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CHAPTER 7

B eatrix

The dining room, like the rest of the chateau, is majestic and very old money. This place was built and decorated when men still believed in being extra for the sake of being extra. There is not an unadorned corner in the place. Art is built into the very bones of this building, into every wall, every ceiling, every light switch.

There are dozens of people here. Maybe forty, all sitting at a very long table. They rise as we come in, smiles plastered on their faces. I am not used to people smiling at me because I walked into a room. At first I assume they are looking at Armand. Who wouldn’t? Tall, rakishly and elegantly handsome, with those eyes that pierce you entirely when they fall on you. I can see why the pack chose him as replacement at twenty-four. He is every inch an alpha.

I look at him to try to tell what I’m supposed to do, and like magic he pulls my chair out for me. Everybody sits as I do. It’s honestly kind of weird. For a second, I think about standing up again to see if they all get up, but I don’t have the nerve.

Besides, food is already being delivered by white-gloved waiters. A plate is slid in front of me containing an orange-looking soup with bits of something that isn’t quite fish in it.

“Lobster bisque,” Armand murmurs to me as I stare at it for just a little too long.

“Wolves eat lobster… what’s a bisque?”

“A kind of soup.”

He picks up one of the spoons provided and hands it to me. “Try it, ma cherie .”

I taste it and find that it’s not too bad. Quite rich, and very much not what I am used to. The only soup we got at the orphanage was more like gruel.

The second course is more along the lines of what I assume we’d eat.

“ Filet de b?uf Rossini,” Armand says. “Beef tenderloin with a truffle sauce and crispy potatoes.”

“It’s delicious,” I say, after taking a bite and realizing that my entire experience of food has been stunted in ways I cannot describe. I quite literally did not know it could be this good. I didn’t know it could feel like a painting being painted inside my mouth.

The waiter keeps my wineglass filled as well, and nobody stops me when I sip it. I am more than of age, of course, but it still feels strange because the orphanage strictly banned alcohol. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and it makes the strings between Armand and me, the invisible bonds between me and this stranger positively vibrate. I find myself gazing at him every chance I get, a fact he seems to notice and enjoy.

Is this love? I really didn’t think I’d ever be in love. I definitely never thought anybody would love me. He’s gorgeous, powerful, and entirely too rich for his and anybody else’s good. This feels like a dream.

“Tell me this is really happening,” I murmur to him. “Please tell me this is real.”

He leans over and places a nibbling little kiss on my neck, igniting thrills inside me. This is real. It’s as real as anything has ever been. I spare a little thought for the other girls, wondering what they’d think if they saw me now. I hope they’ve found places as good as mine, though I suspect they haven’t.

By the time the third course arrives, a selection of cheeses and such, I’ve relaxed enough to dare to make conversation with the other pack members.

Everybody is very polite to me. I needn’t have worried about the pack behaving in a snobbish manner. I am the alpha’s mate and they treat me accordingly. It’s not because of me, I’m sure. Though this dress probably makes them think I am far fancier than I am. No, their admiration for me comes from their respect and admiration for him. They respect Armand. They look to him for their social cues, and my having his favor means I have all their favor.

Unfortunately, the same is not true between them all. I sit back and let the meal proceed and pay attention to the little mutterings and comments taking place in the room that are not addressed to me. I don’t want to get to know these people by talking to them. I want to get to know them by how they talk to each other.

Most of the conversation is mundane and friendly. I notice that most of the pack appear to be partnered off and sitting in boy girl boy girl pairs. Conversation still happens largely along gender lines, women talking to women, men talking to men, though there is a reasonable amount of crossover now and then.

I’m looking for something wrong, because that is how my brain has been trained to interact with the world. Pleasantries and interesting conversation don’t register for me. I am scanning this room like the animal I am.

“Would you like some more salad? It’s delicious,” the woman to my right says. We were introduced. Her name is Lydia and she has three children. She’s very nice. I ignore her.

I don’t want to make small talk about salad. I want to understand how this pack really functions. It’s like the orphanage. There will be people vying for power. Armand might be the alpha, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is in charge. I’m sure if I were to say that out loud, everyone would be shocked, but it is true.

At the orphanage, the director thought he was in charge, but the matrons were really running things. They let him think he was making decisions, but he never did anything they didn’t approve of first. I wonder if there is an equivalent of those matrons here.

