Page 41 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

I groaned and pulled at my dress, my face twisting as misery joined the pain and the need rioting within me, and took to pacing my room, restless with a need to return to the feast and find someone.

Anyone.

I was no longer feeling picky. Kaeleron. Riordan. Any male would do.

I gritted my teeth, fighting that urge.

I didn’t really want that. My instincts did. That deep primal instinct that demanded I mate.

Maybe I could sleep it off.

Maybe a few more glasses of wine would make me so tired that this violent need to mate would subside because I wouldn’t have the energy.

I absently clawed at my dress, not realising I was slowly shredding it until I caught my haggard reflection in the mirror.

My pupils were blown, my crimson dress in tatters, and my hair was a damp tangle of silver that looked as if I had been rolling around in the bushes with a male already.

“Someone should have given me explicit details about this,” I groused, blaming my mother, and the teachers at my pack, and even my ancestors for not deciding this was something maturing female wolves needed a full breakdown about so they knew what to expect.

Because this need to claw my skin off and this pain that twisted inside me, as if it might kill me if I didn’t find a release for it, wasn’t something I had anticipated.

And, really, I only had myself to blame.

I shouldn’t have stopped my mother when she had started to talk about maturity, trying to warn me about what would happen.

But I had given in to embarrassment, hastily withdrawing and shutting her down.

I regretted it now as I doubled over, clutching my stomach as need became agony, and hadn’t realised my hands had moved of their own accord until I was palming my breasts, thumbing my nipples, shivering as little jolts of pleasure tripped through me.

“Maybe I can deal with this alone, or at least take the edge off.”

I knew it wouldn’t help, but refused to listen to sense, because I had to do something. Anything.

I sat on the end of the bed, battling that urge to claw at my skin as I writhed on the spot, unable to keep still.

When my hands cupped my breasts, a red haze engulfed my vision and my back arched, some buried instinct within me rising to the fore, trying to wrest control from me.

I needed more. I brushed my nipples, exposing the breast where my claws had sliced through the strap, swallowing hard as I fell back on the black covers.

My other hand drifted to between my thighs and I yanked the irritating material away and didn’t hesitate. I spread my legs and pressed my hand between them, stroking and teasing my damp cleft, reaching for another hit of pleasure to dampen the pain and satisfy my needs.

Ripples of pleasure were all I felt though, echoes of the satisfaction my body and instincts craved.

A sob broke free of my lips as I tried harder, squeezing my clit, desperately tweaking my nipples.

It wasn’t enough.

I cried out in pain as my insides cramped.

As fire scoured me.

Another sob tore from my lips.

I was going to die.

I was going to die in the most embarrassing way.

I felt sure of it as I rolled onto my side and curled up into a ball, my skin burning up, sweat beading on my skin as pain jolted my bones and had my muscles shaking.

Someone knocked on my door.

“Saphira?”

Oh gods no.

I buried my face in the bedclothes as that deep voice rumbled through my door.

Kaeleron.

I had been wrong.

Now I was going to die in the most embarrassing way, expiring from the pain of my first mating heat with a too gorgeous for his own good fae king as my witness.

“Saphira, let me in.”

A very polite fae king.

He could have entered if he wanted. The door wasn’t locked and even if it had been, he could have teleported inside or just ghosted through the obstruction in his shadows. But instead he was lingering on the other side of it, and he sounded concerned.

“No,” I muttered. “Go away.”

He sounded less concerned as he bit out, “I will not leave. Something is wrong with you. I can feel it.”

“Great.” I pressed my face deeper into the covers. “Gods, kill me now.”

This couldn’t get any worse.

“I am coming in.”

Maybe it could.

I twisted upright to tell him no, but he barged into the room, and every instinct currently ruling me growled at the delicious sight of him.

Here was what I needed.

This dark, towering male whose power embraced me as he stalked into the room, his black hair wild as if he had been running his hands through it and his silver eyes hungry.

No, I did not need Kaeleron.

