The Lycan King’s Defiant Surrogate by Riley Above Story (Chapters 91 to 100)

Chapter 91

“You would fight me,” Samuel repeats slowly, as if in disbelief. “For him.”

“Not just for him, but for your sense of honor as well as mine,” I tell him. With that wild look in his eye, I don’t trust him enough to even turn my back on him for a minute. Of all the dangers out here, the invaders and the bullets and the raging bears, I never thought Samuel was someone I would have to be afraid of.

Or someone that I would have to protect others from.

Yet here we are.

“You’re crazy,” Samuel says like I’m the one who’s in the wrong. “You are absolutely insane.”

“Then it shouldn’t matter to you what happens to me from here on,” I say. “Turn around and leave.” I still need his help to move Caleb, but I’m not going to let Samuel anywhere near Caleb after the things he said tonight.

“Whatever, you crazy bitch,” Samuel says, finally backing away. “When the bears attack you, and you are left all on your own, I hope you remember this moment and how you pushed me away.”

I don’t move, don’t even lower my knife until he’s backed far enough away that he is outside of the alley. Once he turns and disappears. down the street, I return to Caleb’s side. Returning the knife to his sheath between my breasts, I grab at Caleb’s arm again and pulling, try to drag him into a more secluded corner of the alleyway.

We make it about two inches before my strength gives out and I flop down on my ass. Caleb is of tall stature with all muscle. He’s heavy, far heavier than I can hope to carry. But where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Determined, I push myself to my feet. This time, I try grabbing him around the middle and tugging. I yank with all my strength, but again, we don’t go anywhere.

Caleb grumbles this time and peeks one eye open, just slightly. “Harper?”

I shush him at once. It’s dark back here, but if anyone hears any talking they will certainly try to investigate.

“What’s happening?” he asks, quieter this time. His voice is wrecked, sounding like it’s caught somewhere between wolf and man.

“You fell from a window,” I tell him.

He grunts. “That’s why I can’t move. All of my bones are broken…” He exhales a wheezing breath. “Shit.”

“Just stay quiet, I’m going to try to get us out of this.” I look around. There’s a flat board leaning up against one side. If I could get Caleb onto that, and then find something ball-shaped to put underneath it.

It takes me a while to realize Caleb is watching me.

When I meet his gaze, he says, “You have to leave me here.”

Thinking I misheard, I inch closer. “What?”

“You can’t carry me. They’ll find us both. They’ll kill me, but I don’t want to think what they’ll do to you.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He groans, and I’m not sure it’s just from the pain. “I am King, damn it. And I command you to leave me behind.”

I roll my eyes at him. “You can punish me for disobeying you when we survive this.”

Then, with renewed effort, I grab his shoulder and try to yank most of his weight over my back. He must help a little, shifting and kicking his legs.

Together, we make it toward the corner of the alley, falling behind some boxes before we both pant with exertion. Caleb is stretched out on top of me, I turn to hold him in my arms.

“Harper…” he says, breathy now. He’s weak and winded, soon to fall unconscious again. “Run…”

“Hush,” I tell him.

Then, suddenly, the sound of hurried footsteps stops just outside the alley.

“Have you checked down here?” one of the soldiers asks.

I freeze, afraid to move. Caleb is totally slack now, unconscious again.

The light of a flashlight beam peers into the alley. It searches this way and that, all from the safety of the street. Yet from that angle, the light never quite reaches our corner. We’re safely blocked by the edge of the building.

The flashlight moves away, returning the alley to darkness.

“Nothing in there.”

“Well, he has to be here somewhere. The wolf didn’t just sprout wings and fly away. Keep looking.”

“Yes, sir!” says the other two.

All of them move away.

I exhale in relief. We are not out of the woods, far from it, but at least the immediate danger has passed.

It’s only a matter of time, though, isn’t it? I very well can’t carry Caleb out of danger on my own, and sooner or later, someone will think to check this alleyway.

In the quiet, other questions begin to formulate inside my mind.

For this scale of an attack to happen, for it to be this successful, something must have gone fundamentally wrong.

More likely, someone or one betrayed the King. This had to be an inside job. All of these bear soldiers didn’t just parachute into the premises. For them to be where they were, they already had to be inside somehow.

How long have they been infiltrating?

And who was the one, right under Caleb’s nose, who orchestrated all of this.

An Alpha, waiting for a chance to usurp the throne? But they’d still have to wrangle power from the bears unless the bears promised a partnership.

Still, as prideful as Alpha wolves are, I struggle to imagine them wanting to rule with anyone, especially not the bears.

Who then? Someone who has been seething under the King’s rule, and wanted him out of the way, no matter the overall cost?

Someone who wanted chaos?

Someone who wanted death?

My brain starts to hurt trying to think of the possibilities.

Well, whoever it is, and for whatever reason, I have to make sure those plans are fruitless. Maybe they managed to sew chaos for a time, but they would not win in the end. The King will survive this.

I hear a whistle noise and freeze again. There are no birds this far underground. Again, I hear the sound as it draws closer. Then, a slight sound like someone is sniffing.

With Caleb draped over me, I can’t even reach my knife anymore to defend us. But still, I hold my breath and brace myself. I will fight if I have to. Somehow I will find the strength.

The whistle sounds again, closer. Someone has stepped into the alleyway. They move swiftly and silently. I can’t hear them at all. I only see them when they step in front of a broken window and a hint of light reflects off the side of their face.

It’s a man, tall with broad shoulders. I wish I could see more, but I can’t from my position.

My only relief is that he doesn’t seem to be holding a gun.

I might have a chance. If he tries to physically attack us, I might be able to reach my knife and slash him.

He whistles again, a sharp high sound followed immediately by a low sound.

I don’t make a noise. I don’t move a muscle, except for my heart which thunders wildly.

Like he can hear it, the man turns to look at me. He looks me right in the eyes.

Chapter 92

The man moves closer, coming right for us. I tense all of my muscles, ready to fight, when I blink and realize the identity of the man in question.

It’s Tristan.

Breathe exhales my lungs so sharply, I feel like it’s been punched out of me. Tears well in my eyes, relief flooding through me.

Tristan is here. He’s Caleb’s Beta. He’ll know what to do.

“Harper,” he says with realization. Some of his own tension eases from him, as he comes closer and helps slide Caleb onto his side, off of me. “Is he?”

“Alive,” I tell him.

Tristan touches Caleb’s neck to be sure. “Thank the gods.”

“He fell from a window. Most of his bones are broken, he said.”

“was he awake?”

“Briefly,” I say.

Tristan exhales and nods. “Good. That’s good.”

Tristan has blood splatter on his face and his knuckles are cracked like he’d done some serious punching. He’s changed since I last saw him, now wearing the same black soldier uniform that looks suspiciously like the enemies…

My nerves start to itch again. “Tristan? Why are you wearing that?”

He glances down. “Oh. It’s easier to move among the enemy if they can’t immediately tell you don’t belong.”

That’s a reasonable explanation but it still makes me nervous. I hold onto Caleb’s arm a little tighter than before.

Tristan notices. “I’ve sworn a blood oath of loyalty to King Caleb. Do you know what that means?”

Vaguely. It’s hard to remember now with my adrenaline so out of control.

He takes my silence for ignorance and continues, “I cannot physically act against that oath. If I were to be disloyal to my King, it would kill me. That is the oath I took as Beta. Caleb is my leader, but he is also like a brother to me.”

I want to believe him but… “I don’t know.”

“Watch,” Tristan says. He pulls out a knife. My panic heightens, but instead of going for Caleb’s chest, he moves toward the arm I’m holding. Lightly, he traces a small scratch over the back of that arm. It bleeds a little but heals quickly. Tristan turns his arm so that I can see. The same scratch he gave Caleb is mirrored onto his own skin, but much, much deeper. His blood comes rushing out.

