by Lee Savino
I shivered, and Vik came closer with the torch. The light danced around us, illuminating the large passage. As caves go, this one was spacious and dry. Someone kept it clean of cobwebs.
“You saw it then?” I asked. “All of it?”
“We did.”
“You’re… you’re not mad at me?”
Thorsteinn drew back. “For what?’
“For all of it. Leaving the mountain. Hurting Rosalind. I had to stop her. She would give away the stone, and all would be lost. Either she was tricked, or she’d sided with the enemy when we first were captured.”
“We know.” he rubbed his stubbled chin against my cheek. “You did nothing wrong. We know that now.”
“We should have trusted you from the first,” Vik muttered. “Sorrel, we failed you.”
“We must tell the Alphas everything. If the Corpse King has the moonstone—”
“What about Rosalind,” I interrupted. “Will she be in trouble?”
“If she did in fact betray us, we must be prepared. She might tell more lies and bring doom upon the whole mountain,” Thorsteinn explained.
I sagged against him. “I don’t want to name her traitor. I know how the Corpse King can trick a mind.”
“So do the Alphas. They will consider this when they hear of her crimes.”
“What is this moonstone, and can it do what Rosalind claims?” Vik stroked his beard.
“I’ve heard stories of the witch using a stone to bind the King long ago,” Thorsteinn said. “But it has not been found. If this is the same stone Rosalind sought, we may have a way to defeat our enemy.”
“Let’s tell the Alphas,” Vik said, and gestured for Thorsteinn and I to precede him through the tunnel.
I held my breath as we walked through the flickering shadows, but even after many paces the air moved cool and sweet against my face. We were not going to run out of air. I relaxed.
At last we came to a dimly lit chamber furnished with a rug and several chairs. Braziers lined the room, their fire casting warmth and light.
“Who made this place?” I asked.
“This? This is one of the Alphas’ anterooms,” Thorsteinn shrugged. “The head Alpha, Samuel, fashions it after the histories he reads.”
I blinked at this, and Vik set down the torch and shoved Thorsteinn. “She means the tunnels. Who carved out the mountain.”
“Oh,” Thorsteinn frowned, glancing around the room. “Dwarves, probably. Long ago.”
I didn’t know such creatures existed, but before I could ask more, a warrior strode into the room.
“Thorsteinn, Vik,” he greeted my warriors. Both bowed their heads slightly in respect, telling me this tall visitor was an Alpha. I peered around Vik, trying to place him. I recognized him from my trial at the standing rocks before Thorsteinn shifted his weight and blocked my view. He and Vik stood squarely between me and the Alpha, their stance respectful but clear: if anyone tried to grab me, they would fight.
“How goes it,” the Alpha asked.
“Well. Sorrel has been obedient. The perfect mate,” Thorsteinn said with such certainty, I almost believed him.
I hid my face behind his broad back before I could betray the truth. Vik reached back to clamp a hand on my shoulder, silencing me.
“You’ve no reason to punish her?” The Alpha’s solemn voice tempered with a slight spark of something as he surveyed the three of us. Amusement at Thorsteinn and Vik’s protectiveness, perhaps.
“Do we need a reason to discipline our mate?” Vik asked, a sliver of humor in his tone to match the Alpha’s. “Sorrel has the sense to submit when she is bested. The struggle to bend her to our will is pure pleasure.”
I started blushing.
The Alpha cleared his throat. “I see,” he ran a hand over his blond beard, a gesture Vik did often when he wanted to hide a smile. “So, the bond has formed?”
“We have reason to believe so, yes.”
“Will it survive a test?” The Alpha continued gravely.
Thorsteinn hesitated. My body went into freefall, tumbling from a great height for every silent second. “In time,” the grey-eyed warrior said finally. “We were given a moon.”
“Yes, but things change.” The Alpha motioned, and slowly, reluctantly, Vik drew me out from behind Thorsteinn and set me before him. His hands rested on my shoulder, I put my own hands up to grip his.
