Enslaved by the Alpha (Shifters of Nunavut Book 2)

by Rivard, Viola

  “I’ve never had to learn any of these things, just like you’ve never had to learn how to drive to the supermarket, or use a microwave, or GPS something. If the situation were reversed, you’d be just as helpless as I am, the only difference is that I wouldn’t be making you feel worthless or bossing you around all of the time.”

  It was not often that Erik was cornered by another’s logic, and in this case, he could not battle his opponent into submission. Another male may have apologized to her, or at the very least admitted that he had been unfair, but it was simply not in his nature to do either of those things. Instead, he refrained from arguing with her, permitting her to have the final word.

  He expected her to grow angry, but after a brief pause, she patted the floor beside her and gave him a small smile.

  “There’s still a little bit of brush in here from a few days ago. Maybe you can teach me how to build a fire?”

  A strange sensation prickled over his skin as Erik sat down beside her. He felt the need to touch her, to caress and rub her. It was strange because it wasn’t sexual, he just wanted—no, needed—to feel her body against his.

  “There isn’t much here, but I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “I’ll teach you later, when there’s more light.”

  It took a while, but he was able to build a small fire. It lasted long enough for her roast the outside of the shank, and he watched with subdued amusement as she ate and tried to pretend that she wasn’t enjoying it.

  After she’d picked every last scrap of meat from the bone, she crawled into his lap and cuddled up against his chest. Once he was certain she’d fallen asleep, he drew her in close, infusing her with his warmth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The remainder of their journey was uneventful. Each day was the same. The weather was bitter at best, and they rose just before dawn each morning. Erik was not one to travel in the light of day, particularly because his black fur stood out against the white backdrop of the tundra, but the human was more alert during the daytime, and the night was too cold for him to not take shelter.

  Never in his life had Erik had to be so mindful of another creature’s needs as he was with her. He’d silently counted, and on average, she seemed to need something from him every five minutes.

  “I need to pee.”

  “I need something to eat.”

  “I need to have a drink.”

  “I need to stretch my legs.”

  “I seriously need a nap.”

  “I need a break. Can we stop for like thirty minutes so I can go pee, have lunch, stretch a little, and maybe take a power nap? Aren’t you tired?”

  He had come to learn that she had a very loose definition of “need,” and he often ignored her requests. But he always remained aware of the time and made sure that she ate three times a day and had plenty of water. He sometimes considered allowing her to nap, if only so that he could use the break to slake his desire on her body. However, once they crossed into Amarok territory, adequate shelters were few and far between. While he would have no qualms about taking a female of his own kind out in the open, he could not leave the human so exposed to the elements.

  During the nights, he stayed in his wolf form, keeping her nestled beneath his warm body as the cold winds pelted him. The one time that they were able to take shelter in a cavern, he’d had no choice but to rest for a full night and cast a few meager hours at his growing sleep debt.

  While each day was the same, he could feel something changing internally. His wolf knew that when he got back to the den, he’d be able to properly claim his mate, and the knowledge was invigorating, and at times, agonizing. Although each day brought him closer to home, each step felt heavier than the last. Often he would be on the brink of snapping, veering far off course, and finding a makeshift den to hold up in for however many days or weeks it took to impregnate her.

  Then, she would say something ridiculous, inadvertently distracting him from his spiraling thoughts.

  “Oh man, it’s probably going to be Christmas soon. Do you have a calendar back at the den?”

  “Aren’t there supposed to be penguins up here?”

  “You can run forty miles an hour, right? Four-thousand-ish, divided by forty, minus eight hours for sleeping and an hour nap each day—we could be in Miami in a week, you know?”

  As usual, her chattering was completely one-sided. Erik was almost always in wolf form, and more so each day, as they fell into a natural rhythm with one another. Though he couldn’t answer—and probably wouldn’t have if he could—Erik did like listening to her. Her company made the passage of time slightly more bearable.

  They passed several patrols on the final morning of their journey, but Sten was the first to meet them. He approached in human form, less than half a kilometer from the den. The human had just been complaining about her legs hurting, and so Erik had no qualms about shaking her off his back so that he could shift. She had been “keeping his pelt warm for him” and he snatched it back from her the moment he had opposable thumbs. The cold air needled his skin, and although she was well clothed, he felt a sliver of guilt when he heard her whimper.

  Sten smiled at the human, but he knew Erik well enough to not bother with greetings. “The scouts haven’t returned yet. Should I make plans for us to go after them?”

  Before they had left for Siluit, Erik had ordered Sten to send two wolves to the south. They were supposed to track the origin point of the roaming bear shifters and report back. It shouldn’t have taken them more than a week, and Erik had been gone for nearly two. Under normal circumstances, he would have been stopping into the den for a brief rest and then heading up a search party in the evening. But normal had taken flight the moment he’d decided to claim a mate.

  “We’ll give it three more days,” Erik said, walking alongside his brother as they spoke. “If they’re not back, then we’ll go after them.”

  Sten looked like he wanted to question this decision, but seemed to think better of it. “All right then. So, how’d it go with Zane?”

