Back to Asher’s POV

R ogue Prince’s salty taste is still in my mouth after the blow job I gave him, and I desperately need to wash it off my tongue.

Hot Gamma is trailing behind me while I run to my lemon-scented bedroom. He looks amused but doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t even question why he isn’t in the Alpha meeting that still takes place, with the other officers and Beta. He should be.

I go for my toothbrush and a bucket of water, and Gamma shuts the doors closed after us. He starts to laugh, and I remember that he is well aware of what I was doing to his Alpha in that office when he asked them to get out.

Shit.

I ignore the Gamma, rinse my mouth and spit—but no amount of brushing can erase the memory of Cain’s glorious dick enveloped by my lips and tongue. Fuck, what the hell! I close my eyes, but it’s even worse.

I have to admit, even if I started to suck him off as an opportunity to bite him where it hurts most, I still had fun with it. And the satisfaction of making him come in that dirty way? Mmm. I loved it.

I’m still wet, even now, while I stand by the tub and bucket with my useless toothbrush.

This whole date thing, though? What the heck! I don’t know what his intentions are. They are not pure, that’s for sure. I start pacing around while Gamma observes me with a smirk.

A date with the ruthless Rogue Alpha Prince? Pure attraction can be enough just for sex. At least, it is for me, apparently. But for a date? We have to actually like each other!

You do like him ; my wolf part’s intrusive thought adds unhelpfully.

I fidget with one of the Rogue Prince’s knives that I absently picked up at some point, trying to figure out his hidden plan.

“Fucking Cain!” I throw a knife that sinks to the hilt into the door—just a few inches from the hot tattooed Gamma’s head.

He looks at the knife, amusement swapped to anger.

“Alpha lets you call him by his name?” he asks, looking slowly back at me.

“Only while his cock is inside me. Shh, don’t tell him.” I put a finger to my pursed lips mockingly.

“Alpha will punish you if you don’t stop acting like this,” he takes a step closer to me, so I take a step back. He doesn’t look so friendly anymore. “You know he’ll make me report about this day later with his command, right?”

I snort with a burst of bitter laughter and sit on the edge of the bed. I notice someone picked up all the scattered lemon pieces and placed them in a metal bowl on the desk.

“I’m not scared. He can’t do anything to me that I haven’t suffered already.”

It was all the same, really, different wounds but similar humiliation.

Hot Gamma lifts his perfect dirty-graphite brow at me and takes another step in my direction.

“Alpha can rape you. I know he didn’t. Yet.”

“He can’t. Not if I’m willing.”

“He can make me rape you.”

“He can’t if I’m willing,” I say again through clenched teeth.

Gamma chuckles, “You are a feisty one, I’ll give you that.”

I look down because the tattoos on his neck are disturbingly attractive, and I don’t need that right now. Or ever.

“I’m sorry, I’m just so mad,” I apologize for my behavior, because the lifetime of being a princess is stronger than my ego.

“Alpha is a crazy bastard. You better get used to it,” Gamma says, standing so close that our legs almost touch.

“I’m mad at myself,” I admit, massaging my temples.

“Why?” He parts my knees with his leg, probably wanting to intimidate me, but I’m the wife of the fucking Rogue Alpha Prince, and he won’t scare me with something like that. Not anymore.

I shrug my shoulders in answer to his question and let him part my legs even wider. Whatever. I can always cut his—probably pierced dick—with one of the knives I am sure Cain hides under the mattress.

I look up at his eyes and realize he’s being mind-linked by his Alpha—the only one who can open the mind-link with his subordinates while in human form. If he is skilled enough to do that without a massive migraine. The rest of us can mind-link pack members only in wolf forms. And our true mates when marked.

I guess Cain is skilled enough. He clearly has a big enough ego to try.

I clearly lose my cool with him too quickly. It’s never happened to me before, not at this scale, not with all my royal upbringing. That’s why I’m mad at myself. So fucking mad it hurts.

“Hey, don’t cry,” hot Gamma wipes the tears that I wasn’t aware escaped my eyes, and holds my face up in his hands, “Shh.”

There’s something warm in the way he does that. The sudden thought that I could have been mated to someone who can be tender like that—instead of cruelly threatening me with rapes and beatings—makes my chin quiver with a sob.

Gamma’s eyes seem a little bit blank again and I know his Alpha is making him report everything back. I close my eyes, trying to stop the tears from falling. Stop the sobs from escaping. Stop the cry from coming out .

I could have… I should have… I would have been mated to some caring, kind and sexy, strong Alpha. We have a bunch of them back in my kingdom, if the Moon Goddess didn’t make this sick joke of a bond between me and a fucking Rogue Prince!

Why?! Is it because he needs someone to help him learn how to love? How to be more… human? What is in it for me then? Just… good sex? I would have had that with some other Alpha out there, too.

Or a beta. At least they are not so borderline aggressively possessive.

Why him?! I cry with my eyes still closed. I can feel Gamma shift between my legs and pull my head to his chest in an attempt to calm me down.

