“Screwing a prisoner you constantly threaten with death is a pretty immoral fucking situation.”
“If I was forcing her, sure. I’m not forcing you. You screw me of your own free will.”
My face burned red and I balled my fists, my core pounding and the energy between us zipping with fire. We were so close our breaths mingled. Our chests rose and fell quickly, each of us teetering on the edge.
“You do care if I’m unhappy,” I ground out, fighting fire with fire. “You make that abundantly clear when you put in the effort to make sure I come. Repeatedly.”
His gaze burned into mine. Lust sparked hotter between us, growing like a brush fire. Passion coiled within me as my unbearably wet core throbbed.
He didn’t respond. Instead, he about-faced and walked away, taking his heat and mouth-watering scent with him. He started barking orders at his people with cool efficiency. His authority and command couldn’t be rivaled. It wasn’t only his magic, but an obvious natural talent. A love for his pack. I realized that I admired him for it, for the way his people revered him. For the community he fostered and unity he nourished.
I stood alone in the aftermath, suddenly chilled and silently nursing the sting of his dismissal. I was so horribly turned around. Upside-down. Confused. Despite our situation, it felt like he was chipping away at my hatred of him. The more I learned about the alpha and his people, the more I grew to like them. The more I forgot about the precarious situation I was in.
Was this how captives ended up falling for their captors? Would he show me just enough kindness, ply me with orgasms, and slowly sap my will to survive as he delivered me to my doom?
Weston
Tingles firedalong my nerve endings as I directed the pack to setup a perimeter and organize the camp. My heart thundered in my chest, trying to hold onto my control. It took all the restraint I could muster to not turn back and make her see that no way in hell was I like Granny. I had repented for the life I’d lived in this kingdom and now paid close attention to the leadership I followed, needing to respect them and trust their morals.
But when it came down to it, she was right, wasn’t she? She hadn’t gotten a say in her fate—not when she was under Granny’s influence, and not now. When she tried to talk to me about her creations, I could only think of the towns and cities I’d seen destroyed, the lives I’d seen lost. Personal lives, of those close to the pack. That she wouldn’t evencontemplateany of that being her fault...
I saw red. Every time.
“Well, you wanted her to talk to you. You got what you asked for,”my wolf said accusingly.
I’d tried to re-engage her after our argument, desperate to return to our easy yet poignant conversation where I’d shared parts of my past that I didn’t usually talk about anymore. I’d breathed a sigh of relief when she’d understood my pain, connected to her in that moment in a way I’d never connected with anyone else.
She hadn’t taken the bait. I’d mentioned the various flora we’d passed, pointed out colorful birds, even commented on the cheese she had when we’d stopped to eat and rest. Nothing.
The bitch of it was, I respected the hell out of her stoic silence. No one else would’ve so thoroughly ignored me. She was traveling on my fucking lap, with her fingers tracing the grooves of my sides, chest and stomach, and she didn’t bother with so much as a grunt. It was as infuriating as it was commendable. She had a backbone of steel when she needed to.
I was so fucked. So hopelessly, unbelievably fucked where it concerned her. How could I even pretend at this point? Her light touch had kept me enraptured. My arm around her had never slackened, keeping her close, my cock constantly hard as she jostled on my lap. Occasionally I caught myself rubbing her back with my thumb or resting my lips against her shoulder and breathing in her scent. She must’ve noticed my lapse in control, but she never said anything.
“Of course she noticed,” my wolf said. “Didn’t you hear the part of her many accusations where she accused you of using her body? She probably thought you were making her ride with you so that you could manhandle her.”
“So thatIcould manhandleher?” I answered in incredulous frustration. “She was the one with her hands on me. She didn’t say a word about that.”
“And she also doesn’t know what’s causing that. You’re keeping important things from her, just like Granny did.”
I gritted my teeth and stopped where I was. Dante halted his approach and quirked his brow as I stared at the ground in frustrated rage.
“She doesn’t know she has an animal, and because of that, she wouldn’t understand true mates. She can’t have access to her animal right now because she’d probably want to shift, and we don’t have time to walk her through it. It’s dangerous to shift without help. She could die. Even if she didn’t, she’d need time to acclimate. Time we don’t have.”
“What if she consented to avoid shifting until we could help her?”
“Then she’d probably try to run and the enemy who escaped today would easily scoop her up. You know all this! You know it as well as I do. Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed,”he spat.
“Only our regard for her has changed,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “The death toll hasn’t. What her products have done hasn’t.Wehave changed, nothing else.”
And I’d give anything to change back, to shrug off my contradictions and go back to being resolute in the knowledge that performing our duty was just and needed. That we were, in fact, doing the right thing.
“What do you need, Dante?” I asked crisply.
His pitying expression cleared. The pack had been watching, had seen my struggles with this. I half wondered if I’d been lying to Aurelia when I said they trusted me to do my duty. Was that still the case?
Did I trust myself to do my duty?
