Page 15 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

N eve had gone awfully quiet.

Since I had awoken from strange nightmares of running in my wolf form through a darkened wood where trees glowed with violet veins that ran down their bark and their blooms glittered like stars, she had refused to come around the corner to where I could see her.

Either that, or she had been taken away.

With whatever magic that made it impossible for me to sense her in place, I couldn’t really tell.

Was I alone?

“Neve?” I tried again, because I needed to ask her something, and the longer I went without an answer, the more my imagination ran riot and panic set in. “Neve, please. Come where I can see you… or at least answer me. I fell asleep so fast after eating a little and I’m afraid?—”

“It was not Kaeleron.” Neve’s soft voice was a blessed relief, soothing my fear, but she still refused to move into the open where I could see her. “You needed rest.”

I frowned at the empty cell. “You made me sleep.”

I had been fighting so hard to remain awake, afraid that something would happen to me if I slept.

That the fae king would choose that moment of vulnerability to enter my cell while I was unaware of him and take me.

When I had come around, I had checked myself over ten times, desperate to convince myself that he hadn’t.

“You needed rest,” she repeated. “Though you sound as grateful for my expending my limited magic as Kaeleron did.”

“He was here?” My blood chilled and warmed at the same time, the strange combination spinning my thoughts in several directions at once.

Dangerous. I was already on dangerous ground with the fae king.

I pulled my shields back up, forming a thick wall around me to keep whatever dark desire he roused in me away.

I was not going to fall for his charms. “What did he want? How deep asleep was I? Did he?—”

My voice hitched, lungs tightening as I threw aside the blanket Neve had given me and checked my clothing again, even though the sensible part of me knew I had already checked and found none of my clothing out of place and no evidence the king had touched me.

Neve did appear now, her face a dark mask as she glowered at me. “You think so ill of him.”

“He hasn’t exactly given me a reason to think any other way about him,” I snapped back at her, the relief I felt upon finding my clothing intact short lived as my anger spiked right back up again. “He bought me for sex!”

“And has he enjoyed what he paid for?” Neve’s expression only hardened, her amber irises smouldering around her pupils like fiery embers.

“It’s still early.” I wrapped the blanket around myself again, a shield against the cold of the dungeon and the chilling thought of the fae king taking what he had paid a hefty sum to enjoy.

Since our last meeting, my traitorous mind had become fixated on the way he had looked at me, the feel of his hand on my flesh, and how drawn to him I had felt when he had uttered that filthy word— fuck .

His parting words had remained with me, a challenge I had felt deep in my flesh and my bones.

When I had lost the fight against my fatigue later that day—or night, I wasn’t sure what time of day it was anymore—I had replayed that moment over and over again.

How his eyes had shone with a mischievous light, how his smile had been seductive and his look searing as he had told me that I only had to ask if I wanted to find out which the unseelie did better—fight, feast or fuck .

My dreams had twisted that moment, unfurling it into several different endings, ones where those hadn’t been his parting words, but ones said while he still faced me.

My cheeks heated as I recalled several of the ways that replayed moment had ended in my dreams, and my body thrummed and ached, my clothes suddenly feeling too tight and restrictive.

The reason for my reactions and my heated dreams dawned on me.

“I don’t need this now.” I curled forwards into my knees, burying my hands in my matted hair, and cursed my maturity as it taunted and tormented me, and my mind flashed back to the night of the celebration at the Hunt pack and how hungry I had been for my mate.

My first heat was approaching, rolling up on me fast by the feel of things.

“Do not need what now?” The deep masculine voice swept over me, crashing against me like the waves of a raging, wild sea.

I drowned in it for a heartbeat, unable to fight it as it surrounded me and pulled me under, back into those dangerous dreams.

And then I kicked upwards, battling the strength of the waves, fighting for my life and refusing to succumb.

“None of your business,” I bit out as I emerged from my knees, lowering my hands to rest on them, and glared at the one male I really didn’t want to see right now, while my maturity was messing with my mind and my body.

Making me want him.

