“Maybe not tired of it. Just ready to see other things. After all, the world is a big place. Watching the sunset in Venice or Positano is different and just as beautiful as say, here. Or Santorini. Or the northern lights in Siberia. Running in your wolf form will keep you insulated from the cold. There’s nothing like it.”
The passion in his voice was pure and unvarnished, and it stirred something deep inside of her.
Something that was better left untouched by strange males. Especially this male since she was mating with his Alpha.
“It sounds amazing,” she managed. She’d never been anywhere exciting.
“Do you run?” He asked, lifting his head as if he scented something enticing.
She lifted her nose and tried to catch whatever he was smelling. “I used to have to sneak off to do it, but yes.”
“That’s a crime. They should all be flogged for that.”
“For what? Letting a prime bitch run free?” She fixed her gaze on the horizon to avoid looking at him, to avoid hearing come out of his mouth what she’d been told her whole life.
“No. For ever trying to cage you.”
If one sentence could have summed up her hopes, her dreams and her deepest desires, it was that one. She wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, shame anyone, she just didn’t want to be caged. She was a wild animal at heart. Some wolves were human on the inside, Marchessa wasn’t one of those. Deep down, she was all wolf.
“Run with me,” he said, grabbing her hand.
“Where?” She didn’t see how they could really let go and run anywhere on such a small island.
“There,” he said and pointed in the distance to a small, uninhabited island. “It’s small, so we can run it from tip to tip, but it’s ours for the taking.”
“How will we get there?”
“Swim.” His wolf form came over him with an elegant ease—none of the bone cracking agony that some of their kind was cursed with.
She surrendered to the pull, the wild heat in her blood and the animal in her heart. Marchessa merged into her wolf and dove into the water after him. It sluiced over her fur, cool and sweet. She loved the way her body felt as she glided through the water, her reformed muscles powerful and strong carrying her toward the island.
The padded up on the sand, the wolf in front of her black and sleek. Only a little grey at the tip of his tail. He waited for her at the edge of the clearing just off the beach. Marchessa didn’t think about what she was doing, instead, she just let herself feel.
When he took off into a run, he didn’t look behind him to make sure she was keeping up. Didn’t treat her like she was some kind of fragile fucking flower.
It was exhilarating, to say the least.
She kept pace with him, plowing through the underbrush, feeling the rush of the night air, pushing her body harder, faster, farther… until they’d reached the end of the island, but he didn’t stop. He ran out into the water and she followed, mouth open and tongue lagging as she tasted the warm, salty air.
He transformed again and again, she followed suit.
They were laughing and naked in the water under the stars.
Nakedness was second nature to her people, clothing shed and lost often.
But she was suddenly very aware of herself. Very aware of him.
This was wrong.
She couldn’t start out her marriage, her mating—but it wasn’t a male she’d chosen. Marchessa could choose Cassius. She knew he wanted her, otherwise he wouldn’t be here like this with her. Would he?
Why shouldn’t she take something for herself? So what if Antony had purchased her. They weren’t mated yet. This was no love match. It was duty.
And Cassius could be… whatever she wanted it to be. She’d keep her vows once she made them, but she had yet to give her word.
That was a rationalization and she knew it.
“Look up,” he said, his arms coming around her waist and holding her so she could lean her head back against his shoulder and look at the sky.
The night and all its charms had always been high on her list, but there was something about the glittering starlight on that black velvet sky, the warmth of his arms, the sheer power she could feel flowing through him and it was some kind of alchemy.
They stayed that way for a long moment and her body responded—nipples taught and begging for his touch, her skin hyperaware of each place there was contact, the throb between her legs.
She’d never felt desire as potent as this, the ache in her belly and the yearning in every cell to touch and be touched.
“We shouldn’t be here like this,” she whispered. She didn’t want to say it, she wanted to take him, but no matter how she rationalized it, it wasn’t right. She knew it wasn’t. Not only for her, but for him, too.
He’d said he was practically Antony’s brother. There were some bonds that you didn’t try to touch and that was one of them. It would burn them all up to ash.
“Yes, we should.”
His iron grip turned her to face him, breasts pressed against his chest and her arms fit around his shoulders almost of their own accord.
“I’m going to mate Antony.”
“Yes.” He nodded, the moonlight reflected in the dark pools of his eyes. “But you don’t have to, you know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me.”
Suddenly her feet touched the bottom and dug into white sands and his lips barely grazed the arched of her throat.
“You could choose me. Antony owes me. If I told him I wanted you, he’d let you go.”
The idea thrilled her, this choice. The idea of freedom.
“What kind of Alpha would let his chosen mate go to another wolf?” This didn’t make sense to her.
“The kind who wants you to choose him. The kind who understands that it’s quite the sacrifice to bind yourself to a mate who is impotent.”
Her whole body went cold and desire she’d felt only moments ago was a frozen memory. “What?”
“Why do you think I’m alone with you, she-wolf? It’ll be me you’re mated with and him you’re married to.”