“Stop,” I gasp.

“It’s fine,” he says and lowers his sleeve. “I am not as strong as our King but I will heal quickly. It was more important for you to see that I am trustworthy, especially as what I’m about to ask you to do will not be without danger.”

“Thank you,” I say, because while I don’t like seeing either of them hurt, it does make it easier to trust.

Kneeling beside Caleb, Tristan more thoroughly inspects him. Already I can see that some of Caleb’s bruises are fading and the harsh angle to his broken bones is snapping back into place.

“We can assume that Caleb will not be able to help us with his escape. Even after his body heals, he will need time to rest and recuperate. These bullets are silver, we will have to pry them out.”

I could see, where he was pointing, that the skin couldn’t fully heal over the bullet wounds in his chest. Gods, it all looked so painful.

“We can’t do that here,” I say. “If he wakes up again…”

“You need to find him some clothes. I will find us a car.”

“A car? I don’t understand. Shouldn’t we help the guard retake the capital?”

Tristan looks at me with pity. It’s much different than his usual boredom and I hate it. When things are normal, he’s bored. I want things to be normal.

“We don’t know who we can trust here,” Tristan says. “But I know exactly who we can’t trust. And until we remove him from power and authority, it would be unwise to bring Caleb back under that roof. We need to escape and regroup. Let the King heal. Then we come back and destroy them.”

“Destroy who? Who can’t we trust?” He clearly knows more than I do, perhaps from slinking around behind enemy lines.

“George. Caleb’s Gamma. One of his closest advisors,” Tristan says.

“The one who never agreed with him.”

Tristan nods. “Caleb always thought some dissenting voices were good in his council. I have no idea how long George disagreed.” His lip curls in disgust. “When this is over, I will ask him myself. Preferably with my knife in his gut.”

Seeing he was getting angry, I tried to redirect his attention. “I can search for clothing in the nearby houses, but how will you get a car? And we shouldn’t leave him like this.”

“No.” He sighs. “Truthfully, I was going to send you for clothes and sneak Caleb away, but now…”

“You were going to leave me?” I gasp.

Tristan motions toward my wrist, where Caleb has wrapped his hand around it tightly. In the excitement, I hadn’t even noticed.

“No chance of that now,” Tristan says. “You say here. I will find a car and clothes. Wait for my signal.”

I imagine I already know the signal. That horrible whistling.

“Alright,” I agree.

Tristan quietly slips away, and I continue to worry. I don’t know how long it takes but it feels like hours, constantly on guard.

Then, at last, I hear the whistle.

Tristan sneaks back into the alley, carrying dark clothes for Caleb.

Together we dress him. Then, together, though with mostly Tristan carrying the weight, we pull him from the alley. Tristan drapes him across the backseat and hurriedly instructs me to lay beside him. He covers us both with a blanket, making sure both our feet and heads are hidden.

“Don’t move until you feel sunshine. Don’t even breathe,” Tristan says and closes the door. He gets in again, in the driver’s seat, I presume. The car starts and Tristan drives.

I do not move or breathe.

“We’re coming up to the checkpoint,” Tristan says. “Keep your head down.”

Slowly the car rolls to a stop. Tristan puts the window down.

“Get that gun out of my face,” Tristan snaps, twinging his words with a different kind of accent. The kind they use in the north.

“Oh, sorry, brother. We didn’t realize you were on our side. Where the hell are you going in this? The war is still on.”

“Have you seen this car? I’d be a fool to leave this behind.”

“Sure. But the war -“

“The worst of the fighting is done, as you well know. The higher-ups are going to be calling us out soon, and they aren’t going to allow for looting. Let me by in this beauty, and I’ll promise you a ride later.”

“Looting isn’t permitted…”

“See my knuckles?” Tristan says. “Guess how many wolf bastards I beat to death with my bare hands.”

“What if I guess right?”

“I’ll let you have the car,” Tristan says.

That’s a lie. Tristan isn’t giving up this car. He can’t, not without betraying Caleb. I believe he wouldn’t do that even if the blood oath wasn’t in effect.

He said himself, Caleb is like a brother.

“Ten,” the man says.

“Eleven,” Tristan replies smoothly.

“You’re full of shit,” the man at the checkpoint says, though he’s laughing.

“That means you’ll let me through?” Tristan asks.

“No, man. No looting means no looting. Not even for our brothers.”

Shit. How are we going to get out of here now?

“Shame,” Tristan says. “I was really hoping this might be this easy.”

Then, suddenly, the car veers forward like a bat out of the hell.

“Hey!” the man at the checkpoint shouts.

Then the shooting starts. Glass shatters, and the back windshield is blown out.

Tristan only accelerates more, then abruptly turns up the spiral road that leads us out of here.

Gods, do we even stand a chance?

Chapter 93

The road that leads out of the caverns is a winding spiral. Tires screech as we go around and around, up and up, Tristan never once taking his foot off of the pedal.
In the backseat, as I cling to Caleb’s unconscious body, the force of the turning pushes us back into the seat. The blanket that’s covering us comes loose, and over it, I can suddenly see out and up through the shattered back window to the lights flashing as we rush by them.
Remembering there are more guards at the top, I grab the blanket and yank it back over Caleb and me.
Tristan doesn’t slow the entire way, not even near the top, when sunlight finally beams in.
“Hey! Stop!”
The car accelerates, flying forward. More gunfire. The back windows shatter. The back of the car swerves but Tristan somehow keeps it from spinning out.
Suddenly, the wood breaks and shatters. Splinters fly in through the car.
More men and women should be after us.
Then, eventually, I hear only the rumble of the car engine, the clank of something broken dangling off the side door of the car, and the wind.
Are we free? Have we escaped somehow? I dare not hope to dream, so I keep hiding, coiling protectively over Caleb’s bruised and broken body.
I don’t know how long I stay in this state, adrenaline surging, trapped in fear and uncertainty, but it feels like a long time. A few hours at least.
Finally, the car rolls to a stop, and Tristan cuts off the engine.
“We’re here,” he says.
Where’s here?
Pushing back the blanket, I smell the scent of fresh grasses and hear the rustle of trees.
Tristan disappears from the driver’s seat. Beyond him, I can see that every window in the car, including the windshield has been shot out.
Slowly, I sit up. We’ve journeyed up a long dirt road, stopping beside an old farmhouse with sun-bleached blue siding. Out front looks to be a patch of dirt with some vegetables growing, but also some weeds. Everywhere else is covered with tall grasses.
I’d been trapped in the capital for so long that I’d almost forgotten places like this existed.
Tristan comes around to the outside of the back door. He tries to pull it open. It won’t budge. With a growl, he pulls it harder. This time, then entire door falls off. He shoves it aside with a huff, then reaches in to help me out.
“Where are we?” I ask him.
“Off-grid,” he says curtly, in the kind of way that makes me feel like that’s the best answer I can hope for.
Maybe it is. As long as we’re safe, I don’t particularly care where we are.
“Let’s get him inside,” Tristan says.
Together, though admittedly with Tristan carrying more of Caleb’s weight than me, we manage to get Caleb up the front steps of the farmhouse and then in through the front door.
The house is decorated nicely, albeit with a thin layer of dust on everything. It seems like a family lived here once, maybe a long time ag,o and then disappeared, taking nothing with them.
I tried not to think too hard about the implications of that. The house itself seems nice peaceful, and safe. For now, that is enough.
We carry Caleb in. I try to head for the couch, but Tristan leads us to the kitchen table.
“He needs to rest,” I argue.
“He needs those silver bullets out of him,” Tristan replies.
Caleb’s chest is still bleeding. As much as I don’t want to admit it, or participate in what’s going to come after, I agree.
So we lift Caleb up onto the kitchen table and roll him onto his back.
“I’m going to need a knife,” Tristan says. “The wounds are trying to heal. I’ll have to make new incisions to get those bullets out.”
I head into the kitchen, searching through the drawers. At last, I find a sharp steak knife, after tossing aside three or four that were too dull.
“Will this work?” I ask Tristan.
His face is grim with the work he must now perform.
“Find some towels and get fresh water from the pump outside,” Tristan says. “This isn’t going to be pleasant.”
I hurry to follow his orders.
While Tristan works to remove the bullets from Caleb’s chest, Caleb blessedly does not awaken. In his sleep, he merely grunts now and then as the bullets are pried from under his skin one by one.
I do my best to clean the wounds after the silver has been removed when Tristan moves on to the next one.
It takes several hours. When we finish, I step out onto the porch for fresh air.
Tristan joins me, after a while. “He’ll be fine now. Thanks to you. After some time to recover, he will be his old self again.”
I nod, glad for it, while also conflicted. Caleb is a ruthless tyrant. Did I make the right choice?
Tristan and I look out over the swaying grasses and the trees beyond. Everything is so isolated here. Peaceful. So different than what my life has been like for the past few months. Hells, maybe ever.
“You could have run in the chaos,” Tristan says. “No one would have known. The King might have died. Everything would have been different…”

