“No, I won’t, but Iwilldemand your acceptance.” His palm starts to rub over my stinging flesh soothingly, and I can almost feel the mate bond getting to work to alleviate the pain—turning it into pure unadulterated pleasure. I think I hear him mutter,and submission in bed, but hope to the gods I’m hallucinating from whatever drug his mouth is laced with.
“I’ll never accept you,” I hiss.
His response is a pleased rumbly laugh. “Then why is the sweet scent of your arousal wafting around my room?”
Oh, shit.Shifters have an enhanced sense of smell—of coursehe can smell just how turned on I got by the spanking he just gave me.
“Because the goddamn mate bond is warping my thoughts. Trust me on this, Camden, I’ll never feel anything but disdain for you, no matter how strong the bond gets. And if my body responds to you, it’s not because of me, it’s because one of the gods decided to play a cosmic fucking joke by pairing us!”
He spins me back around so that I’m facing him again, wrapping his arms around me to hold me still, and I see how intently he’s staring at my lips.
“Such dirty words out of such a sweet mouth,” he murmurs, looking entranced.
“You bring out the worst in me,” I shoot back.
His grin is molten and absolutely wicked. “You’re so godsdamned sexy when you talk back to me.”
“And you should really come with a warning label: biggest idiotic incompetent asshole alive.”
His eyes travel over my lips and settle on my neck. “You have no idea how much I want to make you mine.”
My fists clench. His teeth are not getting anywhere near my neck. “Try it and I’ll educate you on what your testicles taste like.”
Gaze half-lidded, his smile widens. “You’re stunning when you threaten me with bodily harm.”
“You won’t be sporting that smug grin when I mutilate you.”
He licks his lips. “If you had any idea of the things I want—andwill—do to you…”
“I’d kill you in your sleep,” I finish for him.
“If anyone else said that to me, they’d be dead before they could draw their next breath,” he points out, his tone turning stony.
I wait for the innate fear all humans have of mythics to hit me, but it doesn’t come. For a moment, that puzzles me, until I come to a realization. The mate bond is already corrupting me—making me feel safe in Camden’s presence despite the blatant danger he poses to both me and the one other person I truly love in this world.
I say slowly, “You won’t kill me.” It feels like the words are pulled out of me by an unseen force—as if the bond demands a verbal acknowledgment of what I somehow know to be true.
“I won’t,” Camden agrees softly. “But there are many ways to punish you, Sierra, and not all of them even involve pain.”
I try to jerk away from him, incensed at the threat, but he doesn’t allow it. His arms tighten until I can barely twitch.
He rumbles, “I don’t want to punish you—at least, not in ways you won’t love.” The sexual innuendo in his tone sends a shiver through me. “But if you force my hand, I will.”
“If you tryanything, I will castrate you—”
He cuts off my words with a hard, chaste kiss. “Listen to me very carefully,” he says once he pulls back. “I don’t expect total obedience. I don’twanttotal obedience—it would bore me since that’s all I get from those around me—but I think it pertinent to give you a few guidelines on what will get you punished.”
“You act as if I’ll agree to go anywhere with you,” I interrupt. “The likelihood of that is somewhere south of zero.”
He lets out a hard breath of frustration. He thinks quietly for a moment before seeming to settle on a decision. “Leisel is a member of the Rockwell Pack by association. I am her Alpha. If I issue a command for her to be taken to Kinrith, that command will be followed through. The laws won’t protect her from that.”
The last time I felt the sort of fear that wholly encompasses me in this moment was when Leisel was dying from pneumonia. It feels like a casing of ice settling over every inch of me, making me shiver down to my very bones.
“Y-you can’t,” I whisper, my voice breaking from the onslaught of sheer terror I’m experiencing at the thought of this mutt taking my sister. “She’s underage—”
“Which means she can’t be marked or mated,” he interrupts. “That law will be respected, but I’m still her Alpha. Tomorrow she will be moved to Kinrith.”
That’s when I see it. Camden’s checkmate. He’s seen how much I love Leisel. He knows that I’m her protector in every way. He also knows that I won’teverleave her—especially not if she’ll be draggedto live amongst shifters. I’d die before leaving her to bear that burden on her own.
