10. Aurelia
Chapter 10
Iclosed my eyes to keep from flinching as he leaned over me, expecting the pain that was sure to come. His large hand closed over my upper arm. He jerked me upright.
I straightened my legs, allowing him to set me on my feet. I again waited for the blow. Alexander sometimes liked to do it face-to-face.
His large hand now gripped my forearm.
“What is this?” he demanded, holding up my hands. His thumb trailed across the blood from the ropes. “Who did this to you?” His tone was vicious but his touch was soft, wiping away the blood. “Was this you, trying to escape? Did you do this?” He peered into my eyes, his expression pained. “Aurelia...”
Hearing my name on his tongue, said with that deep, sexy voice, sent tingles spreading throughout my body. Hearing the concern in his tone, feeling his touch on my skin... My knees weakened in response, though I held steady. Barely.
“You tie me up but then don’t like the effects of the rope?” I asked in a flat tone.
A vein popped in his clenched jaw. He bent in a flurry of movement, grabbing the spear Hadriel had held and swinging it toward me. I couldn’t help the flinch this time, jerking away from him violently. I’d never seen someone move that fast—much too fast for me to anticipate. He grabbed my wrist this time, holding my hands still and then driving the tip of the spear between them. The sharp edge of the metal sliced through the rope.
When he was done, he threw the spear to the side as though unworried I’d dive for it and ripped the rest of the rope away.
“Do not,” he said, grabbing my shoulders and waiting until I met his eyes, “hurt yourself. Do you understand?”
I felt my brows pull together. “Why? So you can have that pleasure?”
His hard eyes were rimmed with fire. I felt my insides tighten with the power I saw brimming there, finding it hard to hold his gaze while also wanting to tip toward it and fall all the way in.
“I saw you flinch,” he said. “I saw what was done to Mr. Poet. Did they do that to you? Did they hurt you in that village?” He paused for a beat.
I didn’t know who Mr. Poet was, but I clenched my jaw tightly, refusing to answer.
Understanding lit his eyes anyway. I must’ve given away my affirmation in my body language.
“Who was it? That woman, Granny? Someone else in that village?” He studied me. “Answer me. I’ll end them.”
I understood his reaction about as well as I’d understood anything Hadriel had been saying.
“Is there something wrong with you people?” I blurted. “You barged into my village, killed the only family I’ve known these last fifteen years, ripped me from my home, are unlawfully holding me hostage, and you’re worried about me flinching from my captor? Do the dragons keep you around to make them feel smarter?”
His eyes narrowed slightly and he turned, jerking me along with him. We traveled through a well-organized sea of white tents, the lighting dim but still enough for me to see. The one on the end was the largest of all, almost double the size of the others.
People glanced our way—all of them nude, many dirty, and some bloodied. They’d been fighting. Killing people I knew.
Gritting my teeth against the desire to give in to the rising emotion, I staggered alongside the alpha. He reached the tent and stopped, shoving me inside. Expecting to be flung like Alexander might’ve, I was ready with quick feet and kept myself upright.
The tent’s interior was surprisingly spacious, accommodating a large cot that could easily pass as a bed for a mated couple in the village. On the other side sat a moderately sized table with four chairs, the wood polished but worn. A blanket spread across the ground in the corner with cushions dotting the surface and a book had been left lying in the middle, a little ribbon denoting his place.
I wouldn’t take you for a reading man. Or is that one filled with pictures?
The words went unspoken. Silence would needle him more than any barb. He was a man who wanted answers when he asked questions. Who took obedience for granted. I would give him none of what he was expecting.
He stopped just inside of the tent, his gaze intense. There was a sanguine quality to him, as though my proximity worked at every nerve in the most gloriously devastating of ways. Distracting ways. I knew how he felt and bet he hated it as much as I did. What I hated more, however, was not knowing what was causing it. His erection still stood proud, undiminished despite our walk. Everyone would’ve seen that. Did he care?
Did it matter?
He turned and unhooked the wooden toggle on the tent flap. It swung down, plunging us into near darkness, the only glow from one window with the flap still tied up.
Butterflies filled my stomach. This was what Granny had been warning about, my body being used as a plaything to anyone who captured me. It had revolted me. Terrified me.