“Go away.” I scrambled and reached for a pillow, hurling it at him and then grunting as my body cramped again.

The pillow hit him square in the face.

He didn’t even try to block it as he prowled towards me and flicked his right hand out. The door behind him slammed shut and the window shutters followed it, like a wave of magic rolling through the room.

“I did this,” he growled. “I will take care of it… of you.”

Mortified, I shook my head. “No.”

My instincts howled ‘yes, yes, yes!’.

My inner wolf, my primal side, more animal than human, responded to him—to his arrogance and his dominant nature as he stared down at me, looming at the foot of the four-poster bed.

I tried to crawl away from him, hoping he might leave if I ignored him, biting back another grunt as pain seared me and twisted my insides.

“Saphira.” My name was a command on his lips and I thrilled as he gripped the bedclothes and yanked on them, pulling me back towards him, not letting me escape.

Part of me howled at the display of aggression.

I glared at him.

A king.

Too much like an alpha.

He wielded power. Strength. And by the gods, my body responded to it like a drug, writhing as he looked at me, his gaze hooded and demanding.

He wielded power over me .

I shifted on the bed, rubbing my thighs together, unable to stop myself as his gaze seared me, scorching away my reservations, giving my instincts a firmer hold on my mind as well as my body.

“I will only do what you want—what you ask—you are in control.” He held his hand out to me. “Let me see to your pleasure.”

Those words wreaked havoc on me.

I didn’t feel in control.

His scent, his commanding masculine presence had me wanting to climb him.

Claw him.

Fuck him.

It felt as if my wolf side was trying to burst free of my skin to get to him as he looked at me, his gaze heated, as if he wanted me.

My mind swam, my back arching off the bed, breasts thrusting upwards as I clawed at the covers, as I writhed and succumbed to the fire.

Too much. I couldn’t survive this. I cried out as pain swept through me, and it came out as half human, half wolf, a howl of agony that had Kaeleron’s expression shifting from aroused to fearful.

I threw my head back and howled again, sobbing towards the end of it as I desperately clutched at the sheets, as I twisted them into my fists and every inch of me tensed so fiercely I feared my bones would shatter.

“Saphira,” Kaeleron whispered softly and then his hand was on my bent knee.

His touch like a brand.

But not one of fire, but one of blessed ice.

“Touch me,” I sobbed, writhing and aching, desperate for more of that sweet coolness.

I all but clawed my dress up, air kissing bare skin, no trace of shame touching me as I exposed myself to him and spread my legs.

“Please, gods… touch me.”

“I will take care of you.” He pressed a knee into the mattress beside me, his weight rolling me towards him. “Do not fight it. Give yourself over to it. The pleasure will be all the sweeter.”

I drew in a sharp breath, a sigh that hitched in my throat as his palm shifted from my knee to my inner thigh.

Need swamped me, wrenching control from me, and I gave myself over to it just as he had instructed, shedding all fear and embarrassment, surrendering to my desire.

To Kaeleron.

His fingers danced along my inner thigh and I moaned as my back arched from the bed, as I tore at my dress, exposing my breasts.

He murmured something that ended with ‘little wolf’ but I was too far gone to hear him as blood rushed in my ears, as my body trembled beneath his questing fingers.

A gasp shot from my lips as he stroked between my thighs, my body jolting and my hands flying to the pillow above me. I clutched it, twisting it in my hands as he parted me, as his fingers dipped between my petals and teased me.

Sweet mercy.

I rocked my hips, shameless in my pursuit of pleasure as it built within me, his touch easily doing what mine couldn’t.

He stroked harder, each brush of his fingers taking me higher as his gaze scalded my face.

Feeling emboldened, my need to mate flooding me with a desire to goad and dominate him in return, to push him into giving me his cock—his seed—I opened my eyes and met his, staring into them as he touched me. Stroked me.

His fingers dipped lower, his lips parting as his breaths came faster too, and I moaned, not holding back my pleasure as he circled my slick entrance. I dug my claws into the pillow, my eyes rolling back in my head as I raised my hips, silently encouraging—demanding—he press his fingers inside me.