“I knew there had to be some kind of catch. I knew there was no way this could be my new life without some kind of caveat.” She shook her head and backed away from him. “Did you both think I’d just go along? That I’d be happy to be shared like a nice suit jacket? Fuck you both.”
“No, fuck me, Marchessa. Right here under the stars. You want me, I can smell it on you. Your pheromones spiked as soon as you laid eyes on me, beautiful.”
“So what? Mating is a choice. We’re animals, but we have higher thinking too. We choose our actions.”
“And until I told you that you could have me, you were going to choose to surrender to the animal. Now that you can, now that you know your new husband will allow this, you don’t want it?”
“I don’t want it because this is… it’s just fucked up. How can you lay claim to a mate knowing you can’t close the deal?”
“I’ll close it for him.” The intensity on his face was almost frightening.
She shook her head.
“Or it’ll be my deal, Marchessa. I want you. I don’t want to share you,” he confessed.
“You don’t know me.”
“I’ll get to know you. My wolf knows your wolf. And whether you want me or not, I’m yours.”
The idea that such a primal creature would give himself into her keeping, that he wanted her, it was heady. He was a wolf who was Alpha enough for her. She knew instinctively that he wouldn’t try to crush that out of her, that he could be Alpha with her, not over her.
“So, you’re supposed to seduce me?” She tried to sound flip, but was sure she sounded more sex-kitten than anything.
“I’m supposed to give you whatever you want.” He closed the distance between them and pulled her close. “So what do you want, Princess? Reach out and take it.”
“What if I don’t know what I want?” She was breathless and wanti
ng, but did she trust him? None of what he said smelled like a lie, but he was old. Maybe even old enough to control things like bodily response to falsehood that the younger wolves hadn’t mastered. “What if I think this is a test?”
“It is, in a way. Not what you do tonight, but what you do after.”
Her hands were on him again, sliding down his back and then up over his shoulders, his biceps, even his face. She wanted to touch him everywhere.
Here he was telling her that she could. That she could have anything she wanted. That he and Antony would give her everything.
So what if this wasn’t what she’d dreamed of?
She never thought she’d get it anyway.
Why not take this moment, this pleasure?
It wasn’t rationalization anymore. It was accepting the way things were and carving out what she wanted with the supplies she’d been given.
She wanted to experience Cassius, so why not?
Marchessa leaned forward with purpose and pressed her lips against his just to see if she felt the same spark when she kissed him as when he touched her. Part of her hoped that electricity between them had been fleeting, but it was not. It was like a hammer crashing down and smashing all of her defenses.
His arms tightened around her. “I want you to be very sure this is what you want.”
“First, you couldn’t wait to get in my pants and now you’re pushing me toward the chicken exit. I don’t understand you.” She twisted away from him.
He let her get as far as the beach before he pounced, dragging her down beneath him. “Choose me. Not the moment. Me.”
“How naïve of you,” Marchessa said, looking up into his eyes, the irises like polished jet. “Of course I’m choosing the moment. Just wanting to fuck you doesn’t make you mate worthy, now does it?” She didn’t like all of these feelings that stirred in her like some rotten brew.
“So you agree that examples of character and mettle are needed, yes?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Of course,” he repeated, like it was some kind of spell. “I pray you remember that.”
“Do you?” She lifted her chin in defiance.
“I do.” He descended, his mouth crashed into hers.
There was part of her that wanted to tell him to stop, that he could keep his tests, his cloak and dagger bullshit, but then it would stop. The feel of his warm hands on her skin, the supernova when their lips collided, and the burn that she knew would only flare brighter and hotter with every caress.
Her last lover, the forbidden Blake Woolven had been so very good at this, but Marchessa found that having this connection with Cassius made everything she felt stark and sharp, pushing Blake and all of his talents back to a hazy half-forgotten memory.
She wanted to dig her claws into him, tear her nails down his back and mark him for her own. She wanted his jaws at her throat while he thrust into her hard and fast.
Her fingers were suddenly claws and she did just that—raked her nails down his flesh and she scented the coppery tang of his blood. Instead of cringing away, or seeking to claw at her in return, his erection jerked where it was nestled between her thighs.
He liked it.
So she did it again.
“Who are you scratching now, cara?” he growled in her ear.
“You.”
“I want my name on your lips.”
“Cassius,” she growled back and nipped at his ear. “Fuck me, Cassius.”
He entered her with no preamble, but she didn’t want it. She loved how it felt to be stretched and filled, a primal claiming that took her higher than pleasure. More than the stimulation of nerves and synapses. This was something deeper.
The sand abraded her back and she knew she’d find it everywhere later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. She kind of liked the rough contrast. It reminded her that this was real. Not a fantasy.
He grabbed her hips and pulled her forward hard to meet his thrusts, not that he needed to. She arched up, hooked her legs around him and dug her claws into his back. Marchessa couldn’t get close enough, and she couldn’t get him deep enough. It was as if she wanted to consume him and in turn be consumed.
