“We need to go and find out what’s out there,” he said, his voice devoid of enthusiasm.
Sten arched a brow. “You’re coming with us? Don’t you want to stay here with Astrid?”
It was obvious to any wolf that smelled him that he was in the midst of the thrall, and even as Sten asked the question Erik’s wolf howled in protest. Of course he wanted to stay.
“I’m not sending another scout party out to die,” Erik said, the words cutting his mouth like glass. “I’ll go and see this bear clan for myself. Sylvestre, you’ll come with me.”
Unlike the others, they could handle themselves in a fight against bears, even being slightly outnumbered. Instinct also told Erik that he did not want to leave Sylvestre in the den while he was gone, not while his mate was in heat.
His skin prickled with desire as he thought of her once again. He didn’t know precisely how the mating thrall worked, only that it typically lasted several days to a week. Would one day of mating be sufficient to give her a pup, or was he forfeiting the opportunity? It would be another month before the next thrall, and on a certain level he was fine with that, as he had only just grown accustomed to the idea of having a pup. However, his wolf was not fine with that at all.
“Erik?”
He glanced at Sten, who appeared concerned. “What?”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go instead?”
He did, and for the first time, Erik resented his brother for not being more capable. Sten could fight, but he was no fighter, just as he could lead, but he was not a leader. It wasn’t entirely Sten’s fault. He had never needed to be better, not while living under Erik’s shadow.
“I need you here,” Erik said. “Sabine has proven herself unreliable yet again and I need someone in charge that I trust not to touch my mate.”
Sten nodded, though his eyes were on Atka. They watched as his body gave one final shudder before becoming limp and lifeless. It had been some time since they had lost one of their own, and Erik knew that if he didn’t devise a strategy for dealing with the bears, Atka would be the first of many.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I look like a princess,” Ila whispered, her jaw hanging open.
“I’d say a queen,” Astrid said, amazed at her own brilliance.
The blue maxi dress that Ila wore was loosely based on the one worn by Elsa of Arendelle. The sparkly fabric had been too perfect to pass up and Astrid had figured that if she was going to make a dress for someone as obnoxious as Ila, she might as well have fun with it.
To distract Ila from her tantrum, Astrid had shown her the dress she’d been working on. Ila had subsequently rushed back to her room to try it on, and had spent an inordinate amount of time posing in front of her mirror.
Astrid said, “I still have to take it in a bit on the sides, so stay still, your majesty.”
“Hm, I like that. You can call me that from now on.”
She looked at Astrid and smirked. It was the first sign that she had a sense of humor and wasn’t just an airheaded dingbat. Astrid grinned and shook her head.
Ila resumed regarding herself in the mirror. “Will you make dresses for all of my friends?”
Astrid’s knee-jerk reaction was to say “hell no” but before she did, she had another flash of inspiration.
“How many dresses are we talking about?” she asked.
Ila tapped her fingers on her chin. “Five, I suppose.”
“I think I can make that happen.”
She was smiling ear to ear at the thought of filling the den with Disney princesses. It was the kind of ridiculous and time-consuming project she’d never have been able to do back home. Aside from the occasional business trip, her professional life had existed inside of a soul-crushing cubicle. By the time she came home from work, her mental bandwidth was so strapped that she couldn’t think of doing much more than collapsing on the couch and falling asleep to whatever was on primetime television.
Astrid recognized that one of the reasons she seemed to be going from one existential crisis to the next was that she’d never spent so much time alone in her own head before. Between work, television, and spending every free moment of her life with her nose stuck in her smartphone, she was woefully out of touch with who she was and what she wanted out of her life.
“What’s it like?” Ila asked, staring at Astrid through the mirror. “The mating thrall, what does it feel like?”
Astrid was focused on threading a needle. “I’m actively trying not to think about it.”
On their way to grab the dress, she had begun to feel lightheaded and out of sorts. By the time they’d arrived back at Ila’s room, she’d felt feverish and she’d assumed that the cold had caught up with her, until her nether regions had begun throbbing something fierce.
“I feel like absolute shit,” Astrid admitted. “At first I thought I was sick, but as soon as Erik and I were together, I felt I could conquer the world. And now that he’s gone, I feel hollow and nauseous and just…not right.”
Ila appeared pensive. “That doesn’t sound as enjoyable as I thought.”
After a few more adjustments, the dress was complete. Astrid stood back to admire her handiwork while Ila began applying her makeup. It had been a long time since she’d felt such a strong sense of accomplishment and for a few moments she forgot how awful she felt.
After applying a coat of mascara, Ila looked over in Astrid’s direction and smiled. Astrid was puzzled until she realized that Ila was looking behind her. She turned just in time to see Erik appear in the doorway. He was wearing a different pelt, a heavy black one that tied at his shoulder. His icy eyes instantly locked with hers and she felt her pulse accelerate.
“Do you like my dress?” Ila asked as she inserted herself between them.
