Bijou's Bonds

by Anh Leod

  “I’ll heal fast enough, just like one of you dogs, but the ropes cut fairly deep.”

  She winced when she saw the abrasions around his ankle and bent to inexpertly close the worst one with the butterfly.

  “They went too far,” she said softly.

  “You wounded me the worst.”

  She swallowed hard, refusing to meet his eyes. “I didn’t know you were my mate.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. This shaming, when it gets out, will probably mean the end of my life.”

  “Why? No Legion clansman could fight off a pack of us in human form.”

  “And yet,” Pompey said.

  “What would they expect? That you fall on your sword instead of submit to us? Assuming you even had a weapon handy?”

  “You are a scholar, not a warrior, and a woman at that. You can’t understand.”

  Without thinking, her hand moved to his face in order to administer a hard slap. He caught her wrist in his hand just as quickly. When she looked at it, she was shocked to see her hand was that of a wolf.

  “You can even perform a partial shift,” he said with admiration. “I hadn’t seen that before.”

  “Release me,” she ordered. “No member of the Brotherhood is just anything. I can fight.”

  With a sneer, he let go.

  She considered what he’d done. “How can you be strong enough to have caught me, shifted like that?”

  “We are superior to you dogs in some ways. You can’t fight us under the moon because of our strength.”

  “I suppose you did knock the brains out of poor Shamsky,” she mused.

  “Such limited brains as he has.” He handed her another bandage, and lifted his other leg so she could pull the torn edges of the worst abrasion there together as well.

  “What are our options? You think you’ll be challenged as alpha when the word gets out?”

  “Of course.”

  She could tell she was hurting him as she bandaged, but he didn’t flinch. Only the skin around his eyes tightened. “Then I’ll die too.” She sighed. “No wonder you were so insistent on taking me now. You want to get a child from me before I die too.”

  “Can you blame me?” he asked. “On the other hand, maybe I just really want to fuck you.”

  “Are there other Legion clansman with your strength?” she asked, ignoring his crudity. “Is there anyone who can defeat you?”

  “My cousin Cassius might be able to hurt me on a good day, but he would never try. I only have one true rival, Brutus.”

  “His chances?” She took another bandage, noticing that a slice along his calf was starting to heal. Even if he couldn’t shift without the moon’s guidance, he did still have a shape-shifter’s healing ability.

  Pompey gritted his teeth as she pulled the edges of the deep wound together. “A fair one, but I wouldn’t give him the best odds.”

  “Will he fight honorably or sneak attack?”

  When she was done with the bandages, he sat on the leather-slung stool and put his hands on his knees. “That depends on how angry he is that my father took the alpha role from his.”

  Bijou winced. “Was it a good fight?”

  “Yes, but my father was murdered a year ago. It wouldn’t surprise me if Brutus’ uncle was behind the attack. He isn’t strong enough to defeat me in battle, but he would advise Brutus to give it a shot.”

  “You’re mayor of Cherry Blossom as well,” she observed.

  “As was my father before me. He was mayor before he was alpha.”

  “I have to imagine it is to the Legion’s benefit to keep you in power,” she said. “Having a role in human politics means you have great latitude to keep shape-shifters a secret from the humans.”

  “Agreed. But I don’t want to think about politics tonight.” He took her hand, drawing her forward.

  She resisted, even as her nipples betrayed her by jutting out at the touch of his hand. He widened his stance and pulled harder with his superior male strength, so she was forced to move between his legs.

  She pointed at the heavy flesh between his legs. “At least you can’t say I damaged you there.”

  He smiled, his canines showing. “You merely whetted my appetite with that talented mouth of yours.”

  She flushed, as his cheerful leer made her clit twitch. She tightened her legs, but that just made the sensation stronger.

  Her discomfort widened his smile. “Are you a virgin, scholarly Bijou?”

  “No,” she said, surprised. “But I’ve never been with one of us, a shape-shifter.”

  “Oh?” he said, tracing a pattern on her wrist. “You prefer humans for your love play?”

  She licked her dry lips before speaking. “It was in college. I went to school back east, even though the clan was against it. But I wanted a really solid classical education and there was a renowned professor at a school outside Boston at the time.”

  “How?” he inquired. “Since you slept with this human? You don’t seem a woman who has experienced physical love recently.”

  She flushed. “Three years, actually, since he died. But I studied with him for two years.” She stopped, unwilling to say more. He didn’t need to know about the archives. In fact, that would hurt her case with King.

  “Little Bijou, more interested in study than love.”

  “I wonder why,” she muttered, when this was the love she had to look forward to, an unwanted, forced mating. Why couldn’t the phone have waited to ring until after Nana had finished explaining the cards? What had that Nine of Swords meant? She wanted more information than those four damning words, sadness, despair, shame and disgrace. Did she have no happiness to look forward to?

  She found it hard to focus. Of course her body would respond to Pompey’s, a perfect specimen of Roman manhood. But her mind resented him no end, even if he appeared to be a man of power and taste, not just a brutal alpha male.

  “Did you like fucking that little human?” he asked, moving his hand to her hip. “Have you touched one since?”

