by Willa Hart
I have fallen faster for Meela than I ever would’ve believed possible. Was it battle? Was it her near death? Was it the mind-silence of Sarkany and Leo? Was it the light of the Medaris? Was it all those things or none at all? My scientist’s mind can’t determine the cause of these feelings that lodge deep in my heart, and for the first time in perhaps forever, I don’t need to know the cause, because I don’t care. All that matters is the woman that lies beside me in this bed. Her safety. My love for her. And our future and hopefully the future with my brothers as well.
I’ve known the physical connection of a woman before, but never the emotional connection or mind connection that I feel with Meela. This is new for me and my heart is full. It’s not logic. No, not at all. This is all about emotion and need and desire and caring for another person on a deeper level. This is about being fated and understanding that my life’s greatest duty is to care for this woman who lies naked beside me. The woman that will provide me physical and emotional pleasure. She will be my harbor, the ruler of our realm, and the keeper of the Roya line.
Meela’s eyelids flutter open and her bright blue eyes take me in. Her pupils widen, even with the bright light of the room. “Prince Taraz, you’re awake,” she says, and smiles. “And you’re staring at me.” A tiny blush creeps over her face, and I’m filled with delight over the pink in her cheeks. More than delighted. Blood rushes to my cock. The sheet slips across her body as she stretches her arms, exposing her breast. Perfect and round. Her tiny pink nipple is a tight nub. My hand reaches out to the soft curve of her belly, and she rolls to her side and smiles at me.
Oh, this is truly the perfect way to awaken in the morning. I press my hand to the small of her back and pull her forward and closer to me My hard cock nestles against the cleft of her sex.
“Oh, Prince Taraz,” she moans. She grasps me and pulls up and down along the shaft of my cock.
I bend my head and pull her tight nipple into my mouth.
“Oh yes,” she gasps out. Hearing my Meela gasp with pleasure excites me even more. So sweet is her breathing and the sound of her voice when she wants to fuck. Oh yes, I press my hand between her legs and find the little nub that gives pleasure, and slowly ever so slowly rub her clit with my fingertip.
“Oh yes, yes,” she says. Her hand presses back, and I release her nipple from my mouth and watch the pleasure play out on her face. I press a finger deep into her sex and continue to rub her clit. Her body stiffens and her breath hitches in her chest. She is falling over the edge. Her eyelids flutter open and she looks at me.
She presses her lips to mine. I pull her to her side and spread her legs with my hand. The ring of her sex is tight, and I slide into her body, slowly letting the warmth of her sex take my entire cock. She tightens around me and I pull her even closer to me. My lips take hers and gently I pull my hips back and thrust upward into her hot, wet sex. Yes, our bodies are again joined as one. I open my mind to her mind.
Oh yes, you feel so good, she thinks. Your cock is so hard and thick and deep inside me. Slow. So slow and it feels so good.
Yes, Meela, yes.
My cock throbs with pleasure and her breasts press against me. I thrust up and down and up and down. My body is carried away with desire for her. I grasp Meela’s hips and roll with her and I’m on my back and she is above me. She lifts up from me, her sex slowly sliding over me, and she is above me, she pauses and then slides down my cock. My hips roll up and back with her motion and my fingertip finds her clit again. I stroke her while she slides up and down my shaft.
Her breasts bounce above me, and I’m mesmerized by their beauty. Her face contorts with pleasure and her lips are in a perfect pout. Beautiful Meela, in the throes of this bliss.
I am going to come, Meela thinks.
I grasp her hips and guide her. My toes curl and heat builds in my legs. As a thread of silver light gathers in my balls, they draw close to my body. My mind is fixed on my and Meela’s release.
Come for me, my Queen.
“Now! Please now!” she yells as my body releases a jet of heat that pours into Meela. Release, sweet release, as we both pause and then fall over into pleasure, clutching each other as we go.
Chapter Seventeen
Leo
“Open the cell door,” I command.