Not him.

Any male would probably trigger the same pounding, relentless need in me right now.

I would probably pounce on one of the gaunt skin-and-bones servants that brought me my food if I had the opportunity to scratch this itch building within me.

Neve stared at me, the weight of her gaze demanding I look at her, and it took only the briefest glance in her direction to catch the concern in her eyes as she watched me.

She knew.

I wanted to bury my head back in my knees.

Could this moment get any worse?

“I have a proposition,” Kaeleron said, proving that it could.

Proposition .

That rang through my mind, sounding dirty and alluring.

I shook my head, dislodging it. Propositions could be innocent.

He unrolled a piece of parchment and turned it towards me. “Sign this, agreeing to my terms, and I will allow you to leave this cell.”

That didn’t sound so innocent.

Not when the corners of his profane lips were curling in that wicked way of his.

I rose to my feet and crossed the cell, slowly approaching him and the contract he was offering, several thoughts hitting me at once.

One, he owned me, so technically I had to do whatever he wanted, like his servants and his other concubines probably did.

So why offer me a contract at all? Two, gaining my freedom from this cell meant I was one step closer to finding a way back to my world and to my vengeance.

Three, the lettering on the parchment was precise and neat, and crimson, as if it had been written in blood.

Four, I couldn’t understand the elegant marks that I presumed were words.

Except I had to scratch off that last one because as I neared the scroll, the lines of the symbols shifted and suddenly I was reading English.

I looked up at the fae king towering before me, his expression neutral now, almost bored as he waited, as if he didn’t give a damn whether I signed the contract or not and had better things to do.

“How can I read this?” I frowned and searched his eyes, and then added, “Come to think of it, how can I understand you? You’re speaking English, right?”

He cocked an eyebrow at that, an amused twist to his lips. “I can, but I am not.”

“He speaks the fae tongue.” The closeness of Neve’s voice startled me and I looked to my right, where she now stood close to the bars, peering at the paper Kaeleron offered as if she was trying to read it. “This… infernal contract is written in the same language.”

The fae king turned his arched brow on the dragon. “The contract is fair and more than the female deserves.”

I was inclined to agree with him on the latter point, but I would be the judge of whether it was fair or not.

Once I discovered something.

“And how is it I can understand both your spoken and written words?” My gaze snagged on the top line and my name there, so close to his. He knew my name. I looked at Neve, sure she had been the one to give it to him.

“Magic,” Neve offered.

I looked at the king.

“Magic,” he echoed. “An easy enough spell to cast and maintain.”

“Why even bother letting me understand you… or this?” My role in this castle could have been fulfilled without me knowing their language.

I didn’t need to be able to understand him, or his sister, or Neve in order to warm his bed whenever he was bored.

“I mean, unless you bought me for my stunning conversational skills.”

His smirk widened just a little, as if he enjoyed my sniping at him. “As I have told you. I am not a monster.”

I eyed the contract. “We’ll see about that.”

What I read as I went through it line by line three times seemed innocent enough, and more than a little tempting.

He was offering me a chance to earn my freedom.

Every task I completed for him would reduce my debt to him by a varying degree, the recompense determined by the level of task he assigned me.

If I worked hard enough for him, I might be able to return home.

But I had taken Neve’s warning words to heart and I looked between the cracks—between the lines. This contract looked innocuous, but it gave the fae king far too much freedom to interpret the words of it in any way he wanted.

“I want to add a caveat.” A bold demand, and I braced myself as I waited for him to react, sure he would shoot me down. He was offering me a chance to pay him back and be free, and I was probably about to ruin it. If he didn’t rip up the contract in my face, I would be surprised.

He regally waved his free hand. “Speak it.”

“You can’t ask me for sex.” My voice trembled a little despite my efforts to keep it strong and steady as I issued an order right back at him.

“This says I have to serve you as you please. I have to do as you order. I cannot agree to that when doing as you please could be anything from serving you drinks to serving in your bed or the beds of others. I’d rather remain here in this dungeon than sleep with you. ”