“Stop it, you’re such a stupid thing.”

I hear a man growling at a cringing woman. His tone is somewhat hushed, designed to stay under the general hum of conversation. It seems to go without notice by those sitting closer, though to me those barbed words stand out as if they’d been screamed across the room.

“I’m sorry, it was just a little spill,” his mate apologizes. She is a faint-looking blonde woman whose brow is furrowed and creased with worry. Her mate is several times her size and quite a lot older than she is, with a thick beard bordering on unkempt. He shows her no conversational grace.

“And me with a soup stain when I approach the alpha later,” he growls. He might think he is doing it under his breath, but I can hear absolutely every word. “You like to sabotage me, don’t you.”

“It was an accident, Gerald. I promise.”

“Always accidents with you, you careless bitch.”

I see red.

* * *

Armand

Dinner is going very well. I am therefore rather surprised when my mate stands up, picks up a bread roll, and whips it at Lord Duplante with the accuracy of a sniper. It bounces off his head with an airy motion, tumbles off the table and rolls away into a corner, where it plays no further role in the scandal.

My mate is on her feet, hands clenched at her sides. She is staring at the man with a ferocity that makes me suspect she is very, very close to taking her wolf form entirely involuntarily.

“Don’t you talk to her like that again, you old brute. I’ll have your balls in my broth if you so much as think about it.”

The threat is delivered with teeth-flashing vigor, and I do not think a single person here wonders if she really means it. I’m not sure what prompted such a medieval outburst, but Beatrix is shaking with rage, the tremor in her hands proof that she is restraining herself. Some might think she is scared, but I know better. I can feel the energy pulsing from her, something far closer to fury than fear.

Duplante is fifty years old, and a banker in Marseille. He is self-important and regards himself as one of the pack elders though he has no place in my council and never will. I do not care for his lack of moral fortitude, and I do not trust him.

I, however, have managed to restrain myself from throwing anything at him. Seeing her do it, I wonder how.

He stares at her, malevolent. He has been humiliated, and he has no recourse to respond. I can see from the glint in his gaze that he’d like to hurt her. Beside him, his mate is cowering as if she knows what is coming next.

Beatrix stays standing with her eyes locked on him, not dropping eye contact. Duplante looks at me. I lean back in my chair, relaxed, with no intention of intervening in this moment. I, like everyone else, want to see what happens next.

“Don’t talk to anybody that way,” she says, her voice cold and even. As I thought, there’s no fear in her. No adrenaline to make her voice shake. She is focused on Duplante as a predator focused on her prey. “Especially not a woman.”

Duplante looks shocked, then he looks at me, as if I will save him from the humiliation. I give him a little Gallic shrug.

“Say. Sorry,” she says. No. Commands. In an instant, my frightened little mate has become a fierce alpha female. It is just as impressive as I imagined it would be. She has strength, this one, and the pack is seeing it. They are also seeing that I back her entirely.

I hide my mouth with a napkin in order to prevent my smile from being seen. I shouldn’t be laughing at this altercation. It’s not supportive to be smirking in the background.

Realizing I will not get him off the hook, Duplante shifts uncomfortably as many silent eyes watch him be stripped of his bravado and ego in one rakish cut of her tongue.

“Apologies, Lady Beatrix.”

“Not to me,” she hisses. “To the woman suffered with the burden of being your mate.”

“Oh. Uh. Of course. Sorry, Jenny.”

Only then does Beatrix sit. She seems immune to concern about the scene she has arguably just made, a pleasant dinner interrupted by small scandal that will be the talk of the pack for quite some time to come.

“Will the alpha’s new mate bestow baked goods upon us all this way?” Michael asks the question, giving into his nature to be irreverent and to lean into trouble where he finds it. As my younger cousin, he will get the brunt of the pack’s obsession with finding a mate now. I make a mental note to rib him for that sooner rather than later.

“I can, if you like,” Beatrix says, picking up another roll and hefting it in her hand, a slight smile on her face.

Michael is blond and blue-eyed and in his final year of university at Oxford. He’s down for the weekend, and will head back soon. I’m glad she is getting to meet the limited amount of biological family I have at the chateau. I was an only child, and my father’s older brothers perished in various ways, many of which were ascribed to him. Some said he’d do anything to be alpha of the pack. I think misfortune found his family more often than most. That seems to be the way of powerful families. Fate steps in to average the score.