The dungeon jailer looks from me to Uncle who stands beside me. It’s as though Uncle aged twenty years in a matter of weeks. Vlissimal, the man and Mindslayer who once upon a time terrified me and Sarkany and Taraz and an entire kingdom is now hunched over and weak…oh so weak, and his mind is mine. Mine in the way that Wagu could’ve controlled Uncle but didn’t for two very simple reasons. First, Wagu was bound to Uncle the way a dog is bound by a tick. Uncle sucked the life from Wagu by using Wagu’s mind, to the point that Wagu begged for the sweet release of the Goddess.
“Lord Regent?” The jailor’s breath is putrid from his rotting teeth. He looks at Uncle for permission to do as I’ve ordered.
No one in the Kingdom shall need Uncle’s permission much longer, because soon I will be King.
“Do as Prince Roya commands,” Uncle says.
Ah yes, Uncle is quite beaten. I’m in his mind. My tendril deeply embedded. He can’t inflict pain on me or my brothers any longer. We’re free. Free of him and his mind-tyranny.
The jailor limps over and unlocks the heavy wooden door. I follow him into Sarkany’s cell.
“Brother!” Sarkany jumps to his feet. The jailor unlocks the cuff and quickly scurries out of the cell, obviously fearful that my giant of a brother will crush his skull with his bare hands. A legitimate fear. For right now, in Sarkany’s mind rage and gratitude fight for primacy.
“You must go,” I whisper. “And you must go quickly.”
“Not without you,” Sarkany says. “You…how are you…you’re free.”
“I’m free and—”
Sarkany ducks out of the cell door, and there in front of him stands Uncle. “Straight to the demons of Hades you shall go!” With one swift grasp, Sarkany has Uncle by the throat and hoists him up, slamming him into the wall.
“Sarkany,” I say. “Sarkany, do not kill him.”
“Why not?” Sarkany asks. “He would kill us.”
Uncle’s legs flail and his hands grasp Sarkany’s hands. Uncle’s tongue lolls out of his mouth as he gasps for air.
“Yes, of course, but…” I glance from Uncle to Sarkany.
I have a plan, I think.
I do too, Sarkany thinks. My plan is to crush Uncle’s throat, break his neck, and then go get my fated-mate.
My plan is better, I think.
“Oh, brother,” Sarkany says. “Why must you take away what I want!” Sarkany releases Uncle’s throat, and Uncle slides down the wall to the floor. Uncle grasps his throat, coughing and gagging and gasping for breath.
I remember what that feels like, I think. It’s terrifying.
I didn’t squeeze your neck nearly as hard as I squeezed his, Sarkany thinks, and smiles at me. Come, let’s go. Sarkany turns toward the dungeon hall that leads to the exit.
“I can’t,” I say.
“What? Why? I can’t leave you at the mercy of Uncle and The Counsel. They agreed to kill us, to see us burned alive.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t go, and you can’t stay,” I say.
Confusion rides Sarkany’s face.
“Do you trust me, brother?” I ask.
“With my life, with everything I hold dear.”
I walk to Sarkany and place my hand on his shoulder. “Then you must go. Find her. Find Taraz. I will stay, and when it is time, we shall meet again.”
I don’t understand, Sarkany thinks.
And we don’t have the luxury or the time for me to explain, I think. I hand Sarkany his weapons. Please, I think, remember that you trust me, no matter what you hear. There is much work I must accomplish in the Kingdom before I can come to you, before you and Meela and Taraz can return.
Sarkany puts o
n his weapons belt and straps a knife each to his forearm and leg. He looks up at me, and in his eyes there is certainty and trust; but I know, eventually, there will be doubt. Time, distance, rumor, they will all test Sarkany and Meela and Taraz, and even me.
Brother, I wish you’d come with me, or let me kill Uncle and then we’ll go to Lady Alana and—
“No!” I say. “That won’t work.” Don’t you see, I think. If we kill Uncle, there will be a coup d’état. There are fractures in The Counsel, fractures that must be rooted out. We are not safe. You are not safe. And Meela? I shake my head. She may be the least safe of all.
With that Sarkany rises to his full height, towering over me and nearly every other man in the Kingdom.
“I must go to my mate,” Sarkany says. “We are destined.”
