Page 45 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

My mood faltered again, all the light that had been building inside me while talking to Oberon flowing out of me.

Kaeleron’s rejection rang in my mind, together with how distant he had been.

He hadn’t really wanted to be there with me.

He had only been helping me out of a sense of duty and responsibility, and maybe even guilt.

Oh gods, I had been a pity fuck of sorts.

Everything he had done, it had been done to ease his own mind.

And now it was all hitting me again in front of a man I barely knew and I couldn’t hide the hurt, couldn’t seem to school my features to pretend there wasn’t a part of me that was breaking.

“No, he is not like that,” Oberon murmured, some of the clouds breaking apart as he drew down a slow, deep breath, his shoulders heaving with the action, his gaze intense on me.

Crimson ringed his pupils as he looked at me, his expression dark, and then he forced his gaze to above my head, towards the distant mountains, and snarled, “There will be a reckoning.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask what he meant by that.

One moment I could see him, and the next all I could see was darkness.

All I could feel was the cold press of shadows against my limbs.

“Now, now,” Oberon said, his tone all amusement, “it would appear you have little right to be angry with me, old friend. I should be the one angry with you. What were you thinking?”

I pushed against the cage of shadows wrapped around me, battering them with my fists, my struggles useless as my hands passed straight through them but I couldn’t escape them. I stumbled around in them, blind and beginning to panic.

And walked right into something very hard.

Very masculine.

That scent of wild storm hit me, rousing heat within me that quickly turned to horror as I backed away.

Kaeleron’s hand wrapped around my wrist, his grip so hard it hurt as he spun me around so my back was to his chest. His hand wrapped around the front of my throat, keeping me in place against him, his hold sheer possession that roused something startling within me.

The feel of his claws poised so close to my skin, and all his strength against my back, stirred wicked need in my veins that had me trembling and breathless even when I knew I shouldn’t enjoy it.

I angled my head back, peering into the shadows, wanting to see his face.

The shadows dissipated as if I could command them, revealing him.

I stilled.

Oberon was wrong. Kaeleron wasn’t angry.

He was livid.

Darkness branched from his bright silver eyes, a corona of crimson encircling his pupils as he stared down at me, his lips set in a thin line and jaw flexing.

“Return to your room,” he growled and reluctantly loosened his grip.

“Is that a suggestion or an order?” I sniped back at him and wrenched free. I sashayed away from him, turning my chin up and squaring my shoulders. “Either way, the answer is no. I’m not done with my walk.”

“You. Are. Done.” He stepped towards me in time with each hard word he bit out, punctuating them. “I order you to return to your room.”

“No.” I walked a little faster, heart pounding as adrenaline rushed through me, and sense screamed at me not to antagonise him.

“What were you doing talking to Oberon?” he snarled, right on my heels.

I quickened my pace, storming through a flower-laced pergola, heading for the castle. “ Talking . You might want to try it sometime rather than just ordering people around like they’re your property.”

“You are my property.”

I stopped so quickly that he walked right into my back.

I whirled on him, the horror I felt on my face for him to see, unable to mask it as shock swept through me, surprise that he had just gone there. “I belong to no one.”

“You belong to me,” he growled and reached for my arm, but I shoved it behind my back, evading his touch. “You do not speak to Oberon. Ever .”

Darkness flashed in his eyes and shadows writhed from his shoulders like onyx wings.

“You don’t get to say who I can speak to.” I held my ground, even as the part of me that wasn’t all riled up and furious with him whispered that he did because he did in fact own me.

I was his property, whether I liked it or not.

And part of me had forgotten that.

I blamed the mating heat and his far-too-skilled tongue.

“You’re in a shitty mood,” I snapped at him. “I don’t want to talk to you until you’re in a better one. Barging into my conversation, ruining my walk, threatening your friends. What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with you ?” he shot back. “I saw how you were looking at him, how wounded you looked. What did he say to you that has put you in such a terrible mood?”

Oh my gods. He had stepped in and protected me with his shadows because he had seen my horror over what had happened last night and had interpreted it as horror over something Oberon had said to me.

I looked up at him, seeing that wrath simmering in his eyes as he looked back in Oberon’s direction, a dark and terrible hunger to harm a male who had been nothing but kind to me, and had even managed to lift my spirits for a moment.

I wasn’t going to stand by and let Kaeleron blame Oberon for my bleak mood.

“ You ,” I barked, gaining his attention and a confused look.

I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him, heart labouring, mind spinning.

Was I really going to do this? Yes. Yes, I was.

“You’re the reason I’m in a shitty mood.

I get it. I know you didn’t want to be there last night and just felt obligated to help, and I appreciate that, but you could have put on a better performance and not looked so disgusted?—”

“Disgusted?” He cut me off, earning himself a growl.

I gave him another one when he crowded me, menacing and far-too-sexy as he backed me up against one of the ornately carved wooden posts of the pergola, leaving me with nowhere to go.

