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CHAPTER 6

B eatrix

Lying in the arms of my mate on a languid, sunny afternoon, I feel a sense of peace I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. My pussy feels as though it has been ravaged and used, but it is not the only part of me that is feeling the effects of our mating.

My entire body has been transformed. I have not only been fucked, I have been taken. I have been changed from a wild single creature into his owned possession. I didn’t feel that when he paid ten million dollars for me, an insane amount of money, but I feel it now. He runs in my veins. I can feel him inside me, not just in the ache of my pussy, but in my fucking cells. He’s part of me. Am I part of him?

I don’t dare ask, so I stay wondering.

What I do now know is that this is what the mate bond feels like. It feels like being tied to him by a hundred invisible threads that are strummed by a look, a word, even distance itself. I feel the connection to him as strongly as I have felt anything ever.

“This is usually when a female wolf would experience her first transformation into her wolf self,” Armand says, his silver eyes regarding me with that half-confused, half-hurt stare he thinks he has managed to hide from me.

I don’t know why men have to ruin things by opening their mouths, but the spell is broken by that comment. My ability to shift on my own terms seems to concern him a whole lot. He’s jealous of the other men, men who don’t exist, but he supposes must do.

I do not want to have the conversation he is angling for. I have no strength for it, and I am annoyed by the necessity of it. I found my way to my wolf without a man’s cock being involved—directly, at least. I could tell him that, but I don’t think he would believe me.

He wants me to shift because of the magic effects of his cock? Not out of my own desire to take the form, but because he drives me so wild as the animal I am? It will make him feel powerful for me to lose control of my form? I can do that if that’s what’s necessary. This pretty palace could use some messing up anyway.

I take my wolf form, sliding into it smoothly and effortlessly because it is more me than my human self. Sometimes I feel as though my human form is the pretense, the mask I wear so ordinary people don’t kill me on sight. My instincts are animal, my desires are animal, and right now, I am entirely animal.

The first thing I do in my much more powerful state is burst through the bedroom door. It is a heavy oak construction, but it comes off its hinges the same way any run of the mill door would.

“Beatrix!”

I hear him shout for me, but I am already gone, laughing inwardly in my animal self, thrilling to the freedom of being the menace I am. Things fly in my wake as I dash through the halls, not entirely knowing where I am going, but having the sense that the exit is out and down. My paws slide here and there on marble floors, and I find the remnants of my human mind wondering why the fucking hell a wolf shifter clan would live in a palace with no traction on the floor.

I slip and slide toward the front door, a big shaggy thing with little control over my trajectory, collecting a runner along the way that has a table set on it with all sorts of things that crash and clang as they fall everywhere.

And then I am out.

Under the sun this time, running at full speed with all the joy that entails.

He is giving chase, I know that, but I am not really running from him. I am running for myself, for the feeling of freedom, and for the joy of using my body for what it was used for. The few times I shifted at the orphanage, I had to sneak out a very long way and hide clothes, and it felt very dangerous. I worried I wouldn’t be able to keep my wolf form long enough. There were a few times that I couldn’t. I lost it miles from where I started, away from my clothes, and had to sneak through the countryside entirely naked and absolutely exhausted. Taking an animal form uses a lot of energy.

I am burning a hell of a lot of energy now. Running at full speed is thrilling, but draining, and I shifted not twelve hours ago, so in some respects I am on fumes. I guess I just have my new mate’s magic cock to thank for the energy I have now.

I turn my head enough to see behind me. Last time he came after me with a pack. This time it is just him. He is racing after me, his mouth open, tongue lolling in the effort to keep him cool as he sprints after me.

In human forms, a female is slower than a male over shorter differences, though not over longer ones. Women have always known how to endure. I don’t know if males are faster than females in wolf form. I never raced one before. I suppose I’ll find out.

* * *

Armand

I let her run.

I let her run because I want her tired out and calm later on tonight. I would rather have her falling asleep in the soup course than have this amount of energy when encountering the senior members of the pack in this state.

She is truly a handful, an absolute terror, I imagine, if not given the necessary attention. I can see why the director of the orphanage said she was going to be trouble. I have not been able to take my eyes off her since I bought her.

I don’t mind that. She’s worth the trouble. The moment I entered her body and felt her soul trysting with mine, I knew that she truly belonged to me, that she was not merely made for me, but a part of me.

This wild, rebellious little female is part of my wholeness. I won’t ever be able to change her nature, but I might come to know myself through it.

So I let her run. I let her run because she needs this, and because I need it too. I need to feel her glee through the mate bond, her excitement and her true joy at being able to be herself with me. I also don’t want to panic her and send her into a blind sprint. There are a lot of cliffs around here that a hapless young wolf could tumble from.

Fortunately, she runs toward the lake, where willows line the shores. There she slows and sniffs at the edges, scenting deer and other little creatures, and enjoying the sun filtering through the willow trees. She laps at the pristine waters then lies down in a patch of half-sun, half-shade, waiting for me to catch up.

When I arrive, I do not take my human form, as she does not take hers. I stay in my speechless animal self and I lie down beside her, nuzzling under her chin.

I want her to know that she is accepted with me. I want her to know she is safe with me. And I want her to know that being the wild thing she is will never lead me to reject her in the way she has been rejected and punished before.

There are expectations for my mate. The pack and my parents, when they finally meet her, will want a well-bred young virgin with good manners and a pleasant demeanor. Someone soft and nurturing who will provide the pack with new alpha pups and an heir.

Beatrix is not ready for that responsibility. She has no idea of the weight on her shoulders, or how much scandal is potentially yet to be uncovered if something has in fact happened between her and another wolf before our meeting.