I’m not sure I believe that. Even after what I’ve seen today, prying those bullets from Caleb’s body, I’m still not sure I believe he has any weakness at all. He would have found some way to survive. I’m sure of it.
“Why didn’t you run?” Tristan asks. He’s looking right at me now.
I don’t know the answer. Not really.
The smarter move would have been to run, to live my life free, with a chance to be happy whether with Samuel or not. Instead, I tethered myself to Caleb.
“I couldn’t let him die,” I say.
“Why not?” Tristan asks. “After the way he treated you, you might not have even lived with any blame.”
“That’s not how it would work for me,” I say. “But I didn’t do it just to keep from feeling guilty.”
Tristan lifts a lone brow.

I don’t really want to admit the depths of my feelings for Caleb to Tristan, but there’s something about this place that calms me. It makes it easier for me to open up. Maybe because it’s so quiet.
“My feelings for Caleb are… complicated,” I say. Even as peace, that’s the most I can manage.
It seems to be enough for Tristan. He looks forward again, and we both watch the tree line in silence for a while.
Caleb blinks away in an unknown room, on a hard kitchen table that wreaks of his own blood and silver. Someone is trying to kill him.
He won’t go down quietly.
Hopping off the table, he starts to growl. He doesn’t know where he is. None of this looks or smells familiar.
Someone smuggled him out of the city. Maybe they don’t mean to kill him, then. Maybe they simply want to use him as blackmail.
He won’t allow that either.
Then, suddenly, a woman enters the living room of this quaint house. At a glance, she seems familiar, but Caleb’s mind is so fogged with unpleasant memories and pain, that he can only think of one word.
Traitor.
He lunges.

Chapter 94

Caleb’s vision is red as he closes his hands around the traitor’s throat. He has her up against the wall, her feet. dangling, kicking wildly. She claws at Caleb’s hands with her dull human fingernails, as if that would ever be enough for him to not see justice done.

“C-Caleb…” she gasps, the villain, trying to manipulate him by saying his name so informally. She and her cohorts may have absconded him from his capital, but no matter where he goes, he will always be king.

“That’s King Caleb,” he growls.

A warm drop of water drips down onto his hand. He’s indoors. How could it be raining? No, it’s not rain. The drop was a tear from the traitor…

Something shifts in the back of Caleb’s mind. He knows this person… She’s…

Pain bursts in his head, his headache overcoming him so quickly that he stumbles backward. The traitor slips from his grasp and falls to her knees near the baseboards…

Clutching his head with both hands, Caleb cries out. What is he forgetting? Why does it hurt? Why does everything hurt so much? He’d pushed his body hard in pursuit of the traitor, but now he was feeling the effects. His limbs felt heavy, his body sluggish.

“It’s alright, King Caleb,” the woman says as she crawls closer to where he’s brought low, crumpled over in pain and weariness. “You’re safe here.”

He shouldn’t believe her. She likely wants to kill him or use him for blackmail, yet… even though he had gripped her by the neck, as she shuffles closer, it’s compassion he sees in her eyes.

How can this be?

Blinking a few times, the red clears from his vision. And he sees, the woman is Harper.

“It’s okay,” she says, hands in front of her like she’s trying to calm a wounded animal. Maybe that’s exactly what Caleb really is.

He places his hand on his chest, realizing now that his wounds are bandaged. “What happened to me…?”

“Tristan and I got you out of the city,” Harper says. “We’re at some safe house… How much do you remember?”

“A lot of it is a blur,” Caleb says. His head still hurts but it’s not as bad now, allowing him more presence of mind to think and remember.

“You fell out of a window,” Harper says, filling in some of the blanks.

Caleb remembers… He was separated from Harper. He tried to get back to her by following her scent, but she was already long gone when he was confronted by his advisor.

His Gamma.

George.

The man had looked so damn confident and so pleased with himself, almost to the point of glee. He’d cornered Caleb against a set of windows, flanked on either side by massive alpha bears. Behind George were more bears, soldiers, and so many guns filled with silver bullets.

It would take a lot to actually kill an alpha as strong as Caleb, but at that moment, Caleb knew he was facing his own death.

“Long live the King,” George mocked, as he signaled the soldiers to fire.

As the silver bullets tore through Caleb, he turned and jumped through the window. On the way down, his final thought…

Harper… Run.

“I was betrayed,” Caleb says now, to Harper in this dusty old house. “My Gamma…”

“We’ll make him pay,” says Tristan as he walks in through the front door. “Glad to see you alive, King Caleb, but you are in no shape to be moving around just yet.”

“Well, you left me on the damn table,” Caleb snaps, with no real heat behind it.

“We had to let your wounds heal some before we tried moving you again,” Tristan says flatly. “We pulled sixty-three silver bullets out of you, and I’m still not totally sure we got them all.”

Caleb gently twists his body this way and that, feeling each poke of discomfort. “That explains why I feel like Swiss cheese. Help me to the couch then, damn it.”

Tristan and Harper both help Caleb to his feet and together they shuffle toward the floral-pattern couch against the wall.

“A bed would be better,” Harper says.

“All the bedrooms are upstairs,” Tristan says.

Caleb, tough as he is, would not likely make it up a set of stairs right now. He feels like he might collapse just from inching across the floor.

A growl rises up in the back of his throat. He hates how helpless he feels. Like he’s a damn kid again.

He glances at Harper and sees the red marks around her neck. He did that. Shit. Maybe it would be better if he was weaker.

This situation hasn’t helped his paranoia or his rage. Even though she’s helping him, Caleb still finds himself suspicious of Harper’s presence. She shouldn’t have hurt her though.

Gods, he needs to get a grip.

When the reaches the couch, he collapses down onto it. It’s too small for him. He has to dangle his feet off the side.

“Harper,” Tristan says. “Why don’t you go see if there is any food in that kitchen?”

Harper looks between Tristan and Caleb, likely knowing she is being dismissed, before turning and leaving the room.

Tristan drops to sit on top of the coffee table. “Ask.”

Caleb makes certain Harper is out of earshot, before saying, “Can we trust her?”