He groaned as he eased them inside, the heat of them scalding me and the thickness of them satisfying some new, wicked part of me. Oh, how his cock would feel inside me, stretching me around him. I opened my eyes again and raked them over him, down to his hips.

His hard length kicked beneath the material of his trousers, as if responding to my gaze, and I groaned as I rode his fingers, imagining it was his shaft inside me instead.

A bomb detonated inside me, the suddenness of it tearing a cry from me as my hips jerked and heat swept through me, fierce and unbridled, and my thighs quivered, shaking so fiercely they couldn’t support my weight.

I sank into the bed, breathing hard, some of the pain abating as release swept me up in it.

I waited for him to leave, sure he would and that I would be fine now.

Only he didn’t.

And I wasn’t.

The pain rolled back in on the final pulse of my release, stealing my breath with its ferocity, and I gasped and rocked my body on his fingers, instinct at the helm.

I rode them hard, desperate to find another release, but it didn’t come as easily this time.

The pleasure of my first one lingered inside me, dampening what I received as he stroked and touched me, as he teased my clit with his thumb.

I gritted my teeth and palmed my breasts, flicking my nipples, trying to push through it and find another release, a stronger one perhaps, that would satisfy me completely.

A growl slipped from my lips as he spread my legs, bracing them apart with his shoulders, and delved between them, his tongue stroking me.

I flung my head back and cried out as he sucked and teased, clutching my breasts and pushing my hips up, pressing against his mouth as he turned my fantasy into reality.

I stared down the length of my body, trembling as his dark head moved between my thighs, moaning as he lifted his head enough to lock gazes with me, his tongue stroking me, his eyes darker than I had ever seen them, commanding and holding me under his spell as he pleasured me.

“Oh gods,” I muttered, lost in his eyes, in the pleasure of his touch and how wicked it felt to watch him as he took me with his mouth. “Oh gods.”

I cried out as another release rushed through me, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane as Kaeleron clamped his hands down over my thighs and held me in place, not letting up. He pushed me through the release, pushed me higher, towards the next crescendo.

It hit me in a blur of light and heat.

But it still wasn’t enough.

I groaned as he eased back and kneeled between my thighs, sinking his fingers deep into me again, filling me.

Still not enough.

I writhed and moaned, struggling to keep still as I clawed at the sheets, ripping them to shreds.

I needed more.

My gaze dropped to his caged erection.

I needed that.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, half mad with need, too far gone to be embarrassed about demanding that from him.

It was what he wanted after all.

He wanted me to beg him for sex.

And here I was.

Begging him.

“Fuck me, please?” I reached for him, wanting to take what I needed, delirious with need of it.

“No.”

That firm refusal lashed at me, making me falter for a heartbeat as my gaze flew to his.

I had never seen him looking so stern. So cold.

His jaw flexed as he stared down at me, his fingers slowly pumping into me, the sting of his rejection and the need to make him leave, to make him stop now and spare myself more hurt and humiliation fading with each stroke that had my instinct to mate rising again, flooding my mind and seizing control of my body.

“Fuck me or find me a male who will,” I growled, my voice bordering on inhuman as I gnashed fangs at him.

“No,” he snarled right back at me.

Violently flipped me onto my front and pulled my hips up.

I barked out a moan as he licked and laved me with his tongue, his strokes harder now, more demanding. The roughness of his touch thrilled me, rousing that part of me that needed this.

Needed a firm hand. Needed an alpha.

A powerful male to satisfy me.

I shattered under his ministrations. A haze built in my mind with each release he gave me, a strange warmth rolling through my body to slowly quell the pain. His fingers teased and filled me, his tongue tormented me, and his eyes never left me.

His gaze seared me as I came undone again and again, each one leaving me more hazy, more tired, until with a final hoarse cry and trembling thighs, I sank into darkness.

“Rest.”

His voice echoed in the inky black.

Soft.

Commanding.

An order.

I obeyed.