escape?”
I cocked my head. “You really don’t know? I thought it was obvious after the whole performance I put on about knowing everyone’s secrets. I wanted you to escape because I know now why you need the money.” I tipped over, breaking away from his shocked look. “If you just left, I would’ve let you go. If you came here and attacked me, I would’ve kicked your ass and then given you this”—I took a slip of paper out of my nightstand—“lording it over you that I’m a better fighter and person than you. Would’ve made you feel so bad, bawling on the floor, cradling your broken bones and thanking me on your knees.
“But then you had to come in here and be all sweet.” I dropped the check on his lap. “Thanks for that. You completely ruined my fantasy.”
Edric read the check with the number two million on it, and jumped to his feet. “What the fuck is this!?”
“It’s the money you need to buy your sister out from Sunella’s thumb. Take it. It’s yours.” I smiled at him. “And just to get back at you for ruining a perfectly good revenge fantasy, I’m going to tell you that I would’ve given you the money that very first night if you had simply told me why you needed it.” I hummed, nodding. “Although, I am a bit impressed now that you wanted to pay Sunella with her own stolen money. That would’ve been some nice poetic justice.”
“This is a trick,” he barked, still stuck on the first half of my speech. “It’s fake! You don’t know— You can’t possibly know—”
“That Sunella has been recruiting innocent, pretty, young omega women, forcing them to sign ironclad contracts, and then using them in the most disgusting of ways, so that she can hold on to her council seat for the rest of her life.”
His jaw slackened.
“Yes, Edric. I know.”
Edric dropped hard, falling on the step and pitching over. He fell on his hands and knees, gasping hard—gazing on the check like he couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t breathe. “How?” he rasped. “Who?”
“Most of it was Lucia,” I admitted. Why not? He’d given me back something infinitely precious. I could give him the truth. “Everyone hates me for working with a vampire, but Lucia hates vampires too. For thousands of years, vampires have lived under the law of only turning people with their consent. The man that turned her broke that law.
“Lucia was young, happy, and married to the love of her life when a blood-sucking rapist turned, kidnapped, and locked her away in his castle. She was trapped with him for over a hundred years until one day she staked him through the chest and took off. But he was a vampire king.”
Edric hissed, wincing. Even he knew what that meant for Lucia.
“The others hunted her down like a dog. Didn’t matter that he broke their most sacred law. A king is a king.” I blew out a breath. “She spent the next century running, hiding, fighting, killing, and learning.”
“Learning?”
I nodded. “The vampire community is stuck. Trapped in the past. They hide away in ghost towns, or blend into the seedy darkness of overcrowded cities. But as mundane technology got more and more advanced, they weren’t prepared to deal with it. Now everyone everywhere has a camera, and they’re recording every flipping thing from their food to their reactions to people recording their food.
“Lucia taught herself hacking and tech, and when a vampire prince got himself on camera draining a horse dry, she’s the one who sent the virus that cratered the hard drive and destroyed the video. Just like that, she was valuable to the vamps again, and they got over their hangups on her killing a piece of shit no one liked in the first place,” I said.
“But I wouldn’t say Lucia is on good terms with her kind. They more see her as a necessary evil, but they don’t want anything to do with her outside of hiring her to protect the community, and she wanted nothing to do with them. Actually, her price for dealing with them at all was for them to sell her the land she’s living on now.
“Lucia turned it into a safe haven for other people like her. Not other vampires, other people,” I stressed. “Men and women who are on the run, escaping terrible people. Who were forcibly turned into vampires or werewolves. Demigods defecting from the unending war in their homeland. And even a few mundanes,” I admitted. “The entire hundred square miles of it is walled and protected. As terrible as she is, and she’s really terrible, when someone is scared and alone—she helps them. No matter what.”
I sighed. “I’m telling you all of this because when you said you had good reason for needing the money, and that Castor was going to help you, I had Lucia dig into you and your life. She found the contract on your computer, signed by Sunella. And then she found even more contracts on Sunella’s computer. They’re insane. They read like Sunella owns whoever signs it for as long as she fucking wants, and the only way to break the contract is to pay her damages in the amount of—”
“Two million dollars,” Edric whispered.
“Yeah.” I dropped my gaze. “She dug through the contracts until she found one for Idalia Blaze. Your sister.”
Edric didn’t speak.
“Lucia gave me the money so fast,” I went on when the silence became uncomfortable. “Said she’d do it herself if I didn’t. But of course I want to help. Your sister is only eighteen and Sunella is a walking, talking shitbag wrapped in a skin suit.”
