Chapter 95
Caleb pats his thigh like he wants me to come sit on his lap. He can’t be serious. The mafi could barely walk across the room on his own and now he wants to have sex?
“We should wait,” I start to say.
His eyes narrow. “You dare deny your king?” He adds a frown. “Or do you think your king incapable? Do you doubt my. virility?”
He’s proven himself substantially virile time and again. I have no doubt that even as exhausted as me must be, that he would still somehow manage to bring us both to the edge of pleasure again and again.
Under normal circumstances, I might even be excited to join him. As he is, I could ride him, finally being the one to bring us both to that precipice. But not like this.
“Two hours ago, we were pulling silver bullets out of your chest,” I say.
His voice dropping low, he says, “Do not make me come and get you, consort. Get over here. Now?”
He’s using his stern alpha voice, that instinctively makes me want to comply. Or maybe I just like the way his voice pitches low and sexy.
The thought of having him so close to losing him, to reaffirming myself that he is alive… is not an unwelcomed thought.
As I take a step toward him, his demeanor immediately shifts to pleased, his lip quirking up into a smirk. His hand moves to the zipper of his pants and he pulls it down.
Uncertainty still grips me, even as I spread my knees onto either side of him and lower myself down over him on the couch.
His hand reaches up, snatching a fistful of my hair. He tugs, angling my chin back, exposing my throat. Then, gently, he leans in and places soft kisses over the red marks he left there when he had been confused and attacked me.
I hum. His mouth is so warm. It feels so good against my skin, especially when he adds his tongue.
I clutch at his shoulders with both hands. Slowly, I start to lift myself and then sink down onto him.
He tenses slightly, hissing.
I freeze.
“Keep going,” he grunts.
“No,” I say.
“Harper. Now.”
“No,” I say more fiercely. Gently, I lift myself up and off of him, and then move away from the couch.
“You would deny me?!” he bellows, furious. His muscles shift, like he’s trying to stand, but he’s too weak to stand up from the couch. He growls instead, but it’s not nearly as intimidating when he can’t move.
“Yes!” I snap back, which seems to startle us both. Too late to back down now, I press on, “When I have sex with a partner, I only want it to be pleasurable for us both.”
“A partner,” Caleb growls, and this time he does manage to push himself upright, his fingers clawing at the armrest of the couch. “Who the fuck do you think you’ll be sleeping with other than me?”
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Chapter 95
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say.
“Didn’t you?”
Gods, he’s so stubborn. “I just don’t want to sleep with you if you are hurt! That’s shouldn’t be that hard to understand!”
He’s glaring at me like he hates me, and it cuts me deeply.
I should have known things wouldn’t have changed. It doesn’t matter that I saved his life, or that we are outside of the capital. He is still a demon, and I should have known better than to follow my confusion feelings.
+5
I don’t even want to be in the same room with him right now. I turn toward the stairs, eager to explore the rest of the house.
“Where the hell are you going?”
“To find some clean clothes,” I tell him. I take the stairs two at a time and don’t look back.
Eventually, once the shooting and the screaming ends, Bethany crawls out from under her bed. There are so many safe rooms in the capital but each one she tried was taken with people of higher rank than her, unwilling to share their space with her. In the end, with nowhere else to go, she retreated back to her room.
Fortunately, aside from one guard who briefly passed by the room, who didn’t spot her, she was safe.
Despite the quiet now, Bethany has no idea what to expect as she walks out the door. She’s greeted with more silence in the hallways. Down toward the Hall, one of the older slaves seems to have at least taken charge.
He spots Bethany at once and waves her over. “We need to clean this Hall out as soon as possible,” he says. “The Gamma George is going to be stepping up as the King’s Steward in the King’s absence. He’s insisted he have control of the Hall.”
It’s not in a slave’s nature to talk back, but in the absence of any real authority here, Bethany feels emboldened. She’s also worried about Harper. The last Bethany saw her, she was with the King. If something happened to him, something likely happened to her as well.
“Where is the King?” Bethany asks. “Is he missing?”
“He’s dead.”
Bethany freezes, shocked. She didn’t think anyone or anything could take down the King. How could this even happen? None of this makes sense.
“Get to work,” the man says, giving Bethany a shove toward the door of the Hall. “And if you throw up, you are the one who has to clean it up.”
“Why would I…?” Bethany starts, but her voice fails as she steps into the carnage of the Hall.
Whatever bodies that would have been left from this attack were cleared from the room, but the blood remains. It smells rank and immediately, Bethany recoils.
“Here,” another slave says, handing Bethany a mask and a pair of gloves. “Grab one of the mops and get out to the balcony. An alpha was brought low out there.” Almost as an afterthought, they add, “Pick up the silver bullets but be careful not to touch them with your bare hands. Any wolf in you, that silver will burn.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Bethany says, her stomach twisting. At least, she thinks, she’ll be outside on the balcony and hopefully the air will flow better.
She tries not to look at the ground on her way to the balcony. Once she’s there, she has to be waved through by one of the guards.
At least the guards have seemed to regain control of the capital. During the attack, it had seemed like that would never
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Chapter 95
happen.
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Although… Bethany pauses and looks at the guard again. He’s not one she immediately recognizes. She’s been here a long time, and knows most of the people that are enslaved and assigned here.
It’s possible this guard was brought in from elsewhere during the attack, but the way he’s carrying himself, it seems so… odd. The guards here are all trained to stand a certain way. This soldier isn’t doing that at all.
It’s the shoes that fully give him away. This soldier has boots with thick tread – the kind needed for heavy snow. Soldiers here are not assigned those kinds of boots because they just aren’t needed.
But soldiers from the bear clan in the north… they would need them.
“What are you looking at?” the solider asks, his northern accent curling his syllables. He’s not even trying to hide it.
Bethany tucks her chin and steps out onto the balcony.
Surely the King’s Gamma doesn’t know that there are still bear soldiers lingering around the capital. Bethany has to find a way to tell him, before things get even worse.
