Page 86 of Wolf Caged (Bound to the Shadow King #1)

KAELERON

W e made it to the cave before the sandstorm reached us and I set Saphira down and pushed her ahead of me into the darkness, my senses scanning the tunnel that curved just ahead of us, banking right.

Nothing moved. Nothing breathed except us.

My heightened vision allowed me to make out the sandy floor and the few bones scattered around it, old enough that I breathed a little easier.

Whatever had called this place home once had long since moved on, and there were not enough bones to create anything that could be used against us by a lich. We were safe for now.

Wind howled across the cave mouth, a blur of sand and magic that had me urging Saphira deeper into the shelter of the cave, around the corner where we would be out of sight and safe from the storm.

I guided her to the back of the cave and set the pack down.

“I can’t see a thing,” she muttered and groped along the wall, moving into a crouch as she followed it downwards, and then patted the sand and slumped onto it.

I opened my pack and rooted around in it until I found the single candle I had bought with me.

I placed the base of it into the sand, pressing it deep so it stood upright, and then lit the wick.

Warm light blazed outwards, chasing back the darkness, revealing Saphira where she sat huddled in the corner, her knees tucked to her chest.

“You’re like a scout. What else do you have in there, Mr Prepared-For-Anything?

” She leaned over and tugged the pack towards her, her eyebrows rising as she plucked out packages of dried meat, a bottle of water, the rolls of gauze and the ointments.

She put it all back in. Except the meat.

She kept hold of that and when I arched a brow at her, she tucked it close to her chest. “This is mine now. Don’t even think about taking it.

You should have packed some for yourself. ”

I held my hand out to her. “And you need to learn how to share.”

She opened the packet and pulled a strip of meat out. “I’ve spent enough of my life sharing. For once, I’m being selfish. I’m doing all the things I want to do.”

“Is that what you think you are doing in my court—being selfish?” My eyebrows dipped low as I plucked one of the pieces of meat from the packet as she offered it to me and searched her eyes. “You have not been selfish once in the time I have known you.”

“I am selfish. If I wasn’t… I don’t know. I just feel selfish for… for enjoying my time here.” She picked at the meat she held, tearing small pieces from it as she looked at it, her brows lowering to shadow her blue eyes.

“It is not selfish to enjoy something, especially when it comes at no cost to anyone. I was right about your pack being a cage, one I am surprised you want to return to with that wolf.” I broke a piece of meat off and popped it into my mouth.

She glowered at me. “That wolf has a name, and… if I want to return, it’s because I need to know my family are safe, Kael.”

She kept calling me that, and each time my heart constricted and I had foolish thoughts, like keeping her with me.

Like making her stay.

I owned her after all.

“And what happens then?” When a confused crinkle marred her brow, I added, “When you return to your pack and see they are safe, what happens then? Do you allow them to place you back in a cage, or will you fly free?”

She frowned at her meat, the candlelight playing across her delicate features, dancing in her silver hair.

“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet.” Her answer was quiet, softly spoken, and I believed her, because I knew the truth she refused to face.

She wanted to see her family were safe, but she did not want to subject herself to the life she had lived with them again.

She wanted more than they would give her.

Her fingers brushed the ring I had placed on her finger and she toyed with it as she watched the flame flickering on the candle, drifting away from me, deep into her thoughts.

So I drew her back to me.

“The bracelet the wolf had, it is special to you?”

She frowned and nodded, and then lifted her gaze from the ring, settling it on my face as she smiled. It wobbled. And pain had her eyes glittering.

“Everlee gave it to me. It’s a charm bracelet. You add things to it. Treasured memories. You buy little silver charms, like tiny metal carvings that represent the things you see, and add them to the bracelet. She gave it to me when I told her how much I wanted to travel and see the world.”

The bracelet I had seen had been a plain silver chain, with no adornments other than a small wolf.

“And did you see the world?” I knew the answer to that question as her expression took on a sombre edge and she toyed with the ring again, her shoulders shifting on a long sigh.

“No. My father wouldn’t allow it.” She nibbled the meat, darkness building in her eyes. Anger that her own flesh and blood had kept her caged long before Lucas had, before I had.

“But you have seen more than the world, little wolf. You have seen a whole new world.” I reached my hand towards the candle and focused hard, pushing through the dampening fog of magic in the air to summon my own.

Her eyes widened as parts of the flame leaped upwards, becoming wolves that sprang and pranced before they disappeared into smoke, bounding free of their invisible bonds.

“Then I guess you owe me a charm for the bracelet then.” She pulled another piece of the meat free of the package.

I eased back to lean against the wall as I contemplated that. “I will gladly make you one, but I am not sure what would best represent my court or Lucia.”

She stood, moved my pack and set it down where she had been, and then eased onto her backside. Right next to me.

“It would need to be something special.” She hugged her knees to her chest as awareness of her proximity drummed in my blood, the few inches that separated us feeling like nothing more than a wisp of air.

Her face pinched as she watched the candle, her profile to me.

“An elkyn?” I offered.

She scrunched up her nose. “Elkyn are beautiful, but I was thinking something that reminded me of… your court.”

You .

