CHAPTER FORTY #4
“Please, I—I can pay you.”
“Quiet,” he hissed. “I want to leave my mark on this perfect, untouched skin before I fuck my first princess.”
My skin wasn’t perfect, and it certainly wasn’t untouched. Father’s scars littered me where he could not see. I didn’t want another man to mark me, an additional defacement of the body I clearly had no ability to protect.
The pleas spilling from my mouth were cut off by an unbridled scream as his dagger split my flesh, the pain a bolt of lightning tearing my skin as he dragged the silver diagonally from my chest, down beneath the opposite breast. A hideous, throbbing slash that would pucker up as all my other wounds had, leaving a permanent reminder of the pain and torment I was about to endure.
His gaze emptied as he stared at the blood pooling to the surface of my skin. My cries no longer pulled his attention, and my limbs had lost their fight. I settled beneath him, throat aching, thigh throbbing, chest searing from his blade. I wanted to leave my body. I wanted this to be over.
Maybe crossing the Threshold wouldn’t be so bad after all. At least I wouldn’t have to remember.
His grip on my wrists only tightened when he dropped his dagger beside us, his available hand reaching for the leather strap that held up his pants. It snapped free quickly, the noise sounding far away as I turned my head to the side, refusing to watch the defilement he had planned for me.
I stared instead at his dagger, the sharp line of silver marred by my blood. My wrists ached beneath his grasp, itching to reach for the hilt, to use his own weapon against him… but I hadn’t been strong enough to seize my dagger when Rowland attacked me. And I wasn’t strong enough now.
“You ever had a cock before, Princess? Bet you haven’t.
” My entire body shifted beneath the weight of him as he adjusted himself, but still, I refused to look.
He was right, of course; I’d avoided any and all moments of intimacy for fear that my father might find out, and thus, my future husband.
That morning in the Sentinel’s Depot, with Anise…
that was the closest I had ever come to experiencing pleasure at someone else’s hand.
So this would be my first experience with sex.
Here, in this cold forest, my chest and thigh bleeding, panic freezing my limbs as I prayed to the stars to just… let me… survive this.
“By the time I’m done, you’ll be begging for more.”
The whimper that escaped me was involuntary, but I kept my eyes closed, attempting to escape the realities of the moment as he forcefully pushed my skirts up in search of the part of me that no one else had ever touched.
I inhaled frightfully when his fingers scratched my inner thigh, much too close. With the last bit of strength I had left, I pressed my legs together as hard as I could, a weak cry spilling from my mouth as I tried once more to wrench myself free of his grip. In my wild thrashing, I met his eyes.
“Do I need to cut you again, Pri—?”
There was a rustling of leaves behind him and he hesitantly cast a glance in that direction.
The moment he saw what approached, his mouth peeled open, a frantic scream clawing its way from his throat as an uncontrollable, wide-eyed fear overtook his features.
He released my wrists, and I felt his thighs tighten with every intention of standing, but he never made it to his feet because a wide-open maw of fangs clamped down on the crook of his neck, right where his head met his chest.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. Time itself seemed to slow.
Even the howls of my attacker faded into the background as I stared into the platinum eyes of the beast, a massive wolf with black fur that caught the light in a strange way.
Its head was at least three times as large as my attacker’s, with a mouth so expansive it held a vast majority of the man’s abdomen in its jaws.
Recognition flooded me. It was the wolf I had dreamt of twice now, I was absolutely certain.
In the barred carriage, I’d worried it had been there to consume me.
But in the clearing, it had protected me from Father and Linus—I had known then, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would not come under its attack.
Now, wide awake and straddled by a bastard with his deflating manhood indistinguishable beneath torrents of blood gushing down his torso, I wasn’t quite sure what to think, or how to feel.
I should have been terrified. Or, at the very least, disgusted.
Instead, I watched in awe as the wolf pulled the man off of me and began mauling him.
A blur of claws and canines and blood, a chorus of guttural moans and gurgles and growls.
I didn’t move to stand, or cover myself.
Depths, I didn’t even try to run. I was immobile as terror and relief warred with one another in my mind.
If my instincts were misplaced, and this enormous creature chose to turn its teeth upon me, it would still have been worth it to hear the symphony of that man’s death.
Cries even more pathetic than my own, the sickening splintering of bone as the wolf’s powerful jaws crushed yet another limb, and the unpleasant squishing noise when those jaws finally settled on his head, silencing the man entirely.
The wolf hovered over him, its entire body rising and falling with the deep breaths escaping its bloodied muzzle.
When it used that muzzle to nudge the man’s body once, then twice, I had the unsettling feeling it was checking to ensure the life had left him.
