Chapter 8

Arik

Seeing the princess in a dead faint in the corridor had been both a shock and a stroke of luck. As soon as word had reached the dais that she'd run from her mother outside the throne room, I'd begged leave of the king to go and find her. He'd given his permission because what else could he say? It had been the same when we'd presented ourselves to the king after we appeared at his city gate. We'd carried with us a summons from the King of Khean, and he'd been forced to accede to its contents or face annihilation.

Of course, Jessalyn, the Princess Royal, was not privy to any of that. The nobles of Stormare seemed intent on keeping their women in glass cages, grown like hot house flowers that would apparently expire on the spot the minute they were exposed to real world conditions. But I'd known better. I'd watched the princess at dinner, even though she was placed down the other end of the table to us with the other ladies; and I'd spied upon her going about her business at the castle. She was always veiled, trussed up in a corset, with every inch of her creamy skin that could be covered draped in rich fabrics. Despite all of that, somehow I knew her regal bearing came from more than just good training. I was willing to bet she had a spine of steel under all those layers of fabric.

But that was not the state of the girl in my arms.

My king might have sent me and my men to fetch his bride, but I would put money down that out of the many scenarios he'd anticipated, this wasn't something he'd foreseen. His bride, naked, wet, and willing, writhing against my body as she kissed Creed stupid. The man pulled away when he was forced to come up for air, and I saw it then, the spell that she wrought. When he blinked and his wolf's eyes refocused, they were entirely trained on her. Creed had never kissed a woman before because his beast wouldn't ever allow him to. Wolves mated for life and the mating instinct was pushing him hard.

Which was perhaps why my hand slid up Jessalyn's throat and I tipped her lips back to me. Creed growled low when her mouth sought mine, hungry for more, and then his snarl grew louder, deeper, less human, as I kissed her slowly, surely, thoroughly. Gods, the combination of roseblood and her… I got hard whenever I smelled the sweet scent of the spice, which was an awkward thing because it was used liberally in the palace kitchens. The whole court teetered on the edge of rut most of the time, something the king took full advantage of.

And so, he'd have to understand this situation.

He certainly wouldn't turn away a girl in the first flush of roseblood. Indeed, I'd been forced to stand by as he'd taken great pleasure from such circumstances, brutally using girls over and over who were overwhelmed by the drug while he rode the effects of it, so, hopefully, he'd show us grace in the position we'd found ourselves in.

And fuck him if he didn't.

This moment was mine, and so was the girl.

I liked the way Jessalyn's throat fitted perfectly in my hand, the way her pulse jumped as I slid my thumb along her vein. Not to press down and choke the little thing, but to make it quite clear that I could if I so wished. And she didn't pull away for a second, pushing into my grip to get to me, to take as much of my mouth as I took of hers. My lips stung with the aftereffects of her vicious kisses and the fucking roseblood. I avoided the bloody stuff like the plague because of reactions like this.

It drove good sense out of your head and replaced it with overheated dreams, ones that stood at the crossroads and tempted you with all of the world's pleasures, while ensuring you had no ability to refuse them. I wanted her beneath me, her whole body shaking like a doll's, as I drove myself into her, deeper and deeper, and yet never deep enough. Somehow, I knew that she could wring my balls dry and I'd still want more.

But not yet.

Creed's wolf was riding him hard, and the beast would not be ignored. Claw-like hands raked over my shoulder, the pain feeling like pleasure, and then he tore Jessalyn from my grip.

"What the fuck…?" Silas asked, his green eyes flickering with a hectic light. It always sent shivers down my spine when it appeared because it usually meant someone was about to get hurt. We all watched, struck dumb, as Creed pushed the princess up against the wall, his claws gentle as he held her in place, then buried his nose in her neck.

I reached for my knife, belatedly realising it was on the floor, and a split second of terror forced a shout up from my chest. The shout stayed stuck in my throat when I realised what I heard was the sound of snuffling, not the tearing of flesh. The bastard was scenting Jessalyn.

