Chapter 9
Gillam
A kiss to my forehead made me open my eyes. It was early, the light dim and cold, before sunrise. Fergus was leaning above me, a big linen bag over his shoulder.
“You need to leave?”
“For a few hours. I’ll bring us food.”
Fear squeezed my chest. I didn’t want to be without him. Not even for a heartbeat.
Fergus dropped the bag by the bed and leaned over me, tugging the sheet away.
He took first one then the other nipple into his mouth, suckling gently and gulping.
Profound relief and calm spread through my body when he drank the clear milk.
Then he burrowed his fingers into my crease and pushed two into my leaking opening.
He curled them upward, stroking the front wall of my hole, and I cried out, coming immediately.
My nipples squirted a few drops of lover’s milk.
Fergus licked my chest clean and sucked my slick off his fingers.
“Don’t worry, darling. Try sleeping some more. Your heat is getting stronger, and you need to rest.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“Don’t go onto the balcony,” he said firmly. “Stay in bed. Out of sight. I’ll be back before the next heat wave comes.”
He pulled the blanket over my shoulders and kissed me once more. Then he pressed his lips to each of my eyelids.
“Sleep, my darling.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I strained to listen. Maybe I would hear him climb down the cliff? But his footsteps quieted, the wind outside picked up for a moment, and he was gone.
I was indeed tired. We’d made love countless times yesterday and during the night, and I still felt him inside me, my hole stretched from his knot and stained with his seed. I wouldn’t wash myself. Especially not now when he wasn’t here. I needed the traces of him on me. In me.
I tossed and turned for a while and then I must have fallen asleep.
Strange noises tore me out of a confusing dream about wolves running through a deep forest. I sat up on the bed and listened.
Were there dogs barking down under the cliff? Or wolves?
I threw a tunic over my shoulders and rolled off the bed. Confused and sleepy, I squinted into the sunlight in the balcony doorway. Yes, definitely dogs. I took a few steps and remembered my mate’s words.
Don’t go onto the balcony.
I spun around and ran back inside, but I was too late.
I heard them.
“Your Majesty, I saw something. Up there!”
“Quickly. Ropes!”
They’d seen me and were coming. My father, his knights and soldiers. They’d found me.
Where could I hide? They’d get to me in minutes.
One thought was even more chilling than the rest—if Fergus came back now, they’d kill him.
My heart pounding, I sank onto my knees by the bed. The sheets smelled of my mate and me, of our lovemaking. I hid my face in the linen and wept.
That was how they found me. I didn’t say a word to them. Didn’t move. Maybe they thought they were saving me? But I refused to go with them. They had to tie me up and let me down the cliff with ropes. Then they put me on horseback, binding me into the saddle.
My father guided his horse closer, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“You smell like a whore,” he hissed. “Are you ruined?”
Ruined? I’m loved for the first time in my life!
A sharp slap landed across my cheek. “Answer your king or I’ll kill you here and now!”
Would death be a better fate? But what about Fergus? I gave him a single nod. I wouldn’t look at him.
“You’re lucky Buer still wants you.”
He shouted a command at his knights, and we took off.
All I could think of was how to escape. And I would. At one point, the opportunity would arise, and I’d be ready. I’d run and find my way back to my mate or die trying.
Warmth pulsed in my lower back and my underbelly. I was in heat, and my mate wasn’t here. Instead, I was surrounded by my father’s alphas, on the way to a man I despised even more than the king.
Tears running down my cheeks, I dreaded to imagine what would happen in a few hours when the next heat wave came.