~ CASIMIR ~I strode along the tunnels of the Palace draped in black from head to toe, wearing one of the long, black tunics that buttoned up the front that I was partial to when I was nineteen.Nineteen.Still a child by human standards, but finally coming into my own as a wolf.I was walking quickly, my body humming with anticipation, because I thought I was in love. But my apprehension that someone might smell it on me was actually helpful, coating my scent in tension and wariness.It was becoming harder and harder to hide my true feelings from my father. I did my best every time I was near him not to think of her, unless it was to replay our sexual exploits in my mind.Daddy dearest didn’t give two shits who I fucked.But love?Worse, considering her as a mate?I shook my head and kept walking, hands clenched at my sides, praying I wouldn’t see anyone important before I reached our meeting place. But thoughts of my father kept crowding in, reminding me of that female he’d caught m
~ CASIMIR ~I was frozen just inside the door, gaping like a puppy witnessing their first mating.Cuan’s eyes caught mine and he grinned, then pumped hard into her again, tearing a small cry from her throat as she opened her eyes and they went wide…She froze too… then she smiled uncertainly.And I couldn’t fathom it, because I loved her. I thought I did. I thought I had.But everything about her screamed her arousal.Her eyes were clear and her emotion real—she wasn’t compelled.She wasn’t being forced. She wasn’t being attacked.She was being fucked.By my brother.And she liked it.She and I stared at each other for an endless moment, then she gave me a wary smile. “Cazz—”She said my informal name like she still had a right to.“—Cuan told me about how you two share…”Share? He told her we share?Cuan had never shared anything more than genetics with me since my birth. He had sensed before I had that I was the greatest threat to his birthright, and though we’d worked together to p
~ CASIMIR ~“Please, Cazz, I needed your help!” she croaked, desperate and terrified, but now gaining hope, because she’d seen me hesitate. She put her hands down on the carpet and started inching towards me, her body still naked and flushed from fucking my brother.“He hurt you?” I asked carefully, doing everything I could not to let her see that I knew she was lying.A volcano of rage was rumbling in my chest, threatening to erupt.“Yesss!” she hissed. “He said… he said if I didn’t do it he’d kill me! I just prayed you’d forgive me!” Her voice was a thin rasp, barely a whisper. She crawled towards me, keeping her head and shoulders lower than her plump ass that I had bitten more than once, and cupped, and squeezed, and wondered if it tasted like her shoulder and whether I’d claim her after we were mated.My body shuddered as the cold wind of betrayal punched, sliding a frozen knife between my ribs.“Why did it have to be him?”It was the question I should have asked him before I sto
~ CASIMIR ~At first when she went still and I took the first step back into an entirely new life, fury was still my fuel. My hands shook, but my bones thrummed with power and adrenaline and sheer thrill.I could barely breathe. Yet my body had never felt stronger.I took another step back, then another, taking in the carnage of the room… inhaling the scent of blood.Two bodies.My brother.My love—no, the female who had betrayed me.Both of them, I reminded myself. They were both traitors. Both self-serving, two-faced liars.There was a flash in my head of Sheba curled up in my bed, her head on my shoulder, laughing at something I had said, her hand stroking my chest—I staggered back two more steps as the world began to spin.My father’s voice became a hurricane in my head as I watched the female I had started to think I would mate bleed out on the floor.“…they will use you. They will deceive you. Smile to your face, then bare their fangs behind your back. They will take everything
~ JESSE ~We were now sitting on the normal couch that squatted against the wall of the room. I’d led him to it when he started shaking in the middle of that story. It was wide and flat and he was a lot less likely to fall off of it when he swayed. He hadn’t even stopped talking, his eyes darting left and right as if he wasn’t seeing this room at all, but the events he was describing.When he sat down, He bent forward, elbows on his knees, head hanging from his shoulders and buried his face in his hands.But he didn’t stop.When he first started speaking there was a pinch of jealousy in my chest because he smiled when he remembered caring about her, hiding her from his father. The hope… I’d never seen him hope before, and I ached for it.But I wept for him when he described the moment he discovered them together.I sobbed when his voice cracked as he tonelessly described shifting and killing his brother.And when he talked about confronting, and ultimately killing her… I could barely