I felt zero fear right now. Worse—much, much worse—was the kernel of excitement that sparked in my middle.
“I’m going to ask you questions, and I want truthful answers,” he said in a tone that was low, soft, but imbued with a silent threat. He didn’t step toward me. “There will be repercussions if you lie.”
He paused as though I might comment. When it was clear I would not, his gaze flowed over me.
“Do you need to sit?” he asked, and I couldn’t stop the frown at the unexpected question.
“What are your questions?”
Heat flared in his eyes, his gaze dropping to my lips and his eyes growing hooded. He flinched, and then snapped back to razor sharp focus. The air still crackled between us.
“Who do you work for?” he asked, both hands now fisted and his shoulders tense.
“You know who. You killed her earlier.”
“Granny,” he said. I didn’t bother nodding. “When did she employ you?”
“She didn’t, at first. She harbored me.”
His brows drew together, his gaze intensifying. “When did you first start making drugs?”
“A year after I got here, she started working with me. A hobby, at first. When I showed promise, at about fourteen, she started teaching me the craft. I tried various products on the market, read books, and learned to duplicate. Over the years, I kept pace with other shadow market products—mostly—until she started bringing home some books and... documents to help me learn. She brought home apothecary supplies, as well, and explained how other people had altered them. In the last five years, I made the craft my own.”
“And in the last three, you made your craft more deadly.”
“I made the journeys smoother, I put in fail-safes, and I made the experience more pleasant. As I told your colorful accomplice, my product is not now, nor ever has been, deadly. I assume you toured my village. You should’ve seen that for yourself.”
“How could I have seen for myself? Do you typically keep dead people on display?”
I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, but he had me there. We had quite a few empty residences since no new people had moved into our community in quite a few years. Old age had removed others. I didn’t have the proof I was boasting.
“It isn’t deadly or terribly dangerous for the mostly healthy,” I grit out. “People here have taken my product. I have. No one has died from it. Do you assume we are some sort of ultra-powerful species that don’t suffer the same way others do? I don’t even have magic. If it was deadly, I’d have been gone a long time ago. I developed a more robust catalog as time went on, not a more dangerous one.”
“Not dangerous—” He huffed, his eyes murderous. “Do you believe the lies you tell? Do they help you sleep at night?”
“Help me sleep at night? You invaded this village unlawfully. You killed and are in the act of abducting. Is creating a few hallucinogens worse than that? Worse than the murder of an old woman? Clearly the dragons do keep you around to make them feel smarter.”
He took a step forward, anger vibrating his frame. I realized how much larger he was than me. At five-foot-two it wasn’t unusual, but he was so much thicker. So much stronger. When I killed him, it would have to be by surprise. From behind, maybe. Something sharp into his neck so he couldn’t heal before the job was done.
“The difference between you and me is I’m not going after innocents,” he growled, stopping right in front of me, leaning into my space. His proximity sent a flurry through my stomach.
“What part about people venturing into a seedy shadow market in search of unlawful drugs screams innocent at you?” I replied, my own anger now getting the better of me.
“And what about drugs slipped into drinks and given as gifts, wrapped up like little presents? Those pushed on children who don’t know any better?”
“You think I travel the world slipping my product into the hands of the unsuspecting? What sort of awful place are you even from that those thoughts enter your head?”
He bent a little more, his face mere inches from mine. His fragrance wrapped my mind in a dizzying, delicious cocoon.
“Have a care with how you speak to me,” he growled, his voice low and rough, sizzling across my skin. “You might not personally push those drugs onto people who have no idea what they are getting themselves into, but the organization you work for does. You’re guilty by association.”
“Granny sells to her network. She always has. She has no control over what they do, or what people who buy the product do. No one does. The only difference I’ve become aware of in the last three years is that the king and queen are now in on it, and that has I think been a recent change. Maybe you should take it up with them.”
“Or maybe I should take out the source and wash my hands of it.”
I looked at his lips, slightly parted as he breathed heavy. My core pounded with need I did not want.
Now it was I who spoke low and firm, straightening up as much as I could and returning my gaze to his eyes. Lust burned brightly there, very loosely controlled, much like my own. He was just as frustrated by that fact. I could feel it—feel him—in every cell of my body, as though he’d grafted himself to my flesh.