Making my wolf side want to wrap itself around him.

“I wanted to be there.” His voice pitched low, a purr that held my attention and had my eyes falling to his lips and watching them as they moved in a tempting symphony.

He planted one hand against the post above my head, and gently wrapped the other around my throat before sliding it over my skin to my neck and settling it on my nape.

A shiver bolted down my spine, heat rising as his skin grazed my nape, drawing all my focus there, to that spot a male would mark during a mating.

His hooded gaze lowered to my lips and they tingled, the traitorous things wanting to feel his lips on them.

“I wanted to be there, Saphira. I enjoyed last night as much as you did. Maybe more so.”

His smouldering gaze lifted to lock with mine, searing me, making it impossible to breathe.

“Watching you,” he husked and I trembled as he palmed my nape, my legs weakening as I stared into his eyes, lost in them.

“Feeling you come on my fingers… your tight little body quivering from my touch as you sobbed my name.” He flashed sharp teeth, crimson flaring in his eyes.

“I will never forget how good that felt.”

I gripped the post behind me in an effort to remain upright as my world narrowed to only him, to the heat of his body so achingly close to mine, to the scent of him in my lungs and fogging my mind, and that searing, claiming look in his eyes that branded me with his name.

“But you wouldn’t—” I blushed. Hard. Unable to bring myself to say it, too embarrassed to bring up the fact I had begged him to take me like that.

“Fuck you?” he husked, sexy and deep, apparently not at all ashamed to bring it up.

He stepped closer, his body brushing mine, and angled his head as he held my gaze.

“Do you know how hard it was not to fuck you like you were begging me to, little wolf? How much I wanted to sink my cock into you and satisfy both of us? I wanted it, but I could not. You needed relief—a gentle hand—and I most certainly would not have been gentle with you. You would not have allowed it.”

He swept his hand around to the front of my neck and pushed my chin up with his thumb, keeping my eyes on his as I tried to look at anything but him, shame, embarrassment and need spiralling together within me to create a maelstrom of emotions I wasn’t sure I could survive.

He lowered his mouth closer to mine, his breath bathing my lips as he murmured, “If I had fucked you, it would have been as hard as your heat demanded. I would not have been gentle. I would not have been able to. I was too worked up by you—the way you moved, your little body slicked with sweat, the scent of you maddening me—and this regret you feel would have been a thousand times worse. So I took care of you… and then I went somewhere private and I thought of you as I stroked myself off.”

I shivered, wicked images flooding my mind, rousing heat in my veins and a need to tiptoe and press my mouth to his to goad him into touching me again.

“You are not ready for me,” he whispered close to my lips, “for the things I want to do to you.”

Another shiver wracked me, this one hot and needy. As hot and needy as that look in his eyes.

“When you are ready though,” he lowered his hand from my throat and grazed the front of my hips, making me jump and tense as a flash of pleasure bolted through me from just that muted touch, and growled, “I am going to fill you up and fuck you so hard—so thoroughly—that you will only ever want me. Are you prepared for that?”

I trembled at the thought of him branding me like that, making me crave only him. My wolf side wanted it, had me on the verge of pressing closer to him as I angled my head back, aching more than ever for him to kiss me—something he hadn’t done yet.

I wasn’t prepared for any of it. He was right about that, but I didn’t want to admit it. What he was talking about was more than satisfying a mating heat or scratching an itch.

It was possession.

Pure possession.

Something flickered in his eyes.

Something that made him look vulnerable for a heartbeat before he covered it so masterfully, slipping his mask back into place.

I knew that feeling he was hiding so well, hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself either, and had been just as horrified when I had realised it existed within me.

He felt he was on dangerous ground with me, and that flicker of vulnerability stemmed from the thought I might actually want him—that I desired him as he desired me—and he was unwilling to let himself believe that.

I had shut it down out of fear of rejection.

What had made him pull away?

I didn’t get a chance to discover the answer to that question, because while I shut things down by withdrawing and pulling up my barriers, he did it in a way that punched my fear button hard enough to leave a bruise.

“What we did was only natural, and it was nothing to be ashamed of, little lamb. It meant nothing. I felt obligated to service your needs. Not that I did not enjoy it. Any time you need me to scratch your itches for you, you only have to ask.”

I glared at him for saying that, turning what we had done into nothing and plunging that blade through my chest.

“You’re such an asshole,” I barked.

And turned on my heel and stormed away from him, anger shortening my breaths and lengthening my strides.

I couldn’t get away from him fast enough, but while I could escape his physical presence, I couldn’t banish him from my mind.

His taunts echoed in it, conjuring images of him taking me hard, over and over again, a different position each time.

I wasn’t sure whether there was something wrong with me for still wanting the bastard, or with him for turning what we had shared into something cold and clinical in order to protect himself from whatever this thing was growing between us.

But I knew one thing.

The heat he had awakened inside of me wasn’t done.