“No, thank you,” he says. “I would not withstand the fury of your righteous correction.”

She smiles and puts the roll back down.

I have no doubt the orphanage was a miserable place to grow up, but I think the fact she lived with a lot of other young women has actually prepared her quite well for pack life. She knew, without being told, that she needed to establish herself, and she is not letting Michael pull any shit either. I’m quite impressed, and hopeful she will fit in easily here.

“I don’t see why that was necessary,” Duplante makes the mistake of muttering at a level that is audible to the table. I make a mental note to ensure that his place is moved much further down next meal. He clearly does not appreciate the responsibility of having the proximity he does, sitting mere seats away from us, right at the verge of family and true ranked members of the pack.

“You were rude to her,” Beatrix says. “You. A brute with untrimmed sideburns, rude to her, a goddess.”

There is a titter of amusement from around the table at her blunt, yet accurate description of Duplante and his mate.

“Manners are important for us all,” I remind him. If he opens his mouth again, it will go very poorly for him. I have already decided to address him after the meal. I don’t think his response has been nearly submissive enough, and I want him to know that no matter how young—and yes, even female—my mate might be, she must be respected.

Dinner proceeds without further interruption. People manage to eat without abusing their partners, which is pleasant. Beatrix has made her mark on the pack in an instant, and I could not be prouder of her.

Unfortunately for Duplante, his quick albeit reluctant apology at the table is not as genuine as it might have been. After dinner, I find him whining in one of the lounges, apparently either unaware or unconcerned that he might be overheard.

“That little whippet needs to be beaten,” he is complaining. “Barely more than a child, throwing food at her seniors and betters. If she were mine, she would have been horse-whipped right there and then, made to stand in the corner until her humiliation was complete. He’s going to spoil her. The pack will fall to ruin because of his permissiveness… ooof! ”

The last part is the sound he makes as I kick his knees out from behind, making him fall into a subservient kneeling position as I stalk around him.

“My alpha, I…”

“I heard what you were saying. Bold words, Duplante. I should cut your tongue out for daring to utter them under my roof.”

We like to appear civilized in this pack. Our meals are fine and our clothes are elegant and the home we live in is undeniably a vessel of the finest art and culture, but we are wolves and underneath it all we are animals. Things can become very brutal, primal, and animal if they need to.

Fear flashes through his eyes, but so does loathing. He does not like my mate. He does not like that I love her, and that I will not harm her for his amusement. It is possible that one day she will do something that deserves punishment of a public nature, and if he were in the inner circle, he would know full well that she has already been punished that way, but it will not be at the behest of a cringing beast like him.

“We are ancient creatures, and there are medieval consequences for disrespect. My mate gave you a gentle reminder that you would have done well to accept. I will not be as kind as she was. I will not limit my remonstrations to stern words.”

Like the fool he is, Duplante decides to argue.

“You did not lift a finger when your mate…”

“Exactly. She is my mate. She is above reproach.”

I know as soon as those words have left my mouth they are a mistake, but I am not about to walk them back. I will support my mate’s rights and her wrongs.

“She is barely an adult. This pack is run by children…”

He is fortunate that I am not an absolute psychotic who would kill him outright for daring to question me. There is a coldness inside me, a rage that wants some kind of penance, because I know very well that he is not just talking about my mate. He is talking about me. I am the youngest alpha the pack has seen, and many of these older males feel as though they were passed over. The fact that I am my father’s son further rankles. The youngest of his siblings, some feel that he was not suitable as a replacement for his father.

This insult will not go unanswered.

“Take your wolf form.”

“I meant no disrespect, Ma?tre ,” he says, unwilling to back up his words with his flesh. He lies to my face, gives me nothing but disrespect, but pretends these words alone would be enough to mollify my growing rage.

“Take your wolf form, or I will draw my sword and cut you down where you stand. Tonight was a gathering to celebrate the long-awaited arrival of my mate. She has been long desired by the pack. And you have managed to make it all about you and your sniveling complaints because she would not tolerate your boorishness.”

Now I see fear on his face. It is a face that has not emoted nearly enough of that feeling in his life. This is a man who has been spoiled by privilege and believes his status will allow him to escape punishment. He is wrong.