“Your threats won’t make you right or just. You are a murderer and a hypocrite, and nothing you say will have any value to me.”
A flash of pain raced through his eyes, so fast I half wondered if I’d made it up. “Who else works for Granny apart from those within this village?” His voice shook, his anger threatening to break free. “You create the product, fine, but who packages it? Where are they?”
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t lie to me!” he shouted, startling me into action.
I bashed his face with my forehead before shifting my weight and swinging up my knee.
He barely flinched, taking my head’s blow in stride and almost lazily reaching down to stop my knee. He grabbed my shoulders and swung me around. I had the insane terror he’d bend me over the table and take me right then. The terror because I wanted it. Deep down to my core, I needed him in a way that wasn’t natural.
Instead, he shoved me, only hard enough to make me stagger away.
“If you want to fight, then fight.” He grabbed the edge of the table and flung it aside. It rolled across the ground and into the tent flap, a leg sticking out of the opening. He scattered the chairs next, leaving the space between us clear. “If you think that will somehow absolve you of your crimes, go for it.”
His obvious display of rage, of violence, was strange in that it didn’t terrify me as it should’ve. As Alexander would’ve. Deep inside, part of me trusted that he wouldn’t hurt me. That he wouldn’t treat me as Alexander had loved to do. It wasn’t rational given his people had killed Granny, but right now that didn’t seem to matter. Instead, his show of strength, of anger, incited me to heights I couldn’t contain.
My control shattered, my frustration spilling over.
“I’m not looking to be absolved of my crimes, you block-headed jackass!” I yelled at him. “I’m trying to make you understand your hypocrisy.”
I launched, throwing a punch. I hadn’t learned how to properly fist fight, but I’d been in enough scrapes when I was younger to have a clue. Besides, what did it matter? I already knew I couldn’t best him face-to-face. I could at least try to hurt him a little.
My fist connected and he let it, his hands at his sides, his chest rising and falling quickly. My wrist tweaked painfully; the man was made of bricks. I punched for his jugular, ready to dig my nails in and rip it out. He caught my wrist above the wound where the skin was already marked and raw.
I reached for his eyes, utterly without reason.
He caught that wrist as well, careful with the existing wound, and then spread my arms wider, pulling my chest toward his body. My peaked nipples scraped agonizingly through my thin clothes against his bare chest, sending sparks down to my core. His hard length pressed against my belly. I breathed heavily while looking up at him. His breath mingled with mine, his pupils dilating as he took me in. The air hung heavy around us, filled with anger and arousal. His grip was hard, and oh gods how I both loved and loathed being controlled and maneuvered. Being this close to him had my body at war with my mind.
“You’d be wise to pick your battles, Little Wolf,” he said, and a hot dagger twisted in my gut.
I wasn’t a wolf. I wasn’t anything. He had to have known since I couldn’t see in the dark. He was intentionally pouring salt in my wound.
I tried to head-butt him again, unwilling to give in despite the impossible odds. He twisted, catching my face in the crook of his neck, enveloping me in his scent.
My knees nearly went out from under me. My body melted toward him, my arms now using him for support. His grip tightened to keep me in place. I felt his hardness against my belly. Wetness made a mess of my undergarments. Anger made me irrational.
“I will kill you,” I said into his skin, his taste salty and warm, delicious. My lips lingered there, my core throbbing.
“You won’t get that chance,” he said softly, without moving—and I had no idea why. His body was tight against mine, his cock pulsing. “You’ll pay for your crimes, I will make sure of it.”
I bared my teeth and sank them into his flesh, blood filling my mouth. He sucked in a startled breath and I relished in it.
He jerked back and grabbed my throat, tearing me away from him. His eyes darkened menacingly. My newly freed hand swung down lifelessly, having not expected he would let it go. It slapped against his inner thigh. Brushed against his hard cock. Tore my last thread of sanity.
I grabbed his cock before I could stop myself. His hand slid to the back of my neck and he yanked me closer. His lips crashed down onto mine. His tongue delved deep, plunging. I groaned into his taste and stroked along his length, frenzied. His hands were at my clothes, pushing down my trousers and ripping off my top. He had me bared to him in moments, his lips leaving mine to trail down my neck. One hand ran down my chest to cup a breast.
