by Alanna Lynd
His cock throbbed hotly in his trousers, echoing the frantic thunder of his pulse.
“I have not seen you so careless before.” Louvel's thumb rubbed along the small cut once more.
Alard's lips parted for a voiceless moan, and Louvel used that chance and slipped his finger into his mouth. Wide-eyed, dazed, Alard stared at him. Louvel's grip on his collar was still tight; now it tightened even more as the man's finger pressed lightly down onto his tongue.
“Have you been avoiding me, Alard? Is that it? Have you been thinking of playing another game with me?”
Another finger joined the one in his mouth. Cheeks flushed, Alard stared at Louvel, unable to speak.
“Was it not you who begged me to end the games?” Louvel demanded, his eyes the color of an approaching storm.
When Alard did not speak, he smiled at last. His fingers curled in Alard's mouth, then he withdrew them, a string of saliva glistening on them.
Alard found that he was gasping softly. The collar was still constricting his ability to breathe. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg. What for, he could not say.
Perhaps for Louvel to make him beg.
Louvel released the collar at last. “Very well. You have been disobedient.”
Alard drew in a gasping breath, cheeks flushed, his trousers damp with the fluid already leaking from his excited prick. Slowly, Louvel reached for his trousers. He unbuckled Alard's belt, and then drew it out of the loops with deliberation, only to set it aside on the table.
Alard could feel his heart race at the gesture. Did Louvel mean to...
“Drop your trousers,” Louvel commanded.
Alard forced back the whine that wanted to rise in his throat. His hands shook slightly as he obeyed. He could not help but remember all of a sudden Louvel as he had been then, years ago: snarling at him from behind bars, eyes filled with helpless hate.
They'd locked him away for who he was: for the beast that slumbered in his blood and which could be woken at a thought. And Alard, who had that same curse of the wolf rushing through his veins, had dedicated himself to a life as a jailer and hunter of his own kind.
Had Louvel thought of revenge when they captured him? Had he thought of revenge when he snarled at Alard from behind bars?
Heat made Alard's cock throb with need, even as he tried to remember all the times Louvel could have taken his revenge and chose to spare him instead.
With his trousers around his knees, Alard waited, eyes lowered and breath coming fast. He was unmistakably aroused; he had to clench his hands by his side to resist the temptation to touch himself—or to reach out for Louvel.
Instead, Louvel's strong hand touched the small of his back. Then, it pushed him forward, hard and relentless. A groan escaped Alard as he found himself roughly bent over his superior's desk.
“Do you think you deserve a reprimand, Alard?” Louvel asked, taking hold of Alard's belt once more.
Alard drew in a shaking breath. His fingers skidded against the smooth surface of the desk. His swollen cock was uncomfortably squashed against the wood, and he shifted a little until he found a more comfortable position.
“You should punish me, monsieur,” he muttered, aroused and humiliated by how badly he wanted it.
Louvel's knees nudged his legs further apart. Alard's breath caught in his throat at how fully exposed he felt. His balls pulsed, heavy and defenseless. His cock ached as he imagined Louvel's gaze there, eyeing him so sternly, taking in his exposed hole that would yield to his alpha's desires without protest, as Alard had yielded before.
“Should I punish you for your carelessness, do you think?” Louvel asked, his voice low and dark.
Alard exhaled a groan when a finger stroked over his vulnerable balls.
“Or should I punish you for trying to continue this game neither of us wants? Or maybe,” Louvel then mused, “maybe I should punish you for wanting to be punished.”
Alard drew in a shocked breath, even as Louvel's hand closed around his balls, firmly squeezing the vulnerable, swollen globes until Alard tensed and whined again.
“I... I do not know what you mean, monsieur,” he gasped at last.
“No?” Louvel asked softly. “You want to feel the belt, don't you? Is that what you imagine? Or is it something different? My hand? The cruelty of the lash?”
Alard shivered, his balls trying to draw up, though Louvel's firm grasp prevented it.