* * *

Beatrix

After dinner I find myself in the company of the ladies who are excited to meet and chat with me. I have little to say about myself, so I avoid doing so and instead prefer to ask them questions about themselves, which they mostly enjoy. It’s not the worst thing that ever happened to me, but halfway through someone’s sentence about cheese, I hear the sounds of discontent faintly at a distance.

The sound draws me like a moth to the flame. The women had been entertaining me very nicely, but this seems far more interesting. The sounds are muffled at first, again passing beneath the notice of most of the pack.

I look around, seeing if anybody else is hearing this, but they don’t seem to. I expected their hearing to be better. Hard to tell if that is because they are trying to be polite, or because they are genuinely unable to detect chaos about to unfold.

I am starting to sense that I am different from this pack. At first, the fascination of meeting a great number of my kind was exciting. But I am starting to think that I might not be quite the same thing they are. I am closer to them than I am to most people, of course, but they are softer and more domestic than I imagined.

I excuse myself by telling them I am tired, and I go to find my mate. As I walk through the chateau, I hear voices. One slightly raised, one begging for his life.

I approach the room where the begging is taking place to find my Armand standing over the kneeling figure of Duplante. He has a sword in his hand. They are flanked by six or seven other men, all staring with a variety of intensities and expressions.

“If you will not take your wolf form, you will die,” Armand declares. His voice is cold and does not brook any disobedience. “You have been cowardly for too long, Duplante. Too quick to talk, and too slow to pay in blood.”

I draw in a little breath of excitement. My mate is going to kill that man. He’s going to drop him in the middle of the fancy room. I’ve never felt so close to Armand before.

Someone clears their throat. A traitorous bastard who has put himself on my radar by drawing attention to me with a flick of his eyes.

Armand’s head whips around. He sees me, and lowers the blade.

I feel disappointment.

I wish I had stayed hidden. I’d get to see bloodshed. Now I am going to get whatever public display Armand feels should be put on for me.

“Beatrix,” he says.

“Hello,” I say, feeling a little shy. He has always been attractive, but he is even more so now, holding a sword like a vengeful angel. I sense he is defending my honor. “What’s happening?”

“Did you need something, darling?” He asks the question kindly, but with an obvious edge of wanting me to go away. He looks around, as if hoping some stray lady might come take me away. They won’t, of course; they are too busy talking about me now that I am no longer there. It will be impossible to pry them from those conversations for an hour at least.

“No,” I say, ignoring the verbal nudge to leave them to it. I won’t be leaving this scene until it has come to its conclusion.

“ Ma cherie , I do not wish you to see this. These are brutal matters that might frighten you,” Armand says, taking a step toward me, trailing the sword behind him, almost as if he doesn’t want me to see and notice it.

He doesn’t understand that I find this side of him very appealing, and not frightening at all. The moment before he saw me watching, the man he was in that instant—I felt our mate bond more keenly than I have at any other time. Even when he was inside me.

Duplante, thankfully, is stupid, and decides to make an appeal to the men he thinks are his friends. This is clearly the act of a man who has never been forced to read any room, and who does not understand that the people he thinks like him would happily see him dead.

“Insubordinate little bitch, and me here on my knees being forced into animal submission on her account. Are you really all going to stand around and watch him fall for her cunt this hard? The pack hasn’t deteriorated enough for your likings? Waiting until we are all entirely destitute?”

Armand’s eyes flash upon hearing that disrespect. He holds up a finger to me.

“One moment, my darling, I have to deal with a little matter of pack discipline.”

He turns, and with a whip of his wrist, he sweeps the blade through Duplante’s neck. The man’s head topples as if it were only ever attached with butter, blood spurting in thick arterial gusts across the carpets and lower legs of the men.

I stare, entranced, feeling my wolf self surging at the sight. This dress is on the verge of being torn to shreds by the animal inside me who wishes to be free to roll in that blood and howl in triumph.

Armand hands the sword to one of his off-siders and comes to me without so much as looking back at the carnage he has just enacted.

He ushers me away from the bloody sight. I would resist, but I know better than to defy an alpha who just killed someone. Submission to him feels rather exciting now. Besides, there will not be much to look at for long.

