CHAPTER 9

Keith

I looked at my image in the full-length mirror in front of me. I was clad in a black leather suit that added to my powerful aura. A huge gold ring bearing the insignia of the pack sat on my finger. I inhaled as I recalled Cassian’s conversation from the night before. I would have to caution Olga about the beheadings. She had ordered the deaths of two of her servants already. I did not wish for that to become a pattern under my reign.

But first I would have to attend the council meeting this morning.

The very thought of sitting through one gave me a headache. Still, I braced myself for what was to come.

I left my room, walking through the expansive hallways with the strength of an Alpha.

But I noticed something rather peculiar as I approached the councilroom. There were no servants or guards in sight. It was eerily quiet and that unsettled me. As an Alpha, that could signal a betrayal, an ambush, an imminent coup. I stopped walking and looked around me with narrowed eyes but besides the missing attendants, I could spot nothing else unusual.

I walked to the heavy brass door that gated the councilroom. Placing one hand on the hilt of my sword tucked in my coat, I used the other hand to push the door open carefully.

I stepped into the room, and it dawned on me that I had been right. This was an ambush, but I had brought the wrong weapon for this fight.

At the head of the long council table sat my wife, Olga, clad in a red robe.

There were red roses carefully littered on the table and on the floor. The councilroom, a place where the most powerful people in the pack came to deliberate ideas was now smoking with the scent of aphrodisiac incense.

I watched, unable to move due to shock as Olga stood up from the chair and approached me. Her steps were slow and deliberate, orchestrated to seduce me. When she finally stood in front of me, she kissed my neck. I moved back with a single step and asked her, “Where are my ministers? Where are the elders of the pack?”

But she ignored my question and the fact that I had taken a step back to avoid her. She closed the space between us and began to trail wet kisses on my neck again. I held her shoulder, forcing her to stop and look at me. Her eyes were glazed with lust and she was beautiful. By many, she was one of the most beautiful women in the pack, but she did not stir any desire in me.

I did not want her.

“You said we couldn’t make love because you could not find the time,” she whispered, “so I cleared your schedule for today.”

I stared at her, unable to believe that she was this desperate.

“Olga…”

She placed a finger on my lips and said to me in a hushed tone, “You don’t have to do a thing.”

“Allow me to make love to you, Keith,” she whispered gently, “I can make you forget about her.”

I gasped because her hands were unknotting the buckle of my trousers. The incense was getting to my head, making me lose grip of my senses, or rather altering them altogether. The control I held onto was gradually slipping away and her face morphed into Maisie’s.

I saw her smile. She looked pleased that I was slowly letting go, allowing my inhibitions to control my actions instead. But the smug smile on her face was not my problem. All that was on my mind was Maisie’s lips only a couple of inches away from my face. It was weird that they were painted a bright red because that was not the colour of lipstick she preferred, but I did not question it.

I only wanted to kiss it, to kiss her.

But I held back. Something about this did not seem right.

And Maisie’s face seemed to morph back and forth between Olga’s and Maisie’s.

I could not understand why that was as it appeared my mind had been tamed.

But it did not matter anymore when I felt slender cool hands envelope my cock. I gasped, shocked at the current of pleasure that pulled me to my centre.

I felt a warm body press against mine, “forget about her, Keith, and make love to me.”

If I had any control left, it had now slipped away completely. My body was charged with current, and I realised with alarming speed that I needed a release to ease the buildup. How long had it been since I felt this alive? Three years? Five years? Nine years?

I kissed the woman in front of me with need and passion fried into one. She kissed me back hungrily and fiercely like she had been starved for years, like a desert that had not received rain in decades. I matched the bold strokes of her tongue with the same fervour. I could taste lemon and honey on them. Lemon and honey. While it was not my preferred flavour, it would do for now to stop the hunger within me.

I lifted her in my arms by her buttocks, shoving her towards the long oak table in the councilroom.

She shrugged her robe off and her naked body was entirely exposed to my lustful gaze.

I wanted to devour her.

It felt like a beast that had been sleeping for years had finally woken up.

So, I went to work on her perky breasts with stone nipples. As I sucked one and crushed the other with my hand, I heard her loud cries soaked with her desire for more. It served as fuel to my passion. I was on edge, and I had to release the buildup now and inside her.

I pushed her frame properly on the wooden table, spreading her legs apart to prepare her for my entry.

I slammed into her insides with the energy of a bull, thrusting and charging with ferocity as I rode over the edge.

It was only when I climaxed that the fog in my mind began to clear and she became Olga again. The enemy had ambushed me and I had been defeated, having brought the wrong weapon to battle.