“Lovely.” Erik waved a hand towards the passageway. “Why don’t you go show it off? I need to speak to Astrid alone.”
Ila pouted a little, but went without protest, leaving Erik and Astrid alone. Astrid took note of his neatly arrayed locks of black hair and clean fingernails.
“Please tell me you did not take a bath without me,” she grumbled.
Erik cleared the distance between them. She didn’t feel the least bit indignant as he backed her up against Ila’s vanity and drew her legs up to bracket his hips. He didn’t look to her for any confirmation before burying himself inside of her and he didn’t need to. When he was fully inside of her, they both groaned and held still, relishing in the feel of being connected again.
Hooking his hands under her thighs, he carried her over to the bed. They fell onto it together, and began frantically exploring one another’s bodies. It felt as though they’d been apart for ages rather than a couple of hours. She should have been disgusted that he was fucking her on Ila’s bed, but it actually gave her a perverse thrill and a very primitive sense of satisfaction, neither of which she cared to examine.
Erik took her almost as hard as he had the first time that morning, only this time she could tell he wasn’t entirely lost in the grip of the thrall. His hands were everywhere and he seemed to be memorizing every dip and curve of her body. He made her look into his eyes as they both came, and it was one of the most unnerving and exhilarating experiences of her life.
After a few moments of quiet repose, Astrid was ready to go again. To her disappointment, Erik pulled out and rolled over to lie beside her.
“I did,” Erik said, his voice cutting through the ambient sound of her panting breath.
“Huh?”
“You asked if I took a bath. I did.”
Her lips formed an O and she didn’t complain. She had wanted a bath pretty badly, but she was more miffed that he hadn’t come straight back to her when he was done doing…whatever it was he’d been doing.
Astrid stretched out, the joints in her back popping pleasantly. Exhaustion began creeping up on her, and if it had been her own room, she may have been inclined to take a nap.
“I forgot how nice it is t
o be in a real bed,” she said, absently plucking at the silk sheets.
“I will get one for you.”
“A bed?”
Astrid cast him a quizzical look, only to find him staring at her in a way that set off alarm bells in her head. He looked satisfied and content, and there was a small smile on his sensual lips that was completely without guile. Until that moment, she hadn’t known he could be any more attractive than he already was.
“Where are you going to get a bed?”
“That is not your concern, human.”
Astrid could tell that she was teasing and may have taken the bait if she weren’t so tired. She sat up, snagging his pelt and wrapping it around her shoulders. She paused briefly to savor being enveloped in his husky scent.
“Let’s go back to your room,” she said. “As much as I love this bed, I don’t want Ila to come back and see that we violated it.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He languidly removed himself from the bed. “She’ll smell it.”
Astrid sucked in a breath and then let out a low whine, her cheeks burning. “Shit, shit, shit! I forgot all about that. What do we do? Should we take off the sheets?”
She tried gathering up the covers in her arms, but Erik took them from her and tossed them back onto the bed.
“You’re wasting your time. The whole room smells like us.”
Astrid sat down on the side of the bed, her shoulders slumping. She tried to think of how she was going to explain herself to Ila, but the best she could come up with was “sorry, we had that threesome without you.”
Erik ran a hand through her hair, somehow managing to avoid the mess of tangles.
“I’m leaving for a few days.”
Her insides twisted and churned unpleasantly, her chest in particular feeling painfully constricted. A voice in her head shouted, “don’t go!” but her actual response was cool and brusque.
“Okay.”
What else could she say? She wasn’t about to beg him to stay with her, even with the mating thrall to use as an excuse.
“Before we left for Siluit, I sent two of my wolves to patrol the southern border and look for signs of where the bear clans were coming from. Both were killed.”
She hadn’t expected him to explain himself, and it took the sting out of his announcement.
“I’m so sorry. Were they friends of yours?”
Erik shook his head. “They were pack, that is all that matters. I need to go south to find out for myself what we’re up against.”
“It sounds dangerous,” she said, frowning. “Can’t you delegate that?”
“I already did,” he pointed out. He gently lifted his pelt from around her shoulders and then secured it over his own. “I won’t be gone more than a week. If you don’t conceive, I will make sure there are no interruptions next time.”
“I’m not worried about that,” she said, giving him a weak smile. “I’m worried about you. And myself, now that I think about it. What will happen to me if you don’t come back?”
“Don’t concern yourself with that,” he said dismissively. “Nothing will happen to me.”
Astrid stood, scowling at him. “You can’t tell me not to concern myself with that. I need to know that if something happens to you, someone here will make sure that I’m able to get home.”
“No one is taking you anywhere. This is your home. You belong to me.”
She glared right back at him. “That’s not good enough. I’m a person, not an object, and I deserve some sort of contingency plan.”
Erik was already walking away, and she’d had enough of that. Astrid grabbed the first thing she could find, a silver hairbrush that had fallen off the vanity. Reeling her arm back, she chucked it as hard as she could. It made a satisfying sound as it bounced off the top of Erik’s skull.