  She shook her head. Of course this would be his only concern. How male.

  “No.” His hand on her flesh seemed to create a molten sensation under her skin, as if her blood had thickened and began to spread through her body. “I’d like to take a shower. I’m sticky.”

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said, his eyebrow lifted.

  She kept her voice calm, but it was a struggle. “I’d just like a shower.”

  He took his hand from her hip, brushing up her body to the edge of her breast as he lifted. “Poor, frightened little wolf.”

  She steeled herself. “I’m not afraid. I’d just like to be fresh.”

  He chuckled. “A delay tactic. I can smell your arousal, but you’d like to wash it away.” He leaned forward. “Let me tell you, it will only make it worse to run that wet sponge around your clit as you clean yourself. But go ahead, little wolf, I can wait. For a short while.”

  “I’m not little,” she growled, then stepped toward the spiral shower, knowing her hips were twitching in a sexy little dance despite herself.

  The shower was a warm, damp cave, with recessed lights offering only minimal illumination. She stepped down the curves of the shell-like space, running her fingers along the sea shapes in the walls, the rough mosaic gently abrading her skin.

  In the center of the shell was a circular central space with a selection of washcloths, towels and sponges in a clear glass cabinet, as well as the apparatus for turning on the water. When she turned it, nothing happened in the center space, but she heard water flowing. She took a sponge and stepped back into the spiral.

  Warm water misted from hidden nozzles in the mosaic and above in the ceiling. Each spray was different.

  Like a car wash, she thought unromantically, but the truth was, she was charmed by the design. The water soothed the tight muscles in her neck and back and other nozzles were perfect for cleansing more intimate areas.

  One nozzle caught her directly on
her mons as she walked along the gantlet of water. She paused, allowing it to drum against her. All she’d have to do is separate her own lips and let the water sweep her away to climax.

  But she didn’t want to come to Pompey hot and ready, all wanting. If she let herself enjoy the water, give herself the orgasm, she’d come to him already open, her legs trembling with desire.

  She stepped away from the nozzle, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. Better pain than pleasure in this unwanted mating.

  As she stepped along the spiral again, her thoughts went despite herself to the images of Pompey’s taut form, and her body readied itself despite her mind’s wishes. She was a traitor to herself.

  Chapter Three

  Where had Pompey been in her reading? Bijou wondered, as she toweled herself off in the still-steamy center of the spiral. Surely if the cards had shown her fate his card might have shown up.

  Her limited knowledge of the tarot didn’t allow her to recognize which card he was but she expected he would be a King of something. Would he be Swords, or Cups, Pentacles or Wands?

  Swords or Wands, she expected, her mind immediately going to his penis. Her vaginal walls clenched with the thought. She didn’t want to be wet, but the alpha—her mate—was a beautiful man and it had been so long since she’d had sex.

  Would it be different with a shape-shifter? As she toweled off her hair, she remembered her past sexual experiences as if in a film montage. Her professor lover had been older, far past the quick delights of youth. She had become a master at oral pleasure under his tutelage and a recipient of long, luxurious lovemaking that she had been told was unlike sex with a young man.

  Pompey wasn’t old or young. Shape-shifters didn’t show age like humans, aging in tune with their longer lifespan. He could be anything from forty to sixty years of age. Her vagina clutched again as she considered what sexual tricks he had learned in those years. Would he have both control and passion?

  With more eagerness than reluctance, she left the shower, dropping her towel into a marble and steel laundry chute at the far end of the room. She wished she had a robe to use to shield herself.

  Her thighs rubbed moistly against each other as she padded across the long room. Where was Pompey? She had no idea how the house was laid out, only that it rested deep on its lot and it was much larger inside than it appeared from the street. An alpha’s home, it probably had subterranean cellars, as well, for clan storage.

  She followed the scent of his body down a thickly carpeted hallway she hadn’t been though earlier, then turned into a room filled with books. A library, but not one that contained her kind of material, she noted, scanning the shelves lit by recessed lights in the tops of the cases. The books were history, for the most part, but all written by humans. Of course the alpha wouldn’t leave precious clan records aboveground where they could be stolen or easily damaged.

  Pompey’s scent had entered the room, but she couldn’t figure out where he’d gone from here. She walked slowly around the room, stopping to spin a globe that stood by itself in an alcove of glass. Beyond must be a garden. Had he gone outside? There was a door here. No, she didn’t think so, and she saw a red blinking light above, indicating the door was protected by security and would most likely squeal an alarm if she opened it.

  She circled the room again, feeling increasingly frustrated. Eventually, she started pressing the walnut-paneled walls, looking for some mechanism to open a secret door. There had to be another exit.

  After twenty minutes she started putting her entire body against the panels, stretching her arms wide against them as she baby-stepped around the room. If he was so eager to have her, why wasn’t he coming to find her? She felt nothing on any of the panels to the left of the glass alcove, but then, as her torso was at the halfway point along the next wall, she felt thin raised lines against her fingertips. She leaned her body back and attempted to trace the lines, but they were gone.