~ JESSE ~At least he didn’t walk away, I told myself.We stood there, staring at each other, my head spinning and my heart aching for him.How could I possibly help him with this?But then he dropped his head and raked his hand through his hair, blowing out a breath before he straightened and met my eyes again, his jaw tight as a bowstring.“Jesse, I know I’ve hurt you. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I wouldn't. But you have to understand, it’s not just you I don't trust. It’s me.”Then he let me see in his head—flashes of memory, flashes of thought. And I stared and drank him in because he was never that open. But… but then it hit me what he was showing me—the inferno of rage that lived in his chest. The violence he’d been a part of. The violence he wanted to be a part of. The ability to shut down his emotions and just act—to let himself act on instinct, brutal and animal though it may be.The tightrope that he walked, day after day. All the ways he had to force himself not to simply destr
~ CASIMIR ~“I’m your slave, Cazz,” she said, everything in her shaking. “Not because you made me. I chose that. And I’m going to keep choosing it. Every day. No matter what.”The words hit me like a sonic boom, traveling through flesh and sinew and bone to slam into my heart—into the bond—and shake those defenses I’d been building around myself since I was nothing but a pup. Because I couldn’t remember a single day in my life that I’d felt safe. Ever.Yet… here she was…I forgive you.You’re worth it.A strangled groan broke out of my throat, and I dove for her, taking her mouth desperately, pulling her into my chest and lifting her off her feet.And when our skins touched, the steel walls I had built around my heart shattered.I pulled her to me, delving her mouth, staggering under the shock of it all as I carried her to the nearest couch—a simple sectional I’d brought here for resting between bouts of play.I dropped her to the wide seat of it and covered her, still taking her mout
~ CASIMIR ~Moments later my sight cleared and I found myself laying on my back, staring up at the ceiling of the dungeon, my mouth agape and chest heaving as I tried to get my breath back. But I couldn’t even think in full sentences yet.Jesse.Love.Power.Holy shit.“Cazz… what… what was that?” Jesse asked quietly from my right.Head spinning and heart hammering, I rolled over to find her curled on her side facing me, her face pale and eyes wide.“Shit. Are you okay?” I asked her hurriedly, combing her hair back from her face and pushing up on a shaky elbow and scanning her body for injuries or… something. I wasn’t even sure what I thought I might see. All I knew was that I’d almost been swept away by that… that tidal wave of power. I didn’t know how she’d survived it. And the panic in me when I realized she might have been hurt, or worse, lost…Everything in me shied away from the thought—and what it would mean.When I didn’t find any injuries on her, I brought my gaze back up to
~ CASIMIR ~I was pretty sure if I didn’t get inside her, I was going to eat her alive.Scooting with her in my lap, still straddling me, I got her so both my knees and her back were flat against the wall. Then I flipped open the wide, leather cuffs that had been secured directly to the wall and first lifted one of her hands, to strap it in so her hand was levered above her shoulder, but with her arm comfortably bent so she could relax. Then I did the same with her other hand on the other side.So I straddled the banana-seat, while she straddled me and her hands were secured to the wall behind her.Her breasts rose and fell with her heavy breathing, and her eyes were bright with desire.Overwhelmed again with how much thought she’d put into this, for a moment I just took her face in my hands and kissed her. But that drew us together—my cock pressing against her, and I couldn’t resist rolling my hips, teasing
~ CASIMIR ~“I made a new Den,” Jesse whispered, her hands over her mouth, staring up at me—those beautiful eyes wide, but also a little fearful. “I know it’s not the same, but I got Ghere to help me because he remembered what things you’d had before and… I hope you like it.”Like it? Was she serious?My heart was slamming against my ribs, and I was having trouble breathing.The room seemed smaller than I remembered because the walls were painted a dull black. But the tighter space than what I’d had down next to the Den just made it feel more intimate.There were two lamps, one on each end, and a chandelier high above. Candles everywhere, though she hadn’t lit mo