Still Edric said nothing—just staring at the check like he couldn’t fathom how it got in his hand.
“What does Sunella make her do?”
Edric’s voice was rough—dangerous. “She does what you do.”
“Me?”
“Wolves already have superior hearing, but among wind wolves it’s even worse. No secret is safe because the wind knows all.” Edric rose, moving to the window. “Wind wolf communities are silent. We can’t trust reinforced doors and windows to be enough, so we sign, or we write, or we mime. But we don’t speak.
“All of that makes it very difficult for Sunella to collect the secrets she needs to maintain her power, and prevent anyone ousting her as the Wind councilwoman and appointing someone else in her place. So she hires interns ,” Edric said to the night sky. “She makes them sign contracts and NDAs twisted up in such complicated legalese, no one knows what they’re signing.
“Then, when the time comes, she forces them to get close to her enemies and get their secrets by any means necessary. If they refuse, they’re in breach of contract, and she ruins their fucking lives.” Edric laughed mirthlessly. “When Idalia was chosen for the internship, we were so proud of her getting that great opportunity. Can you believe that? We had no idea we encouraged her, even fucking cheered, when she signed her body away to that monster.”
I tossed my head. “But I don’t understand. She’s basically trafficking these women. That’s not legal in any fucking dominion, and damn sure not ours. How can those contracts be legal, let alone enforceable? Idalia should wipe her ass with it, and fling it back in Sunella’s face.”
“She’s tried, Volana. My father and I have tried. Castor tried. Other people trapped by her contracts have tried. But only alphas are allowed to be lawyers and officers, and none of them are willing to make an enemy of a councilwoman. They all made it clear that if Idalia breaches the contract, they’ll lock her up. Can you fucking believe that!” he burst out, making me jump. “My sister has to choose between being a prisoner or a slave, and she’s done nothing wrong!”
“No,” I said gently. “No, she doesn’t because you have the money now. Free her, Edric. Get her out of there, and then give her this.” Edric jerked back, narrowly missing the card I tossed at him. “It’s Lucia’s private number. You can leave out the vampire part, but have Idalia call her. Lucia has a whole network of therapists, safe homes, job recs, and even low-interest loans to help women get back on their feet after going through trauma. And by network, I mean all over the world.
“Many of my allies are werewolves who were forced to use her services, and every single one of them is eager for Wolf Nation to become the dominion that it pretends to be. The place that you run to, not the one you run from.”
He hummed. “Is that how you justify killing all those people and turning Corvin Academy into your little fiefdom? You think you’re some kind of hero changing the world for the better?”
“Nope. I have no such illusions,” I said, rising up. “I’m the villain in this story, and that’s absolutely all right with me.”
Edric scoffed, shaking his head. “Whatever Castor did must’ve really fucked you up.”
“Wasn’t that established by me ripping his throat out.”
“Touché.”
I eyed him. “Anyway, why are you still here? Shouldn’t you be running from my fiefdom with your cape on? You can go. No one’s going to stop you.”
“I know. I believe you, I just—” He threw his hands up. “I’m just trying to understand how everyone I knew and trusted is useless or evil fucks who ruined my and my sister’s life, and the ones to make it right is my psycho murderer soulmate and her vampire best friend!”
“I mean... I wouldn’t call her my best friend.”
“Is everything a joke to you?” he cried, spinning on me. “Do you have any idea how fucked up this is?”
“Hmm. Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up that you haven’t said thank you.”
Edric’s brows blew. “Thank you? You think I owe you a thank-you?”
“Don’t you think you do!” Irritation raised my voice. “You did something nice for me and I thanked you. How about a little of that in return?”
“Hey, I didn’t do something nice for you.” He roared up on me, facing me down. “I gave you the phone because I’m a decent fucking person with a conscience, while you most likely gave me this money so that you could lord it over me! Try to force me into becoming one of your allies!”
My eyes bugged. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? I’m not forcing you to do anything. I’m not even asking! But this is so typical of you, Silent But Deadly.”
“Excuse me?”
“You ruin everything! Every good thing, every nice moment is wrecked because you come in and stink it all up like shit!”
“I ruin everything?” Indignation wrecked him. “Because I’m the fucking one who turned a nice, normal school into a shitshow for my own revenge— Oh, wait, no. That wasn’t me. THAT WAS YOU!”
“You’re an asshole!”