“You’d be dead without her,” Tristan says blandly. “She sought you out and protected you until I could get there.” Tristan glances to the side.

“You aren’t telling me everything,” Caleb says. “I would know the full truth. Now.”

Tristan sighs. “She could have escaped. I saw that Alpha Samuel sniffing around where you and she were hidden. He likely tried to convince her though I have no proof of it.”

“But she didn’t…”

“No. She stayed with you and protected you. She watched you while I secured a car.” Tristan frowns. “A car I very much need to get rid of.”

“Drive it into a lake and watch it sink to the bottom,” Caleb says. “My blood is likely all over it. We can’t have any trackers find their way here.”

“Agreed,” Tristan says. He glances over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “I’ll stop for supplies on the way back. She won’t find anything in that kitchen.”

“Good,” Caleb says. From here, he can see Harper stretch to look up in a high cabinet. She’s still wearing that tattered dress from the gala, but it’s basically rags now. “I could use some time alone with my savior.”

Tristan has no reaction to that. “I’ll return in the morning,” Tristan says.

At Caleb’s nod, Tristan stands and walks out the front door. As the screen door slams behind him, Harper returns to the living room carrying a can so old it doesn’t have a label on it anymore.

“Was that Tristan leaving?” she asks. From here, they can hear the car engine start-up.

“Yes,” Caleb says. “He’ll get us some supplies.”

“That’s a relief,” Harper says, holding up the can. “I don’t think anyone’s been here in fifty years. Everything’s expired.” She starts to place the can down on the kitchen table but then stops herself at the last moment. With a frown, she takes a step away from the table.

Caleb feels endeared to her in this moment, for all she’s done for him.

“Come here, consort,” he commands. He pats his thigh, gesturing for her to sit on his lap. “Come and get your reward for protecting your King.”

Chapter 95

Caleb pats his thigh like he wants me to come sit on his lap. He can’t be serious. The man could barely walk across the room on his own and now he wants to have sex?

“We should wait,” I start to say.

His eyes narrow. “You dare deny your king?” He adds a frown. “Or do you think your king is incapable? Do you doubt my virility?”

He’s proven himself substantially virile time and again. I have no doubt that even as exhausted as I must be, he would still somehow manage to bring us both to the edge of pleasure again and again.

Under normal circumstances, I might even be excited to join him. As he is, I could ride him, finally being the one to bring us both to that precipice. But not like this.

“Two hours ago, we were pulling silver bullets out of your chest,” I say.

His voice dropping low, he says, “Do not make me come and get you, consort. Get over here. Now.”

He’s using his stern alpha voice, which instinctively makes me want to comply. Or maybe I just like the way his voice pitches low and sexy.

The thought of having him so close to losing him, to reaffirming myself that he is alive… is not unwelcomed.

As I take a step toward him, his demeanor immediately shifts to pleased, his lip quirking up into a smirk. His hand moves to the zipper of his pants and he pulls it down.

Uncertainty still grips me, even as I spread my knees onto either side of him and lower myself down over him on the couch.

His hand reaches up, snatching a fistful of my hair. He tugs, angling my chin back, and exposing my throat. Then, gently, he leans in and places soft kisses over the red marks he left there when he had been confused and attacked me.

I hum. His mouth is so warm. It feels so good against my skin, especially when he adds his tongue.

I clutch at his shoulders with both hands. Slowly, I start to lift myself and then sink down onto him.

He tenses slightly, hissing.

I freeze.

“Keep going,” he grunts.

“No,” I say.

“Harper. Now.”

“No,” I say more fiercely. Gently, I lift myself up and off of him, and then move away from the couch.

“You would deny me?!” he bellows, furious. His muscles shift like he’s trying to stand, but he’s too weak to stand up from the couch. He growls instead, but it’s not nearly as intimidating when he can’t move.

“Yes!” I snap back, which seems to startle us both. Too late to back down now, I press on, “When I have sex with a partner, I only want it to be pleasurable for us both.”

“A partner,” Caleb growls, and this time he does manage to push himself upright, his fingers clawing at the armrest of the couch. “Who the fuck do you think you’ll be sleeping with other than me?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I say.

“Didn’t you?”

Gods, he’s so stubborn. “I just don’t want to sleep with you if you are hurt! That’s shouldn’t be that hard to understand!”

He’s glaring at me like he hates me, and it cuts me deeply.

I should have known things wouldn’t have changed. It doesn’t matter that I saved his life, or that we are outside of the capital. He is still a demon, and I should have known better than to follow my confused feelings.

I don’t even want to be in the same room with him right now. I turn toward the stairs, eager to explore the rest of the house.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“To find some clean clothes,” I tell him. I take the stairs two at a time and don’t look back.

Eventually, once the shooting and the screaming ends, Bethany crawls out from under her bed. There are so many safe rooms in the capital but each one she tried was taken with people of higher rank than her, unwilling to share their space with her. In the end, with nowhere else to go, she retreated back to her room.

Fortunately, aside from one guard who briefly passed by the room, and didn’t spot her, she was safe.

Despite the quiet now, Bethany has no idea what to expect as she walks out the door. She’s greeted with more silence in the hallways. Down toward the Hall, one of the older slaves seems to have at least taken charge.

He spots Bethany at once and waves her over. “We need to clean this Hall out as soon as possible,” he says. “The Gamma George is going to be stepping up as the King’s Steward in the King’s absence. He’s insisted he has control of the Hall.”

It’s not in a slave’s nature to talk back, but in the absence of any real authority here, Bethany feels emboldened. She’s also worried about Harper. The last Bethany saw her, she was with the King. If something happened to him, something likely happened to her as well.

“Where is the King?” Bethany asks. “Is he missing?”

“He’s dead.”

Bethany freezes, shocked. She didn’t think anyone or anything could take down the King. How could this even happen? None of this makes sense.

“Get to work,” the man says, giving Bethany a shove toward the door of the Hall. “And if you throw up, you are the one who has to clean it up.”

“Why would I…?” Bethany starts, but her voice fails as she steps into the carnage of the Hall.

Whatever bodies that would have been left from this attack were cleared from the room, but the blood remains. It smells reek of blood and immediately, Bethany recoils.

“Here,” another slave says, handing Bethany a mask and a pair of gloves. “Grab one of the mops and get out to the balcony. An alpha was brought low out there.” Almost as an afterthought, they add, “Pick up the silver bullets but be careful not to touch them with your bare hands. Any wolf in you, that silver will burn.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Bethany says, her stomach twisting. At least, she thinks, she’ll be outside on the balcony and hopefully, the air will flow better.

She tries not to look at the ground on her way to the balcony. Once she’s there, she has to be waved through by one of the guards.

At least the guards have seemed to regain control of the capital. During the attack, it had seemed like that would never happen.

Although… Bethany pauses and looks at the guard again. He’s not one she immediately recognizes. She’s been here a long time and knows most of the people that are enslaved and assigned here.

It’s possible this guard was brought in from elsewhere during the attack, but the way he’s carrying himself, it seems so… odd. The guards here are all trained to stand a certain way. This soldier isn’t doing that at all.

It’s the shoes that fully give him away. This soldier has boots with thick tread the kind needed for heavy snow. Soldiers here are not assigned those kinds of boots because they just aren’t needed.

But soldiers from the bear clan in the north… they would need them.

“What are you looking at?” the soldier asks, his northern accent curling his syllables. He’s not even trying to hide it.

Bethany tucks her chin and steps out onto the balcony.

Surely the King’s Gamma doesn’t know that there are still bear soldiers lingering around the capital. Bethany has to find a way to tell him before things get even worse.