"Balls…" Roan hissed, all of his usual fuckery shoved to one side as he looked at me and then Silas. We all knew what it meant. Our brother-in-arms was a wolf shifter and a mighty powerful one at that. Nothing could keep him down. When his training and his instincts were all working together, he could eviscerate any enemy we might encounter, but it also meant that he was different than a mere man. One woman—his fated mate—was all he'd ever have. And finding her was supposed to be a joyous thing.

"Why'd you make him kiss her?" Silas snapped, shooting me a hard look, as if it was my fault.

"I just…"

I didn't have an answer, not one he wanted to hear, because it was simple but incomplete. Roseblood was an aphrodisiac—that was well established—but it was also the truth drug. Some countries used it in religious rites for just that reason. All pretence was stripped from you until all that remained was what you truly desired. And somehow, in that moment, I'd known Creed needed to kiss Jessalyn. When I'd seen her rosy, pink lips working as she struggled to keep up with the much bigger man, my cock jerked in my pants, so I'd offered her to him.

But not just to him alone.

I shouldered forward, slapping a hand down on my brother's shoulders, facing down his snarl with an even stare, not showing fear for a second. The wolf would've had my throat out the minute I did, before the man's good sense had kicked in. Creed saw me then, the glow in his eyes dimming just slightly, right before he snarled, "She's mine."

"She's ours." I propped myself casually against the wall beside Jessalyn, and the little minx turned towards me the second I got close. I forced myself to stay where I was and not kiss the lips being offered to me until Creed backed down. His claws were making a right mess of the wallpaper, something the innkeeper would extract good coin from us for, but I didn't say a thing until those claws receded and were replaced by blunt human nails. "We're pack, Creed. What's ours is yours."

"And what's mine is yours."

His head hung down for a second as the beast and the man made peace with it. If he'd been left to live amongst his own people, he'd have formed a pack with his brothers or friends and then met with other wolf shifters until he found the female that was his mate. She'd have been treated like a queen by the lot of them.

Instead, we'd be forced to make his fated mate the next queen of Khean and watch to see how long she survived it.

But I wasn't going to think about that future. It's why I'd gone along with this whole stupid idea, following the girl's lead when she woke up and proposed the plan, improvising as we went, just to see what she'd do. When she slapped the pearl down and paid for the laced beers, I'd drunk mine because this girl was different. I'd brought all of my king's brides back to him. Usually that entailed a lot of crying, wailing, pleading, or outright rage, but nothing like this. Nothing like her downing her drink in a spirit of defiance then turning to me with a gleam in her eye. I'd gone with her plan because part of me wanted her to succeed.

And the other half just wanted her.

She was breathing too fast, pinned to the wall, the spread of reddish flush staining her skin. It made her beautiful little tits swollen and the nipples pull tight, begging for my touch.

"Ours," I corrected Creed, moving closer. He watched me with his wolf's eyes, but there was no more snarling, no more forcing me away. The beast knew, even if the man was still struggling to accept this. We went into every situation together, and this would be no different, so when my head dropped down, so did his.

Gods. Jessalyn's skin was like the satin of that bloody dress, soft with a slight sheen to it, as if she really was the pearl she'd said she was—one that was not mine to touch. I was never one for doing as I was told anyway, as my king often remonstrated, so my mouth made quick work of mapping the slope of her breast. When I looked over, Creed was doing the same.

I liked to watch. When I was removed entirely from a clinch, sitting on a chair as the others played with something pretty, I found a strange kind of pleasure was to be gained from observing others take theirs. When his fingers gripped her breast, when her skin dimpled, when she arched up into his caress, it was as if I felt her ecstasy… and his.

