Page 20

Alek chuckled and nodded in appreciation. “He’ll need that reminder, with his mother watching his every move.”

We laughed, shared a toast, broke bread, and began.

Talk turned to roads and patrols, shipping lines through old Crescent Moon territory, security along the rivers.

They asked about tax, we discussed border terms, Garrick pointed out winter routes through the pass that wouldn’t freeze over before harvest.

Garrick continued talking. Something about new toll checkpoints.

Alek was drawing symbols on the map with a bit of charcoal.

Roran sat across from me, swirling his wine, sharp eyes watching with just enough interest to make my jaw clench.

Garrick leaned forward, tracing the rough shape of the mountain pass on the worn wooden surface.

“We can move goods through the southern routes before the frost,” Garrick suggested. “Keep the supplies flowing without interruption.”

“And the taxes on human villages?” Alek asked carefully. “What's your stance?”

I opened my mouth to respond—

And suddenly, she touched my mind.

It was faint at first. Like the soft brushing of fingers against the inside of my skull. A warmth—confused, restless. Distant, but familiar.

Lexa!?

Not hiding. Not avoiding me like she always had. This time, she was searching for me. Reaching down the bond with purpose. And gods, she was angry.

Fury rolled off her like waves crashing against a cliffside—cold and sharp and unrelenting. But beneath the rage, there was control. Intention. She wasn’t unravelling. No, she was aiming.

Her presence slid into my mind like the edge of a blade dipped in honey, slick and poisonous and hers.

“You’ll pay for this,” she whispered. Not out loud. Not in the room. But through the bond. Her voice slid into my skull, laced with venom and steel. “ For what you did. For tying me down like an animal. For humiliating me. For making me yours.”

I sat up straighter, spine stiffening as a sharp jolt of heat surged through me. My jaw clenched tight, the muscle twitching beneath my skin, and for a fleeting second my vision narrowed into a tight tunnel of red and white.

Across the long stretch of polished wood, Maera was still speaking, something about the southern trade routes and the delays caused by snow blocking the mountain pass, but her voice faded, muffled and distant, like I was hearing it from underwater.

Because Lexa was in my head again.

Her voice slid into me through the bond, low and venomous, curling like smoke in my lungs. “ I’ll make you suffer for that bond,” she hissed. “I’ll tear your mind apart if I have to.”

The corner of my mouth lifted into a slow, dangerous smile—just enough to draw Garrick’s attention from where he stood behind me. He didn’t speak, but I felt his eyes flick toward me, catching the shift in my expression. Still, he knew better than to interrupt.

“I’d love to see you try, stray, ” I sent back through the bond, letting every word drip with challenge, with the sharp edge of command I knew she hated and craved in equal measure.

Under the table, my hand clenched into a fist.

“Andros?” Garrick asked, brow furrowing slightly. "Did you hear me?"

I cleared my throat. Forced a casual nod.

“Yes,” I said evenly. “We'll discuss the tax details once we've evaluated the supply lines.”

Across the table, Roran watched me carefully, leaning back into his chair with narrowed eyes and a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. As though he sensed my distraction but hadn't quite placed its cause.

“Are you with us, Alpha?” he asked lazily, the silver piercing glinting sharply. “Or is something… distracting you?”

I held his gaze steadily, refusing to betray even the slightest reaction to the sweet, torturous pressure Lexa wove slowly through the bond.

“I'm exactly where I need to be,” I replied calmly, raising my goblet in a composed toast. “Let's continue.”

My mind pushed Lexa back, but I should have known better. The moment I did it, she struck like lightning. The air around me blurred, the conversation at the table slipping into meaningless noise as a white-hot flare of sensation burst behind my eyes.

Lexa.

Naked.

In my bed.

Her skin was flushed with heat, gleaming under the memory of candlelight.

She stood at the edge of the mattress, then sank onto it slowly, deliberately, her hands gliding over her body in lazy, sensual arcs.

Her long black hair fell over her shoulders, strands sticking to her damp skin.

Her thighs parted just enough to tease me with a glimpse of the curve between them.

Then she moaned—my name—a sound that echoed like thunder through the bond.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Lexa,” I growled through the connection, but it was too late. The image was already seared into my mind, her body spread across my sheets like an offering.