She had wanted to say ‘you’, but had lost her nerve. I was sure of it as I subtly leaned towards her, placing my left hand behind her backside and bracing my weight on it, and sensed her tension and scented her nerves.

“I have an idea,” I said.

“What?” She tensed as I leaned towards her, reaching my right hand around her waist, my body caging her and my mouth close to hers.

And scowled when I plucked her dagger from the sheathe at her waist and held it before her as I sat back where I had been.

“A blade like this one, wrought from metal from Noainfir. A reminder of your strength, your courage, and your spirit.” I gazed at it, scrutinising the details of it. “It would be a challenge, but I believe I could do it.”

She placed her hand over the dagger, fingers brushing my skin. “It would be perfect.”

Her words felt as sharp as the blade I gripped, cutting at my heart as I thought of her bracelet and its reminders of places she had been, and was no longer, and I found I did not want to be something she looked back on, nothing more than a memory to her.

I seized her nape, my body moving of its own accord, and brought my mouth down on hers, claiming her lips in a bruising, desperate kiss.

And rejoiced as she returned it, her lips dancing with mine, spreading heat through my body that eased the chill that had taken root in my chest.

She loosed a little moan as she shifted onto her knees, coming to face me, her hands lifting to rest on my left shoulder and right biceps.

I planted one hand against her lower spine, pulling her against me, kissing her deeper as I drowned in my need of her, not wanting this moment to end.

That chill lingered, marring my thoughts even as Saphira’s kiss thawed it, together with the way her hands found the buckles of my leather armour.

Her lips remained dancing against mine, each stroke of her tongue maddening me, warming me, as she slowly undressed me, her fingers finding each buckle, as if she had been memorising their positions the whole time we had been travelling so she could unfastened them without looking.

I untied the bow on her corset, loosening the string that cinched it closed, unravelling it until the strip of leather came away in my hands.

I tossed it to one side and lowered my mouth to her throat, earning a husky moan as my reward as I stroked my tongue over the faded marks I had placed on her fair skin.

She leaned into each brush of my lips as I worked my way downwards, lifting the hem of her blouse from her leathers at the same time.

When she eased back, granting me better access, I made fast work of stripping the blouse from her and helped her with my chest piece, casting both away from her before eagerly cupping her bare breasts.

Her teeth sank into her lower lip and her blue gaze grew hooded as I thumbed her nipples, teasing the stiff pink peaks, and then I swooped on them, grabbing her backside to haul her up onto her knees before me.

Her hands flew to my hair, fingers burying deep to cling to me as I sucked and teased one nipple and then the other, lavishing them with the attention they deserved.

“Kael,” she murmured, the scent of her need maddening me.

I lowered my hand to cup her between her thighs, cursing the obstruction between us, and she mirrored me, her small hand brushing over my caged erection. I groaned low in my throat, breaths shortening as she tormented me.

Apparently, she tormented herself too, because she tore at the laces of my leathers, a frustrated little thing that pulled a husky chuckle from me.

She shot me a glare and had her revenge, silencing me with her palm against my bare flesh.

The heat of her scalded me as she stroked my cock, wrapping her fingers around it tightly to choke me.

Her thumb grazed the sensitive head on the down stroke, stealing my breath, flooding me with need that bordered on painful and making my mind race forwards to being inside her.

I wanted to be inside her.

Deep.

Claiming her.

I reached for the fastenings of her own trousers, but she beat me to it, shooting to her feet and ripping them open, hastily shimmying out of them and kicking them aside with her boots. I was not the only one who did not want to wait.

She proved that by straddling my thighs, one hand branding my chest as she pushed my back against the rough wall of the cave, and the other reaching for my cock.

My hand joined hers and together we guided my erection to her slick pussy, our moans combining as we rubbed the head through the essence of her arousal to her opening and I nudged inside her.

I kept hold of myself as her hand moved to my shoulders, as she bit her lip and eased down onto me, slowly taking me into her inch by inch.

My breaths shortened as our eyes locked, as we seemed to join in more ways than just our bodies interlocking.

Our souls seemed to entwine as she gazed into my eyes, as she sank onto me, taking me as deep as I could go, and she scooted closer to me.

I was falling.

I knew it as I looked at her, as I wrapped my arms around her and she began to move on me, slow strokes that rocked my entire world.

I had never been in love, but I had seen it between others, and this feeling growing within me was unmistakable.

Raw. Vulnerable. A flicker of emotion and a bond that felt weak and breakable, but so dangerous at the same time as I moved with Saphira, as I drowned in the warm azure of her eyes and the feel of her in my arms.

For so long, I had been set on my path, things in motion that I had little control over despite all my power—things that would have consequences if I fell for her.

Yet I could not help myself as I leaned in to capture her lips, some reckless part of me wanting to steal more than a kiss from her.

My little wolf was bewitching, and brave, and beautiful.

And I was falling for her.

She gasped softly into my ear as she shattered, as she pulled me over the edge with her into a freefall that had me aware of only her and this feeling beating within a heart that had once been hollow but now roared to life.

I wrapped my arms tightly around her and kissed her softly, reverently, deeply.

I was never letting her go.

Saphira was mine.

And Great Mother help anyone who tried to take her from me.