“No wonder I’m your soulmate! And you know what? You can have your blood money back!” Edric tore up the check and flung the pieces over his shoulder. “I don’t want it from you, and I don’t want it from your leech. The money was supposed to come from Sunella and the alpha council. I wanted them to fucking bleed for letting Sunella fuck with anyone she wants while they all look the other way, but of course, you can’t even get that right!”
“Arrgh!” I shoved him, rage pounding my skull. “It’s not blood money, you panty-sniffing jackass! All I want to do is HELP YOU!”
“Why would you give a shit about helping me,” he shouted back.
“Because you’re in pain! You’re alone and you’re scared and your grief howls in my head louder than any windstorm in my room ever could,” I blasted back. “All I want to do is make everything in your world perfect, because then maybe if I do, you’ll let me fuck the shit out of you!”
“What the fuck am I? A prostitute? You never needed two million dollars to fuck me!”
I didn’t know who moved first. In a blink, our lips crashed together—devouring each other like wolves on an antelope.
Stars burst behind my eyes. Living sunlight filled my skin with warmth and joy. My wolf howled with the happiness of running free through the night, the whipping winds tangling with my fur and all fleeing before my ferocity and might.
We tore at each other, shredding our clothes beyond repair. Our lips clashed in a fiery battle where there would be no winners or losers. And inside, the logical part of me that was screaming for me to stop, was pounced on by my wolf.
She bit her head off without hesitation or remorse.
Edric ripped free. “Gods, I hate you!”
“Not as much as I hate you!”
“We can’t do this!”
“So stop doing it,” I taunted. “You don’t have the balls to dick me down and bond with me, panty-sniffer. I was always too much woman for you!”
Edric snarled so ferociously, his wolf side burst forth—yellowing his piercing, fathomless eyes.
I had genuinely no idea if I was trying to goad him into stopping, or to keep going. It was working either way.
“You were always too much psycho for me!” Edric tore my panties clean off my body.
“Ow.” That looked sexy in the movies, but it hurt more than the actors let on. It was also sexy as hell.
Edric scooped me up and tossed me on the bed. I didn’t have a chance to catch my breath before he was on me. “We’re not going to bond,” he barked, plopping my thighs around his head like earmuffs. “I just want the fucking taste that you gave to Orion, and not me, and that’s it. We’re done!” No one had ever been angrier or more jealous about not being used as an alibi for murder in werewolf history.
Dropping down, Edric buried between my legs and devoured me like a candy bowl.
“Oh gods,” I cried, back arching in half and snapping off the bed. Almost immediately, a soft, ethereal glow enveloped our bodies, and a lightning storm erupted beneath my skin—setting every nerve ending alight.
I screamed.
Luame wanted her chosens to bond. She wanted it so bad, our bodies ever more sensitive to every touch, kiss, lick, and thrust that we never wanted it to stop. It was like sticking my finger in a socket and having the electric jolt my core like a defibrillator increasing the intensity with every passing second.
My eyes rolled in my head, moans pouring free. “Don’t stop, and don’t think you’re leaving without that check. You’re going to be grateful to your psycho fate and leech friend, and you’re going to like it!”
“Do you ever stop talking!”
“Do you stop being an ass!”
“Maybe this will shut you up.” Latching on to my clit, Edric hoovered the thing like he was trying to suck it off. I had enough time for my jaw to crack open on a silent scream before he slipped two fingers past my folds.
No warning. No prep. No gentleness. Edric plunged inside me and started plugging that spot like it was trying to run away, and he wouldn’t quit until he dominated it into submission.
His mission to make me shut up worked—big-time. Nothing but moans, screams, and unintelligible nonsense poured from my lips. “No!” I planted my feet on his shoulders and kicked hard. Edric went flying out of my pussy with an audible pop ! “We can’t do this.” My chest heaved like I ran around the world. “If we keep going, we won’t be able to stop ourselves from bonding.
“You have to go. Go!”
Edric scrambled to his feet, looking like he was still in a daze. “You’re... right. We can’t— I can’t—” Edric just turned and ran. Not walked. The man raced buck naked toward the door, propelled by the most impressive source of willpower ever possessed.
I tackled him a foot from the knob. No one had ever accused me of having willpower. Especially not against my wolf.
She was having Edric right here, right now, and nothing—not even her human half—was going to stop her. And yes, I know she is me and I’m talking about myself! But if anything of this made any fucking sense, we could explain it to mundanes without them hunting us down with wolfsbane and trying to kill us!
Flipping him over, I pinned his arms down with my knees, and sat on his face.