“Rosalind’s awake,” the Alpha addressed me. “She came to last night but was in great pain. The healer gave her a sleeping draught to help the ache in her head, but we believe Rosalind will wake again any moment, and be able to speak clearly.”
“We called you here, Sorrel, to give you another chance tell your side of the story. The pack is calling for your death,” the Alpha reminded me when I pressed my lips together.
“We know what happened,” Thorsteinn said. “None of it was Sorrel’s fault. In fact, she may have saved us all.” Taking a deep breath, Thorsteinn repeated everything I had shown him. Vik gathered me in his arms, and I leaned against his body.
“Is this true?” The Alpha asked when Thorsteinn had finished. I nodded. The Alpha frowned. “This is grave indeed to realize it’s possible for the Corpse King to stretch out his hand and bespell our spaewives, breaching the protections we have set around the mountain—”
“Sorrel and Rosalind were captured. Early on, before they came to the mountain. The spell could’ve taken root there. The Corpse King may have cursed Sorrel so she could not speak of his presence. And he may have bespelled Rosalind even further.”
“There are many questions to answer,” The Alpha tugged his beard. “Where is this moonstone? Why would the raven take it? We will send word to the witch who first told us of the moonstone. She will give us more insight. There is much to learn.”
“If Sorrel is right, and Rosalind betrayed the pack, then Sorrel’s actions saved us all,” Thorsteinn said shortly.
“Yes, yes,” the Alpha murmured. “Well done, little warrior,” he said to me. To Thorsteinn and Vik he said, “Take your mate, and continue to work on the bond. “But take a care. There are many who resent that she is walking around free. See that she stays far away from them, on your side of the mountain.”
Vik
Our little warrior brooded all the way back to the tree lodge. I don’t think she noticed that we took a different route, going the far way around the more populated parts of the mountain. We stayed close to the boundary, going far closer than any other warrior would with their mate. But what we told the Alpha Ragnvald was right: Sorrel is no ordinary mate. She is strong within and without. She was born to put up a fight.
Just as we were born to subdue and protect her. The push and pull between us challenges and soothes the beast. With Sorrel, life won’t ever be calm. We wouldn’t want it any other way.
I started laughing as I realized it. Sorrel shot me a disgusted look.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” she muttered.
“You’re here, we’re here, and free,” I swept my hand around the empty path. “The day is fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because my friend lies with her head broken—because I broke it,” she hissed. “Because the pack wants me dead. Because I was cursed—” She kept murmuring angrily even as I stopped her mouth with mine. I kissed her until she sunk her teeth in to my lip and drew blood. And then I laughed again.
“I can’t believe… oh…” she snarled, and ran at me, ducking at the last to strike my body the way I taught her. I twisted and caught her—I showed her the battle move, after all—and threw her over my shoulder.
“Race you,” I mouthed to Thorsteinn, who still looked grim. “And you,” I swatted Sorrel’s backside, “Be quiet. We don’t want to draw attention, do we?”
She wriggled and fought all the way back to the lodge, stilling only long enough for me to climb up into our home. She went so quiet, I knew she was planning something.
Sure enough, once my feet touched the sturdy floorboards,
she writhed and slipped away, quick as a fish. She grabbed my knife and came at me, ready to stab me. “My little wolf, armed with one sharp tooth. Do you wish to see me bleed? Do your worst.”
I faced her, and she came at me, again and again. I matched her movements, blocking blows, feinting the opposite way.
In the end she was breathing hard.
“Finished?” I asked.
She nodded.
I wiped the blood off my arm where I let my guard down and she cut me. The gleam of victory in her eyes is worth it. I stripped off my jerkin and was rewarded with a heated rush of scent. “Ready to fuck?”
Eyes locked on my naked torso, she nodded.
“Finally,” Thorsteinn muttered, entering the lodge.
“Our mate is ready, but not subdued,” I told him. “I think it’s time we showed her what we do with mates who will not submit.”
Thorsteinn clamped an arm around Sorrel and drew her back against him.
“I made something for you,” I told her, and unleashed a rope to lower a sturdy frame made of lashed branches.