It had never felt like this. Not with anyone.
He knew just how to touch her, just how to fuck her… there hadn’t even been any foreplay and she was about to come. That had never happened to her before either. She was torn between wanting it to last forever and wanting it to be over so she could hide from it, put away in a secret place and only take it out again when she needed it.
“Next time I fuck you, it’ll be as beasts,” he growled in her ear. “You’re mine, Marchessa.”
His teeth elongated and he bit into her throat.
The edge of pain shot wildfire to her clit and she roared with animal pleasure. “Harder,” she demanded. Marchessa didn’t know if she wanted him to bite her harder, fuck her harder, or both together. Her mind fogged with bliss.
Her own teeth emerged sharp and deadly as she tore into his neck, marking his skin with her bite. His blood was a coppery sweet treat and his claws dug into her hips as he slammed into her.
It was so damn good.
“More, harder,” she demanded again. It was almost as if she believed they pushed that edge a little farther, they’d explode together in a supernova.
As it was, their pleasure took them into the stratosphere. “You’re a devil, Marchessa. I’m going to come.”
“Give it to me. It’s mine. Just like you.”
They howled their culmination together and Marchessa had never felt more right with the world.
Until it was all over and he lay on the sand next to her, the moonlight shining down on them and she thought about meeting her future husband the next day.
“Don’t do that,” he said quietly.
“Do what?”
“Shame. Guilt. Regret.”
“I’m not.” She lifted her chin in defiance.
But she was, for some stupid reason.
“I can smell it on you.” His voice was like a whisper soft caress.
“Jesus fucking hell, you smell everything. All of my emotions, my thoughts. Why bother to speak to each other at all?” she snapped and scrambled up to wade out into the water.
“I’m just trying to make this easy on you.”
“If you really wanted to make this easy on me, you wouldn’t have chased me to start with.”
“Really?” he said, coming up behind her. “Is that what we’re going to go with? Don’t tell me you didn’t feel it the moment you saw me.”
“So what?” She pushed away from him. “So what? We can’t just run around giving in to every urge we have. We’re not entitled to indulge every feeling we ever experience.”
He caught her up in his arms. “Why not?”
“Because we can’t. Because we have to think about how it impacts others.”
“You weren’t thinking about impacting others when you were tearing the shit out of my back.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I’m kind of an asshole.”
He laughed. “Marchessa, leave with me tonight.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” She studied his face and decided he was serious.
“No, really. Leave with me. We can run away and do all those things we talked about. See the dawn in Positano, the Northern Lights from Siberia, eat chocolate in little Swiss villages and gorge on art in Paris. Run free in the Ardennes…”
He painted such a beautiful picture and for a moment, she surrendered to the idea that she could reach for that, take it, and live her life with no rules and no boundaries. That appealed to her wild nature.
But the Alpha in her demanded that she take care of her pack, even though they wouldn’t thank her for it.
“And let my father pay for my defection? No.” She couldn’t do it, as much as she wanted to. As much as she thought he deserved it.
“He traded you for a diamond mine.”
“To feed the pack.�
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“To fight a war you don’t believe in.”
“If I wanted to change the pack’s policy on that, I could’ve have challenged my father for dominance.” She hoped that she didn’t come to regret it.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t want it.”
“Really?” He seemed doubtful.
“Even if I did get it, then I’d still be stuck in Shitsville, Flyoverland but with even more responsibility hanging around my neck. No thank you.”
“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to be truly free? To be packless. Liege-less.”
“I thought you said Antony was like a brother to you.” How could what he was saying be anything other than a betrayal?
“He is. And he’d understand this. We’re mates. You know it.”
She rolled her eyes, discounting his words and what she’d felt earlier. It didn’t matter what they were. She’d decided her course of action. “Please. Matches are made against true mates all the time. For pack. For holdings. For power.” She didn’t want to be in love. In could only end in pain.
“But why would you do that to yourself if you don’t have to?”
Marchessa didn’t answer him. She didn’t want his rationalizations, his arguments, and most definitely not his passion. He could make her do anything he wanted, make her think it was her idea. This was where she had to draw the line in the sand. She strode back to the beach. She didn’t want to answer him, so she leapt into her change, becoming the wolf and ran back across the island to swim back to the cottage.
And back to where she knew her place in the world.
Marchessa didn’t check to see if he followed because there was a part of her that hoped he didn’t.
Chapter Three
Antony Rommulus wasn’t at all like she expected.
All she knew was that he was a grey tail: he was old.
The next day, around brunch she got her first real sight of him. The male who climbed up from the boat and stepped onto the smooth-planked dock of the cottage was one of the most handsome males she’d ever seen. He was tall, broad shouldered and imposing, but he didn’t carry himself like a brute. He was all grace and ease, as if the world moved at his leisure—which, indeed, she was sure it did. What she noticed first was that he wasn’t grey at all, except for a few well-placed contours in his close-trimmed beard.
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