~ JESSE ~It was Cazz’s turn to plan the monthly date. But I was humming about this one. Things were finally ready, and impossibly, Ghere had helped me successfully pull off the surprise. But I still had to figure out how to get Cazz there without ruining it.He’d taken me out to the meadow again—my favorite date. Though we’d enjoyed several others now too—and we’d just finished eating. He was leaning back against the cab of the truck, looking out at the city lights, his brows a little heavy.“What are you thinking about?” I asked him, though I had a hunch.He had his arm around me and I was leaning on his shoulder. His hand trailed up and
~ CASIMIR ~I came out of the bathing room after a long bath rubbing my hair with a towel, to find my mate standing in the middle of the chamber with her arms folded and looking sternly at my daughter, who sat on the floor in nothing but a diaper, with her chubby legs straight out. She, too, had her arms folded and her lips pursed in the perfect reflection of her mother.The two glared at each other and half my heart went cold, while the other half wanted to splutter with laughter.“Abigail, I have told you—”“No!”Our daughter could only get her tongue around a few words so far, but
~ JESSE (a few weeks later) ~I had just finished nursing Abigail and was holding her on my lap while Reeca sat with me on the couch.Her eyes were bright and she was beginning to smile, so I was tickling her cheeks to see if I could get her to do it. But she was sleepy because she’d just eaten and only yawned and cooed.“She’s a very calm baby,” Reeca commented from the other end of the couch, smiling. She loved babies, and had been so helpful when I was tired—and just for reassurance for me.She was a calm presence in any room, and with Abigail, she showed a lot of delight and joy that she seemed to stifle in other areas of her life.“Reeca,” I said carefully, because I’d b
~ JESSE ~I was too tired to do more than lift my hands to his neck, so I just curled my face into his chest and let him settle us into the chair, cradled in his arms with my ass in his lap.When he’d sat, I had my head resting on his shoulder and my body curled in his arms.“Do you hurt?” he asked quickly.“No, just tired, like I said.”I felt him relax a little then and another chill started in my blood.“Cazz… what’s happened?” I asked quietly.He turned his head to meet my eyes and lifted his hand to comb hair back from my face. His throat bobbed, but his touch was g
~ JESSE (Hours later) ~My dreams were disturbing—my body in pain, screams of terror, darkness, the floor shaking, the mountain falling, humans fleeing and wolves…I tried to break free, tried desperately to open my eyes and to speak, because I knew I was asleep. But all I did was fade… in and out. The nightmares, or nothing.And through it all, his voice.“Heal… live.”My heart ached. My body hurt. My chest didn’t want to expand. It was as if my flesh fought his words, and I didn’t understand.But finally, the dreams faded and I could hear a heartbeat. Little, and quick. And feel warm flesh. And the breath of my m
~ CASIMIR ~I felt the moment the power went out of Jesse. The entire mountain felt it.I howled with triumph and shifted, sprinting towards the room, ecstatic when there was no sense of Maya gripping my mind or stealing anything from me. But of course, there was no power left for her to steal.I prayed and pleaded and ran, Rory and the others coming in my wake. And the moment I broke through that door in my wolf—the only power left to me anymore—everything slowed. Though my body whipped and my mind was singularly focused, it was as if everything happened in slow motion.I caught a bare glimpse of Jesse on the bed, and at first my heart leaped. She was moving, awake, aware,
~ JESSE ~Maya had me sitting up in the bed, curled forward, gripping my knees. Reeca on one side, helping prop me up, a guard on the other.My body was nothing but a conduit for pain. Wave after wave, my entire lower body condensing, contracting, pushing to get this baby out. I could barely think.Cazz was there, so quiet, so distant, but there, calling his encouragement and pushing love at me through the bond.There was a moment when I thought I wouldn’t make it, when I thought my body would give and I would just drift away.But then I caught Maya smiling. Leaning forward between my legs, reaching, grasping, for