I have the sense that the entirety of the scene will be clean in a matter of minutes, a small cadre of servants are already on their way with mops and cloths.

“You killed him.”

“I did. He disrespected you, and in doing so, disrespected me. Besides, there is some evidence he was defrauding the pack through the assets he managed. I had to deal with him one way or another. He chose the means in the end.”

This is the most attractive Armand has ever been.

“Are you afraid of me now?”

I shake my head no. I am not afraid of him. Quite the opposite. I like him more, trust him more, feel a greater kinship with him now than ever before.

He swings me about and looks down at me with an intensity born of his fear that I might not understand him, that I might mistake him for a feral, unpredictable beast.

“I would never hurt you, Beatrix. You alone are singular in this world. You, I will protect at the cost of all things, including my life. I want you to know that.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course.”

He smiles a little and shakes his head. “Why is this so easy, when every other conversation we have is so hard? Why will you tell me nothing of your past, of your life before me, but seeing me slay a man in cold blood seems to bring you only peace?”

I give a little shrug. “I’m complicated, I suppose. Isn’t that what they say about women?”

“Complex, yes, but I intend to unravel those tangles in you.”

“Best of luck with that,” I laugh. I have no intention of divulging my secrets. I might have seen something dark in him, but what he just did was practical, if a little flamboyant. Duplante was clearly a problem that needed to be taken care of. I am an entirely different kind of dilemma.

“I’m taking you to bed,” he says. “My appetite has not been entirely sated yet, has yours?”

He’s not talking about food; even I in my relatively pure state know that. The desire between us has been sparking since I found him standing over his unfortunate victim sword in hand, and is only getting more intense by the moment.

He takes me to the bedroom and together we stand in the glow of moonlight now shining through the old windows.

“I love you,” he says. “I am devoted to you, and I will never, ever allow anybody to so much as disparage you, let alone hurt you.”

There’s stray blood on his suit and his shirt and on his neck. I rise to my tiptoes and delicately lap it from his skin, the tip of my tongue cleaning away those few drops of Lord Duplante.

I feel a shiver run through him as he understands what it is I just did, how I did not recoil from the sanguine aftermath of his murder, instead took it inside me.

“ Mon dieu ,” he murmurs. “You are an incredible creature, Trixie.”

I don’t usually like it when my name is shortened, but he says it with a delightful French smoothness that makes it sound like a sweet endearment.

“I like the taste of blood,” I say. “Especially blood shed for me.”

He growls in response as the tip of my tongue lingers around his pulse. I am teasing him, being quite forward. I am not playing the delicate, frightened little virgin with him. I am the feminine animal he desires, someone equal to him in ferocity if nothing else.

“More perfect than I could ever imagine,” he growls. He kisses me roughly, pushes me against the wall, rifles through the fabric that keeps him from me, the fancy gown an impediment to our mutual lust.

Blood rushes, flows, his cock surges inside me. Images of animal brutality flash through my mind as he fucks me. I know there’s something wrong with me. There’s always been something wrong with me.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he purrs against my throat, dragging his teeth up my neck in a sensual motion that sends tingles running rampant through my body.

He pulls the gown from me, soft fabric sliding down my curves and pooling on the floor. The underwear I put on is taken off swiftly and meets the same fate.

Armand hoists me up in his arms and slides me down on his cock, impaling me with rough desire. My pussy is still aching from the first time we mated, but the pain only makes it better, more intense. It’s a dull ache that sinks through my pussy, finds all the heat inside me, and turns me into a writhing, squirming animal mess grinding against his cock.

It’s hard to hide my body’s tenderness though, and his ardor means that he is not careful or gentle. He fucks me like I want him to, like a filthy, hungry little animal riled by blood and lust.

“Mmmm oww, mmm,” I try to hide my sounds of pain amid my moans of undeniable pleasure.

“Does your sweet little pussy hurt?” He rumbles the question in my ear, pins me against the wall, and gives me a firm thrust.

“Mgghh!” I let out a little stifled cry, but he follows that rough thrust with another and another until finally I give in.

“It hurts a little,” I admit.

He slows immediately, sliding more slowly in and out of me, keeping me in place and keeping me fucked, though more gently now.

“Poor thing,” he says. “Not used to being mated, are you, this sweet little pussy is tender.” He gives another long thrust deep inside me, arching his hips.