Chapter 96

Bethany keeps her head down, completing her work scrubbing the blood from the balcony while trying to not to panic about the very clearly bear soldiers still in the capital, posing as King’s guards. All the while, she waits for her chance to come forward and warn the Gamma about what she’s seeing.

After finishing cleaning, I head back into the Hall from the balcony. Gamma George is there, speaking with a few guards, some I recognize, but most are barely disguised bear-clan soldiers.

“What do you mean you can’t find the body?” George snaps.

Bethany, wanting to eavesdrop, immediately begins cleaning nearby. No one seems to pay her any mind. Not George, not the bear-clan soldiers, and not even the guards she knows.

As a slave, she’s basically invisible in the room. At least to them.

Bethany locks eyes with another slave, who gives her a silent, worried look.

The head guard George is talking to, stands at attention, his face carefully passive. “We’ve searched the entirety of the premises. Every alley. Every house. No one can account for the King’s body.”

“Then he might still be alive,” George says and curses. “I’ve already told half the kingdom that he is dead.”

“No one could survive that fall,” the head guard argues. “And all those silver bullets…”

“Do not underestimate him,” George says. “That devil has been a thorn in my side for years. I won’t believe he’s actually gone until I have his head on a pike.”

Hope springs through Bethany’s chest. If George believes the King might still be alive, then maybe Harper is too.

Yet at the same time… how deep does this corruption go, if even the Gamma worked with the bears to oust King Caleb?

“You there,” snaps one of the guards. “I don’t see you working…”

“Ignore the slaves,” George says. “They’ll follow orders no matter who is in charge.” He laughs. “They are probably as glad as the rest of us to see the king go.”

A few of the guards and soldiers laugh along with him.

Bethany hurries to continue working so as to not draw any more attention. If she keeps her ear to the ground, maybe she can find a way to help Harper and the King…

……

Meanwhile……

I go through all the cabinets upstairs and manage to find a plain dress that fits well enough – at least, if I tighten the sash around the waist. There’s some linen pants and flannel tops that look like they might fit Caleb too. I’m hesitant to take them downstairs though, still avoiding him.

It’s unsettling, seeing Caleb brought so low. He might still see himself as a King, but broken and weary on that couch, unable to even lift himself, he’s anything but.

Maybe I’m hiding up here like a coward, but it’s better than facing the uncertainty that waits for me down below. Still, the man should have clean clothes, so with a deep settling inhale, I take to the stairs.

When I finally make it down to the living room once more, Caleb is asleep, his head pressed into the corner of the couch. His chest rises and falls lightly with his deep breathing.

He is peaceful like this, so I choose not to wake him. Instead, I leave the clothes I found for him on the coffee table and step outside of the house. It’s already dark again.

How much things can change in a day.

Not wanting to disturb Caleb, I take up one of the rickety rocking chairs on the front porch. I’ve been awake for a long time now, so as soon as I rest my bones, my eyes grow heavy too. Before long, I’m drifting off to sleep right there on the porch.

I feel something warm in the night. When I wake up again, I’m on the couch, and the sun is creeping in through the windows. There’s voices on the front porch, but they are familiar.

Tristan and Caleb, talking lightly. I also notice that the clothes I left on the coffee table for Caleb are gone.

Standing from the couch, I cross the room, closer to the door.

“You can’t just go back storming through the gates,” Tristan says. “We don’t know the state of anything right now. George could be expecting you. He could have you killed on sight.”

“He’ll have to try harder if he wants to kill me,” Caleb says. Then, in a gruffer tone, he adds, “Do not forget you speak to your King, Beta. Just because I am wearing these ridiculous clothes.”

“Of course, King Caleb. With all due respect, you assigned me as your Beta in part because of my observations and judgements. It’s only out of concern for your well-being that I’m telling you, you walking back into the capital right now is asinine.”

“I am capable,” Caleb says.

“You need to rest,” I say, from the doorway to the house. I can’t stand listening to this anymore. Caleb can’t be out there, gallivanting around like he’s at 100%. “You nearly died. If you go back there, the exertion alone might kill you, even if the bear clan doesn’t.”

Caleb turns to look at me, incredulous, from where he sits on the rocking chair. When he looks back to Tristan, who is leaning against one of the support beams at the edge of the porch, Tristan shrugs.

“She’s not wrong,” Tristan says.

“Whether she is or isn’t, I don’t need anyone else to tell me how I feel,” Caleb grumbles, more grumpy than belligerent now.

I don’t point out, though I think, that he clearly does need someone to tell him when enough is enough. Before I said anything, he was ready to go back to the capital, guns blazing, like he wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion almost instantly.

When he returns to the capital, he needs to be healthy.

“Allow me to return to the capital in your stead,” Tristan says. He’s known Caleb for longer than me, and clearly knows how to make suggestions to Caleb to help guide him to the correct choices, without insulting him.

“They’ll kill you too,” Caleb says.

“Only if they spot me. I’m not going to make my presence known. What I’m suggesting is purely reconnaissance. I’ll go in, find out what’s going on. When we have more answers about what’s happening there, we can formulate a more sound attack strategy.”

Caleb nods in agreement.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea…” I say, with hesitation. Tristan and I aren’t friends, exactly, but I do care whether he lives or dies. We are allies in this. I don’t like seeing him put himself in danger. “What if you are spotted?”

Caleb frowns, but doesn’t say anything.

Tristan, meanwhile, looks at me with determination hardening his eyes. “No one at any of the locations I visited today knew what was happening inside of the capital. The only people who know are the people who are there. It’s fine and well for us to hide away while we can, but we can’t do this forever. Nor can we go back blindly.”

I understand what he’s saying: he doesn’t have any choice.

“Harper is right to have fears, Tristan,” Caleb says. “We need your eyes and ears at the capital, but I insist you be cautious. Not just for yourself but for all of us.”

Tristan bows low. “I will not fail you, King Caleb.”

Without another word, he turns and hurries away. There’s a new car parked beside the house. It’s a beat-up old sedan, yet still in better shape than the bullet-ridden car we used for an escape.

At the door, Tristan nods to both Caleb and I. Then, he enters the car and drives away.

I can’t help but worry that I won’t ever see him again.

Chapter 97

My main worry is for Tristan and his safety on his dangerous mission. My second worry, however, is for myself, as I’m now alone with him in this farmhouse. There are no other slaves or servants. No cooks. No cleaners. No other harem women to sate his needs – although that makes me more pleased than concerned, for reasons I don’t want to think about.

Undoubtedly, he is going to wish for me to fulfill the duties of all the other servants.

Almost immediately, my fears are realized.

“Consort. Make breakfast. Tristan brought groceries when he returned. I expect you know how to throw a meal together.”

I do, but it annoys me that he assumed that.

He’s injured, I remind myself, so that I will hold my temper. Besides, I am technically his servant still, even if we are outside the capital. I’m also hungry too.

In the kitchen, I find the pantry stocked. There’s no electricity in this house, but there is an old wood burning stove and an ice box. Both of which are stocked with wood and ice.

I could finagle a quick breakfast with modern appliances, but these antiques take me much longer to sort out. Why is it so difficult to start a fire on the wood stove? You’d think one match would do it.

Half an hour late, I’ve managed to start a fire, though I’m covered in splotches of old soot from having pushed the wood around so much.

The eggs and bacon are heating up now though, so that’s something.

Caleb storms in, demanding, “How long does it take to cook an egg?”

“Longer than you’d think, with the equipment I’m working with,” I tell him.

“I don’t see the problem,” he says.

“These kinds of stoves haven’t been used in over a hundred years,” I say, glaring back at him.

He leans against one of the nearby counters, his arms crossed, his eyes narrowed with annoyance. His face, even irritated is handsome as ever, which is incredibly frustrating, but it’s his body that takes my breath away.