A curious instinct, given that a majority of the man’s insides now scattered the forest floor.
I swallowed around the knot in my throat, pressing myself into a more seated position with a wince.
My thigh had a heartbeat of its own, and my chest bled freely.
I looked down at myself and my face crumpled.
This couldn’t be me, I thought. This beaten, already bruising, slashed, bleeding body had to belong to someone else.
Except I could still feel the scratch of his fingernails against my skin where he’d desperately grasped for the apex of my thighs, a destination he had never reached.
It was beyond incomprehensible, but my lips parted nonetheless. “Thank you,” I breathed, my raw throat protesting under the effort.
The wolf turned its gaze on me, but did not immediately move.
Its eyes—large, platinum orbs with a luminescence reminiscent of my own—skirted up and down my form, a softness slackening the once-taut, feral features of its face.
The rage that had compelled it earlier had all but vanished as it pawed its way over to a hollowed-out tree stump.
I watched warily as it dunked its muzzle into the rainwater that had collected there.
I couldn’t tell if it was trying to wash away the blood or if slaughtering had made it thirsty.
Regardless, the edges of my vision were blurring, and I desperately needed to move.
More bandits could be coming, if this wolf hadn’t already ripped them all to shreds.
And then there was Vayen. I hoped the wolf hadn’t killed her, but surely she would have heard my screams and come running, if she were able?
I didn’t know what to make of the strange sensation that weighted my chest under that realization.
Focus.
I pressed a hand to my thigh, inhaling sharply through clenched teeth when the pressure seared the skin beneath.
“Fucking depths,” I gritted out. I had nothing to tend to my wounds.
I had no means of obtaining help, for any noise I made had more chance of summoning foe than friend.
And I was currently in the company of a wolf about three sizes larger than it needed to be, who seemed quite content to bathe its muzzle and bask in its after-murder glow. Until it wasn’t.
The wolf resurfaced from its makeshift basin, pinning me with a determined gaze I wasn’t sure I liked the look of.
My breath hitched when the wolf drew near, the tilt of its head seemingly curious as it padded over like we knew one another.
“Whoa,” I said, holding up my free hand. “Easy there.” I echoed Vayen’s calming words to Rummy, hoping that they had a similarly sedative effect.
The wolf slowed its trot, assessing me in a too-thoughtful way that reminded me of Miss Mystis. Then, in a manner that had me questioning my own sanity, the creature extended its neck to press its cold, wet nose against my outstretched palm.
My brows pulled together in complete and total confusion.
It held its nose there, moon-like eyes staring at me on either side of my hand, seemingly patient in its waiting.
Waiting for what, I wondered? I didn’t have any rations, and I couldn’t imagine wild, man-eating wolves sought ear scratches and belly rubs.
What could I possibly have that this wolf desired?
Slowly, the wolf angled its muzzle so that my palm slid along its cheek, beneath its eye.
It came closer, edging my hand against its incredibly soft, unbelievably warm fur, until we were nearly face-to-face.
My jaw dropped and my inhalations deepened.
The creature towered over me, but not one feature displayed the feral tendencies of large animals that had prompted my lifelong fear of them.
Rather, every indication suggested it wanted to help me.
We stared into one another’s eyes, my breath coming in jagged bursts as my heartbeat ceased its gallop.
“I dreamt of you,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “Just as I dreamt of the clearing, and Vayen dreamt of me.”
The wolf only continued to study my face, unsurprisingly offering no indication that it understood a word I was saying.
Given its strange behavior, I found that comforting.
My hand now rested on the beast’s upper arm, and I gently stroked the fur there, the absentminded action calming in its own way.
The once-slight haze in my periphery was growing, a darkness that was coming for me.
With a soft gasp, I fell back to the forest floor, releasing the pressure on my leg.
I felt my consciousness giving way to the inky black undulating towards the center of my vision.
Was this what dying felt like?
I stared, unmoving, as the wolf tilted its head away from my face and down my body, until it hovered over my bare chest.
“What are you doing?” I managed to rasp when the wolf began licking my chest wound. “Stop that.” I didn’t have it in me to shove the creature off, as was my instinct. It certainly didn’t help that its wet tongue on my skin somehow felt… soothing?
“Stars above,” I moaned, the searing pain dissipating into a pleasant tingle.
I’d been fooled. The wolf had wanted a meal all along, and I was it. My blood was its appetizer before swallowing me whole. If only she would save me.
I managed one final word, summoning all of my effort to breathe the syllables into existence.
“Vayen…”
And then the shadow swallowed my vision, leaving only silence in its wake.