“You’re a monster,” I moan.

It’s not a complaint, or an accusation. It’s an acknowledgement. He is beautiful and refined, but I thought he was soft in some way. He is not. He is as hard as anybody I have ever encountered, including the person I see in the mirror.

* * *

Armand

I pause for a moment, deep inside her, my lust all but entirely clouding my head as I claim her, my mate, the woman I would and have killed for. I will not have her insulted. She will be respected if the whole chateau needs to run red.

Is this how she sees me now? As monstrous?

It does not seem to dull her need for me. The moment I stop, she starts moving on me herself, sliding her tightness down my shaft, breeding herself. When she whimpered and said it hurt, I sensed she did not want me to stop, and now I am certain of it. She wants to enjoy the pain and the pleasure. She wants to feel everything.

And if I have to be a monster to give her everything she wants and needs? Protection, pain, pleasure? I’ll be a monster as long as she wants me to be.

Is she afraid of me now? She says not, but how could she not be, having seen such a terrible thing unfold in front of her, and now the beast who did it is deep inside her, taking her again, using her tender pussy for his pleasure.

I feel her inner walls gripping me, I see the light in her eyes, and I smell her arousal. She likes this. This is the most receptive she has ever been, holding nothing back from me, giving even though I know it hurts.

Her whimpers are soft music to my ears, her surrender is a joy. She fought me so hard when we first met, she ran from me, she denied me her truth, but I don’t feel any of that fight now. All I feel is her total sexual submission.

“You’re going to come for me,” I growl. “You’re going to come as I breed you, filling this sweet, owned pussy up with my cum.”

I feel her suckling at my neck, and I am almost certain that motion is not designed to please me as much as it is to get every drop of blood from my skin.

She is a dark, twisted little thing and my cock throbs all the more for the realization. Fucking her feels like being inside my own personal sexual universe. We match on levels neither one of us are consciously aware of, paired at a core anchor of our very beings, and there is nothing I would not do for her.

The feeling only intensifies as my orgasm comes upon me, rushing from my brain and my balls at the same time, every part of my being focused on knotting and rutting inside her until she is so full of me she cannot be anything other than bred.

“You’re going to swell for me, you’re going to take my seed, you’re going to be the mother of my whelps, and she-wolf of this pack. You’re my everything.”

She makes no verbal reply, but her little animal sounds, moans, groans, and grunts are enough to spur me on, the sound of her pleasure making me desperate to hear her peak.

“Yes! Armand!” She screams my name as orgasm fires through her, my knot stretching her pussy lewdly wide, trapping her on my cock. “Oh, my god, oh, my fucking… oh…”

I kiss her temples, stroke her hair, and reach between us to rub her clit, forcing her to keep the orgasm rolling around my knot. I know it can be painful to take, especially when she has only recently been bred for what I have to assume is the first time. This is rough treatment for a virgin, but I think she likes rough handling. I think she craves it.

She bites her lower lip, chews at the air, grinds and squirms and moans as my fingers continue to circle her clit harder and faster, spurring her onto another orgasm.

I feel her pussy grip my knot again, I feel her tremble all over. I see her sweat and hear her moan and I feel rushes of possession and pride as she responds to my touch as I demand.

“It’s too much,” she moans. “It’s all too much, it’s sore, but… no, don’t stop!”

I chuckle as I pull my fingers away, only for her to beg for me to put them back. I oblige her, because there’s no reason not to keep her in this particular physical prison. I can feel her soaking my knot as it begins to subside, her wetness and my cum coating my cock and then her thighs as her ongoing wriggling desire keeps her desperate for stimulation.

I slide my fingers inside her, rubbing up against the inner wall closest to her belly button, curling them up to find her secret little spot and forcing one final squirting release from her, after which she begs me to be careful as I pull my fingers from her swollen, ravaged sex.

“You are such a perfect mate,” I praise her, covering her with affectionate kisses and holding her in a tight embrace. She is soft and relaxed, no remnants of tension in her mind or her body. Her face is transformed by the orgasmic ordeal, and I think I glimpse what she would look like when she was entirely happy.

It will happen, I am sure of it. I will dedicate the rest of my life to keeping her in this state of completely satisfied desire. I will erase all the sorrows and horrors of her past. I will make her mine. Forever.