Chapter 6: The King’s Desires

"Yes."

"You shouldn't be."

"Probably not." I kept my voice flat. "I need to understand the terms."

He closed the door and stayed near it. He didn't come toward me — he kept distance I hadn't asked for but apparently needed. He was paying attention to what I needed without being told.

That made him more dangerous, not less.

"Terms," he repeated.

"You claimed me in a slave square in front of an entire pack," I said. "Which means everyone in a fifty-mile radius now knows I belong to the Lycan King. Which means I cannot go back. Which means my son and I are here until you decide otherwise." I held his gaze. "So I need to know what 'otherwise' looks like. What do you want from me? What happens to my son? What is expected of us here?"

The King moved to the chair near the fire and sat down. Not across the room. Not looming. Just near.

"I want nothing from you," he said. "Not while you are healing."

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only honest one I have at the moment." His golden eyes held mine. "You are my mate. I have been looking for you for three years, since the bond first pulled at me and I couldn't locate the source. I knew you existed. I knew you were in the northern packs somewhere. I did not know…" Something shifted in his jaw. "I did not know what was being done to you."

The fire crackled. 

"Your son," he said, "is under my protection. As my mate's child, he carries my claim by extension. No one in this fortress will harm him. No one in my territory will touch him." His voice went very quiet. "Including me."

I looked at him for a long time.

"I don't trust you," I said.

"I know."

"I intend to leave the first moment I am physically able."

"I know that too."

"And you're not going to try to stop me?"

He rose from the chair. And instead of going to the door, he came to me.

My hand tightened convulsively around my son's blanket. He closed the distance in three long, predatory strides, stopping so close his thighs brushed the edge of the mattress. He was so massive standing this close. He swallowed the firelight. He swallowed all the oxygen in the room.

And then, he reached out. Slowly. Deliberatly

His massive, calloused palm curved around my jaw. The heat of his skin was scorching, a violent shock to my cold flesh.

I forgot how to breathe. My lips parted on a sudden, helpless gasp.

His thumb dragged across my cheekbone, rough and impossibly gentle. Then his fingers slid deeper, wrapping into the tangled hair at the nape of my neck. With a slow, immovable pressure, he tilted my head back, completely exposing my throat.

My wolf detonated.

A full-body shudder violently rolled down my spine. She didn't just wake up; she clawed at my ribs, howling, screaming ‘submit, mate, claim.’

The primal, instinctual flood of her need poured directly into my bloodstream like liquid fire. A heavy, aching heat crashed low in my belly, so intense and sudden it made my hips jerk infinitesimally under the sheets.

I pressed my thighs together tightly, a desperate, humiliating attempt to hide the sudden wetness pooling between them. My vulva throbbed relentlessly, more wetness pooling between my thighs.

"Easy," he murmured. The word was a dark, guttural purr that vibrated straight through my core. His deep, baritone voice made my useless wolf howl again within me. How dare she?

His thumb stroked down the line of my throat, settling into the valley between my breasts. The contact was so devastatingly sensual that I felt another hot, slick gush escape my cunt. ‘Oh fuck, what is wrong with me?’ I thought, the shame burning even hotter than the wetness pooling between my thighs. 

He wasn't gripping me. He was claiming me. It was the absolute, terrifying dominance of a predator who already knew he owned every inch of my body.

His scent thickened, suffocating me. Intoxicating me.

I tried to swallow, but a soft, pathetic whimper unwittingly escaped my throat instead. I paused. Was that me? Or was that my wolf?

The King froze. His golden eyes instantly darkened to a molten, burning amber. His massive chest expanded on a harsh inhale, drinking in the sudden, violent scent of my arousal.

‘He knows.’ The thought was mortifying. ‘He knows exactly how wet I am for him. Fuck! Fuck!!’

He leaned in further, the sheer, furnace-like heat of his body blanketing me like a physical weight. He was so careful, so precise —his broad, solid chest hovered mere inches from my sensitive breasts. He never grazed my stitches, but he was close enough that the air between us felt like it was catching fire. My nipples peaked and hardened painfully against the thin silk of my shift, reaching for him, desperate for the friction of his scarred skin.

His gaze dropped, heavy and predatory, from my eyes to my trembling mouth. I could feel the hot, humid ghost of his breath fanning across my lips, tasting of cedar and something dark and dangerously male. It made my vision blur. I wanted to arch my back, to shove my aching chest against him and catch his bottom lip between my teeth.

My cunt gave another sharp, demanding throb, my internal muscles clenching helplessly around a void only he could fill. I felt the hot, slick gush of my own shame flood my folds, soaking into the bedding beneath me as my body begged to be devoured by the very monster I should be running from.

He didn’t move. He just watched me drown in it, his golden eyes burning with the knowledge that he had already won.

My mind spun. In three years of sharing Kaelen's bed, I had never felt anything close to this. Not this blinding, liquid fire. Not this desperate, clawing animal need to be devoured. The frigid emptiness of my marriage had never been my defect. Kaelen had simply never been mine.

The Lycan King lowered his head another fraction. His lips were now graving mine, very subtly, but hard enough to make my nipple harden even more. My wolf was feral, throwing herself against my ribs, begging me to close the tiny distance. Begging me to bare my neck. Begging me to let him take me right here on this bed, stitches be damned.

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting a vicious war against my own treacherous body.

Suddenly, I reached up, wrapped both my shaking hands around his thick, scorching wrist.

"Leave," I choked out.