That flannel shirt and linen pants that I had found upstairs that I thought might fit him are decidedly too small. They stretch across his wide shoulders. Every curve of muscle down his torso is on delicious display. Those pants are so tight, I can clearly make out the outline of his dick – which twitches under my gaze.

“My eyes are up here, servant,” he says, though he’s smirking now, the bastard. “And you’re burning the eggs.”

“Shit!” I gasp, removing the pan from the heat of the stovetop. The eggs are overdone, but the bacon isn’t thoroughly cooked yet. The stovetop isn’t cooking evenly. I’ll have to remember that in the future.

In a hurry, I dump the eggs onto a pair of plates and then return the pan, with only bacon now, to the stovetop. If I’m having this much trouble with the stove, I have no idea how I’m ever going to get the oven to work.

I rub my forehead, realizing too late that I’ve smeared my soot-coated hands across my forehead.

“Here,” Caleb says, suddenly beside me. He cups my jaw with one hand while reaching up with the other, holding a towel, and gently wipes the soot off of my face. “A servant of mine shouldn’t look like she fell out of a chimney.”

For a moment, he seems almost… softer somehow. I try to envision him doing this with anyone else and come up short. But then, like he realizes himself that this is not to his character, he backs away and tosses the towel at my chest.

“Clean yourself up. It insults me for you to be such a mess in my presence.”

“We’re in a farmhouse with no electricity and water we have to get from a pump,” I say. I don’t want to admit that I’m hurt by his sudden turnabout, but it still hurts all the same. “I’m doing my best.”

“Do better,” he says. Grabbing his plate of eggs, he eyes the kitchen table, but likely recalling what happened there, he instead returns to where he had leaned when he first entered the kitchen.

I look away back to the bacon. By the time it’s finished, he’s ready for more eggs. I offer him mine, which I haven’t even started eating yet.

He frowns at them. “Those are cold by now. You wouldn’t have your king eating cold food, would you?”

At that moment, I want to smash it into his face.

Patience, I plead with myself and crack open a couple more eggs.

By the time I manage to get to my own breakfast, it’s all cold. Still, I’m hungry enough to eat it all down, even as I silently resent Caleb for it.

He leaves his dirty plate on the counter and heads back to the couch in the living room.

Later, after cleaning the dishes, some of the house, and myself, I head outside to check on the state of the garden. Tristan left us with enough food for a few weeks, but without knowing how long we might stay here, I think it’s smart to have a renewable source of food. Especially because I’ve seen Caleb eyeing that icebox. I don’t trust him not to accidentally leave it open.

I’m not sure the King has ever stepped foot in a kitchen before in his entire life.

The garden is small, but has a variety of vegetables planted. Some, like the potatoes, are even close to being done. It’s just a little overgrown, is all. With some love and care, this garden could flourish again.

Rolling up my sleeves, I set to work pulling out the more invasive of weeds. Tall grasses have infested most of the garden, so it’s slow- going work.

I’m only halfway through when Caleb ambles out of the house. From the porch, he calls down to me. “Servant. I want a glass of cold water.”

“I put some water in the icebox,” I tell him as I continue my work. “It should be cool by now.”

“That means nothing to me. I am telling you to get me a glass of water.”

I should, probably, even though it is a menial task that he is perfectly capable of doing on his own. But I’m more concerned right now with making sure we can survive on our own, isolated as we are, than I am about catering to his every need.

“I’m busy,” I say.

An eerie kind of silence follows. Then, he asks, “What did you just say to me?” Every word is stunted as if spoken through his teeth.

“Who knows how long it will take Tristan to return,” I say. “We need a garden.”

“That is not a concern of mine,” he says. “That is for you to worry about.”

Anger flashes hot within me. At the moment, I take it out on the weeds, yanking them with more ferocity now. “It will be a concern to us both if we run out of food.”

“Servant,” Caleb says, his voice low now. A tone like that I might have feared in the capital, but here in the countryside, I am too tired, hungry, and irritated to be afraid of him. “Water. Now.”

Knees in the dirt, I swivel to face him. “Get it yourself.”

Chapter 98

For a brief moment, Caleb’s entire face goes slack with shock. In that instant, I feel vindicated, like maybe he’ll learn something new.

However, in the next second, his face hardens instead. His words like ice, he says, “What did you just say to me?”

On any other day, maybe I would have backed down. The Alpha is intimidating when he’s pissed off. Even now, I feel a tremor of fear zips down my spine.

But fear isn’t the only thing I feel. A kindling of defiance has always simmered inside of my soul, ever since my disgrace. It comes forward now and then, usually to get me in trouble before I can suppress it once more to keep the peace.

Right now, that defiance burns like a bonfire.

Maybe it’s the near freedom that comes from being in this place. Maybe it’s the confidence that Caleb can’t kill me here unless he wants to leave himself entirely servant-less. I imagine he’d be dead in two days, not knowing how to pour his own ice water.

Whatever the cause, the defiance is there, bright and hot, and it won’t be silenced any longer.

“I said, get it yourself,” I tell him, enunciating each word slowly so that there can be no confusion.

He steps down from the porch, moving toward me with his long, kingly strides. I stand up to meet him, unwilling to kneel before him now.

He glowers down at me, his upper lip curled in disgust. Curiously, at the same time, the ice thaws in his eyes, and his own fire seems to spark there, hot and dangerous.

“I am your King,” he says, his voice a deep growl. The shivers that tone of voice gives me are entirely different than fear, but I press down on those feelings, restraining them. This is not the right time to be horny.

“Out here, it’s just the two of us,” I tell him, steel in my voice. I want him to know that he can yell and demand and posture all he likes, it won’t make a difference. “Look around, you are the king of nothing but weeds and an old farmhouse. I cannot maintain this place entirely on my own while also catering to your ever meager needs. You know where the icebox is. I’m busy trying to help us survive out here.”

“You can stop your work to tend to my needs. It is your duty as my servant.”

I shake my head. “If you don’t start pulling your own weight around here, I’m going to walk off and leave you here. How would that be? We’ll see how long the king can last on his own. Do you even know how to work a stove?”

“Do not mock me,” he says furiously. Inching closer, he towers over me, glaring down the length of his nose at me.

“You won’t care if I walk off then,” I snap, unwilling to be intimidated. “A king should be able to stand on his own.”

In a flash, Caleb reaches out and grabs me, clutching the front of my dress in his fists.

“Until Tristan returns, it will take both of us to survive out here,” I tell him, squawking slightly now as he lifts me up off my feet. My voice turns pleading. Why can’t he understand? “I can’t do it all alone. You have to pull your own weight!”

A deep growl escapes the back of Caleb’s throat. For a moment, I brace myself, because he looks mad as hell and like he might just throw me across the meadow.

But then, his gaze shifts, and he looks down at the garden beneath us and its sorry state.

“You expect this… to grow our food?” Caleb asks. Slowly, he lowers me down to my feet.

When my feet touch the ground, I breathe easy again. “It’s already growing some. We just need to help it.”

Caleb releases his hands from my dress and takes a half-step back. His anger has simmered now into mere annoyance – and skepticism. “Show me.”

That’s… odd. I was expecting more fights from him. At the very least, I thought he might just storm off and leave me alone. But now he wants to… help?

Maybe my words got through to him. Does he now see how important it is for us to work together to survive?

Containing my pride, I return to my work in the dirt, showing him how to grab the weeds and remove them, while also being cautious of the plants we want to save.

“If you expose the roots, make sure to cover them again with fresh soil.”