Her face goes blank. “A cage? You got me a cage?”
“You will like this one,” Thorsteinn promised. Still, it was a fight to get her inside. Between the two of us, we got her naked and trapped inside. She ended up on all fours, still able to contort and move.
“That will not work,” I murmured, so we caught her wrists and lashed them to the bottom rungs as she spat and tried to gnaw at us. Once her front was secure, I tied her legs apart, so her haunches splayed to either corner of the cage, her holes perfectly on display.
“It works,” I said.
Thorsteinn grunted.
“Let me out,” Sorrel tugged her bonds.
“No. Not until you please us.” My breeches were uncomfortably tight, so I undid them.
“Put that cock near me and I’ll bite it off,” Sorrel snarled.
“Then you will be in there a long time.” Thorsteinn rapped the cage frame.
She bared her teeth.
I turned away. “What say you, Thorsteinn, shall we have a fire? Or go for a hunt? There’s another boar we could—”
“All right,” Sorrel muttered. “Fine.”
I’d made the bars wide enough for us to reach our hands through. We did that now, stroking her back and legs.
I grinned at her. “I told you you would like this cage.”
“Well, I don’t. I don’t like it at all.”
“Because you don’t know how to enjoy it.”
She glared.
“Close your eyes.” I waited until she did and rewarded her by running my hand down her back. Thorsteinn joined me on the other side, and together we rubbed down our mate, massaging her tight neck and shoulders, squeezing her legs and patting her backside and haunches.
“There,” he murmured, squatting to inspect her nether lips. “I knew you’d enjoy it.”
Sure enough, the skin between her thighs shone with arousal. There was a large enough gap in the bars for Thorsteinn to reach in and tease the plump lips. Sorrel gasped and tried to get away at first, but Thorsteinn pressed his face against the bars, angling his head just right for him to lick the tender juncture.
I reached in and squeezed her small breasts, tugging the nipples and enjoying the way her back arched to follow my touch.
After long minutes, her breathing grew more ragged. Her head dropped. I went around tugged her face up by her hair and met her lips.
“I don’t—” she started, and I kissed the protest away.
“Calm. You cannot move, remember? You cannot get out until we allow it. You can only… be.”
“Be what?” she asks her voice slurred. Drunk on sensation.
“Be ours, little warrior,” I whispered. I fed her my fingers, she took them in her mouth, sucking. My cock throbbed, swelling and threatening to split my breeches. I freed it and it curled up against my belly, leaking.
Thorsteinn kept licking her, taking advantage of her helpless state. He gripped her bottom, alternately squeezing and smacking it. She arched her back, pressing her backside against the cage, mewling. He dipped his fingers into her. She stiffened and trembled, her mouth slackening. My fingers pushed back her moan. Her tongue curled around the rough digits, licking as I fucked her mouth with my hand.
“That’s it,” I growled. A slight quiver went through her body. The cage creaked as she rocked on Thorsteinn’s fingers, moving as much as the tight bonds would allow. As I reached my free hand in and plucked her peaked nipples, she moaned again. Her climax rippled through her. The cage shook.
I could stand it no longer. I stepped away long enough to take the rope and unwind it from the hook, lowering the cage so it settled between Thorsteinn and me. Sorrel craned her neck to look up at me. Her face was now the right height to suck my cock.
“Gently. No teeth. Bite us and you will live in here,” I rapped the cage. “Understand?”
Her answer was garbled as her mouth was filled. I hissed as she took me deep. Her tongue licked along my veined length, finding every sensitive spot. My balls hung heavy, filled with all the cum in the world, ready to erupt into her perfect mouth. I gripped her hair and tugged this way and that, teaching her exactly how to please me.
Across from me, Thorsteinn dropped his breeches. Sorrel hummed around my cock as he breached her pussy. The cage swayed between us. Every time he thrust, she took my cock deeper. Steadying the cage with both hands, I pushed her back. We worked into a rhythm, moving her back and forth between us. Her hands clenched against the bars, her nipples hardened and her eyes fluttering closed as we filled her. Best of all, she could not move or speak. We’d taken away all choices, and the only one left was to let us use her for our pleasure and her own.