I watched—helpless, furious—as her back arched in a slow, luxurious stretch, her knees bending, legs opening in open invitation.

Her fingers ghosted over her stomach, then down between her thighs, movements unhurried and practised, every motion meant to provoke.

Her lips parted in a soft, silent moan, and her eyes—dark and heavy-lidded—burned with satisfaction, not for herself but for me .

She knew I was watching. She wanted me to watch. To suffer.

I curled my fingers into fists beneath the table until I felt blood rise under my nails. The sting barely registered, not when the bond pulsed again—harder this time, a deep throb that pulled me closer, dragged me further into her heat, her pleasure, her game .

She didn’t speak with words at first. Just sensations, flashes of touch and heat and sound. But then her voice purred low and sultry into the bond.

“You’d love this,” she whispered. “ If you were here right now, I’d let you take me from behind—your hands gripping my hips, guiding every thrust, every snap of your body into mine.”

My jaw locked so hard it ached. I pressed my palms flat against the wood of the table, needing something solid to ground myself before I shattered into a thousand pieces in front of the high council.

I could feel my arousal building, thick and heavy, my entire body reacting to her like it was mine to control. Like she was already mine.

Her voice wrapped around me like velvet soaked in heat. “ I’d let you knot me,” she breathed, “ feel your teeth sink into my neck while you fill me. Over and over. Until I can't say anything but your name.”

I nearly groaned aloud. My muscles were coiled tight, straining with the effort to not react, to not storm out of the room and hunt her down and make good on every single thing she dared to whisper to me. The weight of my position held me in place. Just barely.

She laughed softly in my mind, dark, sultry, victorious. And gods help me, I was going to make her pay for every damn second of it.

Across from me, Alek and Maera were still speaking.

Something about winter shipments, the price of salt and steel, but their words became a dull hum, muffled by the blood roaring in my ears.

I was only half aware of the tension creeping into my posture, of Garrick’s eyes narrowing slightly beside me, of the slight frown pulling at Maera’s brow as she glanced between the two of us.

Then another wave hit.

Lexa’s mind slipped deeper into mine with all the grace of a dagger sliding through silk.

The bond lit up like a live wire, overloaded with sensation that didn’t belong to me but that I felt everywhere.

Her pleasure crawled beneath my skin, hers and mine blurred together, stolen, shared, weaponized .

Another image struck like a blade: her fingers pumping, slick with want, her back arching in my sheets, her mind wide open so I could feel every shudder, every gasp, every breathless curse.

I stood abruptly, the chair screeching across the stone. Maera flinched. Alek’s brow furrowed.

“Andros?” Garrick asked quietly, already reading the tension in my face.

“Stop this. ” My voice thundered through the bond.

But she only moaned louder inside my mind, a wicked, silken sound crafted for me, poisoned with vengeance.

The room dimmed. Blurred. My vision tunnelled, and my wolf—gods, my wolf—was clawing at the inside of my ribs, desperate to run to her, to rip the door from its hinges and claim what was his, to tear down every wall between us until she was beneath me, howling, begging, his.

“You want to leash me? Claim me? Then feel what it’s like to burn for something you’ll never control.”

I shoved back from the table, the wood groaning beneath my hands.

“I need to step out,” I said, voice low and frayed. “Garrick, handle the rest.”

Alek looked concerned. Maera blinked, curious. Garrick nodded, calm as ever, but I saw the fire behind his eyes.

I didn’t wait for pleasantries. I turned on my heel and left, jaw clenched so tight I could taste blood, vision pulsing red as I stalked through the corridor like a predator denied its kill.

The bond snapped again, another wave. Her cry. Her hand tightening. Her breath faltering. She was close.

I slammed a fist into the stone wall as I passed, cracking the mortar. A servant gasped and vanished down another hall.

She was punishing me. Torturing me with what I craved, weaponizing her own body, her own pleasure, knowing damn well that if I touched her now, if I stepped into that room, I wouldn’t stop.

I’d bury myself in her until she screamed my name without fury. Until she begged for the bond. Until she loved the chain.

But she didn’t want that. She wanted to destroy me. So I stopped outside her door. Fist raised. Breathing hard.

“Lexa.”

I sent her name down the bond like a command, like a growl, like the warning of a storm about to break.

“Open this fucking door.”