He watches for a time, then bends down and, with a disgusted look on his face, digs his hands into the dirt to uproot a rather nasty weed. I’ve seen this man covered in blood and gore. I’ve seen him commit torture and other terrible acts, all with a straight face.

But it’s the dirt under his fingernails that has him looking the most disgusted.

He removes a few weeds as I showed him, but then seems to grow impatient and starts pulling faster and at random.

“Stop!” I tell him quickly before he can uproot a carrot.

“What?” he says shortly, throwing me a look of frustration.

“That’s a carrot,” I say.

Looking down, he slowly releases the death grip he had on that carrot. “They look the same…”

“Perhaps if you stick with the grasses,” I suggest. “The grasses don’t look like any vegetables.”

He looks at his hands. Even from where I am, I can see the dirt caked into his skin at the bends of his fingers and palms.

“My hands are not built for such gentle work,” he says. “I am built to rule, not to… tend gardens…”

“It’s an adjustment. It will take time.”

“I am a king,” he says, the annoyance returning tenfold to his voice. “I should not have to adjust.”

“Caleb,” I start.

“Do not address me so informally,” he snaps, as he pushes himself back to his feet. “Whether we are here or anywhere else, I am still your King, and you will treat me with respect and dignity.” He looks at his hands again. “Dignity…” he repeats with distain, then huffs a sharp breath.

Before I can think of what to say to him, my own anger flaring, he storms off, not in the direction of the house, but through a part of the meadow, headed toward the nearest line of trees..

I let him go, glaring after him. He’s made such a mess of the garden, it’s probably for the best that he just gives up.

It will be a miracle if we survive out here for any length of time without killing each other. Or starving to death. At this rate, I think killing each other will come first.

For a time, I continue my work on my own, weeding most of the garden. Yet, the longer I work, and the longer Caleb takes to return, the more I wonder if I wasn’t patient enough with him.

He is a king, after all. He’s likely always had servants tending to his every whim, so he wouldn’t know how to use a stove or an ice box or how to weed a garden.

That he helped at all today shows a willingness to learn, to do his part, and to pull his own weight.

Maybe tending the garden isn’t the right task for him, but we can try other things…

I should apologize, I realize. Or at least, offer some suggestions of things he could help with that he might excel at.

Gods know where he wandered off too. He is coming back… right?

Nervous now, I abandon my work to follow the path he took, across the meadow and through the trees. There, I hear the sounds of rushing water. I follow the noise to find a river.

In that river, stands Caleb.

Entirely naked.

Chapter 99

Caleb’s wounds are healing nicely. That’s the first thing I think looking at Caleb’s chest. The second is much less innocent.

As much as I want to hate Caleb, and as many viable reasons as I have to do so, his body always manages to provide an excellent counterpoint. He may only be an alpha werewolf, but he is built like a god. Wide shoulders taper to a narrow waist, only to expand out again with shapely rounded glutes.

And all of it is on perfect, wet display for me now.

Caleb’s attention is fixed on something in the water, his hands curled loosely above the water.

Then, in a flash, even faster than I can see, he darts his hands into the water, scoops out a fish, and tosses it onto the shore right at my feet.

For a moment, the building heat inside of me wanes, only so I can be so thoroughly impressed. He’d moved quickly as lightning.

“How did you do that?” I ask.

He smirks at me. “I’m an Alpha,” he says with all the confidence in the world. I want to mock him but I’m actually glad this endeavor has rebuilt his spirits after his frustration with the garden. “Do you want to try to learn?”

“I’m not an Alpha,” I say. “I’m not even a wolf.”

His smirk widens. “We’ll put you to the test, then. See how much you are capable of.”

He’s baiting me. I hate that it’s working. I’m not one to back down from a challenge.

I kick off my shoes and then step into the water at the river’s edge.

Caleb clucks his tongue. “Don’t come in here with that dress. The current isn’t much but it will feel twenty times heavier with that skirt holding you down.” Mischief sparks in his eyes. “Unless you want me to rescue you.”

Annoyed, I start unbuttoning the front buttons of the dress, then untie the sash at the waist. When it’s loose enough, I lower it down over my body and step out of it. Embarrassment brings heat to my cheeks, but I try to ignore it, reminding myself that my underwear still covers most of me.

I step into the river once more, only for Caleb to cluck in disapproval once more.

“There’s no sense in wetting your panties and bra. It would make for an uncomfortable walk home,” he says.

He’s right and I hate that. Still, I hesitate. He’s seen me naked before, many times, but I still feel shy, more than normal. Maybe because we are outside, and not in the bedroom. And the activity we have planned isn’t sex.

“Although your panties are already wet, so I can understand your hesitation,” he says smugly, making a show of scenting the air.

Alpha bastards and their heightened senses. Yes, my body reacted to seeing him naked, but I shouldn’t be punished for it. Though,

admittedly, even now, my pussy is creating fresh dampness at the thought of being naked with Caleb.

Frustrated by my own body, I hurriedly remove my bra and panties and leave them on top of my dress.

Turning back to the water, I make the mistake of looking at Caleb and find him staring at my nakedness with hooded eyes. When he looks at my breasts, my nipples harden. When that gaze lowers to the apex of my thighs, I shift, aching to feel him inside of me.

No. He is going to teach me how to fish and I need to focus on that. Keeping that thought at the forefront of my mind, I step into the water. He doesn’t correct me this time, so I continue, wading through the thigh-high waters until I’m closer to him.

He could grab me if he wanted to, yank me to him and kiss the life out of me. Instead, he instructs me.

“Stand like this, with your feet slightly further apart. You don’t want to stumble when you are forced to move quickly,” he says.

Disappointment flushes through me, and I hate myself for it. Caleb showed me what to do is what should be happening. Sex was never the intention here, no matter how hot my body was for him.

I inch my legs apart. “Like this?”

He stares at the junction of my thighs, just above the water. “Perfect.”

Heat burns my face, scorching, until he looks away, down to the face of the water. He sets his hands as he did before, with the side of his palms over the water.

I mimic the motion.

“No. You have to keep your fingers curled. You’ll be making a net with your hands,” he says.

I try to follow his instructions, but I still can’t manage.

“No,” he says again. With a sigh, he wades through the water closer

to me. “Like this,” he says. Taking point behind me, he wraps his arms around me so that his hands can fit around the outsides of my hands. He curls my fingers one by one.

Meanwhile, his torso is lining my entire back. His cock is hardening, twitching against my ass.

It’s exceedingly difficult to concentrate.

Caleb, however, despite his dick’s growing interest, maintains his focus.

He moves my hands with his own, pushing down under the water, then closing almost beneath the fish. We lift, flinging the fish into the air, but my last minute hesitation causes the fish to land short of the shore. It flops harmlessly back into the water.

I’ve never moved my arms that quickly. They sting a little from the exertion of it.

“I don’t think I’m built for this particular job,” I tell him.

His arms are still around me, his hands covering my hands.

“No, I suppose not,” he says, his lips near my ear, his breath hot on my earlobe. “Fortunately, you have other talents.”

I swallow thickly. Does he mean sex or gardening?

His dick throbs, nearly all the way hard now, nudging at the swell of my ass.

Guiding my hands with his own, he brings them up so that my palms press flat against my own breasts.

“Caleb…” I whisper, trepidation in my voice.

“No one is here. No one can see you but me,” he says, his voice a warm rumble in my ear.

“But your wounds…” I say, even weaker. The walls I built to keep him out are crumbling.

“I’m stronger every minute.” He abandons one of my hands, leaving it on my breast, as he starts to trail a hand down the length of my front, down over my stomach, lower still to my mound. “Every second.”

“Caleb,” I gasp, as he pushes two fingers through my folds, searching for and then quickly, expertly, finding my clit.

