I led her through the manor’s long corridors, past doors she’d learn to fear.Her footsteps echoed behind me, quick and nervous.I didn’t look back.Let her take in the grandeur, the cold elegance, the maze of rooms she would navigate for the next year.
The dining room was set for two.Intimate.Candlelight flickering in silver holders.A meal Alice had prepared laid out on fine china.
I sat at the head of the table and gestured to the chair at my right hand.Not across from me, where an equal would sit.Beside me.Where I could reach her.
She sat, eyeing the food like she expected it to be poisoned.
“Eat.”
She reached for her fork.I caught her wrist.
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll feed you tonight.”
The look she gave me was almost worth the entire arrangement.Disbelief.Outrage.A flash of that defiance I was beginning to crave.“That’s ridiculous.I can feed myself.”
“You can.”I picked up a piece of bread, tore off a small piece, held it to her lips.“But tonight, you won’t.”
“I’m not a child.”
“You’re not.”I pressed the bread against her mouth.“You’re mine.And tonight I choose to feed you.Open.”
She stared at me with something that might have been hatred.Then, slowly, her lips parted.
I placed the bread on her tongue.Watched her chew.Swallow.
Provide,the wolf murmured.Care for her.Feed our mate.Ours.
I fed her in silence.Small bites of bread, then vegetables roasted with herbs from the garden, then tender slices of beef that melted on the tongue.She resisted at first, her jaw tight with humiliation, but gradually she relaxed.Accepted each morsel from my fingers without protest.
The intimacy of it surprised me.I hadn’t expected to enjoy this so much, the simple act of putting food in her mouth, watching her lips close around my fingertips.The brush of her tongue against my skin when she took a bite.The soft sounds she made when something pleased her.
Halfway through the meal, I poured her a glass of whisky.
“Try this.”
She took a sip and coughed, her eyes watering.“That’s strong.”
“Islay single malt.Aged twenty-five years.It’s an acquired taste.”I pressed the glass back to her lips.“Again.”
She drank.Coughed less this time.By the third sip, she was nodding.
“It’s… smoky.Like a campfire.I think I like it.”
I should have stopped her after one glass.She was small, clearly not a drinker, and whisky on a nervous stomach was a recipe for disaster.A good captor would have cut her off, kept her clearheaded, maintained the power dynamic I’d worked so hard to establish.
I didn’t stop her.I poured more.Watched her drink.Watched her cheeks flush pink and her shoulders loosen and the tension slowly drain from her body like water from a cracked vessel.
Something in me wanted to see her relaxed.Wanted to see her without the fear and the guard and the desperate bravery.The wolf wanted to see what she was like underneath all of that, and for once I didn’t argue with him.
By the second glass, she was laughing at something I’d said.I don’t even remember what.Something meaningless about the wine cellar or the garden.But the sound of her laugh, bright and genuine, did something strange to my chest.Made something unwind in there that had been tight for years.
By the third glass, she was on my lap.
I don’t remember how it happened.One moment she was in her chair, leaning toward me as she spoke, gesturing with hands gone loose and graceful from the alcohol.The next she’d lost her balance reaching for her glass and grabbed my arm to steady herself, and somehow that had turned into her sliding onto my thigh, and somehow I’d let her stay there.
