Page 48 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

SAPHIRA

A shriek tore from my lips as I whirled in the thick, chilling shadows threaded with glittering flecks of silver and gold, my eyes flying wide as the darkness parted to reveal him.

Wrath incarnate.

Shadows streamed outwards behind Kaeleron, forming great wings that clung to the shoulders of his tunic, blending perfectly with the inky fabric. Silver eyes stained with crimson darted around the room, his eyebrows pitched low above them.

I stiffened as his searching gaze landed on me, fresh embarrassment rolling through me.

I couldn’t believe how violently I had reacted to the thought of Elanaluvyr in his bed—at his side.

Where some reckless, foolish part of me wanted to be.

But as his eyes narrowed on me, raking over my body, lingering on every exposed injury, my traitorous body warmed and my heart fluttered, a timid thing in my chest, beating unsteadily in his presence.

So irritatingly uncertain.

So filled with hope.

Because he was here, with me. Not in the dungeon. Not with the fae bitch.

He was here, and he was looking at me as if he had stolen that seed of rage that burned within me still, demanding I find her and end her, that she pay for what she had done to me and the things she had called me.

Kaeleron strode towards me, darkness pouring off him, streaming behind him to blot out the rest of my room, narrowing the world down to only us as he wrapped that glittering night around me in a soft, almost tender embrace.

Shielding me with it.

His gaze darted between my injuries again, leaping the most between my collarbone and my lip, and darkness branched from his eyes in jagged tendrils as they became more crimson than silver, his expression so fierce that I couldn’t look away.

The menace he radiated had my wolf side shrinking back in submission and a touch of fear as he closed the distance between us down to nothing, coming to tower before me.

Shock rolled through me as he tenderly brushed my hand away from my split lip and ran his thumb over it, inspecting the cut, his eyebrows knitting hard as he stared at it. Those shadows bracketing his eyes spread further, and his skin paled towards white, the transformation startling me.

His canines and the incisors closest to them were jagged fangs as he snarled.

“Who did this to you?”

His sister hadn’t told him about what had happened. He didn’t know. Had he come to my room for another reason only to scent my blood and find me looking like I had been run over by a truck?

Maybe he had wanted to see me as badly as I had wanted to see him.

“Answer me,” he gruffly commanded, his voice a low growl that rumbled like thunder, a rising storm that would wipe clean this world, all because someone had hurt me. “Who did this to you? I will see to it they are punished. I will see to it they can never lift a finger to harm you again.”

“Why?” That question tumbled from my lips, my heart stuttering as I stared up at him, strangely unafraid of that wrath and dark hunger for violence that shone in his eyes.

He had never been so dark, so terrifying as his shadow wings shifted and tendrils of night snapped at items in my room, restless with a need to kill.

But he didn’t scare me, because I knew he wouldn’t hurt me.

This rage in him was born of the fact I had been hurt, and he hadn’t been there to stop it.

And gods, it was delicious.

He paused, seemingly caught off guard by my question. “Why?”

“Why do you care?” I fought to keep my voice steady and confident, afraid he might see how much hinged on his answer, how desperate I was to hear him tell me that what we had shared had meant something to him.

So much for no messy emotions. My stupid heart was getting caught up in him, wanting something from him I knew he couldn’t give me and that it wasn’t wise to want.

But I couldn’t stop myself from speaking and putting it out there.

“Why would you punish this person? Why protect me?”

Kaeleron was all glorious darkness as he crowded me, as he backed me towards the wall. When my back met the cool stone, his hand fell to my neck and his thumb grazed my throat as his fingers claimed my nape.

He snarled, “Because you are mine, Saphira.”

Shock swept through me again, and I had to fight against the urge to find the meaning I wanted to hear in those words. He owned me. He wasn’t speaking of me as a possession in a way a man who desired a woman did—the way a mate would. He was speaking of me as a possession because he owned me.

He was only protecting his interests.

I knocked his hand away from my throat and turned from him, a heavy feeling pressing down on me, one that threatened to break me when Elanaluvyr hadn’t been able to.

Tears pricked my eyes and I hated them, hated this world, hated him, feeling like such a fool for thinking Kaeleron might want me the way I wanted him.