“Whatever you decide on, monsieur,” he muttered.
Louvel snorted. “Let us not pretend that this is what I want. Look at you... leaking at the mere thought of what I could do to you.”
Louvel's finger brushed the sensitive tip of Alard's cock, gathering up the slickness that had escaped the small slit, and then smoothed it around the head while Alard bit back a shocked gasp.
“It is not about what I want,” Alard argued, even though everything within him was taut with need and he could barely keep from thrusting into Louvel's grasp. “It is about what is needful. And I agree that I deserve that reprimand.”
Louvel chuckled softly at his words. “Your behavior was rather untoward. What a disgraceful display, and that in public too, and with an audience! I would not have expected it of you; not after those years of obedient service.”
Shame rushed to Alard's face, churned in his stomach. He could still barely believe it himself.
“I cannot... I have no apology I can offer,” he said stiffly. “Save that I know the reprimand is deserved, and that I will bear it.”
Slowly, Louvel's hand tightened around his balls. Alard panted, aching and aroused and terrified by how much he truly wanted it: this former prisoner whom he'd loathed and called beast, and who now owned him body and soul.
Louvel had reason to want to reprimand him. And not only for Alard's unseemly behavior. If Louvel wanted, he could punish him for the many years Alard had helped to keep him chained up. Louvel should want that!
Alard's breath fogged the surface of the desk. He allowed his thighs to part further, offering himself up to whatever punishment might await him.
“What do you want more, I wonder. For me to fuck you, or for me to use your own belt on you?” Louvel murmured.
Alard nearly whimpered, everything inside him aching with need. One of Louvel's fingers lightly circled his hole, then spread him apart.
“Is this what you want?” Louvel's finger touched ever so lightly.
Alard's muscles trembled, his thighs tensing, anticipating the penetration that didn't come.
“No,” he lied. He could not even say why he didn't admit the truth.
After all, he had been the one to demand that they would cease the old game of hide and seek, of hunter and hunted. But now that the old game had been left behind—what was left?
Alard ached to be used, to have an end of all the doubt and questions. His parents had been cruel animals, serving an even crueler alpha—the famed beast of Gévaudan who had terrorized an entire region. Afterwards, Alard had dedicated his life to the hunting of werewolves. He'd thought them all mad, deranged beasts.
The idea of a healthy pack, of others like him who wanted to protect society, had been unthinkable. He had never even dared to dream of such a thing.
Was it so strange then that now that his dream had come true, he had no idea of how to behave?
He'd surrendered to his alpha. He'd do it again, gladly. But what came after surrender? Louvel would not beat him into submission—but that was the way of the alphas Alard had known.
How did a wolf behave who admired the alpha he had surrendered to? How did one show respect, worship... love?
A shocked breath escaped Alard at the thought. Quickly, he shoved that word love back into the deepest corners of his heart. Suddenly he was terrified, so restless and ashamed that his skin was itching for movement, for fight—anything but this quiet torment beneath his alpha's gentle hands.
“What do you want then?” Louvel asked, his finger trailing ever so slightly downwards.<
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His other hand was still tight around Alard's balls, and Alard concentrated on the ache of his sensitive testes. The pain was better. The pain was much better than these tormenting thoughts he couldn't escape.
“The belt,” he finally said, a little sullen.
God, Louvel was hopeless. Every other alpha would have made use of him by now, would have punished him for his subordination, taken roughly what Alard had dared deny him. It would have been his right. It would have been right.
“You should punish me,” Alard continued. “If you're alpha enough for that.”
Where had these cruel words come from? Alard was still lost, helpless, like a ship without sails adrift in a storm. He wanted Louvel inside him, that thick cock filling and claiming him. He wanted the ecstasy of his alpha's bite. He wanted to give his own surrender as the only gift he knew how to give.
Louvel exhaled a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was still quiet; there was no anger in it, only a hint of weariness.