I closed my eyes, shoving him backward, hating him so hard but utterly lost to the feel of him. His hot mouth replaced his hand on my breast, sucking in its peak. His legs hit the edge of the cot and he turned, pushing me down before him and then quickly spreading my thighs with his big body.
He reached down and hooked a forearm under my knee, hoisting it up. He threaded the other hand into my hair, his kiss deep and sensual.
I wrapped an arm over his shoulder, my nails digging into his back as the other hand reached between us, finding his length and running it up and down my slickness. His growl of pleasure sent me over the edge and I thrust up, lifting into the air. His tip crested my opening and then he slammed down, filling me in one glorious, hate-filled slide. I didn’t care; I needed this. I could have regrets after I’d climaxed.
He pounded me, hard and fast. I went to pull my hand from between us but he stopped me by grabbing my elbow. He broke our kiss so that he could put his lips near my ear, his voice raspy, our bodies colliding with a wet smack.
“You’re going to help yourself come all over my cock, Little Wolf,” he said, his movements changing. He lifted up a little, his hips still swinging but giving me a little space to work. He shoved my elbow again, pushing my hand down, my fingers gliding against myself and sending me shivers of pleasure. “That’s right,” he cooed, looking down on me now, watching me enjoy the sensations. “Good girl. Work that little pussy while I shove in deep.”
I should’ve been livid with the nickname and the praise, but fuck me if it didn’t curl through my body in delicious shivers.
He did as he said, swinging his hips and then grinding into me. I felt the bulge in his cock grow, slipping easily in and out for now. It grew bigger, though, starting to catch. Butterflies filled my stomach and my body answered, pushing up to him. Helping him work it in. The liquid magma poured down my middle. Lights danced behind my eyes. My nerves were on overload, craving this, craving the slick slide of our bodies crashing into each other.
“I’m going to fuck this knot into you,” he whispered softly, propped on an elbow now with that hand wrapped around my shoulders. His other hand was at my hip, holding me in place while he strove deeper. “I’m going to lodge it in, good and tight, and you’re going to stew in anger as you come on me, over and over and over again. Tomorrow you’re going to hate me as you leak my cum all down your thighs and shiver with the memory of how it got there. I can fight dirty, too. The next time you decide to knee me in the balls, you’ll remember this moment.”
My eyes snapped open with his dark chuckle, anger rolling through me. It was too late, though. Even if I hadn’t been too far gone, desperate to get him closer, needing his release, his knot was already trapped inside of me. It kept expanding until now it was getting uncomfortable. Then it was painful, a hard ache, stealing my breath.
I whined, my legs uncoiling from him, trying to push him away now.
“Work that clit, baby.” Despite his intentions, his voice became oh so soft. His arms came around me, holding me tightly. “Work that clit and relax for me. You need to relax or it’ll be pain the whole time. Let your body adjust to me.”
I held onto his neck with one hand, my face tight against the other side, my fingers working myself. He held totally still, allowing me time to adjust, filling me in a way no one else ever had. The size of the knot must grow with the power of the wolf, because I’d never experienced one I couldn’t get away from with a little effort. And certainly not one that I’d needed coaching to endure.
“That’s right,” he cooed, the pain easing into merely being uncomfortable again, my ministrations helping. “Keep going. That’s my good girl. Almost there.”
I pulled back from his neck and found his lips, thankful for once that he had this weird effect on me. He moaned, and while he might pretend this was some sort of payback, he was just as wrapped up in this feeling as I was. His control was equally nonexistent.
The uncomfortable feeling gradually fell away and as it did, the pleasure started to build again. I moved a little, gasping with the drum beat of decadent sensation that vibrated up my middle. His slow smile was dazzling, intimate, and then he was rolling his hips in a way that enhanced the feeling. I closed my eyes and bowed my head a little, working myself, feeling his movement.
“Fuck, baby, you feel so fucking good,” he groaned. “Work that little pussy around my cock.”
I tried a little move of my own, his knot tugging on me, a splice of pain through the pleasure that made him moan deep and low.
“That’s right,” he said before sucking in my bottom lip. “Use me. Fuck this big dick deep into that little pussy. You are pure ecstasy.”
I moved a little more until the pain eased again, my body winding tighter until I was rocking into him, him twisting and turning in a way not usual for sex but that lit me on fire all the same.
