Page 56 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

He merely lifted a single eyebrow at my threatening behaviour, a challenge in his eyes that dared me to deny I had liked what he had been doing and that I had wanted him to go further.

My heart thundered as I held his wicked gaze that felt as if it was stripping me bare, exposing the truth of me.

I wanted him.

I still wanted him.

Right here. Right now. Regardless of our audience.

But I wasn’t going to give in to that want.

“I think I will retire for the night, and I suggest you do the same, Saphira. My brother is clearly drunk.” Vyr held her hand out to me.

I looked at it and then at Kaeleron, heart pounding, limbs trembling. I should take her hand and the out she was offering, I knew that. It was dangerous to remain here with Kaeleron when he had fired me up, had me wanting things I shouldn’t, but I didn’t want to leave. Not yet.

“I’ll head up soon,” I said and didn’t miss the concern in her eyes as she looked from me to her brother. “I just need to ask him a few things and then I’ll head to bed. Alone.”

Not that I expected Kaeleron to join me. Or wanted it.

I just didn’t want Vyr thinking that her brother was the sort of male who might force me to do something I didn’t want. He wasn’t like that. For all his darkness, I had never once felt as if I was in any danger with him. He teased and tempted, but never did anything I didn’t want.

Vyr nodded and shot her brother a warning look before she exited the room, leaving us alone.

I picked up the decanter that had fallen on the floor, rescuing it before all of the vile contents stained the rug, and when Kaeleron offered his still-empty glass, I shot him down with a glare.

“I’m cutting you off.” I took the decanter to the side table instead, stoppering it and leaving it there as I returned to him. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“How did I get to be so very handsome? Genetics, I am afraid,” he drawled with a wicked smile.

I rolled my eyes. “Not that. Something else.”

“But you admit I am handsome.” He was fishing, and there was an edge to his eyes that left me feeling he needed to know what I thought of him, as if it was important to him.

“You’re stupidly beautiful. Now let me ask my questions.”

He regally waved his hand, earning another eye roll from me.

“Did you contact my pack?” I hadn’t realised how much hinged on the answer to that question, or how desperate I was to know it, until I uttered it aloud.

“I sent word to them that you are safe, together with a warning to keep their distance from the male wolf and his companions.”

My shoulders sagged as all the tension knotting them loosened and a sigh escaped me, but then I considered what he had said, and grimaced. “I should have mentioned the one who sold me was the alpha of the neighbouring pack.”

“I described the insidious prick rather well.” Kaeleron eyed what little liquid had made it into his glass and downed it in one.

“Insidious prick certainly suits him,” I muttered and then hesitated.

He looked up at me, a frown marring his brow. “Another question?”

“At Beltane…” I swallowed and forced myself to continue when my nerve wavered. “When that bitch approached you and you let her guide your hand towards her thighs… did you want to sleep with her?”

His right eyebrow arched and then lowered into a smouldering, mischievous sort of look that heated my blood as he purred, “No. I wanted to provoke you, little wolf. I wanted to see if you would bare your fangs and drive away any female I showed interest in.”

My jaw clenched as it hit me and I had to hold myself back so I didn’t box his ears.

He had wanted to make me jealous so I would reveal I wanted him, and I had done just that, stepping in to steal back his attention, exposing the truth of me to him—I desired him. I wanted him. And I wanted him to be all mine.

“Prick,” I muttered and he smirked at me. “For that, you owe me. I want access to your library. I want to learn more about this world and the courts, and the powers you all have.”

“Why?” He canted his head, his gaze piercing.

“Because I just do. I figure I need to know what I’m up against if I’m to remain here, and then that thing Neve said has been bothering me.

That I’m necessary to you and something about treading a path and not being able to do it alone.

She had a vision and I was in it, didn’t she?

” I had been so focused on surviving in the Shadow Court and nursing my own wounds that I had forgotten all about that moment in the cells until a few days ago, and since then I had been trying to figure out a way to bring it up when I next saw Kaeleron.

He nodded. “It is vital that you are here, but we do not yet know the reason why. I am working to uncover it.”