“You are rotten to your core, girl, but Orion’s even worse for being a damn liar.” A deep, hard swipe up my slit wracked shudders through my body. “A cherry sundae doesn’t come close to how delicious you are.” Grabbing my hips, he brought me down on his own—smothering himself with my pussy.
Wave after wave of pleasure crashed over my body—straight beating me up. Every time I tried to get up, catch my breath, take control of my senses, another wave bowled me over—drowning me in the horrible, awful, wonderful, sexy, illicit magic that was Edric.
The world spun. The next thing I knew, I was being shoved back against the wall. Edric kissed the crap out of me—his tongue rough and insistent wrestling with mine, but his hand was soft and gentle cupping the back of my neck.
Said hand traveled down, his fingers skating over my goose bumps. My eyes popped when they found my nipple and tweaked the helpless nub to abandon. Nudging my legs apart, his fingers slipped between them, and worked my pussy like a whack-a-mole.
Slap-slap-slap rang in my sensitive ears as his palm rapid-fire smacked my clit to the tune of his finger-fucking. Between that, his tormenting my nipple, and a kiss so hot my ears were steaming, I came so hard on his fingers, I nearly blacked out.
“Ahh,” I cried, body spasming. I flopped, kicked, and jerked against the wall—only held up by Edric’s strong arms holding me tight. The battle had been won. The waves drowned me, keeping me under as my orgasm filled me up to bursting, then exploded out of my skin—ripping through the dark, lonely husk of a person I used to be.
I forgot what it was like to feel this good. I forgot what it was like for someone to touch me softly, hold me gently, kiss me sweetly, and fuck me roughly.
“Okay, okay,” I gasped, pushing weakly against his chest. “You got your taste, now go. Take the money and go. We are not bonding. We’re not having sex.”
We had sex.
Not two seconds after I told him to leave, he tried to, and I tackled him to the floor. Grasping his cock, me/wolf-me impaled my own pussy with it—ending the frustrating game of cat and mouse for good.
The glow filled our bodies, so warm and radiant it blinded. I felt myself being flipped and moved, but I couldn’t see what he was doing, or where he was taking me.
The next thing I knew, soft silky sheets were beneath me, so were my hands and knees. I felt his hard, leaking cock tickle my entrance, and then thrust inside—catching my moan on a scream.
Edric pummeled my hole like a jackhammer, hitting that spot over and over again until it didn’t matter that it was too bright to see, my eyes were rolled up so far in my head, seeing was impossible anyway.
“ Gods, she’s as tight as she is gorgeous. ”
Cold, sobering reality hit me like a blast to the face.
“ Why did I wait so long for this? She could murder me, and I wouldn’t care as long as I could have her in the afterlife. ”
“No,” I croaked. “No, no, no.”
My pleas were a paper dam before a tidal wave. A flood of memories poured into my mind.
A kind, beautiful woman laughing at my expression the first time I found out what’s in mannish water. Playing outside with a little girl who had the same eyes and smile as that kind woman. Shifting for the first time to the cheers from my proud parents.
Running through the forest, chasing after that rotten, disgusting scent that could only be vampires. Kissing a girl for the first time at my first house party. Kissing a guy for the first time under the bleachers during a wolfball game.
Being chosen by Luame to be bonded with the mother wolf. Crossing an ocean of people to meet her, touch her, bask in her. Watching her tear apart the only person who was brave enough to stand against Sunella, and help free my sister.
My body was out of control. Edric was pumping like a wild man, spreading sweet, tortuous pleasure to every corner of my soul. He was everywhere. All of me. Everything from my mind to my core was being consumed by him, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I forgot why I wanted to.
The delicious agony crested, then exploded. I came hard, bending my body in half, and screaming for more than just the pleasure.
Searing hot fire poured into my mind, burning away the vestiges of who I used to be and leaving behind something new, something better, and something wholly unwanted.
We collapsed in a tangle of sweaty bodies, Edric slumping on me and pinning me to the bed. The high of being with him and just having the most incredible sex I’ve had in a long time faded fast. The only thing I was thinking of now was how I could get out from under him and beat it out the door.
“Oh, gods,” Edric croaked, making my muscles tense. “Volana, you... can’t. You just can’t.”
Growling, I shoved out from under him, rolling onto the balls of my feet. Edric moved just as fast, jumping over the bed frame and crouching down—getting ready to strike.
“Your memories,” he gritted.
“Stop.”
“It’s all in my head. Why you killed Castor. The horrible thing he made you do. Everyone who knew and did nothing to stop it and”—Edric lurched back, shock slackening his jaw—“Destiny.”
“I said stop!”