Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Was this how captives ended up falling for their captors? Would he show me just enough kindness, ply me with orgasms, and slowly sap my will to survive as he delivered me to my doom?
Weston
Tingles fired along my nerve endings as I directed the pack to setup a perimeter and organize the camp. My heart thundered in my chest, trying to hold onto my control. It took all the restraint I could muster to not turn back and make her see that no way in hell was I like Granny. I had repented for the life I’d lived in this kingdom and now paid close attention to the leadership I followed, needing to respect them and trust their morals.
But when it came down to it, she was right, wasn’t she? She hadn’t gotten a say in her fate—not when she was under Granny’s influence, and not now. When she tried to talk to me about her creations, I could only think of the towns and cities I’d seen destroyed, the lives I’d seen lost. Personal lives, of those close to the pack. That she wouldn’t even contemplate any of that being her fault . . .
I saw red. Every time.
“Well, you wanted her to talk to you. You got what you asked for,” my wolf said accusingly.
I’d tried to re-engage her after our argument, desperate to return to our easy yet poignant conversation where I’d shared parts of my past that I didn’t usually talk about anymore. I’d breathed a sigh of relief when she’d understood my pain, connected to her in that moment in a way I’d never connected with anyone else.
She hadn’t taken the bait. I’d mentioned the various flora we’d passed, pointed out colorful birds, even commented on the cheese she had when we’d stopped to eat and rest. Nothing.
The bitch of it was, I respected the hell out of her stoic silence. No one else would’ve so thoroughly ignored me. She was traveling on my fucking lap, with her fingers tracing the grooves of my sides, chest and stomach, and she didn’t bother with so much as a grunt. It was as infuriating as it was commendable. She had a backbone of steel when she needed to.
I was so fucked. So hopelessly, unbelievably fucked where it concerned her. How could I even pretend at this point? Her light touch had kept me enraptured. My arm around her had never slackened, keeping her close, my cock constantly hard as she jostled on my lap. Occasionally I caught myself rubbing her back with my thumb or resting my lips against her shoulder and breathing in her scent. She must’ve noticed my lapse in control, but she never said anything.
“Of course she noticed,” my wolf said. “Didn’t you hear the part of her many accusations where she accused you of using her body? She probably thought you were making her ride with you so that you could manhandle her.”
“So that I could manhandle her?” I answered in incredulous frustration. “She was the one with her hands on me. She didn’t say a word about that.”
“And she also doesn’t know what’s causing that. You’re keeping important things from her, just like Granny did.”
I gritted my teeth and stopped where I was. Dante halted his approach and quirked his brow as I stared at the ground in frustrated rage.
“She doesn’t know she has an animal, and because of that, she wouldn’t understand true mates. She can’t have access to her animal right now because she’d probably want to shift, and we don’t have time to walk her through it. It’s dangerous to shift without help. She could die. Even if she didn’t, she’d need time to acclimate. Time we don’t have.”
“What if she consented to avoid shifting until we could help her?”
“Then she’d probably try to run and the enemy who escaped today would easily scoop her up. You know all this! You know it as well as I do. Nothing has changed.”
“Everything has changed,” he spat.
“Only our regard for her has changed,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “The death toll hasn’t. What her products have done hasn’t. We have changed, nothing else.”
And I’d give anything to change back, to shrug off my contradictions and go back to being resolute in the knowledge that performing our duty was just and needed. That we were, in fact, doing the right thing.
“What do you need, Dante?” I asked crisply.
His pitying expression cleared. The pack had been watching, had seen my struggles with this. I half wondered if I’d been lying to Aurelia when I said they trusted me to do my duty. Was that still the case?
Did I trust myself to do my duty?
“We’ve got company.” He shifted and waited for me to do the same.
I hurried out of my clothes and made way for my wolf. His heightened senses surveyed the area as he followed Dante. The dappled sunlight played against the crushed leaves littering the forest floor. Richly textured bark adorned the towering trees around us as my wolf cut between the trunks. Various scents drifted by. The earthy, musty scent of rich, dense soil competed with the stale aroma of an old rodent den. Sage mosses clung to sharp rocks, shining with moisture as they neared what would become a perimeter line.