Page 39 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure the wine had gone to my head and I was imagining the scene playing out before me, that I had gotten lost in my imagination and that flicker of desire Kaeleron had ignited in me.

Because the tables were being moved to the edges of the glade and the music had changed, growing darker as heavy drumbeats pounded in my ears and bows slid over strings in a jarring, tumultuous way.

And in the centre of the glade, the males and the females moved to it in a carnal symphony, stripping each other bare, hands sliding over naked flesh and moans ringing out, blending with the melody.

I stared.

Heat scalding my cheeks.

I couldn’t drag my eyes away as two men lifted a female between them and began taking her, their rigid cocks sliding into her as she clung to them, her high moans echoing among the others as she threw her head back in ecstasy.

Near them, a man had bent a female over one of the tables, his chest plastered to her back as he thrust into her and the male behind him thrust into him, gripping his backside hard.

Kali had one of her mates on his back on another table, riding him as her second mate pounded into her backside.

The heat scalding my cheeks flooded through the rest of me, as if a dam had burst, and I was burning up, my heart thundering as I struggled to avert my gaze.

But they held me firm with their unabashed and uninhibited display of lust, with their brazen taking of what they wanted as males and females exchanged partners, as their pleasure-filled cries and the sounds of their bodies meeting created its own symphony.

Near me, one of the servants was on her knees, her dress torn and hanging around her waist as a male took her from behind, gripping her breasts, and she sucked the cock of a second male, and a third male stroked himself off as he watched.

Shocking.

This whole scene was shocking.

And wildly arousing.

Kaeleron moving beside me shattered the spell they had placed on me and my cheeks couldn’t have heated any more as I grabbed my wine and drank a mouthful of it, wishing it was cold so it would cool my overheating body.

“Do all your celebrations end this way?” I hid in my drink, trying to shut out the revelry.

Kaeleron chuckled. “No. Beltane is simply proceeding as planned. This is an important part of the rite.”

Now the loose dresses made sense. Not that many of the females had remained dressed. They were designed to tempt the males with a hint of what was to come.

I squirmed in my seat.

“You can join in if you wish,” he purred, his grin crooked.

“No, thank you. I’m fine where I am.” I highly doubted he would approve if I stood up and decided to join in anyway. The only way he would let me join in would be if I picked him as my partner.

And that felt too dangerous.

I went to sip my wine again, mind racing for an excuse to leave and return to my room, not that I expected Kaeleron to allow it.

He had ordered me to attend the celebration, and the rite wasn’t done yet.

Beltane wasn’t over. By the gods, I wished it was.

I looked at my wine as my wolf side and all my primal instincts whispered that I didn’t.

I wanted to be out there, among the males, parading naked and feeling their eyes on me.

Their cocks in me. I wanted to be wild. Free.

I lowered my wine. “There is nothing in the drinks, right?”

Kaeleron leaned towards me, all bewitching smiles, temptation incarnate that had me wanting to move closer to him too, to feel our bodies pressed against one another again.

To touch and stroke him as the female beyond him was touching and stroking one of the males, her fingers dancing down his bare chest to wrap around his rigid shaft.

“There is nothing in the drink, little lamb. Not everyone needs help becoming aroused.” Kaeleron gestured to his lap and I swallowed as my mouth dried out.

The outline of his erection was unmistakable against his inner thigh beneath the black fabric of his pants.

I squirmed harder, a war erupting inside me as instinct pushed me to reach out and touch him, to know the feel of a male at last and put an end to my wondering whether it would feel hard and rough, or soft beneath my fingers.

An image flashed into my mind, a vision of a nightmare, Lucas stood before me, taking that female, being inside her as he should have been inside me, claiming me as his mate that night rather than rejecting me.

I growled, the sound low and desperate, born of pain as I curled forwards, covering my face with my hands, trying to shut out that moment as it replayed, over and over again.

“I can’t be here,” I whispered, my voice hoarse as my throat tightened. “I just can’t. I can’t be here. I need to go.”

Kaeleron’s gaze bore into me, silently demanding I look at him.

When he placed his hand on my bare shoulder, I snarled and shoved him off, flashing fangs in his face.