I nod. As much as I’m loathed to admit it, I know that what Sarkany says is true: his love for Meela is pure, but according to our laws, their love is also a crime.
“Godspeed, brother,” I say, and swallow. For while I’ll always love my brother and our mind connection shall always be with me, I realize that we might never see each other alive again.
“May the Goddess be ever by your side,” Sarkany says, and claps me on the shoulder. He turns and bolts down the dungeon hall.
“And may she wrap you in her arms before the demons know you’re dead,” I respond to the silence in the hallway and my brother’s fleeing shadow.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. This is the most alone I’ve ever been, and now…now I must run a Kingdom as a solitary King. I walk into the dungeon cell; Uncle scrabbles away from me looking like a crab trying to flee.
“Please, please, keep him away from me,” he begs.
I smile and squat beside Uncle. “You’re so weak now,” I say. “What’s that like for you? After you’ve tortured and killed so many? Pretended it was you who had all that power, when actually it wasn’t you at all? What would The Counsel do if they were to ever find out of your deceit?”
“Please,” Uncle begs. “You can’t tell them, I will…I will do anything, everything, anything that you say.” Uncle’s bottom lip trembles.
“Yes, yes you will,” I say.
I wish that I were kinder, perhaps with a bigger heart and more compassion for Uncle, but truly after the years of abuse at his hands, I have no kindness, no love, no compassion. “Let us go, Uncle, for there is much to do and much to explain. The Counsel will soon be alerted to your decision to release Sarkany and also your decision to install me as King without my brothers or a Queen. There will be long days, and I want you to be well rested.” I grasp his upper arm and pull him to his feet.
“I have never felt so…so…alone,” he says. He presses a hand to his skull. “So empty.” His voice is like that of a child.
“Ahh, yes, you’ve been a para-succubus for what? Nearly your entire life? You stole Wagu from his family when he was merely ten years old, did you not? Kept his mother and sister hostage in that horrible little cottage…let him see them, what? Once every two years? Oh, Uncle, you truly are a beast. And yet…somehow you convinced yourself, even after torturing Wagu and his family, that you loved him. How is that possible, Uncle? I’d really like to know.”
“He…he came willingly,” Uncle whispers.
“Willingly? At ten? When you told his mother he had The Curse and the only way to let him live was to allow him to come with you? I don’t really call that willingly, Uncle.”
“I…I…loved him.”
“The way a torturer loves his prisoner, the way a python loves a mouse, or perhaps the way a butcher loves cattle? No, Uncle, you did not love Wagu, for you have no idea what love is.” I push him to the cell door.
“I…it is so dark in my mind,” he says, and shakes his head.
“Why yes, quite dim in there I imagine. Wagu would’ve provided you with thoughts and joy and light and colors. Brilliant beautiful things that I’m told those without the gift of mind abilities can’t have or create unless they happen to be an artist. Wagu gave you much more than the ability to mindslay your enemies, although it seems that perhaps you did not realize what else he’d give you as well.”
“I cannot live like this,” Uncle says. “In this darkness without…without my Wagu.”
“But you shall,” I say. “You shall live like this for as long as you are of use to me. And right now, before The Counsel agrees to make me King, you are of great use because I need you to do as I command.”
I send a tweak of energy from my end of the tendril that I’ve implanted in Uncle’s brain. I give him a bit of light, of joy, a pleasant thought, and vision of sunshine and rain and wind whispering through the forest.
“Oh, so beautiful,” Uncle says, and the tiniest hints of a smile curl the edges of his mouth.
Then I send him the vision of Wagu twitching on the floor.
“No, no, no,” Uncle says, and presses his eyes closed, but I amplify the vision.
“You cannot escape what I send into your mind,” I say.
“Please, no, stop. I do not wish to see him die again and again,” Uncle begs.
“Then you shall do as I say. Walk.”
I pull the vision from Uncle’s mind and provide him only with a flat grey wall. No kindness, no unkindness, just a grey nothingness. He slumps his shoulders forward and we walk down the corridor toward my future and the future of the Kingdom.
Chapter Eighteen
Meela
“It’s good to see you walking.”
