Page 16 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

I waited for him to laugh in my face or take this chance to earn my freedom away from me.

It was more than I deserved, and I wasn’t sure why he was offering it, and I wanted to know but feared if I pushed him too hard, he would rip it up and leave me in the dungeon.

I wanted to see that world Neve had told me about, to experience whatever waited up those stairs behind the fae king.

A fae king I was sure was playing some kind of game with me.

I didn’t care. Hope bloomed dangerously, barely tempered by common sense.

If it was a game he was playing, I would play too, giving him as good as I got.

His silver eyes revealed nothing.

I knew he could do as he wanted and I wouldn’t really have a say in it, that sensible part of me whispering that this contract was likely just the first play in his game, a ploy to comfort and subdue me, a lie I would believe to calm my fear and leave myself open to him, but my breaths shortened as I waited, needing to hear him agree with my demands.

“Very well.” His roguish smile roused something inside me, stirring heat in my blood. “I will not ask you for sex.”

Suspicion tinkled warning bells in my mind as he smirked at me, so quick to agree to something I had believed he would rail against. Maybe he wasn’t attracted to me after all, or he hadn’t bought me for that purpose.

I had been here days after all and he had only visited twice, or three times if I counted the one where I was sleeping.

And he had talked to Neve about whether I really was essential and about vengeance.

Maybe he hadn’t bought me for my virginity.

Maybe I had another purpose, one I might discover if I signed this contract and played his game.

He held his free hand out and a black and gold feathered quill appeared on his rough palm, the contrast of its elegance against his calluses holding my focus.

He wielded weapons as well as magic. Some of the protectors at my pack and the males who worked to keep the cabins sturdy and the fires burning had hands as rough and strong as his.

I looked from the quill to his face, trying to see the warrior within him. I didn’t need to look hard as his gaze gained a calculating edge and he pressed his hand towards me, a silent demand to take up the feathered weapon he offered me—one that might be my doom.

But my pack.

Lucas.

I needed to return to my world, to my family, and make my mate pay for what he had done to me.

The only way to do that was to gain my freedom.

I grabbed the quill and flinched, hissing as pain lanced my finger. The white stem of the feather darkened and I almost dropped it as I realised it was my blood filling the space and beading on the pointed gold tip.

A contract signed in blood.

My fingers shook as I stared at the parchment, at the dark crimson words inked on it, most likely in the fae king’s blood. This was more than a simple contract like the ones I was used to, typed up on a computer and printed out in triplicate.

How binding were the words he had written so carefully and elegantly in his own blood?

“Well?” He stared down at me, his handsome face bored, but that challenge shining in his eyes. “Sign it or do not sign it. I have matters more important that require my attention.”

Veiled words. I didn’t need to peer too hard between the cracks to know he was covering, acting bored and pretending he wasn’t on the edge of his proverbial seat waiting to see whether I was willing to cross this line—to subject myself to his mercy and play whatever game this was to him—in order to gain my freedom.

He went to pull the contract away.

I seized hold of it, stopping him, and read it one last time, my eyes widening as the words changed before me, as if my touching it had altered it. My caveat appeared on the page, close to the bottom, just above where my name had been printed.

Was I really going to do this?

Subject myself to the whims of a dark fae king in order to earn my freedom?

My revenge?

I sure as hell was.

I scribbled my signature on the parchment, gritting my teeth as the quill pulled on my blood with each letter I added.

And it was done.

I waited, sure I would instantly regret what I had done, that something terrible would happen to me, like the fae king laughing and seizing hold of me to drag me away into whatever dark world was beyond the dungeon.

But nothing happened.

Kaeleron pulled the contract back to him and the quill disappeared from my hand only to reappear in his. He eyed my signature, and then immediately signed his beside it.

I frowned at him as he rolled the parchment up and it vanished, together with the quill.

His silver eyes danced my way, bright with amusement. “I have no caveats. Nothing is out of bounds for me.”

I believed that.

The lock on the cell door clicked, making me jump.

The fae king turned his back on me, shadows lovingly caressing the shoulders of his black tunic jacket, and I inched my hand towards the door, unable to believe it really was unlocked now and I was about to take my first step towards my freedom.

Towards seeing what lay beyond the walls of this dungeon.

Would it be as fantastical as Neve had made it sound?

As dangerous?

“Your handmaidens will be here shortly to escort you to your new accommodation, where you will be bathed so you no longer smell like livestock and dressed in a manner more befitting of your new position.” Kaeleron paused and angled his head towards his shoulder, revealing a sliver of his profile, when I growled at him for insulting me.

“May I remind you who kept me in this musty dungeon with no access to fresh water or soap?”

He chuckled. “Keep your fangs sharp, little lamb. You might need them.”

“What does that mean?” I halted with my hand almost at the metal bars of the door, nerves rising as I considered all the possibilities and what Neve had told me of this world. “Am I liable to be attacked?”

I had never been allowed to learn how to fight or even how to defend myself.

He pivoted to face me, all darkness and wrath as his silver eyes darkened a shade, and I swore fangs of his own flashed between his lips as he spoke.

“Only that my first request is one that will require all of your wit if you are to successfully complete it and earn a gold coin or two towards your debt.”

His grin was fiendish, sending a shiver down my spine even as it roused the aching hunger of my primal instincts as a maturing female wolf.

I was starting to think I would regret this.

Because now I would have to be on constant guard against him and this dark pull I felt towards him.

And my first test?

He melted into shadows filled with glittering gold stars, his invitation a sensuous caress across my skin.

“You will dine with me tonight.”