Thorsteinn must have reached between her legs to stimulate her again, because she shook with another climax, gasping around my cock. I thrust deep into her throat and shot my cum into her gullet. She choked a little, tears leaking from her eyes, but she took all I had to give. I cradled her face as I drew out and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Well done, little one,” I praised her, kissing her. She smiled against my lips.
“You’re a braver man than I,” Thorsteinn muttered. I stepped back and let him finish. Sorrel cried out as he thrust in and out, gripping the cage tight and slamming into her. The lodge filled with the slap of skin on wet skin. Sorrel writhed and shuddered, climaxes overtaking her again and again. With a roar, Thorsteinn came.
I waited a mere minute before undoing her bonds and letting her slump down with a contented sigh.
“See?” I told her smugly. “I told you you would like the cage.”
Sorrel
“Sorrel,” Vik shook me awake. “Sorrel, wake up.”
“What is it?” I met the grim faces of the warriors.
“The Alphas have summoned us. We must go, but you are staying here.”
I rubbed my face. My body was sore but sated from our antics with the cage. It was still night, though. A few birds sang in the darkness.
Outside, someone called for Thorsteinn. I shrank back in the pelts.
“What is happening? Who is that?”
“The Alphas have called the pack to gather at the standing stones. We go to tell your story but leave you with a guard.”
“Why can’t I go with you?”
“Too dangerous. There are some warriors who are enraged over the events. The Alphas want to speak to the pack without distraction.”
And I was a distraction. I swallowed. “I don’t want you to leave me.”
“We aren’t leaving for long. Just for a time. We’ll come back to you, Sorrel, we swear it.” I let Vik crush me to him, closing my eyes as he kissed my hair.
“Draw the rope ladder up after us,” Thorsteinn ordered before they left.
I watched them climb down and greet the warrior who was to be my guard. Knut, I remembered. Hazel’s mate.
“Sorrel,” Thorsteinn tugged the rope ladder, and wait
ed until I drew it back up to lope down the path that would take them to the standing stones. Knut took his place beside the tree, half in, half out of shadows.
I sat by the low fire and tried to focus on sharpening my arrowheads but could not settle. What if the Alphas did not believe Thorsteinn and Vik? Would the pack turn on them? They were the only ones defending me, it seemed. I laid out my weapons and counted them, then packed them all up and started pacing. Vik and Thorsteinn risked everything for me. It was my fault it took so long to bond. Why was I so stupid?
A howl broke out in the distance. A lone wolf, its voice rising in pitch and volume until another overtook it. And another. And another—a whole host of wolves singing in eerie harmony. I rubbed my arms and paced some more.
Knut still hadn’t moved from the foot of the tree. He didn’t look up but kept his eyes on the path. A host of lights bobbed in the distance. A low murmur of voices, joining in with the wolves. The warriors were coming.
“Get her,” they chanted. “Seize the murderer.”
I stepped back from the lodge entrance and poured water on the fire. My hands no longer shook. It was as if I expected it—the angry mob coming for me. They would overpower Knut and take me.
Tying my pack tight, I took the rolled-up ladder and snuck out a window on the opposite side of the lodge door. I shimmied out onto a branch. Vik and Thorsteinn had not taught me to climb, but I’d had plenty of practice hiding from nuns at the orphanage.
Head down, I crawled as far as the branch would allow.
The chorus of angry voices grew louder. At the foot of the tree, torches flared. A shout greeted them—Knut, commanding them to stop. He would not stop a mob.
Carefully, I tied the rope ladder to the branch and let it fall. A pause, while I waited for a shout to go up, a sign that they noticed me. All I heard was Knut speaking to the warriors, trying to reason with them. Then: a clang of metal on metal—weapons drawn.
I swung off the branch and scrambled down the ladder. I’d reached halfway when a shout went up.
“There—behind the tree! She’s escaping!”