If there is an ex, I need to know, so I can kill him. If there is not, how the hell did she have access to her wolf form?

I try to force myself to stop thinking about those problems. In the end, the breeze and the scent of the wild washes them away, accompanied by a soft snore as my darling mate falls asleep in the long soft grass beside the lake.

We nap together for most of the afternoon, but inevitably it comes time to go back to the house and prepare for the welcome dinner. I can smell it being prepared even from this distant lake.

I nudge her up.

She lets out a little growl, not wanting to go back.

I insist, getting up and ambling back toward the house. The message is clear. Follow me, or stay out here by yourself.

I am slightly concerned she will stay out there. I think Beatrix could easily survive out in the wild on her own. I am sure she could bring down a deer and feast on its flesh, find a den and curl up in it overnight.

My retreat is a calculated risk. If she follows, it will show willingness and connection. If she doesn’t, well…

She nuzzles up along my side and accompanies me back to the chateau. Everything that had been knocked over has been righted, and the two of us pad up the stairs together, no intention of shifting back until we are in the privacy of our chambers.

There, we slide back into our human selves, naked and relaxed in ways we have not been before.

“You’re lucky to have so much space to run,” she says.

“So are you. All of this is yours now. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“No,” she says. “I never even had a room of my own. Most of the time in the orphanage I shared a bed. I’ve never had anything, and now you’re telling me all of this is mine? No.” She picks up a little paperweight inlaid with gold and puts it down almost immediately as if it burned her. “I don’t dare touch any of this. It all feels like it belongs to someone grand and important.”

I wrap her in my arms and look down at her, understanding the words she is saying, if not quite the emotional weight of them. I was raised with all of this. It feels quite natural to me to have many nice things because they are my due.

“Beatrix, you are grand and important.”

She frowns, almost as though that statement was offensive.

“I’m not. I’m rubbish. I always have been. And I’m not going to be a good mate for you. I’m not… I’m not a good person, and I am a worse wolf.”

“Why do you think you’re not a good person?”

“I lie. I cheat. I steal. I do worse, too, sometimes.”

“And did you do those things because you had to survive in a place where very little was given to you?”

“Maybe. But I got good at them. They’re in my brain now. I’m not… your pack is not going to like me.”

“The pack is going to adore you, just as I do,” I reassure her. “And you will have help. There are many instructors here who can give you etiquette lessons and deportment classes and other lessons to teach you what you need to learn, history and mathematics and such.”

She looks even more uncertain now.

“Don’t worry, ma petite ,” I say. “When you meet everyone, you will understand.”

* * *

Beatrix

Now he’s talking about lessons. I really am not going to be good enough for this place.

The orphanage had enough basic education that we could read, write, and function to a low level. I have never learned history besides what I picked up here and there through the few books that were passed around, and I don’t know how much of what I read was true.

What I do know, because my instinct tells me, is that I am out of place. I am too young, too rough, too stupid, too poor, too outcast, too alone. I wish I had just one friend from the orphanage, but Armand refused to take any of them with me. So now I am facing this strange situation without any support from anyone who has ever understood me.

I want to go and hide and cry.

He keeps looking at me as if I should be happy, but I am not. And that makes it worse. It was okay when I was in my wolf form. Open spaces and pretty lakes are all I need, a water source and a place to hunt. But as a human, my needs are all too many, too overwhelming, and I am not capable of handling any of this.

“You’re shaking,” he says, taking my hands in his. “Beatrix, I promise, you have nothing to fear. Let me show you.”

I let him show me. I let him find a dress he says will bring out my features, whatever that means. He chooses a deep green velvet gown, and his own suit is similarly colored, so we match. He even goes so far as to do my hair, braiding it with agile fingers.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“When I was young, I used to assist with my mother’s hair.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She retired with my father. They live in Greece now, as the honored guests of the main pack there.”

“I didn’t know you could choose to give it all up.”

“I was twenty-four when my father took ill. It was decided it was time for me to succeed him. I have been ma?tre of the pack for four years now.” He speaks slightly askew, due to the bobby pins he is holding between his teeth as he secures my braids in place.

“And there has not been a single day of all those years that the pack hasn’t desired I find myself a mate,” he says. “And now you are here. You are the culmination of an ancestral line that will blend with our own, strengthening the bloodlines, and ensuring that our kind survives into the future.”

“Are there a lot of packs?”

“Not as many as there once were, but yes. The bloodlines tend to become diluted over time, or simply end. After a certain point, a shifter can no longer shift. Some American packs have what they call domestic wolves, those who shift into forms more like a dog than a wolf.”

“Sounds cute.”

“I am led to believe it is, but I am glad you are entirely wild. You are absolutely stunning in your wolf form, Beatrix. You are a beauty inside and out. Thick pelt, tipped with white and that mask about your eyes and muzzle. You are the color of driven snow and exposed granite.”

I stare at him, the compliment hitting me deeply. He thinks I am beautiful. Not just as a human with big breasts and young body. He thinks I’m beautiful when I am shaggy and messy and wild.

“Thank you,” I say. “That is very nice.”

“Not nice, true. You’re stunning. The pack is going to be absolutely beside themselves. Look at yourself.”

I look in the full length mirror he has turned me toward and I find myself transformed in an entirely new way. I am elegant, I am tall. I am beautiful—he put a little color on my lips and mascara on my lashes when he was fussing with me. My hair is braided back from my face, but falls in dark curling locks down my back.

“They are going to lose their minds when they see you. I am losing my mind this moment,” he says, lifting my hand to his mouth. He presses an adoring kiss to it, and I start to believe that he might be right. If I can look this different, maybe I can be this different.