I put my hands on his chiseled abs for balance, take a deep breath and I do calm down. I stop crying—that’s when I realize there is something stiff, rough but soft, under my cheek where there should only be a white cotton shirt of the Gamma. It’s like a leather belt.

I open my eyes.

The shirt is black, and I touch a leather belt that is strapped across the chest I’m leaning on. Fuck!

I lift my head up to meet the gaze of my husband, who somehow switched places with his Gamma while I was crying, and is now enveloping me in a tight embrace.

My wet eyes dart to the doors for a second. They are left open now—I can see Gamma standing beside us with his tattooed arms crossed over his chest and a stone-like face.

“Don’t cry,” says Cain, and grabs my chin with his knuckles, then leans down to kiss me.

What is he doing here?

“I had to come out of my meeting. You are lucky we are not at war anymore,” he adds with a smirk, still touching my lips with his.

“You didn’t have to; I have your Gamma with me. I’m fine.” I try to move back, but he kisses me once again, this time parting my lips with his tongue .

It’s a hot but tender kiss, and I almost feel embarrassed for his Gamma, who has to watch us now.

He pushes me onto the bed with his body, settling between my thighs, and moves his mouth over my jaw to my ear. I shiver from his breath on my skin.

“Be a good little wolf, and don’t make more trouble.”

“Since when is crying in your own bedroom trouble?” I ask, looking into his mysterious navy-blue eyes and trying yet again to guess his real agenda.

Why is he here? Why is he acting like this? Like he cares.

“Since you are in this bedroom with someone you are apparently comfortable enough to hug.”

I want to deny it, but he puts a finger on my mouth to stop me.

“You think I didn’t notice how you stiffened when you realized I’m not my Gamma?” Cain chuckles, stands up, and walks out with his supernatural speed.

“Ugh,” I groan, dragging my hands over my face in frustration. “What the hell. Why did he even come here?”

“His wife was crying,” Gamma says, and I shoot him a death stare, which makes him laugh again.

“Alpha has me mind-linked all the time so I can participate in the meeting and report back on you.”

Wait, all the time? Cain can do that? I’m impressed. I didn’t even know it was possible, not for such an extended time.

“So? Why did you ask him to come?” I stand up and fix my hair with my fingers.

“I didn’t. I just reported back you were sad.”

I give him another death stare, because there is no way in hell for Cain to have any amount of compassion—especially enough to make him come here of his own goodwill. He doesn’t have any goodwill .

I march to the door, ready to go for that town sightseeing trip Cain asked me to go on, but I stop abruptly in the doorway to look back at his Gamma.

“So, what’s your name?”

“Is my huge cock inside of your tight pussy right now? If not, you don’t need my name,” he answers, paraphrasing what I told him about Cain before, and then he dares to smirk at me.

“Do you want to report what you just said back to my husband, the Rogue Alpha? Because I can wait if you need to.”

His face falls, and he shakes his head no.

“That’s what I thought.”

After hours spent with Gamma, I come to my bedroom and lay down on the bed, completely exhausted. He trails behind me.

We had a great rest of the day in the capital city. We ate steaks with roasted veggies for lunch—in some tavern where I half-expected him to pull out a leather pouch with gold coins to pay—he put it on the Alpha’s tab instead. He showed me a market and a place where people can leave their mini wolves, as Rogues call preschool-aged children. We strolled through all of the beautiful Cobblestone streets—just soaking up the atmosphere of the place, now that it’s not deserted like the first day after our wedding.

It was quite magical, at least for me. All the happy howls and pups running around, shifting mid-air with a laugh into their wolves just for fun, because there are no regular humans around; like where I come from. I felt happy for a moment there, just observing everyday lives in a city that looks more like a village. I didn’t want to come back to the castle and my new fucked-up reality. So, we ate fish tacos for dinner and even grabbed a few wolfsbane-infused beers—anything to miss a meal with my cruel husband and his whores.

It was completely different from the trip I had with Cain on my first day here, when the streets were empty. I was too bratty to actually appreciate that he was giving me a tour and all those croissants. I would change that if I could…

I groan with my eyes closed, and turn on the bed from my stomach onto my back. I’m so tired and intoxicated that I don’t think I can move more than that roll. I don’t want to move. I will fall asleep like this.

Wait, did I change my menstrual disk already? Oh yeah, I did, in that tavern on our way back… I start to doze away but need my circulation back to actually fall asleep.

“Help me take these off,” I start pulling at my skinny, black leather pants—and the Gamma who is standing before me—huffs, then leans over and grabs the sides of the pants on my hips. He pulls them off my legs with one swift but brutal motion—leaving me in my black lace panties, T-shirt, and choker.

“Your tattoos are so sexy. Did I tell you that already?” I open one eye at him for a few seconds.

“Yes, a hundred times, Luna.” I can hear him throwing my pants somewhere.

“Thanks for taking me today. You are dismissed,” I manage to mockingly salute him with my right hand, and I hear his laugh.

“She means taking her out to the city, not sex, Alpha,” he says with a hint of amusement.

I snap my eyes wide open.