“I can make you scream out here, and no one will hear you. Here, we can both let ourselves go…”

Both?

I glance over my shoulder at him, to see the heat as well as that strange softness in his eyes.

As if seeing the question in my gaze, he answers, “A King must always uphold decorum, even in the bedroom. Out here, I don’t have to hold myself back.”

I swallow thickly, wondering what he could possibly have left to give that I haven’t already seen when I’ve already been so thoroughly satisfied. Whatever it is, the promise of it sparks new electricity through me.

“What do you say, Harper? Do you want to see me unchained?”

I do. So much, in fact, that I swivel in his arms and jump up against him in anticipation.

He mustn’t have been expecting me to do that, or he wasn’t prepared for the sudden weight.

Either way, we both topple, crashing down under the water.

Chapter 100

The shock of water up my nose cools my passions enough for fear to set in. What have I done? I basically shoved Caleb under the water. He’s going to be furious. He’s going to –

My rush of thoughts is abruptly halted as Caleb yanks me up and out of the water. I brace myself, expecting to be yelled at. Instead, his chest shakes against my ear as a sound I’ve never heard before – at least not genuinely escaping his lips.

He’s… laughing.

I look up at him to be sure, and…yes. His lips are curled up, his eyes squinting slightly, his mouth open. Genuine booming laughs, bright and happy, are coming out of him.

If I wasn’t seeing it for myself right at this moment, I wouldn’t believe it.

He’s happy. He’s playful. He’s… having fun?

Cradling me against his chest, bridal style, he carries me to the edge of the river. Once there, he lowers me down onto his stretched-out flannel shirt.

Unlike where I had left my clothes in a neat pile, Caleb had left his shirt stretched out as far as it would go, almost like… he’d been expecting this scenario. His eyes flash once more with mischief. He had been expecting this. Or maybe hoping for it.

“Caleb…” I don’t know what to think, or what to expect from this sudden, strange, happy version of him.

It makes me weak. If he was like this all the time, he’d never receive an ounce of defiance from me.

I thought him handsome when he was grumpy, yet a happy Caleb is like looking into the sun. He’s so perfect that it makes my heart hurt.

Is this what he meant by unchained? That he could finally let himself show his true feelings, even when those feelings weren’t upset or annoyance.

“Were you trying to escape me, by pushing me under the water?” he says, his voice a more playful growl, upbeat. “You should know better. You cannot escape me or my desires.” His gaze trails down along the length of my wet body. Gripping my knees, he pushes them apart, then places himself into the new space between them. “The King always gets what he wants.”

Today, I’m so hot for this man that I don’t even feel like pretending to be disinterested. “Then take what you want, my King,” I say, egging him on. “Show me what it means for the King to be unchained.”

His eyes darken, overflowing with wanton lust, mirroring, I imagine, my own. I drop my knees farther, stretching so far that they are down into the grass.

Caleb leans back on his knees. With his thumbs, he reaches down and pulls apart my lower lips, revealing my clit and my entrance – the entrance that’s dripping in my lust for him.

He openly sniffs the air, scenting my desire. “You smell so fucking good.”

Suddenly, his eyes flash red, and his canines start to extend.

“Caleb,” I say with alarm.

“Easy,” he says, soothing me. “I’m in control.”

Glancing down, I see that the rest of his has stayed human. Only his eyes and those two sharp teeth have changed. Perhaps this is what he means by unchained… letting his wolf have a taste.

Caleb lines himself up with my entrance and pushes himself inside, he receives no friction along the way. My pussy has been preparing for this moment since I stepped up to the riverbank and saw him naked.

Now, it feels like home as he slides all the way inside. This is how things should be. With him filling me, making me his.

“Caleb…” I say, half-moan, half-sigh. Gone is my ability to formulate actual words. With him inside of me, I can only think of his name again and again, like my mind is on a loop of base desire.

Caleb is what I want. He’s what I need.

Then he starts to move. Slowly, he drags his hips backward. I grab at his shoulders, desperate to keep him close, but he leans farther back out of reach. I whimper and he tsks at me.

“Grab your tits,” he says. “Like we did in the river. Play with those nipples. Give yourself pleasure while I fuck you like an animal.”

At once, I raise my hands. Cupping my breasts, I flick my thumbs across my nipples, sending zips of pleasure through me.

“Good,” he says. “Don’t stop. I want a show.”

With that, he snaps his hips, moving as quickly as he had in the river, so quick I could almost not see him move. But Gods, could I feel it.

I drop my head back, my mouth falling open. Again, he drags himself almost all the way out, slow as can be, before – snap – back in inside of me.

“If you stop, I stop,” Caleb commands. His hands grab me around the ass, lifting my lower half as he presses himself up further on his knees, giving himself more leverage. “Touch those tits, Harper.”

I try to obey, massaging the swell of my breasts while flicking my thumbs over my nipples.

He pulls out again – slowly and instantly plunges himself back in. His dick presses hard against the sensitive spot inside of me, and I gasp, unable to catch my breath. My surprise has me clamping down on my nipples, sending another rush of pleasure through me.

It’s almost unbearable. Too much, so close to pain, but still on the right side of pleasure.

A low growl emerges from the back of Caleb’s throat. His red eyes take mine prisoner. He bites at me like he wants to dig his teeth into my neck and claim me. That would make me his mate forever. He won’t do it, but his instincts want him to send fresh excitement and satisfaction through me.

In another lifetime, maybe I could be his. Gods, the thought makes me wild.

I curl my legs around his waist, begging him to continue with my heels against his ass.

He must sense my desire because the next pull out of me is as fast as the following plunge back inside.

He’s bucking inside of me with lightning speed, in and out, faster than I can see.

“Ahhh… Ah! Aaa-ah! Ah! Ca-leb! Caleb!!”

He growls in response, his fingers turning clawlike, biting into the meat of my ass. The pleasure-pain takes me further, I feel like I’m floating.

He doesn’t let up his pace, even as his growl heightens, and his grunts turn half-animal, half-man. I glance down in shock, but his body is still human. Yet, I could swear his dick is growing larger inside of me.

It’s too fast to see.

Smack, smack, smack, skin slaps across skin. His sweat drips down off his chin onto my equally sweaty skin.

I’m so close, I feel like I’m going to fly away. I give up holding my breasts, grabbing chunks of grass above my head instead. This lets my breasts loose to the inertia of his thrusts. They bounce with wild abandon, claiming his hungry eyes.

“Fuck. Fuck! Fuck, Harper. Fuck.”

“Ah! Ah! Gods, Caleb…AH!”

It’s so much, too much. I’m nearing the edge.

“Close!” I manage, between my gasps and my moans.

“Cum,” he growls with the full force of his Alpha voice.

The Alpha command crashes into me hard, maybe because he is so close to losing himself. Or maybe because I am. Either way, I’m thrown over the abyss, past the precipice of pleasure into something even further beyond.

Pure ecstasy.

Still, he presses inside of me. As I am, I’m nothing more than a blissed-out ragdoll, existing singularly for his pleasure. Then, his relentless pace starts to stutter.

“Harper…” he grunts with grit teeth. He’s holding himself back.

Why hold himself back? I thought I was going to have him unchained? Can he sense some form of hesitation on my part?

“Give it to me,” I tell him, more in instinct, than with clear-headed thought. “I want it, Caleb!”

That’s enough to send him over the edge. He plunges deep. Then, at the last moment, he pulls out and comes in thick hot strips all over my body.

Lifting his head back, he howls.

お金金

SEND GIFT or GCASH: +63.936.139.8714

COMMENT

Subscribe

♡
Prev | Next