Neve had told him ‘to tread this path, you must not tread it alone’.

And Kaeleron hadn’t been happy about that.

He needed me for a purpose he hadn’t revealed yet, one I was beginning to suspect had nothing to do with my body.

My time would be better spent trying to learn from Neve why he had bought me rather than pining after a male who had stated in that dungeon that he was tired of me.

Elanaluvyr was right. Kaeleron was only interested in me because I was new and he owned me and had apparently decided that spending time in my company was fine as long as it ended with him getting what he wanted.

I was entertaining. Summoned whenever he was bored.

Sooner or later, I was going to end up as nothing more than someone he summoned to fuck when he was tired of his queen.

Or whatever my purpose was would be revealed and I would no longer be ‘necessary’.

Did he even intend to let me leave once I had paid off my debt?

I was starting to doubt that too.

Doubt was a bitch.

A real mood-killer.

I headed towards my bed.

Kaeleron caught my wrist and pulled me back to him, not letting me get far. I was too tired and sore, hurting both physically and emotionally to see him right now. I just wanted to curl up on my bed and drift in my pain, and maybe while I brooded, I would figure out why I was here.

“I’m not in the mood for your games today,” I muttered and twisted free of his grip. “Find someone else to entertain you.”

He scowled as I pivoted away from him, handsome face darkening again.

And swept me up into his arms, ripping a gasp from me.

“Put me down.” I pushed at his broad shoulders.

His firm shoulders. Gods. I shut down that flicker of heat that licked through my veins.

I was not going there again. Desiring Kaeleron had been a mistake.

Letting my heat get the better of me had been a mistake.

I was going to master both and learn to resist them. “Put me down.”

Kaeleron didn’t pay me any heed.

Rather than stride towards the bed as I expected, he carried me like a princess towards the bathroom.

The door opened before he could reach it, and the lamps on the walls flickered to life as he entered, that familiar tang of magic lacing the air, and the sound of running water had me tearing my gaze from his face to settle it on the large copper clawfoot tub that stood in the centre of the room.

The water steamed as it rapidly filled the bathtub, and that steam shimmered with something unnatural.

Or at least unnatural in my world.

The ease with which Kaeleron opened doors, lit lamps, and filled a bath all using magic was astounding.

I added a little envy of his ability to use magic to my ever-growing list of reasons I felt so inadequate in this world.

I wasn’t sure how Riordan coped with being surrounded by so many powerful beings, all with abilities beyond his reach.

Although, he hadn’t been lacking in confidence when I had met him.

He was probably comfortable in his own skin, and with his abilities and power.

Confident he could hold his own even against these unseelie. Unlike me.

Kaeleron set me down on the soft bathmat.

“What are you doing?” I glanced at the bath and then tensed and swatted his hands away when he tugged my blouse out of the waist of my pants. “What are you doing?!”

I caught his wrists when he reached for my blouse again, stopping him.

The harsh lines of his face softened just a touch as his silver gaze lifted to meet mine, enough to have me relenting.

There was need in that look. Need I could define, even if I didn’t understand why it was directed at me.

My thoughts whirled as he gently stripped me and lifted me in his arms again, and slowly, almost reverently, lowered me into the warm water.

The first touch of it was bliss, a heat and lightness that rolled through my body to loosen my tight muscles and soothe my bruises.

I let go of my fears, of all the doubts that clouded my mind, and sank into the water, letting it carry them all away.

I had wanted to fight tonight. To draw blood.

Maybe even kill. I wanted to learn to fight better, so I could hold my own.

I wanted to know more about this world that was beginning to feel like home.

I hadn’t thought about my pack in days. I hadn’t thought about Lucas.

I had lost myself in enjoying my time here, enjoying the company of a certain fae king.

I wasn’t sure who I was anymore.

I wasn’t sure who this Kaeleron was either as he picked up a sponge and began gently cleaning my skin, taking his time around any of my injuries, all soft and very careful with me.

But I wanted to know this me who felt true and real, as if I was emerging from some kind of cocoon, finally discovering myself.

And I wanted to know this Kaeleron.

This tender, attentive male.

He growled, “I will find out who did this and they will pay for it.”

This tender, attentive and slightly homicidal male.