  Were they responding to her body in some way? Her scholar’s mind thrilled to the chase. She pressed her breasts and hips into the wood, getting as much body contact as she could. Even her cheek pressed the cool surface. Yes! She smiled as she felt the raised lines again. They extended as high as she could reach and as low.

  But what did they mean? She took a deep sniff. Could she smell Pompey against the dratted door? What did he mean by this game? First demanding her, then hiding from her.

  She raised her leg and slammed her foot against the wall. “Let me in!”

  Air caressed her legs as the panel tilted away from her. She stepped forward into a lamp lit room.

  “You truly are my mate,” said a languid voice.

  Pompey lay on a huge bed, propped up on pillows. He held a glass of wine in his hand.

  “Why did you hide from me?” she demanded.

  His expression was serious. “I don’t understand the mechanism, but this house has stood for three generations. Only the Legion’s alpha and his mate can open that door.”

  “How unusual,” Bijou said, her mind processing the possibilities. “Science or magic?”

  Pompey took a sip from his glass. The deep red wine lapped at the edges of the fine crystal as he placed it on a table next to the bed. “You passed the test. Does it matter?”

  “I like to know things,” Bijou said.

  “Then aren’t you curious about how it will be between us?” he asked. “How true mates make love?”

  She remembered the stickiness between her legs. Her skin suddenly felt tight. “I know how it will be.”

  “Your voice has grown husky with desire, mate,” he said.

  “You will never know me,” she said, knowing she must deny him something or lose herself into the despair Nana mentioned the cards showed in her immediate future. “You will only join with my body.”

  “Come,” Pompey said, holding out a long-fingered hand. “Let us join then.”

  Bijou exhaled sharply through her nostrils. Her feet moved as if of their own accord, taking steps around the other side of the bed. She sat down on lush, soft sheets of cream-colored Egyptian cotton. The bed was padded but firm enough that she didn’t sink clumsily into it as she scooted toward the center.

  Pompey turned to her then placed his heavy right leg over hers. His lips came down on her mouth. He moved his fingers up her arm toward her sensitive armpit while his tongue caressed her lips.

  She opened her mouth to him and his tongue swept inside. Her body creamed at his thrust into her mouth and she heard herself whimper, surrendering entirely to the kiss. Her free hand went to his head and she ran her fingers through his midnight black hair.

  Then her eyes widened as she smelled more than just lust on his flesh, more than wine on his mouth. A faint hint of battle emanated from his pores. The next thing she felt was a warm pelt encircling her right wrist.

  She jerked her arm away from him. Her wrist jarred as she hit the end range of the chain holding her bound arm to the headboard. She braced herself and tugged. As a shape-shifter she ought to be able to break any chain, but it didn’t give.

  Silver. The fur-lined bracelet encircling her must have silver at its core.

  “Bastard!” she hissed.

  “Consider it insurance.” A sneer displayed his teeth. “I won’t be vulnerable to you again, mate.”

  “We are bound to another as it is,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

  His mouth thinned. “My dear Bijou, how could you have thought I’d trust you?”

  “I came to you, willing to have sex,” she protested.

  “You think I can’t smell lust on you as thickly as your mistrust? You think I can’t tell how hard that powerful female brain of yours is working, considering ways to escape?”

  “I won’t be caged like an animal.” She tried to make her voice sound sensible, to cut his madness.

  “You will be bound until we are mated.” He loomed over her. “Until the ceremony is complete.”

  “You’re insane!” she sho
uted.

  He touched his temple. “Anything but. I’m a strategist.”

  She lowered her voice, trying to match his calm. “You make an enemy of me.”

  “How can the woman who shamed me be any more of an enemy?”

  She fought for control. “Move on. We have a new reality to face now.”

  “And it will be new again when we have mated.” He clutched at her thigh with his strong fingers. “Submit to me, mate.”

  “Is this not enough submission?”

  He bared his teeth in a feral grin. “No.”

  She watched as he moved off the bed, his back turned away from her. The lights went out, leaving nothing but a candle burning at the foot of the bed. She saw him pass through the light then back into shadow.

  While she tried to figure out what he was doing, her other hand was snatched into a powerful grip, then she felt a second cuff attach to her other wrist.

  “You’d better get my feet too,” she growled. “If you cherish your life, that is.”

  “I don’t need to bind your legs. It was only your claws that concerned me. Why is it, do you suppose, that we don’t have claws for toenails like we do for fingernails?”

  She heard a sliding noise along the sheet, moving away from her.

  “Then again, maybe you Greeks do have clawed toes.”

  She kicked out, but Pompey caught her by the ankle in midair. Holding her firmly, he ran his fingers along the bottom of her foot and caressed her toes.

  Damn! She’d always been a sucker for foot rubs and she almost never got them. Her leg lost its rigidity. After examining her toes, he pressed the pads of his fingers into her arch. She moaned.

  “Like that, do you?” he said, putting down one foot and taking the other.

  She forgot to kick this time. He caressed her other foot in both warm hands, then massaged both feet in tandem. She felt herself relaxing into the truly superior sheets.

  “You can’t win me over with foot rubs,” she mumbled.

  He moved away for a moment, with only the lightest touch connecting them, then was back, smoothing a musky lotion into her foot.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said.