by Ovidia Pike
“What’s it going to feel like?” she asked breathlessly. “How will I know if we’re mates?”
“You already know it, Alicia,” I said, and when she met my eye her body trembled, shuddering under me, her pussy clenching my cock as she came. The connection between us radiated with power, and I could feel the heat of her desire and pleasure blossoming in my own body, as if I was somehow experiencing her feelings. Her hips started begging for more, wanting to cum again, and I obliged her despite the fact that I knew we were getting close to a full bonding. I couldn’t help but to keep going, gripping her hips and moving them against me, making her cum again. The way her pussy tightened around me made me erupt deep inside of her, filling her with my cum as she tried to catch her breath. I pulled my hips away from her and lay down, pulling her over to rest her head on my shoulder.
“Did you feel it?” I asked her. She didn’t answer but started to breathe deeply, and I knew that she had immediately fallen asleep. I slipped out of bed and left her there, peering out of the cave to see that nobody was around. I walked out slowly and carefully, not making a sound, beginning to make my way out of the series of caves and out to the woods. I had decided already that I would stake out the meeting place alone, without Alicia coming along. There was no reason to put her in further danger if I didn’t need to, and I wanted to be able to stay in the shadows in a way that a human wasn’t capable of doing.
When I made it down to the ground I peered around closely, knowing how big of a risk I was taking. Then I shifted, staying in the shadows as I started to move toward the meeting place we had found earlier on our way back to the village. I sniffed the ground as I went, ears up and alert, pausing when I heard the sound of voices ahead. I smelled the air, the scent of smoke, of meat cooking permeating the area. I crept forward, straining to listen, crouching low to the ground. I could see people around the fire, but couldn’t make out their features in the low light. I could hear them talking, though, and took the risk of creeping even closer, listening intently.
“We’ve lost four already,” a man said. “Why do you think you’re up for the challenge?”
“Because I’ve been training for this,” another said. “I’m ready. The others were incompetent—they should have never been sent.”
“They were sent because they were expendable. That, and the divine one thought that they were capable of getting it done.”
“Well, they weren’t,” said the second man. “But I am.”
“I don’t see why we just don’t raid the village,” said a third person, and this time it was the voice of a woman. “We can take them out with a few of us. The wolves are weak, barely able to defend themselves.”
“And yet three of our people were killed by one of theirs,” said the first in a stern voice. “That’s why we haven’t raided. Gabriel Alarick is far too strong, and there’s another shifter—a big one. They call him the Beast.”
“He was only able to do that because they went after his natural mate. They were idiots. An Alpha is already twice as strong as a regular wolf. If you stay away from the ranger, two of you can take him. Once he’s gone, it will be easier to do the raid. The divine one wants us to be patient, Keither.”
Keither grumbled in response. One of the people stood up and I took a step back, cursing myself mentally when the person looked my way, squinting into the darkness. I turned and ran as fast as I could back to the ledge, shifting immediately, jumping up on the rock and climbing through the caves, on my way back to my own, back to Alicia.
“Wolf boy,” came Elina’s voice behind me. I took a deep breath and turned to her to see that feline smile on her face.
“Elina,” I said stiffly, and she frowned at my expression. Then she pursed her lips, thinking before gesturing me over with one finger.
“I need to get back—”
“You were intimate with your mate,” she said in a dry voice. “I can smell it on you.”
“Yes,” I said to her.
“But you didn’t bond,” she said. “Why not?”
“It’s none of your business,” I snapped.
“I think it is,” she said, her voice a purr as she gestured me over again. I felt something inside of me break as I took several steps forward, my body moving of its own volition. And then suddenly I fell into her eyes. In the back of my mind, I knew she was exerting her power over me, that the royal influence I’d always heard about was working its spell. I felt entranced as she wrapped her arms around my neck, looking up at my face with a wicked smile.
“Kiss me, wolf boy,” she commanded, and I struggled as hard as I could, fighting the need to do so. After a moment, I gave in, hesitantly kissing her, falling under her spell.
Chapter 10: Alicia
I tried to scream as a hand clamped over my mouth, one arm around my waist as someone jerked me out of bed. I started to kick but was held firm, dragging across the stone floor, my knees scraping against the rough surface. I struggled to get away but couldn’t, couldn’t even make a noise as I was dragged out of the cave. My eyes opened and I looked around for somebody, anybody to help me, but it was late and the cavernous hallways were empty. I winced as the person who was dragging me jumped up onto the next ledge, bumping my head against the rock. My vision went white as I was jerked to my feet, and I was about to scream when I heard a voice in my ear.
“Pull back the curtain,” the woman said. We stood in front of a cave, and behind the curtain I could hear heavy breathing, the sound of soft moans coming from a woman’s throat. My heart pounded in my chest when I heard her speak.
“You always were the best kisser,” princess Elina said in a playful voice. I swallowed hard, reaching out to pull back the curtain. I felt my heart stop in my chest when I saw Jackson with his face buried in her neck, sucking on it, tasting her skin. He lifted his face and kissed her on the mouth, and I felt nausea well within me.