I knew his mouth watered for a taste of her and that she wanted to satisfy that, as her hand went to the back of his head. She drew him closer, stroking her hand through his hair, gentling the beast and awakening the man. A low growl rumbled in his throat right before he latched on. When Creed's mouth swallowed her nipple, I knew how he'd feel at the sensation of that tight little bud surrounded by velvety skin rolling around in his mouth. But it was her little gasp of pleasure, then her hand reaching for me, as I moved closer.

She felt just as I'd imagined it and more.

Because, in my imagination, she hadn't jumped at my caress. And then right as I went to pull away, she held me fast, her fingers grabbing a handful of hair. The prickling sensation of pain across my scalp was outweighed by her coos of pleasure and the way her nipple swelled in my mouth.

I wanted to score her with my teeth, force her to burst like a pomegranate on my tongue, the juice running down my chin, but strange impulses born from roseblood were not to be entertained. I pulled free, staring at her nipple and noting with a smug smile how red and aching it looked.

"Arik…" I would remember her moaning my name like that well into her reign as queen and beyond. "Arik, I need—"

But I knew. I grabbed hold of the girl, light as a feather she was, the tiny little thing. When Creed started to growl, I lifted her higher to split her thighs wide and settled in against her on one side, Creed taking the other.

I'd fucked women at the same time as my brothers, two of us with both our cocks delving deeper, seeking a kind of completion we never seemed to be able to satisfy, and that was what I wanted. I wanted to push my cock into the hot little cunt that had soaked the front of my breeches, then have Creed force his way in too. But not tonight; he'd made that clear. So instead, my fingers slid through the wet mess between her legs, treasuring the slippery feel of her before I found the tight little entrance and pushed a finger in.

"Yes…!"

Jessalyn jolted against the wall, moaning just like any other lass getting her first fingering. Apparently, princesses were as likely to clamp down around a man's finger, threatening to strangle it, as any other girl. I curled my finger up, I searched for something that I knew would drive her even higher.

They all had this sweet spot inside of them, somewhere that our cocks could rub over and over and driving them wild if we delved in at just the right angle, making their cunts weep. So when I felt the princess gush all over my hand, it was as if it was a reward for me personally. I leaned in, kissing her moans away, then her gasps, and her cries for more, more. My thumb moved of its own accord, finding the pearl she'd treasure more than the ones she'd plucked from her dress. When she went rigid, then rocked against my palm, I knew I didn't need to take it slowly, thrumming the little bead over and over. Creed's hand slapped down on the breast I had kissed, plucking it viciously as he growled over the other, and Jessalyn rode the waves of pleasure like the queen she was. Her eyes flicked wide, staring right into mine as it hit her.

I mostly tried to avoid eye contact during sex. Beforehand I gave plenty of long looks, making clear what I intended to do to a woman, but once she agreed to all of it, I kept my eyes closed. Lose myself in the feel of her, but also lose the specificity of her. My approach was to keep things anonymous, sensual, but rooted in reality. Yet even as my eyes ached as I stared into hers, I couldn't seem to drag them away, not even to blink. I needed to watch the flush redden her cheeks, turning her lips from pink to bright scarlet. I needed to capture every savage moment of her pleasure as I felt her cunt clamp down on my fingers and then flutter the frantic signal as she reached her peak.

Gods, why did she have to be so fucking beautiful? And why did she have to be Creed's fated mate? We'd come on yet another pointless mission, to deliver another girl to her death. It was a reality that pushed down upon me, even if it was a burden I was supposed to shoulder. But as I watched the virgin princess have her first orgasm against the wall of a semi-respectable inn, as my brother teased that pleasure out, for the first time I found myself wanting to toss that unconscionable load aside. Instead, I pulled her from Creed's grip to press her body into mine and bury my nose in her neck.

"What do you want?" I asked her in a voice of iron, knowing that if she said the correct words, if she commanded me to help her get free right now, I'd be honour-bound to do just that and bugger the king. "What do you want, princess?"

"More…" she breathed, then let out a reckless little laugh. "I want more."