by Loki Renard
“I’d say so,” the doctor nodded, pushing the large sweater up over Hannah’s midsection to examine her more closely. “There’s already bruising, but I don’t see any signs of internal bleeding. If she starts to lose consciousness, or if you have any concerns at all, the hospital is the best idea.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital,” Hannah said firmly. She did not particularly care for medical institutions, they freaked her out. Even more than her current circumstances, which was saying a lot. Past experiences had taught her that a pack of werewolves was probably safer and kinder than the average doctor or overworked nurse.
“It shouldn’t be necessary, though it would be a worthwhile precaution.” The doctor addressed his comment more to Lorcan than to her. “Of course, there are… potential issues with that if she happens to share your… condition.”
The doctor knew. That was interesting. Hannah wondered just how many people knew about Lorcan’s pack. Or perhaps the doctor was part of it?
“Are you a werewolf too?” She asked the question directly, figuring that was the only way to find out.
“No, my dear,” the doctor said in vaguely condescending tones. “I’m a fire engine.” He shook his head at her. “You’ve had quite a bump on the head, haven’t you.”
“It’s alright, Doctor Doncaster, she knows.”
White brows rose ceiling-ward. “She knows? And you want me to put her back together?”
“You’re an asshole, doc,” Hannah chimed in.
“Not so, young lady,” the doctor replied with more than an air of disapproval at her choice of language. “My family has been serving this pack for centuries. It’s not often they ask us to aid a human to survive the revelation.”
“This one is precious to me,” Lorcan said. “And I suspect she shares our blood. Please, make her comfortable.”
“Make me comfortable better not be another term for getting rid of me,” Hannah muttered. She hissed and squirmed as the doctor’s fingers passed over her ribs a second time.
“It really does feel like a hairline fracture,” he said. “I would not expect her to be in any danger unless she sustains more injury to the same area.”
“That will not happen,” Lorcan said with a flat determination that made Hannah feel sorry for anyone who so much as looked at her sideways. In spite of the shock of what she had seen and the pain she was in, it was nice to feel so very cared about and protected.
Lorcan watched over her while the doctor drew a dose of some painkiller and asked her to roll over onto her good side. She did so extremely reluctantly, a blush appearing on both sets of cheeks as the doctor tugged the back of her pants down, baring her buttocks.
She felt the prick of the needle and within seconds, a pleasant warmth was spreading through her body, taking the pain away and leaving only a lovely floating feeling.
“They’re all puppies,” she said happily. “Fluffy little puppies.”
Lorcan’s deep chuckle floated with her into a much-needed slumber.
Chapter Eight
Incarcerated in the cell beneath the manor, Sacha was not well pleased. It was a fairly large enclosure, but it was an enclosure nonetheless. She was trapped away from the night and the moon and the world at large. The human bitch had been taken into the fold and she had been locked away like some worthless whelp. All because Lorcan wanted to get his cock wet. Unforgivable.
She had often fantasized about locking Lorcan in the cell she now found herself imprisoned in and assuming control of the pack, so there was a certain irony to her predicament. However, Sacha was not the sort of woman who put a great deal of stock in irony. She was furious, and already planning her revenge on both Lorcan and his little American whore.
The door to the basement opened and two men came down the stairs. She recognized them from their scent—Mark and Lawrence, twins in their mid-forties, Lorcan’s customary enforcers thanks to their bulk and build. They were tall, powerful men with dark beards, slightly graying at their temples. Sacha had never quite understood why they had not challenged Lorcan; after all, he was but a whelp to them. Somehow his force of personality had satisfied their need for an alpha.
Unfortunately for her, they were both brawny and determined, and they took their duties seriously, which did not bode well for her considering one held a cane and the other a thick leather paddle. Mark unlocked the cell door and let Lawrence step inside first before following and relocking the door behind him. They moved carefully, their eyes never leaving her still form as she sat on the thin lumpy mattress that passed for bedding.
“What are you curs doing?” Sacha spat the words at them before they dared take a further step toward her. “You should be crawling on your bellies.”
“Lorcan has asked us to deal with you,” Mark said. “Take it easy now, Sacha. You know you have this coming.”
“Licking Lorcan’s arse,” Sacha said contemptuously. “Doing his bidding without thought.”
“He is our alpha. You challenged him. That usually means death. This is mercy.”
Simple logic for simple men. Sacha loathed them completely.
“I was born as much an alpha as he. If you so much as touch me, you’ll be asking Lorcan for new limbs,” Sacha growled, bristling with pure fury. “How dare you approach me this way. I have always outranked you. You are nothing compared to me.”
Mark and Lawrence looked at one another, she hoped with some measure of trepidation. The notion of laying hands on the female alpha would surely run counter to their instincts. With any luck she could talk them out of their task with nothing but scathing words and send them running back to Lorcan, tails between their legs.
Mark pulled what looked like a wooden sawhorse to the middle of the floor. There were cuffs attached to the bottom legs of the contraption, an archaic piece of equipment used to chastise servants in the distant past. Seeing it pulled before her gave Sacha no small measure of concern.