“Oh,” was all I could say. He turned his face to me, his features dazed for a moment before he suddenly seemed to snap to attention.
“Alicia—” he began, starting toward me. I took a step back, feeling sick, feeling a knot forming in my throat. He didn’t make it close to me before the princess took his hand and pulled him back.
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “You’re mine.”
“No,” he said, the word coming out slurred. “No, I’m—”
“It’s fine,” I choked. “Stay.”
“Alicia, no,” he said quickly. “I—”
“Here’s your options, wolf boy,” the princess said, cutting him off, glancing my way. There was a teasing look in her eyes, petty and irritating. The knot in my throat grew even bigger, threatening to rise.
“You stay with me,” the princess said. “We’ll let the doctor go instead of punishing her for lying about being your mate.”
“She is my mate.”
“No, I’m not,” I said, taking a step back again. I ran into the guard behind me, who shoved me forward.
“If you don’t stay here, she gets her punishment. The punishment for a human disobeying me is steep. I will not be disrespected by a lesser species.”
“You can have him,” I said to her. “I’m going home.”
“Alicia, I want—let me talk to you.”
“No,” I said, throat dry, feeling shattered and afraid of the princess all at once.
“Go on,” Elina said, shooing me away, turning back to Jackson. I felt a hand grip my shoulder and turn me around, shoving me out of the cave.
“Now you know you’re not welcome here,” the guard said in a gruff voice. I felt my eyes prickle with tears but forced them down, still feeling sick, following the guard back to my cave. She waited while I threw my things together, and a moment later we were making our way down the cave system and out to the woods.
“Am I just supposed to walk back in the middle of the night?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she said. “I will accompany you to your village. The princess will not break
her promise of your safety.”
“Great,” I said sarcastically as the guard shifted and started to walk beside me. The journey back to the village was long, and by the time we got there, the sun was coming up. I was dragging my feet by the time I got there, nearly stumbling across the line into the village as the guard disappeared behind me. I walked toward my cabin in a daze, barely noticing the voice behind me saying my name.
“Alicia,” the woman repeated, and I looked over my shoulder to see that it was Lily. There was a concerned look on her face as she looked me over.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where did you come from?”
“I just...got here,” I said to her weakly, shoulders slumped. I felt destroyed physically, mentally and emotionally. All at once it hit me again—watching him kiss her willingly, knowing he had been doing it before I even saw them. It didn’t matter that he wanted to apologize or talk about it afterward—what mattered was that he had done it, that he had given in even though he had been with me just a short time before.
“Are you okay?” she asked. I shook my head, and then I was crying, burying my face in my hands. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and guided me to the hut she shared with Nathaniel, instructing me to wait while she went into the room to wake him up.
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested, but he was already out of bed and ducking through the doorway, looking at me with the same concern on his face that Lily had.
“Come in here,” Lily said, guiding me into the room and shutting the door. She helped me into the giant bed and tucked me in, sitting on the edge.
“What’s wrong, Alicia?” she asked, touching my cheek, pushing my hair back from my face. She wiped my tears away with gentle hands.
“I—I’m so tired,” I said to her. “I just want to sleep. Please.”
“Yes, of course. We can talk in the morning,” Lily said. “I’m going to sleep in here with you while Nathaniel takes the couch out there.”
“Nathaniel is like three times as big as your couch,” I said, sitting up. “Let me go out there.”
“No, it’s okay. Relax,” she said, pushing me back down. I lay back as she said and closed my eyes, sinking into the pillow. I said nothing more before I fell into a deep sleep, and didn’t wake up again until the evening, when it was almost getting dark. My mouth was dry and my eyes stung as I got out of the bed and went into the main room to see Lily there waiting for me with a mug of coffee on the table. I sat down and sipped at it gratefully.
“So what’s going on?” she asked after a moment. I took a deep breath.
“It’s Jackson,” I said. “He’s still at the caves. I came back alone. Well, with a guard.”
“Why is he still there?” she asked.
“He’s...shacked up with the princess,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. “I saw them together.”
“Like—together together?” she asked.
“They were kissing. He was touching her,” I said.
“And that bothers you?”
“Not even an hour before that, we—” I didn’t say it aloud. She studied my face, and I was grateful when she seemed to read my mind.
“I’m sorry,” she said, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. “Men are assholes.”
“You seem pretty happy with yours,” I said to her. She smiled.
“I am happy. And you will be, too.”
“Jackson said that we were natural mates,” I said to her.
“You think he was serious?”
I remembered what he had said, how I had felt when I’d cum for him, like I could feel his pleasure reflected back at mine, filling me up with a golden light.
“No,” I said, though I wasn’t quite sure what to believe. “No, I think he just wanted to get into my pants. And I fell for it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I wish I could help. There’s nothing that can really take away that sting.”
“It’s okay,” I said, though it didn’t feel okay. There was a dull ache in my chest that I couldn’t get rid of.
“I need to speak to Gabriel as soon as possible,” I said. “He needs to know what’s going on at the caves.”
