Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Morwen
I’ve never been in a castle before.
And, boy, it’s a sight to see. The surrounding village, the guards, the wolves walking freely… I’m so amazed as I watch one incredible sight after another from the wagon that I forget to be scared.
We roll over the stone bridge under an arch that has a huge snarling wolf head carved on it and continue toward the giant castle.
It’s enormous. Several tall stone towers hover over gorgeous fountains and statues of past Wolf Kings everywhere you look.
I wonder if the castles of men are this grand. This imposing. This spectacular.
The courtyard of the castle reminds me of life in our village with the children running around playing. They look happy and normal, although some are in their wolf forms, which is a strange sight to see.
The males are larger than our human men and the women look just as tough as our best warriors. I pity the humans a century ago who had to run into battle against these beasts armed with only a bit of light armor and an iron sword. They must have died by the hundreds of thousands. Millions even.
I spot a young female shifter with her pup, smiling and laughing as the baby nibbles on her finger. It’s such a nice, tender moment that it makes me question everything I’ve heard about the wolves.
Since we were young, we humans heard all sorts of warnings and tall tales about the vicious wolf shifters… How they devour their own babies and battle constantly with each other. How they have nothing but hate and violence in their cruel hearts.
But as I watch them interacting, I see laughter and love and mischief and normal people wanting to get by, just like us humans.
Maybe we have more in common than the kings of this world want us to believe.
We roll up to the stone castle and head into one of the gigantic towers. They usher us off the wagon and lead us into a vast room—a room as large as a farm field. I look around in awe. I’m in disbelief that a room can be this large. You must be able to fit five thousand of my tiny cabins in here.
There are hundreds of human women waiting inside, some crying, some looking terrified, a few crowded together, huddling for security and warmth. All of them wishing for home.
“There’s hot food in that room over there,” the wolf shifter leader of our group says to us.
We picked up several more women on our trip back, and to his credit, he treated each of us like royal ladies.
Although I don’t know how much credit a kidnapper deserves.
“Garderobes and water are available over there. I suggest you all get fed and make yourselves look presentable. The Vocatio Regia will commence after the king’s dinner. ”
He nods at us and leaves, his men following close behind.
“Come,” I say, taking Lyris’ hand. “Let’s get some food. We’ll be able to better handle tonight’s event with a full belly.”
She doesn’t want to go, but I force her.
I know from experience—everything is always worse when you’re starving.
Almost all of the women try to make themselves look uglier. They mess up their hair, cover up their bodies, and one girl even smears animal grease all over her face.
No one wants to get chosen by the barbarous Wolf King.
“I heard he has a body like a man with the head of a wolf,” Lyris whispers, her voice trembling as we wait in line to go into the royal throne room.
The girl in front of us turns around, looking like she might be sick with fright. “I heard he bites the heads off his wives after ravaging them. That’s why he needs so many.”
“There are over a thousand women here,” I say, looking around. There must be. “The chances of being picked are quite low.”
Especially for me. No king in his right mind would choose a twenty-eight-year-old, over-the-hill woman, when there are pretty, fertile girls in this very room who can breed more of his heirs.
“But the chance is still there,” Lyris says, looking up at me with her big brown eyes full of fear.
She’s right, so I don’t try to argue. I just take her hand and hold it.
Wolf shifter guards are walking up and down the line of terrified girls, eyes checking for weapons or anything suspicious.
“The Vocatio Regia will commence,” a guard near the door yells.
Screams of fear and ripples of terror travel through the vast room. I look at one girl sobbing, and I wish these damn wolves would just leave us alone.
Lyris gasps as the line starts moving. A few girls try to frantically flee, but the guards grab them and force them back into the line.
I begin to wonder what would happen if we all rush them at once, a thousand girls against two dozen guards, but then I quickly push that thought out of my mind when I remember the size of their wolves. Ten thousand unarmed girls wouldn’t last a minute against five of those giant beasts.
Lyris and I are near the front, so it’s not long before we are forced into the throne room.
I gasp as I look up at the tall stone ceiling, taller than even the highest canopy in the forest. Beautiful stained glass windows, each one displaying a moment of the Moonborne Kingdom’s history, shine colorful light into the room.
In the largest stained glass window stands an image of an old Wolf King, and oh Gods, he has the body of a man and the head of a wolf. I keep Lyris’ attention away from it.
“Be respectful to him,” I whisper to her. “Stand in front of him, bow your head, but you don’t have to smile. We don’t have to pretend that we like this.”
“What will happen to the girls he doesn’t choose?” Lyris asks. The girl in front of us turns around to hear my answer.
“This nightmare will be over,” I say with a firm nod.
They don’t ask any follow-up questions, which I’m thankful for. I’m not sure if the wolves will return us to our villages or have us for dinner, but either way, this nightmare will be over.
The room feels different the moment my eyes land on him.
Standing in front of the throne, not seated upon it, is the Wolf King.
He is not what I expected.
I warn myself not to stare, and then I do it anyway. I can’t take my eyes off him.
He is impossibly tall. Exceptionally large.
The human girls barely reach his chest. Even the guards standing beside him only reach his shoulders.
King-sized for sure.
It’s not just his size that’s imposing. It’s his being. His air. His royal radiance. Power and authority ooze off him, filling the room and gripping everyone in his presence.
That power doesn’t come from the crown, the castle, or this old barbaric ceremony.
It comes from him. From the tremendous breadth of his broad shoulders, the dominance of his stance, and the absolute authority with which he commands the room with only a slight rise of his chin or a subtle flicker of his eyes.
His body is built for dominance, for ruling over the most savage beasts.
My body tingles as I wonder what he would be like with his mate. Would those strong, dominant hands be rough and demanding, or would they be soft and tender? I’m not sure which one I’d prefer.
