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CHAPTER 22

A rmand

Mr. Volkov comes to see me the next day. I expected he’d show up eventually. I am back in my office, working on my proposal with a few changes to reflect new circumstances.

“Where is my client, Ma?tre ?” He leans against the door of my office, arms folded over his chest. He’s wearing a skintight t-shirt, and his tattoos are very visible. I suppose he’s not technically at work now, and can dress as casually as he likes, even masquerade as a Russian dock worker, if he likes.

“Your client has killed five men, Volkov. Several of them after meeting you. I’m going to suggest that your methods are less than effective. I’ll keep you on because the pack in general seems to enjoy having someone impartial to talk to.”

The fact that one of those clients of his tried to assassinate me is, well… I’m keeping an eye on it. If it happens again, I’ll consider it a pattern.

“I’m going to suggest she’s responsible for her own actions,” he says.

That’s the problem with these therapists. They have all this influence. They get you in a room alone, twist your thoughts, bond with you, lead you down paths of belief and action you might never have taken on your own. And then they claim no responsibility at all. Nothing is ever on them. Nothing is his fault. Not the four people who have died since he showed up, or the bullet I almost took to my skull.

He’s right, though, in a twisted way. Responsibility is a tricky thing. Nobody really has it, unless they claim it. It’s an alpha’s job to claim it.

“I am responsible for her actions. And there will be no more killing. I guarantee it. You can go back to work, Mr. Volkov, or unloading containers from an ocean liner.”

He frowns, ignoring the petty jibe. “Armand, what have you done?”

“The only logical thing.”

“Armand…”

“I tried doing things the civilized way, Volkov. I tried talking. I tried therapy. I tried understanding and warning, and light discipline. I tried being her lover. Now I’m going to be something else. What she’s needed from the beginning. I’m going to be her alpha.”

* * *

Beatrix

My ass aches.

He was rough. He was merciless.

He was fucking hot.

I suppose I can’t tell him, but it would be worth killing a couple of guys every now and then just to feel his power that way, potent and just barely restrained.

He meant to punish me, but the truth is I felt reward in that untrammeled, unrestrained act of pure lust and discipline. It might be the first time in my life I’ve ever felt truly met, entirely seen, and completely put in my place.

I am already settling into what I am told will be my new life.

The dungeon is bigger than I expected it to be. The stone walls are lit with what look like torches, but are electric, and there’s a UV lamp to ward off rickets. I’m well set up with a king-sized bed covered in velvet brocade and all the creature comforts of a medieval captive.

I was surprised when he brought me down here, but I didn’t beg. Didn’t cry. I should probably have seen this coming, but I guess I thought Armand’s patience was pretty much endless. Turns out it wasn’t.

Perhaps I should be panicking, but I got used to being locked up a long time ago. I could waste time feeling betrayed, but I know I pushed him to his limits. So maybe this is fair.

Armand comes down the stairs, his shirt open almost all the way to his waist, chest bared. His legs are clad in tight black pants, his hair is pushed back from his head in a dark mane.

It’s one of those moments where I look at him and realize how incredibly hot he is. Not just attractive, but truly dominant, actually made for this role. He has a tray in his hands, silver-covered plates on top of it.

I am sitting cross-legged on the bed, as he approaches, setting the dinner down on a side table.

His eyes are darker down here. There’s not enough light to reflect the moon, so they are a kind of deep gray.

He doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. We just look at one another in a so it has come to this sort of way.

“We’re going to be married,” he says, finally breaking the silence.

I cock my head to the side. “Is that your proposal?”

He fixes me with a firm stare, his chest rippling as he removes one of the silver lids to reveal a plate with bloody steak on it. My mouth waters.

“You forfeited your right to a proposal and the chance to choose when you decided to murder five men. You will marry me. I have decided.”

He’s sexy when he’s finally had enough.

“And where will we be married? In the corner by the bed, or… are you going to keep me down here forever?”

“I’m going to keep you down here until I can trust you. When will that be, Beatrix?”

He starts cutting into the steak. There is not a plate for him and a plate for me, there is just one between us. I watch him, wondering what the game is now. He cuts a piece and offers it to me at the end of the fork.

No freedom for me. No utensils either.

He feeds me steak one bite at a time.

It’s sensual, being his captive. He is careful with me. Considerate. The punishment is the confinement, I think. Though there may be more coming.

“You’re mine,” he says. “My perfect little problem. And when you are my wife…”

“Everything will still be the same,” I say. “I’ll still be who I am. And these walls won’t hold me forever.”

“I’ve decided I’m going to tame you,” he says. “All creatures can be tamed given enough time.”

I laugh. “It’s one thing to keep me captive, Armand. I understand that. But you can’t change who I am, or what I am. They tried that already. They beat me. They hurt me. They drugged me. They lied to me. If you can’t beat the wildness out of a pup, you can’t beat it out of me.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. “I’m going to love you so ferociously there is nothing left in you but love. Are you still hungry?”

I shake my head. I’ve eaten enough.

He is yet to have his fill.

Without question, without invitation, simply taking me as he wants to take me, Armand picks me up and pins me against the wall, my hands above my head, wrists in shackles, because this truly is a dungeon, sanitized as it may be. Arousal flows between my thighs. I want to be fucked. I want him to take me, to mate me. I want to be his.

I don’t care that I am captive, because I know that I will always be his prisoner, one way or another. I’ve been his since the moment he looked at me and threw ten million dollars at the worst man I’ve ever met to take me without question.

His teeth run down the side of my neck, bite lightly, nip and tease as his big hands trace my curves all the way down to my hips, then my thighs. He grips and spreads them, and I know what comes next. His eyes on mine, my sex wet for him, waiting for him to do what he has to do.

Because I, unlike him, will never deny him the true expression of his nature.

His cock surges inside me, rough and dominating. This is his true nature, stripped of the veneer of propriety he has been trying to cling to all this time. He fucks me like he owns me.

Last night he took my ass, and today it is my pussy that will be punished. He is merciless in his rough rutting, pounding inside me over and over as my breasts bounce and are occasionally sucked into his mouth, nibbled, even lightly bitten as he uses me for his pleasure and mine.

I wrap my legs around him, draw him in, let him have me. We rut until he comes inside me, his cock forming that thick alpha knot that keeps his seed inside me, doing what cum does.

We don’t talk about what is going to happen inevitably from all this mating. We never discuss what life is sparking between us. I could be pregnant. I might not be. At any moment, some new little creature could emerge between us and then we will both have even more problems than we already do.

“I don’t know why,” Armand says as we lie together in the aftermath of our rough mating. “But the more you submit, the more I feel as though I’m not getting through to you at all. You’ve made this all too easy.”

“Maybe I like being captive. Maybe this keeps me safe. Maybe not everybody was made to be free.”

Armand wraps his arms around me and sighs into my hair.

“You were made to be free. You just need to understand that there are other ways to be safe besides killing every man that moves.”

“Arguably…”

“No,” he says firmly. “We’re not having this discussion. Killing equals captivity, equals you being kept in a dungeon and fucked until you bear my pups. Until you start to think differently, that’s how it’s going to be.”

“You wouldn’t keep me down here pregnant.”

“I would,” he says. “I’d do anything to keep you out of trouble, Trixie. I love you, and if that means you live the rest of your life as my captive fuck mate, then so be it. Plenty of our ancestors were kept this way. There’s no reason you can’t be too.”

He’s so fucking hot when he’s mercilessly medieval.