The alpha whipped around, and before she had time to rethink her actions, he had her pinned against the wall. His clawed hand pressed down on her clavicle with controlled force, as though he knew just how much pressure to apply before the bone snapped.
“Do not strike me again.”
She matched his glare. “Or what?”
Neither backed down, and Astrid was beginning to think she would win by default. Either that, or he would seriously hurt her, and in doing so he would finally give her a reason to hate him.
Erik leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her lips.
It was so beyond the realm of what she could have anticipated that Astrid could only stand in stunned silence as she watched him leave.
CHAPTER SIX
The following morning, everything caught up with Astrid. The night in the snowstorm, the frenzied mating, and her roiling emotions all collided into her at once, leaving her a husk of her former self. She lay on her pallet of furs and stared up at the ceiling, her mind too full to think about any one thing.
It was Noona who finally helped her to snap out of her funk. The chipper husky entered her room and came prancing up to her with an excited whine, acting as though she hadn’t been MIA for days. She licked her master’s face until Astrid couldn’t help but smile and pat her head.
“Good to see you, goofball.”
With considerable effort, she managed to push herself up. She fished around in her bag, pulling out a makeup compact. She set the powder puff aside and angled the mirror, taking stock of her appearance.
She looked horrible.
Ragged face notwithstanding, her neck was a mess of bite marks and hickies—when had he given her a hicky? There were claw marks on her shoulders and everything below that was mottled with dark bruises. She imagined that an outsider might have thought she’d been horribly abused. They would have never guessed that beneath her round baby face was a sexually deviant masochist.
Entering damage-control mode, she decided to work on the one thing she could fix. She started the painstakingly slow task of detangling her hair, using the silver brush she’d pilfered from Ila’s room. It was probably insult to injury after she’d slept with Erik in her bed, but seeing as how Ila had stolen her mascara and lipstick, Astrid figured they were close to even.
Brushing her hair into soft, fluffy waves ended up doing little to help make her feel better. She no longer felt entirely hollow, but she now felt a nagging arousal that was intensifying by the minute. More than once, she considered crawling back beneath her bed furs and taking matters into her own hands, but Noona was watching her and it felt too weird.
The sound of booted feet on the stone floor alerted Astrid to Sabine’s entrance. She turned around and smiled reflexively, before remembering how Sabine had ditched her the night before last. It felt like a thousand years ago, and she had to force herself to still be upset about it.
Sabine held up a hand. “Before you say anything, I need to apologize. I shouldn’t have left you out there like that. I was overzealous and it made me inconsiderate. It wasn’t my intent to put you in danger.”
Astrid felt a rush of relief. She had so much else to deal with, the last thing she’d wanted was to have to hold a grudge against Sabine.
“Take me for a bath and all will be forgiven.”
Noona weaved between them as they headed out into the passageway. It was dark, but Astrid didn’t need to hold onto Sabine or the wall. She’d grown accustomed to listening to the sound of her footsteps and the way they echoed off the walls, using the sounds to help position herself.
“How have you been?” Sabine asked.
There was no guile in her voice, but Astrid knew what she was referring to and she felt guilty. Not long after they’d met, she and Sabine had commiserated over their infertility.
Unsure what to say, she decided to skirt the issue. “It’s been a crazy couple of days.”
“You will feel better in a day or two,” Sabine said. “It ends more quickly when you are apart from your mate.”
“You know about the thrall?” Astrid asked. Even Erik hadn’t seemed to know much about it. Either that, or he hadn’t cared to explain
it to her.
“Of course. My mother was the mate of an alpha—that’s not as common as you may think, by the way. Most wolf shifters are the byproduct of rouge males.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Take Beau, for example. His mother met a handsome stranger in a bar in Trois-Rivières. They had a one-night fling; she didn’t even know his name. Ten months later, she goes in to get her baby up from his nap and there’s a little diapered wolf pup in his crib!”
Sabine ended the story with laughter, but Astrid had trouble finding the humor in it. She felt awful for Beau’s poor mother, already coping with being a single parent, and then suddenly finding out that her child was a shifter.
“But my father, he was an alpha,” Sabine continued. “And my mother was his mate. My parents went through the thrall every year and there were always new pups. I was the oldest and I helped my mother to raise many of my brothers and sisters. Did you know that Sylvestre is my little brother?”
Astrid’s brows rose. “No, I didn’t. You guys don’t look anything alike.”
“I have my mother’s looks, he has our father’s.”
Pale blue light appeared up ahead, and Astrid could hear the sound of trickling water. She didn’t recognize the passageway they were in, but she usually went to the spring from Erik’s room and not her own.
“Did your mother ever, um, not get pregnant during the thrall?”
“I suppose once or twice, but it usually happened the following month. Why? Are you concerned that it will not take this time?”
“No,” Astrid said quickly. “I know that I can’t get pregnant, but Erik seems so sure that I will and it’s screwing with my head. I don’t know what to think.”
Enslaved by the Alpha: Part Five Page 3