I should be afraid now that he’s in sight, but that is not the feeling that settles in my chest. A thrill of danger ripples through me. An erotic excitement I’ve never felt before makes itself known between my legs.
My heart pounds hard and hungry as I watch him.
Every movement he makes is deliberate, composed, and restrained.
This is not a man who will lose his temper.
He is all control. He is not a man who needs to demand obedience either.
It is given to him willingly the moment he enters a room. He is a proper king.
“That’s him,” Lyris says, gripping my arm as she trembles. “He’s a giant.”
I swallow hard, my eyes locked on him as I agree.
The other girls see him too, and fear ripples through the line the moment his full size and power registers.
I hear sharp intakes of breath, the muffled sound of sobbing, the scrape of boots as bodies instinctively recoil even as they are pushed forward.
Shoulders hunch. Heads bow lower. Hands tremble.
I should feel the same.
Instead, I find myself staring.
Yearning.
Excited.
My eyes roam up his massive chest and broad shoulders to zero in on his face.
His long dark hair is pulled back, revealing mesmerizing gray eyes that I can’t seem to look away from.
On the sides of those hauntingly sexy eyes are etched lines carved over the years of carrying the weight of responsibility.
Much to my irritation, I find him handsome. Who wouldn’t with those strong, severe features and that dark, closely cropped beard?
“Morwen,” Lyris says, gripping my arm. “I’m scared.”
“It will be okay,” I whisper as the line begins to move. “I’m here with you.”
But my attention is not. There is something unsettling about the way my attention keeps returning to him, something even more unsettling about the way my body reacts despite my mind’s insistence that this is wrong and unwanted.
A hot heaviness settles between my legs, unwelcome and confusing, and I shift my weight, trying to shake it loose.
It does not work.
One by one, the women are brought before him.
Each girl is guided forward onto the dais, instructed to bow her head and stand still. The king studies them briefly, his expression unreadable, his gaze sharp but not cruel.
Then he leans in.
He does not touch them. He does not speak.
He simply inhales close to their necks, slow and deliberate, as if scent alone tells him everything he needs to know.
Every girl stiffens when he does it.
Every time, my chest tightens.
After a moment—sometimes shorter the length of a heartbeat—he straightens and subtly shakes his head in a small, final gesture.
Dismissed.
The guards lead them away, some women sagging with relief, others dissolving into tears, a few casting one last desperate glance over their shoulders as if the king might change his mind.
It appears I’m not the only hot-blooded woman who’s changed her tune after seeing the gorgeous king.
But the Wolf King does not change his mind.
He does not watch them leave.
He waits.
The line advances, slow and relentless, and I become acutely aware of the warmth of Lyris’s hand clutched in mine, of the way her fingers shake no matter how tightly I squeeze back.
Another girl steps forward. Another quiet inhale. Another dismissal.
The rhythm is maddening in its predictability.
And yet, with every step closer, the strange awareness inside me only grows stronger. I notice the subtle tension in the king’s posture, the way his shoulders remain almost painfully straight, the faint weariness etched into his eyes, the short heavy breaths…
I can tell he’s not enjoying this.
This is not the face of a monster reveling in cruelty.
This is the face of a man at his wits’ end.
He looks like he needs a drink and a smoke and a massage. When was the last time he let loose?
An image of me handing him a drink, lighting his cigar, and running my hands over those big powerful shoulders flickers into my head and the pulsing heat between my legs intensifies.
His nostrils flare and his gray eyes brighten.
I hide behind the girl in front of me as his eyes suddenly dart in my direction, searching the line of women, searching toward me.
My muscles go weak as I hide my head, ducking low.
He wasn’t… That reaction wasn’t for me… It couldn’t be…
But when I lift my head and peek out, his fierce, dominating eyes are locked on mine. And they don’t look away.
A new girl is brought before him, but he doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t move.
He just stares.
At me.
“No,” he commands. “Not her. Her.”
He lifts his big hand and points at me.
Every head in the room turns—women, guards, servants, everyone. But I can only feel his eyes. They’re burning through my body.
The guards come to get me, but I step forward on my own, head held high, staring the Wolf King down as I walk up the steps of the dais.
He’s even larger up close. More handsome too.
I have to crane my head back to look into his breathtaking gray eyes.
Shockingly, I don’t feel any fear.
In fact, it’s him who shakes. Those mountainous shoulders quake as he looks down at me in awe. His big hands tremble as he breathes in deeply.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then, he moves in.
My body stiffens, humming with a lustful energy that seems to radiate from my core and pulse between my legs as he gets in nice and close.
He’s scenting me, but I’m smelling him right back. He smells like pine and smoke, with something else I can’t quite pin. An alluring, dark, masculine smell that makes my breath catch despite my best efforts.
Goosebumps tingle along my skin as he lowers his nose an inch from my neck and inhales.
Slow. Deliberate. Deep.
An approving growl rumbles out of his massive chest and I swear, I feel it vibrating in my bones.
His eyes seem to be lit with a gray fire as he stands back up, his nostrils flared, his hands gripped into fists.
His gaze is locked on me as if he might never look away.
The guard reaches out to grab my arm, to keep this barbaric Vocatio Regia moving, but King Alaric stops him.
“Halt,” he commands, shoving the guard back with his palm. One quick push and the guard is on his ass.
“My Alpha?” the trembling guard says, looking up at him in fear.
“OUT!” the Wolf King bellows, his deep voice echoing through the stone room, echoing through me. “Everybody out.”
Everyone turns to flee, guards included.
But I’m frozen to the spot, eyes locked on this imposing shifter.
“Not you,” he says in a low, throaty voice. “You’re mine now.”