The voice is rough and sexy. My skin prickles with excitement as though a hand has caressed my arms and my thighs. I turn and there stands the black wolf, King Rex. He’s in human form. “I don’t usually walk in the woods as a human,” he says. “The sun feels good on my skin, but I feel vulnerable. How do you humans do it?”
“We carry weapons,” I say. I pat my belt where I’ve tucked a knife.
Rex throws his head back and laughs into the sky. “You’re so bold and fearless, Meela, as though that knife could protect you against a Wolveskin.”
You may be right about the knife, I think, but I also have my mind. I send a bit of a jolt to him and he takes a step back. He presses his hands to the side of his head and shakes it. His laughter has stopped, and anger enters his eyes.
“I will give you that one, Princess, but don’t do it again.” His brown eyes contain a seriousness, and while I don’t take kindly to threats, I also don’t believe in mind-jolting people simply for their laughter and words. In the distance, through the woods, wolves flank us. The Royal Guard, they wouldn’t ever let King Rex anywhere without their presence.
“May I walk with you?” he asks.
I nod and he falls in beside me. My body is keenly aware of his presence. My sex tightens and my nipples harden. He hasn’t even touched me and still there is an electric current that travels between us. Just as when I rode him back to the lair. This impulse to be with him is intoxicating and overwhelming. He’s a giant man. Muscled and feral, with a wildness about him. Thoughts of my body pressing against his dance through my mind and the heat between my legs builds. He glances at me from the side and the corner of his mouth quirks upward. Your scent intoxicates me, he thinks.
Heat flushes up my neck and enters my face. I don’t respond by voice and try to block my thoughts, but I’m quite certain that he saw every image in my mind that I just had of me and him together.
The sun is high in the sky, and while it’s winter, the day is warm. My goal for my walk in the woods today is to get out of the cave and strengthen my leg. I’m surprised by the familiarity that I feel with King Rex. He’s Wolveskin, and while the pack has been hospitable to Taraz and Jix and me, I’ve noticed that Taraz and Jix have a wariness about the Wolveskin that I don’t feel.
Ahhh, King Rex thinks, there are many reasons for your comfort with us. You don’t remember our lair?
I stop walking and turn to him. You’re going to tell me I was in the Wolveskin lair before I was wounded
?
King Rex smiles, I am and you were. As a pup. In fact that was the first time we met. When your parents brought you and Huali home.
I close my eyes; in my mind a faint memory emerges of Huali and I playing with puppies in a cave with torches and—“They weren’t puppies,” I say.
“Well, they were,” King Rex smiles. “They just happened to be Wolveskin puppies.”
“That’s why I can communicate with animals in my mind.”
King Rex nods. “And also why the White Wolf comes to you when you dream.”
I gasp and press my fingertips to my mouth. If King Rex knows of all my dreams, then he will also know how lately his body fills my mind. How I dream of touching him and him taking me. How I wish to press my hand to his body and my mouth to his mouth. He takes a step closer to me, and there is heat in his eyes. A heat that I share. There is desire and want. My nipples peak beneath my shirt with his nearness and I grow wet. He is so close to me.
Your scent of excitement makes me hard.
He tilts his face toward mine, and my head tilts toward him; I am swoony. His silver-rimmed pupils are dilated, filled with desire that calls to me. He grasps my arms, and his touch is electric. I want this, I want him.
We are linked, Meela, you and I. You are Wolveskin and you are meant to be mine. His lips press down onto my lips and his kiss is magnetic. His mouth opens and this kiss is all-consuming. My arousal is instantaneous. He is wild and rough, and I think of nothing but being mated to this King. His hand slides down the front of my shirt and he cups my breast. His thumb presses and circles the taut nub of my nipple.
“Ohh, yes,” I sigh out around his kiss.
He smiles around my words. His other hand reaches around and cups my ass and pulls me closer to him. He lifts my leg and wraps it around his body. I am pressed against his giant cock. My clit awakens and I’m completely wet for him. I press forward, my hips aching for him, wanting him to strip away my clothes and take me now in this forest.