“Goading me won't help you. But very well. Since you asked for it... And since that was quite a shocking display earlier. You've been disrespectful. These have been disrespectful.”
He gave his balls another hard squeeze so that Alard gasped softly, his cock achingly hard despite the punishing pressure.
“Keep your legs spread,” Louvel said, his voice dark and throaty.
Alard remembered their first meeting, Louvel still behind bars in the werewolf cells of Brest. Louvel's eyes had been hard, dark with rage and hatred. He had snarled at Alard.
Had he thought then of having Alard at his mercy like this?
“This is for you, not for me,” Louvel added, as though he had read his thoughts.
When the belt came down for the first time, it laid a dull stripe of pain over Alard's buttocks—and then a bite of pure fire that ignited his balls, sending sharp pain shooting up his spine.
Tears dripped from Alard's eyes even as a groan was torn from his throat when the end of the belt licked cruelly at his defenseless balls.
“Keep your legs spread,” Louvel said again in quiet threat.
Alard panted through his tears. The pain had been immense—he hadn't known that something could ache so much. Every instinct cried for him to press his legs together, cradle his balls with his own hands to protect them—but he'd asked for punishment. He had begged for this, and Louvel now gave him what he deserved.
It is only fair, he thought through the pain, fingers scrabbling against the wood of the desk as he forced his shaking thighs wider apart, the pouch that held his balls vulnerable between his legs.
“Good,” Louvel said.
Then the belt fell once more. This time, it laid a red stripe across his other thigh, and then, with cruel precision, the tip hit the sack again, and Alard sobbed.
His knees buckled. His tears were dripping onto the desk. His balls felt swollen and sore, throbbing with red-hot pain. But still he didn't beg for it to end.
After a moment, pain hit a third time. It was familiar now: at first the painful impact of the belt on the sensitive skin of his thigh—and then, a split second later, the agony when the end of the belt would wrap around the limb and lick with such precision at his swollen ball sack that Alard cried out, grasping the table to keep himself from sliding to the floor.
After a moment, Louvel's hand took hold of his balls, fondling gently while Alard shuddered and wept.
“So hot and swollen now… Was this how you felt this morning? Was this why you couldn't control yourself, even though people were watching you?”
Alard groaned in despair. His balls ached, so sore that he had to be sure they must be swollen to twice their size. Every time Louvel's fingers prodded at them, he had to bite back his gasps of pain.
And even so, even now, a part of him was glad. There was something comforting in the way Louvel chose to dispense punishment and discipline, touching him as though he had a right to. As though all of Alard's body belonged to him.
Because that was the truth. Alard did belong to him.
Perhaps Alard had goaded Louvel into this—but only because he wanted Louvel to do what he was supposed to do. An alpha claimed. An alpha ruled. Alard could believe that Louvel was not a cruel man, but all the same, what they had was based on the simple rules of their wolf natures.
“I cannot even deny that I enjoyed this,” Louvel mused. “You know it: I have wanted your willing submission for a long time. But I wonder, do you truly believe I want vengeance? Do you think I want to lock you up, they way they jailed us in Brest? Shall I make you drink silver-laced water until you cannot even shift during the full moon but you lie there, every bone in your body aching with the need to transform, the silver in your veins burning you from the inside and keeping you from your true form? Do you think I am the sort of man who wants that?”
Alard panted softly as the pad of Louvel's finger slowly stroked one of the sore balls. It hurt still—his balls were on fire, and he didn't know how he would walk. But even so, despite the pain, something about the touch was calming.
He wanted Louvel touching him. Even if it hurt—he still craved his alpha's touch.
“I don't want to prove to you that you are cruel,” he whispered at last. “I want to prove to myself that I am yours. In all ways.”
It took strength to admit it. He hung his head. He wondered if Louvel would be able to read from his sentences what he had truly meant. That he wanted more than just pain.
But how could he ask for other things? He felt shame even for these needs inside him. Should he kneel at his master's feet and whimper to be petted?