“You didn’t buy me for my virginity.” My heart thundered as I put that out there.

He smirked.

Bastard.

“I’m going to bed.” I pivoted on my heel, but shadows snaked around me, holding me in place as they twisted me back around to face him. I fought them, but my hands passed straight through them, the black threads of them dissipating like smoke only to reform the second my hand had passed them.

“Not yet,” Kaeleron growled.

I huffed. “I cut you off, remember? No more liquor. Why did you summon me here this evening anyway? You’ve been moody all night, perfecting the silent brooding type, barely even looking at me. Was it just that you’ve forgotten how to pour your own drinks?”

His expression turned deadly serious as he pulled me towards him with his shadows, so serious my nerves returned, rising swiftly as he stared at me.

“Kneel,” he commanded.

I swallowed as I obeyed, easing to my knees before him on the crimson rug as he sat up, no trace of warmth in his features now, and trembled as he placed his hand on the left side of my chest, the weight and warmth of his palm rekindling my arousal.

Was he checking my collarbone was healed?

How sweet of him.

I relaxed a little, my nerves washing away as he stared at his hand, at my chest, his look so fierce and intense.

And then screamed as pain flared where his palm touched me.

I instinctively jerked backwards, trying to escape his touch as the scent of burning flesh singed my nostrils, but he seized my other arm in a bruising grip, his expression grim and dark as he held me in place.

My lungs tightened, head swimming as the pain grew stronger, as the fire licked hotter across my skin, chasing in circles beneath his palm, and the edges of my vision grew dark as unconsciousness loomed.

And then he released me.

My teeth ached from clamping them against the pain as I fought to breathe through them, my vision spinning, twisting the world around me.

“That is why I summoned you,” Kaeleron growled.

I looked down, blinking back tears, and frowned at the trail of golden embers that chased over my skin, finishing forming a black circular mark on my flesh. A stag that had a crown suspended between its antlers and five stars above it, surrounded by a ring of symbols.

Confused and struggling against the pain that continued to thrum in that spot, I lifted my unsteady hand towards it.

Kaeleron captured my trembling hand and tensed, something like regret flashing across his eyes before they hardened again. “It was necessary.”

“Necessary?” I wrenched free of his grip and staggered to my feet, my mind clearing in an instant as the reality of what he had just done hit me. “What was necessary? Marking me like livestock?”

Rage like I had never felt it blasted through me, incinerating any trace of the desire I had felt when he had held me on his lap. I snarled at him, flashing fangs, hating him for what he had done.

He had marked me.

brANDED ME.

Like I was a fucking cow.

Or a slave.

Declaring me his property.

“You will be safe now.” He sounded too calm, too unaffected by the anger I levelled on him as I stared him down, as my chest heaved and lungs burned, as I fought to hold back the shift and the urge to sink my fangs into him.

He picked up his glass and held it out to me.

“Now, I command you to pour me a drink.”

I stormed to the decanter, hurled the stopper from it, and marched it back to him.

And poured the contents all over his head.

“I’m tired,” I snapped, unsure whether I meant I physically needed sleep or was tired of his games and him being an overbearing asshole. Probably both.

I didn’t stick around as he lifted his hand and wiped the amber liquid from his eyes.

I stalked right out of the door and slammed it behind me.

And broke into a run that had me back in my room and slamming that door behind me in under a minute.

I pressed my back to the finely decorated wood, breathing hard and trembling, silently cursing his name as heat scorched my veins and his scent filled my lungs, and the memory of the soft rasp of his tongue against my skin maddened me.

I shut it all down.

To hell with him.

I touched the mark he had placed on me, a beautiful brand but a brand all the same, and tears filled my eyes, hurt welling up as everything I had begun to believe about him crumbled before my eyes, revealing what a fool I had been.

I was property to him, a tool he apparently needed for some reason, and a fool he enjoyed amusing himself with.

Nothing more.

I had been blind, but now I could see the truth of it all in this mark, this one act.

And I was done with his shit.