“I will tear your bellies open and eat your entrails while you still live,” she promised viciously.
Lawrence shook his head at her. “It’s just the two of us right now, Sacha,” he said. “If we need help, we can call the entire pack to witness this. Is that really what you want?”
So they sought to control her with the promise of humiliation. The fire in her belly wanted to call down the pack. She would fight each of them and leave them bloody. But her mind was calmer. This would be no small punishment to bear, but if she bided her time she would have her vengeance on every single one of them.
“Very well, boys,” she said, standing up in one smooth liquid motion. Her hand went to the zipper of the sweater she wore, pulling it down in one motion to reveal the pale lines of her body. “If I’ve been naughty, you’ll have to punish me,” she purred in boldly seductive tones.
Both men colored at the sight of her, but neither one of them averted their eyes. She could feel the hunger of their gazes on her hips and her breasts and her bottom and the dark little ‘V’ of hair that led to the chalice between her thighs.
“Over the horse, please,” Mark said.
She gave him a smirking smile and put herself into position with grace, bending at the hips so her rear was raised for their implements. If she was to be beaten, she may as well enjoy it.
Sacha sensed their hesitation. Her cooperation was more terrifying than her threats had been. For a moment, nothing happened. Then she felt the cane lightly lying across her buttocks. It drew away for a second then returned with a solid swat.
She let out a laugh as a light burning sensation spread across her skin. So much for punishment. It was so gentle as to be almost pleasant. The second stroke of the cane was not much harder, though it was placed with impressive precision about half an inch below the first stroke. Perhaps Mark was not losing his nerve as much as she thought. Interesting.
Neither of the men spoke; what was there to say? Lorcan would probably have lectured her to infinity, but Mark a
nd Lawrence were nothing but instruments of his will, expending their punitive energies on her naked body.
Six strokes of the cane landed within two minutes, fast, but not particularly hard. Mark stepped back and it was Lawrence’s turn to use his implement. There was no mistaking it, the paddle caressed her bottom before landing with a hard stinging swat.
“Trying to be a good boy, Lawrence?” she said archly. “Doing your best to punish me for being a bad girl?”
She lifted her hips higher and let her buttocks sway seductively before him. Behind her, Lawrence let out a growl. They were all getting excited—Mark, Lawrence, and Sacha too. Two men and one naked woman; what was Lorcan thinking?
She smirked as she realized Lorcan was distracted in much the same way his henchmen were.
As Lawrence took his turn on her flesh, Sacha arched her ass and welcomed each stroke, feeling her clit tingle and her pussy lips flower with every lash. Her loins were tight, her thighs shaking with the tautness of her muscles. And then she felt hands on her thighs, two sets of fingers traveling up toward her cunt.
They were weak men, and the sight of her arousal was too much for them to bear. Sacha let out a purr of pleasure as Mark and Lawrence began to caress her body, first gently and almost timidly, then with greater need. Their palms and fingers ran over her hot bottom, between her thighs, grazed her pussy lips and slid down her back and around her chest to cup her breasts. She could hear their breath coming more heavily, smell the musk of their arousal as they lost what little control they had and freed their cocks.
One slid up the length of her pussy, massaging her soaking slit. The other was pressed to her mouth, a hand in her hair as the hard rod pushed between her lips at the same time the one at her rear pressed into her cunt.
Filled in a most satisfying fashion, Sacha abandoned herself to pure animal pleasure. Her inner walls squeezed the cock thrusting inside her even as her mouth wrapped eagerly around the thick manhood presented to her hungry lips.
They fucked her roughly, her body caught between two raging virile beasts who wanted nothing more than to spill their seed inside her. Sacha arched and moaned and writhed between them, taking pleasure in the rough play and in the heat and ache in her rear. Lorcan was a fool if he thought she could be subdued by physical punishment. No. She thrived on it. All he had done by trying to humiliate her was make her stronger.
Neither man lasted long. It was too forbidden an act to be fucking the female alpha. It was too delicious to sink themselves in her tight, hot wet little holes and take their pleasure with grunted thrusts, cocks swelling larger as their orgasms approached.
She had been at their mercy, but now they were at hers, caught on the verge of climax, their bodies merged with hers inextricably until that moment of supreme pleasure. There was no beast or man or deity who could possibly have stopped the two musclebound men from inseminating her willing flesh.
As Sacha began to tremble with her own peak derived from rough thrusts, pure animal lust, and the thrill of feminine control, twin jets of cum began to spurt inside her. She claimed them at both ends, taking their seed deep within her as a form of power. Sacha could feel their power draining as their semen filled her pussy and her belly, their resolve weakening as Mark and Lawrence became bonded to her in a way they could never be bonded to Lorcan.
Their touch became soft and reverent, their hands caressing her naked skin with a gentle touch, taking her from her lowly position over the punishment horse to lift her up and press their lips to her mouth and her neck and her cheeks.