  Erik didn’t immediately answer. The snow was past the human’s knees, and she was struggling to keep pace with them. He waited for her to catch up, and then lifted her up into his arms. She went limp against him, her head settling on his shoulder.

  He shifted his attention back to Sten, who was eyeing them with speculation. Erik thought back to the conversation he’d had with his brother when he’d first brought the human back to the den. He’d all but vowed that he wouldn’t take her as his mate, yet here he was, hauling her back to the den with the intent to do just that.

  And deferring my duties as alpha in the process.

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain this about face in attitude. That was, if he decided to explain it at all. After all, he was alpha, and he could do as he pleased.

  Erik carried her the rest of the way to the den. During the brief walk, he discussed with Sten the alliance between Amarok and Siluit. But while he related the details of his discussion with Zane, he could only think of the night to come.

  ***

  “You can put me down now,” Astrid said, though it was more out of habit. She was actually quite comfy.

  Having her face buried in Erik’s neck had served to shield her from the prying eyes of the pack as they passed through the main room. She had peeked around in hopes of catching a glimpse of her dog Noona, but neither the husky nor her new best friend Halley were anywhere to be seen.

  “If I put you down, you’ll only lag behind,” Erik said.

  Now that they were back in the den, his rich, accented voice sent sparks of anticipation tingling down her spine. They hadn’t been intimate since before leaving for Siluit, and she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been yearning for him.

  “I don’t know where you’re taking me,” she said, stretching her arms. “But will there be food? I’m hungry.”

  “You are always hungry.”

  “Because you starve me,” she countered. “Ma
ybe if you fed me regularly—ooooh!”

  Astrid squirmed from his hold as the air became warm and humid. She spun on her heel, her chest nearly bursting with excitement as she saw where he’d brought her.

  Steam wafted off the surface of the water, making it appear much hotter than it actually was. The spring water would have been considered chilly by Florida standards, but after experiencing the Nunavut winter, the room might as well have been a sauna.

  She scrambled towards the water, eagerly shedding the layers of her clothes as she did so. By the time she made it to the water’s edge, she was wearing nothing but her panties. She glanced back at Erik and suppressed a grin as she caught him hungrily eying her breasts. Though the pelt he wore was large and heavy, she could easily make out the bulge of his erection beneath the fur. His blatant desire made her daring, and she stopped short of diving into the pool, approaching him in slow, meandering steps.

  She placed a hand on his cheek, which sported several days worth of beard growth. Facial hair had never been a particular turn on for her, but on Erik it served only to accentuate his already criminally good looks. It made him appear rugged and exceptionally masculine, yet when she ran her fingers across the hair, she found that it was soft and begging to be stroked.

  As her fingers danced over the plane of his cheek and the sharp ridge of his jawline, she stared into his eyes. Danger flickered in the blue flames, but it only served to embolden her. So many times, the alpha had dominated her. It wasn’t only sexual. While he seemed to be making somewhat of an effort to be considerate, Erik still controlled nearly every aspect of her life.

  It was the point she kept coming back to. Erik was bigger and stronger than her, and in this world, those were two of the only things that mattered. Struggling against him was futile and defying him, while occasionally entertaining, was ultimately pointless as well. If she were ever going to get a real edge over him, she’d have to play dirty.

  She trailed her hand down his corded neck and hooked a finger under the pelt he wore. A gentle tug was all it took to send it falling to the ground and exposing his nude form. Dark sprigs of hair peppered his hard chest and the rigid stacks of muscles that made up his abdomen. She knew that she’d only have seconds before he pounced her, and she had to tear her gaze from his glorious chest and focus her attention lower.

  Thick arteries fed an overabundance of blood to his solid erection, making the skin appear painfully stretched. Without preamble, she sank to her knees and grasped his shaft. A bead of clear liquid gathered at the tip, and she leaned in to lick it up with one quick sweep of her tongue.

  She wasn’t sure what she expected, but Erik’s reaction caught her completely off guard. He staggered back, putting several feet of distance between them. His blue eyes were wild with shock, anger, and something else she couldn’t readily ascertain.

  “What are you doing?” he growled.

  Astrid fumbled for an answer. “I’m not sure—well, I know what I’d planned on doing, I’m just not sure why I was doing it…”

  Because you thought you’d gain points with Erik by going down on him, said a scathing voice inside her head.

  Reaching for an adequate excuse, she said, “I guess I mostly wanted to see if you’d fit.”

  It wasn’t exactly a lie. When she’d been staring down the length of his absurdly large phallus, she’d also been mentally calculating how much she could squeeze inside of her mouth—and puzzling over how’d he’d ever managed to fit inside any other part of her. How had she ever managed to walk again when he’d been done with her?

  “In your mouth?”

  Admittedly, Astrid had said many stupid things to the alpha during the weeks she’d been stuck with him. Up until that point, he’d seemed to take her quirkiness in stride, either ignoring or overtly humoring her. But for once, he seemed genuinely incredulous, which in turn made Astrid equally incredulous.