He craved Louvel's attention in a way he never had before, and that frightened him. Better to take what he was given instead, and be content with it.
Louvel sighed as he released him at last. “That is what I thought. Get dressed, Alard. I have new rules for you.”
As Alard had suspected, it ached to move. Pulling on his trousers once more was worse: his swollen balls did not let him forget the torment they had endured. Sore and heavy, they hung between his legs, and he had to blink back tears as the wool of his trousers chafed against them.
The worst part of it was that he was still aroused. His cock was half hard, pressing noticeably against the fabric of his trousers. He felt hot with shame and a strange, breathless anticipation, because Louvel knew that his punishment had aroused him.
Maybe it was shameful—but even so, it felt right that his alpha should know how his discipline had made him feel.
Alard was still too confused to make sense of the tangle of emotion in his head, but certainly his humiliation and his arousal belonged to his alpha just as much as his obedience.
"The rules," Louvel said, reaching out to draw a finger over Alard's cheek, following the trail of wetness there until Alard drew back in consternation.
Louvel chuckled. "They're truly very simple. I expect better control. And not only when I am near, Alard. You can try and touch yourself, if the need is too much for you, but you will not find release. Not unless I allow it. Is that understood?"
Alard opened his mouth to spit back a denial at such an obscene and demeaning demand—but instead, heat burned low in his stomach. At the command, his aching balls throbbed eagerly, swollen to twice their size and already full to bursting once more.
"Yes, monsieur," he murmured sullenly, lowering his eyes when the heat in Louvel's eyes became too much.
Louvel laughed again, soft and amused, still so close that Alard could feel his breath against his skin.
"If you fuck yourself with those long fingers tonight,” Louvel murmured, “thinking of me, moaning my name, you'll still not come. Or otherwise I shall have to teach your disrespectful balls manners again."
This time, Alard couldn't hold back the little groan that escaped, his eyes sliding half shut while his cock jerked needily against his trousers.
"Understood, monsieur," he said, throat dry, and then at last was allowed to leave the office.
Chapter 4
Jerôme Louvel was a patient man. It took three days until Alard broke down, slicked his fingers with oil and spread his legs on his bed, panting naked in the light of the moon as he drove them inside himself.
He thought of Louvel's cock filling him. He thought of Louvel's intoxicating scent, the smile that so infuriated, the gentleness he had never asked for and did not deserve.
Alard had to stifle his panting into the pillow, biting into the fabric as he drove his fingers relentlessly against the spot that made sparks shoot up his spine, imagining Louvel's eyes on him.
Fluid leaked from his cock, thick tears that dripped onto the sheet. The pressure inside him was nearly unbearable. His cock was stiff and red with blood, swollen so hard that every touch hurt. His balls were drawn up tight, so full and heavy that Alard thought he'd explode or go insane if Louvel would not grant him mercy soon.
He stuffed another finger inside himself, a high whine escaping his throat at the stretch, fucking himself deeply and relentlessly, just as Louvel would if he were here now...
And then he broke off, falling back onto the bed with his chest heaving and tears of frustration streaming down his face. His hard prick jerked impotently in the air, denied even the lightest touch that would make him come now.
He couldn't. He couldn't. His alpha had denied him. His superior had denied him.
And the truth was—perhaps the truth that was at the heart of all of his fears and misgivings—that he wanted to please his alpha. And he had never known any other way than by obedience and denial.
***
Alard had barely been able to keep from squirming all day. Louvel had been cruel and kept him denied for weeks. Now the night of the full moon had arrived once more, and Alard's balls were aching for release just as much as his skin was itching to change and run and find something to fight.
Every night, Alard imagined acting against Louvel's orders. After all, how would he know if Alard were to find release in his bed at night?
Every night, Alard would work himself into a frenzy, his cock dripping beads of clear fluid as he worked his fingers in and out of his hole, thinking of Louvel's hand stretching him open instead—and then, invariably, just before his release, he'd stop, crying tears of frustration.