“We can go there. He needs to see you, too.”
“Did something happen to him?” I asked.
“He took on three lions alone.”
“How did he live through that?”
“His extra strength, I suppose,” she said. “Are you ready to go now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Might as well get it over with.”
“Okay,” she said. We both stood up and went outside, heading to Gabriel’s hut. I felt weak on my legs after sleeping for so long and the knot hadn’t left my throat. We knocked on the door when we got there, and when it opened I gasped upon seeing Gabriel’s face.
“Oh, my god,” I said, looking at him closely. There were three claw marks, lines tracing through his right eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose and over his cheekbone.
“Lions,” he said dryly. “Where’s Jackson?”
“He’s still at the caves,” I said.
“He sent you back here alone?”
“He’s...with the princess. She won’t let him leave. I don’t think he really wants to, either.”
“What do you mean, she won’t let him leave?” he asked.
“She wants him to stay there,” I said as we went inside. “She says that he’s hers. She told him that they would hurt me if he didn’t stay. The princess thinks we were lying about being natural mates.”
“Were you?”
“Jackson was,” I said to him. “He lied to me about it, too.”
“I see,” he said. “What else did you find out?”
“We didn’t get the chance to do much,” I said vaguely, then suddenly remembered the most important part of what I was going to tell him.
“Wait,” I said. “There was something in the woods—a man without a face. He’s trying to get to you.”
“Hold on,” he said, putting his hands up. “Back up. A man without a face?”
“I don’t know if he has a name. He found us in the forest and froze us. We were both paralyzed. He threatened to take me so that Jackson would stay away from you.”
“Why stay away from me?”
“Because Jackson is your protector. The faceless man doesn’t want you protected.”
“Do you know anything else about him?”
“No,” I said. “No, I have no idea. He just came out of nowhere and then he disappeared.”
“I wonder if he has something to do with the deaths,” Gabriel said, rubbing his hand across his chin. “We’ll have to look into it.”
“Okay,” I said. “So what do you want me to do?”
“You’ll stay here. You look like hell.”
“You look worse,” I said. I had noticed that his back was covered in bandages, and as I stood up and walked around him, peeling them back, I could see a long, deep gash, hastily stitched up across his back.
“How are you feeling?”
“It hurts,” he admitted. “Not great.”
“You need to be resting.”
“No, I’m going to go to the caves. I want to talk to the princess. She can’t just keep Jackson captive there.”
“You can’t go anywhere right now,” I said to him sternly. “You have to rest. Those wounds on your back are bad, Mr. Alarick.”
He grumbled in response.
“I’ll be fine,” he said, but I shook my head.
“You need to stay here for at least a week,” I said. “I know you want to get him, but there’s no way you should be crossing the park. Not with that faceless man after you, not if you can’t really shift or run.”
He sighed.
“That’s a good point,” he admitted begrudgingly.
“You stay here for a week. Jackson had his hands full. He’ll be plenty occupied,” I said. Gabriel’s sharp gaze met mine.
“I will go to them as soon as I
can and bring him back,” he said.
“Okay,” I said to him. “As long as you wait for a few days.”
“I will,” he said, wincing as he stood up. “Thank you for coming by, doctor.”
“Thank you, Mr. Alarick,” I said, and left him there to head back with Lily to her cabin.
Chapter 11: Gabriel
I felt nervous as I walked to Sophie’s hut, pausing for a moment to gather myself before I knocked on her door. I hadn’t seen her since the night she had kissed me, and I hadn’t thought of anything since. I lifted my hand to knock but hesitated again, taking a deep breath. I was about to do it when the door opened and Sophie looked up at me, one eyebrow raised.
“Were you lurking outside my door?” she asked.
“No, I was—I was just—uh,” I said, stumbling over my words. “I was just wondering if you...wanted...to come with me. Today.”
“Come with you where?” she asked, an amused look on her face that drove me crazy. I tried to gather myself again before I spoke so that I didn’t sound like an idiot.
“I’m going to the lion caves to get Jackson. I was wondering if you wanted to come along.”
“You’re asking me if I want to go out into the woods? With you?”
“Yes, I mean—yes. Do you?” I asked her, feeling nervous as I waited for a response. She didn’t speak for a moment, but seemed to be in thought, considering the situation carefully.
“Why?” she asked.
“I need back-up,” I said, though in truth I just wanted to spend time with her, to be able to look at her whenever I wanted. She looked at me intently, the corner of her lips turned up in a smile.
“Okay,” she said. “Let me get my pack.”
“Okay,” I said to her. “Yeah. Get everything you need.”
“Wait for me,” she said, keeping the door open as she went into her room. I couldn’t help but glimpse inside. Her back was to me, and I looked away quickly as she started to change her clothes. She was back with a bag over her shoulder within a few moments and we were on our way, walking quietly together. We were close to each other as we moved through the trees, the backs of our hands brushing together. I dared to take her hand then, intertwining our fingers, and she met my eye with a wide gaze. I stopped and had to stare at her, bringing her fingers to my lips and kissing them softly on the knuckles.