  “Well, yeah. I suppose it’s a bit uninspired of me, but I thought you’d at least… Wait, no,” she crossed her arms in front of her. “I don’t care if you’re not human, every male on the planet likes getting head, so you’re not going to make me feel like an idiot for trying to go down on you.”

  “Why would I let a female put her teeth near my cock?”

  “Why… What?” Astrid took a step forward, approaching him cautiously. “Are you saying you’ve never had a woman go down on you?”

  A glare was her only response.

  “No way,” she whispered, looking him up and down. “You’re like the unicorn of hot guys. Why not? Are you really afraid that someone would bite you?” She paused to chuckle. “I suppose for you, that might actually be a legitimate concern.”

  She closed the distance between them, excitement fluttering in her chest. “Let me do it.”

  “No.”

  “I won’t bite.” She opened her mouth to display her teeth. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t hurt much. See? No fangs.”

  His upper lip curled with distaste. “I am not going to waste my seed in your mouth.”

  Astrid had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing again.

  “I think it’s a safe bet that you’ll make more. All I’m asking is that you try it once, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to have it again.”

  And there it was. She was officially using the same logic her parents had used to convince her to try eggplant.

  “If you try to bite me—”

  Astrid put a finger over his mouth. “Believe me, if I bite you, you’ll like it. Now lay down, it’ll be easier for me that way.”

  She thought he had capitulated, but Erik remained still and cast her a wary look.

  “Let me do this for you, and you can do whatever you want with me.”

  Though he appeared intrigued, the alpha remained obstinate. “I can already do whatever I want with you.”

  Cheeky.

  He bent to pick up his pelt from the floor, and then stepped past her. She let out a small sigh, her confidence deflating. So much for getting an edge.

  I’m pretty sure that if you can’t even convince him to let you give him head, the situation is pretty hopeless.

  A heavy thump startled her into jumping. Astrid turned to see Erik lying on the floor atop his pelt. He propped his head up with one hand, while the other was wrapped around his full manhood. And he was watching her expectantly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Erik felt uneasy as the human settled down beside him. Of all the lines he had crossed in the past few days, this one felt the most incongruous with his nature. Perhaps it was because the other decisions had come to him gradually, or at the very least, in stages. This had been thrust on him all at once, and he’d had no time to work through his ambivalence.

  He should have ignored her entire line of questioning and mounted her on the spot. Had he done so, they could have avoided all of this. He could have been taking his release inside of her at this very moment. But this thing she insisted on doing, it seemed so pointless.

  Rationally, Erik knew that the odds of putting a pup in her were next to none until her fertile time came, but his wolf still craved the feeling of being buried in her heated passage and climaxing deep within her.

  And yet he had to admit, he was…curious.

  Erik was not ignorant. He knew that other males enjoyed having themselves enveloped in a female’s mouth. But he was not among them. He did not care to engage in any activity where part of the thrill was knowing that he could have his cock bitten off at any moment.

  However, the human did have a point. Her teeth were dull and her jaw was incapable of exerting the level of pressure necessary to do any real damage. At least, not faster than he could do damage to her.

  An image of his clawed hand around her throat, squeezing the life from her fragile body, made his stomach churn. The thought of harming her was inordinately repellant, and he was so absorbed in his disgust that he hardly noticed her scrutinizing his cock.

  He was jolted bac
k into awareness when she took hold of him, wrapping her hand around the base of his shaft. He had always been exceptionally large, but her small hand made his erection appear massive. His nausea subsided as his chest swelled with masculine pride.

  She bent down, and with her free hand, she cupped his testicles. Unaccustomed to such handling, Erik sucked in a breath. She wet her lips and then closed her mouth over the head of his cock. After the initial rush of apprehension, he decided that it felt good. Not spectacular enough to warrant the risk, but also not unpleasant.

  Then, she began to use her tongue.

  Erik’s abdomen clenched as the tip of her tongue began to flick at the underside of his cock. He felt another strong pulse of hot blood rush to his pelvis and his hand grasped at the pelt, claws tearing into the rough hide.

  Her tongue flicked back and forth in a simple, repetitive motion over a tiny patch of skin. By rights, it should have felt good, but not so good that he already wanted to come. He fought back the urge, and just when he thought he’d gained a modicum of control, she did something that felt even better. She drew her tongue around the ridge where his shaft met the head of his cock, and began to swirl it in maddening circles. His back arched, and he heard himself snarl.

  The animalistic noise only served to spur her on, making her tongue move faster. Then her hands began to move, one pumping his shaft, the other massaging his testicles. The alpha’s mind went blank, and he watched her work with rapt fascination as his pleasure rose to a rapid peak. A cold sweat broke out over his skin as he forced himself not to grab her by the hair and take control. In a moment of startling clarity, he realized that he was not the one in danger. Although she held his reproductive future in her hands, it would be all too easy for him to snap. With his inexperience, he could easily harm her in the frenzy.

  She’s so frail.

  A heat wave flared across his skin, fire pooling at the base of his cock. He felt his testicles draw up, a moment later, hot liquid surged. He let out a snarl as his vision blurred and his body began to spasm. She took everything he had to give her and then sucked out all that remained. The sensation was the purest form of bliss.