“I can’t be here. Let me go!” I shouted, voice breaking now as pain shredded my insides, as the sounds of what was happening all around me tortured me.

Something terrible and dark flickered across his eyes and he leaned towards me, his voice pitched low as he growled, “Why?”

I shook my head and pressed my lips closed, refusing to answer.

His silver eyes darkened, gaining a trace of what looked like crimson around his pupils as the skin around his eyes seemed to blacken, and I yelped as he grabbed my chair and brutally yanked it towards him, until we were hip to hip.

He held me fast in his gaze.

His snarled words a vow.

“Whatever someone did to you in the past, they will pay for it one day, Saphira. I will see to it… and I will take care of you. No one here will harm you. You have my word on that.”

And I believed him.

If I told him what Lucas had done, this dark unseelie king would hunt him down and end him, and he would revel in delivering my wrath.

But it was my wrath to deliver with my own hands.

My vengeance.

“Face it,” he growled close to my ear. “Conquer it. Whatever darkness plagues your mind, do not let it win.”

I wasn’t sure I could face it or conquer it. I couldn’t get my eyes off the table, or my mind off Lucas.

Shadows teased my arms, my calves, twining around my waist.

And slowly, those images of him with that female, his rejection ringing in my ears, twisted and morphed, becoming filled with shadows and bellows of terror as those shadows rose up, as they wrenched at Lucas, cleaving flesh open and breaking bones.

And I wasn’t sure it was Kaeleron or magic turning my thoughts so dark.

It felt as if it came from somewhere deep inside me, some vengeful and wrathful part of me that had been unsheathed when Lucas had rejected me.

Freed.

I opened my eyes and looked at the crowd again, forcing myself to watch them and see the truth of them, that this moment they shared was born of pleasure and lust, and that all of them were enjoying it, savouring the release of their inhibitions and this wild, untamed rite.

No one here was in pain. No one here was being forced or tortured.

This was a moment of pure, unadulterated pleasure.

Heat beat through my veins, an inferno that rose with each second, my blood like liquid flame as I sank into the scene, as I let it surround me and sweep me up in it, no longer fighting it, seeking the joy in it rather than wallowing in the pain I had experienced.

I squeezed my thighs together as I watched Kali where she sat on one of the tables, her legs spread and back arched, breasts thrust towards the starlit sky as one of her mates feasted on her, his head bobbing between her thighs, his hands clamped over them and fingers pressing into her flesh, as if he couldn’t get enough of her taste.

My mind filled with images of Kaeleron like that, of me spread out on the altar, a sacrifice to his pleasure.

My pleasure.

His gaze seared me, even as a female stopped close to him.

“I am only interested in my current company.” Those words leaving his lips had my gaze snapping to him, colliding with his as the female he had turned down moved on, finding another male to satisfy her.

“You usually participate too.” My voice trembled as I uttered those words, feeling like a fool for not realising before now, and my cheeks flushed hotter as I imagined him out there, in the midst of all those trysts, tangled with the males and females, roaring his pleasure as he came.

He nodded and casually dismissed another female who braved approaching us.

“Don’t let me stop you,” I muttered, shocked by the bitter edge to my words and how the thought of him with another stirred something dark within me and had my wolf side growling low.

He slowly smiled. “I would participate… if you do. As I said, I am content with my current company.”

A clear declaration that if I wanted to join in he would be my partner.

And that look in his eyes warned me he wouldn’t want to share me.

I would be his alone.

A nude female strutted right up to him, her bare hips at eyelevel to him now the tables had been moved and we sat like a king and queen surveying everyone from their thrones.

I glanced at her and then back again, that darkness within me growing stronger, my inner growling becoming louder.

Elanaluvyr smirked at me and then turned a pretty smile on Kaeleron, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “I am untouched, my king. My body is yours to do with what you will.”

She dared to leaned towards him, breasts swaying in his direction, and planted one hand against the back of his chair, bringing her face close to his as he looked at her. I couldn’t breathe as she took hold of one of his hands and guided it towards her parted thighs.

“I am ready for you,” she husked.

Jealousy lanced my chest as Kaeleron didn’t dismiss her, as he kept his eyes on hers and didn’t resist as she slowly edged his hand towards her thighs.