“Now,” she said, smiling down at the sated man whose cum was sliding slowly down the inside of her thigh. “About getting me a key…”
Chapter Nine
A gray grimy day found Hannah sitting on one of the many balconies of the manor with a hot cup of tea and fresh buttered toast sitting in front of her. As far as she could tell, that was the staple diet for pretty much everyone in the manor—though she suspected they probably supplemented their diets with wild caught game from time to time. Lorcan was by her side. He had not left her for a moment since the incident in the garden. He was yet to answer any of the myriad questions she had buzzing about in her head, about how a pack of werewolves came to not only exist, but live in the English wilds with apparent impunity. There were more pressing things to discuss, he said, and now she was mostly recovered from her ordeal, he wanted to discuss them.
He was handsome underneath that gray sky, wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket that fit his broad frame perfectly. They had not made love again, but she could feel a familiar stirring in her loins, a desire amplified by the sense she had that she was in trouble of the hot kind.
“You were directly disobedient,” Lorcan said, his long dark hair framing his face in dramatic fashion. He was so handsome she could almost completely tune out what he was saying in favor of gazing at his rakish features. She hoped he’d mistake her gazing for rapt attention.
“Hannah,” he repeated. “Are you listening?”
“Of course I’m listening,” she said. “I’ve been a very bad girl and that’s how I got hurt.” She gave him an arch smile, which was not met with one in return.
“This is a serious matter,” Lorcan said firmly.
“Are you angrier at me or at Sacha?”
“I’m angry at the pair of you,” Lorcan said. “I gave you clear instructions for your own safety, which you ignored. And Sacha…” He trailed off as his expression grew darker.
“What are you going to do to her? What have you already done?” The questions were a good way to get the attention off her, and she was also genuinely curious.
“What am I going to do to you is the question you should be worrying about,” he drawled, his eyes flashing at her. “You have made a grave error, Hannah, and I am sorry to say it, but your life cannot be the same as it once was.”
He spoke with a somber formality that sent a tremor of concern through Hannah. She had been in trouble with him before, but this was not like when she had gotten too drunk and made a fool of herself. He was not speaking from a disciplinary perspective. What he was saying was much more serious than that. She could feel the weight of his sorrow at speaking those words, and though she did not understand them, she felt sorrow too.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you can no longer be permitted to leave Darkwood,” he said. “You have seen too much. What you have seen is not meant for the eyes of man.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone werewolves live here. It’s not as if they’d believe me anyway. Saying things like that is a one-way ticket to a straitjacket. Besides, what do you mean, I cannot be permitted to leave? It’s a house, Lorcan, not a prison. Anyone can leave just by walking out the front door.”
“It can be both,” he said. “And I am sorry to say that you are not the first of your bloodline to be held captive here. Honoraria once occupied the same fortified rooms that Sacha now does. If it becomes necessary, so will you.”
“She… Honoraria…” Hannah narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s what happened to her? All her adventures, all her travels, and she ended up living in your basement her whole life?”
“Not her whole life,” Lorcan said. “She saw sense, as I hope you will. The sooner we can trust you, the sooner you can have some amount of freedom, but as of now, we cannot permit you to leave the manor. If you were to tell anyone about us, our safety would be compromised. I cannot allow that. This pack has existed for thousands of years. We are few in number, but I will not see us die out simply because I cannot bear to do what I know I must.”
“So I have to suffer for everyone else,” she said bitterly. “Because my life doesn’t matter.”
“Your life matters,” he said. “And you will live it here, with us, as your ancestor once did. Perhaps, in some strange way this is the manifestation of a greater destiny. It may be you were always meant to live with us.”
His words might have affected
a less defiant and independent woman, but Hannah was not buying them, not even a little bit. She was enjoying unraveling the mysteries of Darkwood, but she had no intention whatsoever of spending her entire life there. It was dull and dreary and there was absolutely nothing to do. The little village didn’t even have a movie theater—or a Wi-Fi signal. Being in Darkwood was like going back in time a hundred years. Fun for a weekend, but not the sort of place anyone would want to live.
“I’m going home,” she said defiantly. “It’s not my fault you’re a pack of furry weirdos.”
“You cannot leave, Hannah,” Lorcan said firmly, speaking as if he had the authority to detain her. “What you have discovered we cannot allow to become common knowledge.”
She sat back and stared at him with outraged eyes. “You’re actually going to take me prisoner, Lorcan? Is that what you’re going to do?”
“It would be easier if you didn’t think of it that way.”
“Easier for who, Lorcan?”
He reached out and took her hand in his, making a connection with the warmth of his palms against her own cold, trembling hand. She looked into his golden amber gaze and saw some kind of attempt at kindness in spite of the circumstances. “You came here for a reason, Hannah. You belong here, and I think you know that.”
“I came here on vacation, scumbag.”
His brows dipped as his patience waned. “That’s enough of your attitude, whelp. You came here looking for trouble and you found it. Don’t complain now that you’re in deeper than you intended, that’s how trouble tends to work.”
“Lorcan, I have to go home. My parents will worry. My visa will run out. I’ll be an over-stayer. They’ll look for me, you know.”
“And they won’t find you,” Lorcan said firmly. “I know this isn’t fair, Hannah, but it’s essential for the survival of the pack.”
“But I already promised I wouldn’t tell anyone!”