“Fucking . . . hell,” I said against his shoulder, squeezing him tighter with my legs. “Holy . . . fucking . . . he?—”
My climax exploded, making me shake and quiver against him. He continued to move, rolling his body within mine, hitting places I didn’t realize could feel that way, could consume my focus so totally.
He reached down and yanked my hand away. “You won’t need that anymore. My knot is going to make you come all over your alpha’s thick cock.”
A sunburst exploded behind my eyes, another wave of pleasure slamming me home. Still it built more, his movements getting more erratic. His breathing became heavier until he held me hard again, pumping deeper into me, never pulling back enough to cause me pain. His cock rubbed just right, like it was meant to fit there. His teeth took little bites at my neck before he sucked in my fevered skin.
His hips jerked harder. I groaned within the sensation. He fisted my hair, grinding deep.
“Fuck yes,” he swore with his release, filling me with a heat that made my eyes flutter. Another climax tore through me, this one the biggest yet, making me shudder against him and rake my nails down his back.
“Oh fu—” I said as I rode it, wrapping around him as much as I could.
He shook again, utter bliss, before his kiss turned languid.
“Hold on, baby. We’ve got a while before this will subside, I think.” His upper body peeled back. He grabbed my hands and pulled me with him, wrapping one around my back to steady me and turning us over. He lay back down, me on top of him, before putting his hands behind his head.
I looked down on his beautiful, beguiling face, his smug smile one I didn’t much care for. His cock was still a huge swell inside of me, not yet diminished in the slightest. I’d heard some wolves took a few moments to go down, but it was almost always soon after their climax.
A throb of pleasure stole my breath. It was not a climax but kick-started me into building toward one again as though I was actively working for it and not merely sitting atop him. I knew my confusion showed clearly on my face.
“You’re with an alpha now.” His smug smile grew. “I derive pleasure from locking my release deep inside you. It creates a constant sort of hum until the knot fades. You’ll derive pleasure from the same thing, except you also have bodily stimulation. I’ll climax each time you do, and I get to sit here and watch you writhe, desperate to be away from me but equally desperate for more. Isn’t that right, Little Wolf? Hatefully trapped in pleasure as your tormenter watches you struggle? As I said, there is more than one way to fight dirty.”
I stared down at him, my stomach tightening.
He was right, of course. The passion that led me to make this terrible decision was receding, and with its departure came cool logic. The last thing I wanted was to sit here impaled on the cock of a man that intended to unlawfully rip me from my home and take me to the dragons to have me killed. A man who had destroyed my life anew and killed the last person I thought of as family. I’d rather cut his dick off than get pleasure from it—something I should’ve remembered before I grabbed his cock or accepted his knot.
However, logic wasn’t without its rewards.
He thought I was scum. A killer of innocents. He hated me as much as I did him. Whatever feeling was altering my mind was working on him, too, making him lose control. An alpha like this, a leader who had his camp in perfect order with all the tents in a crisp line, and his people following his direction to the letter—he’d hate that slip. He’d hate that I’d gotten to him. He was probably kicking himself that he’d locked me like this, realizing his desperation at the time, complete with flimsy reasoning, was now a punishment for him.
Instead of admitting fault for this fucked up situation or allowing himself to feel the guilt and degradation of the moment, he was shoving it back on me.
Well, I’d be damned if I let him get the upper hand while using my sexuality to embarrass me or make me feel smaller. If he wanted to watch, I’d give him a show that would result in fever dreams for years to come. Every time he thought of me it would come with blind lust. I’d lean hard on this weird feeling and follow this journey to its conclusion.
I called upon my learned and practiced ability to lie to call his bluff.
“You thought,” I said, bracing a hand on his chest and bending with laughter. “You thought that I’d be... what, embarrassed to come repeatedly? Why the fuck would that embarrass me? I don’t know if anyone told you, but women fake their climax a lot of the time. You fuckers aren’t even a quarter as good as you think you are. So if your alpha body is built to give me pleasure? Go ahead and relax, I’m used to getting myself off when a guy won’t do it for me.”
His smile slipped and I got right into it. Oh yes, I’d walk this path so that my journey didn’t take a sharp left turn into a nightmare, but after that—after I was free of his body—I was done. I would never, ever let this happen again.