Page 5 of Magic Claimed
“Get off me!” I rolled away, clambering onto my hands and knees when his long fingers gripped my biceps. In the next instant I was upright, bands of steel wrapped about my arms. His scent of wet earth and pine swept about me when he hauled me against his chest and it was all I could do but whimper, completely overwhelmed.
“Why did he send you?” His heated breath brushed my ear. I shuddered, skin prickling that had nothing to do with the cold.
Movement caught my eye as several wolves surrounded me. One snarled, its lip curling up to reveal a white, razor sharp fang. The man shook me hard enough to make my teeth rattle, the look on his face unyielding in its intensity. I could almost believe I hadn’t seen the heat in his eyes for that split second. Maybe it had all been my imagination.
These shifters would, and could, tear me apart with claws and fang and think nothing more of it. Being caught by Legis, Yavo and Alwan was almost preferable to being the sole focus of a bunch of wolves.
I vaguely wondered if my body would regenerate if it was torn into a million pieces and scattered over the forest floor. His growl sounded low and menacing in my ear. My back vibrated as the sound travelled from the centre of his chest. “Speak!”
I wet my lips with the tip of my tongue. “He didn’t send me. I’m just a slave.”
His grip on my biceps tightened. “Everyone knows better than to come into wolf territory.”
One of the wolves nipped my heel, its teeth snagging the tough leather of the boot. That was a warning. Shifter teeth could sink through steel. Hells, it could take my foot completely off in an instant if it wanted to. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have trespassed, believe me.”
“Everyone has a choice,” he said.
I couldn’t help the scoff that erupted through my big mouth. “I didn’t think shifters were that stupid.”
Fury lit the depths of his eyes. “Tell me why Esoti sent you!” His voice was tinged with a growl.
“I was running for fear of being raped. I jumped the fence and ran into the woods. It was the only way to get away from them. I was desperate enough to run into your territory, although judging by the way you look, you’d never know what scared feels like,” I said, bitterness edging my tone.
A burst of magic momentarily lit our surroundings and a naked man stood in place of the wolf that nipped my boot. “Do you think she’s lying, Second?”
My breath hitched; every muscle locked tight with tension. I struggled. Two huge shifter wolves close to me were two too many in my book, but Dark Beauty held me tightly against him. So tight I felt every ridge and power in his taut muscles pressing against my bony ribs.
“You’re hurting me,” I said. To my surprise, instead of ignoring me, his fingers relaxed around my biceps.
I nearly wet my pants knowing Jarom, Alpha Alerik’s right hand wolf man had caught me.
The wolf Alpha Second.
The Alpha always came with his two seconds, Jarom and Eike, when Esoti summoned them to the castle. It didn’t happen often, and when the wolf shifters were around, everyone was on guard. Esoti summoned them when he wanted to remind the shifters of his power, or to claim the food and goods the wolves made that the township relied on in return for letting them live on his lands.
It wasn’t a fair arrangement, but it never had been, and Esoti treated the wolf shifters as well as he treated me. After all, we were both meant to have been forged through filthy Fae magic. Hypocritical, since Esoti and the rest of The Six used magic to rule and remain all-powerful, but no one ever spoke out against The Six and hoped to live. It worked well to keep the masses compliant.
Esoti always sent me on long errands on the days the Alpha and his two seconds came and so I’d never seen them in the flesh so close. If I ever wondered why, I was too grateful to question it. It allowed me time away from the castle, Esoti and the wolf shifters - a trifecta of relief in my otherwise bleak existence.
Esoti always had me waiting on other people hand and foot when he entertained, but never once for the wolf shifters. I counted my blessings when that happened, but now I cursed it. Jarom would have recognized me and known I really was Esoti’s slave if they’d seen me in the castle before, although they would have heard of me. As far as I knew, I was the only being who couldn’t die, no matter how many times I was killed.
“What do you want to do with her, Second?” the wolf shifter asked.
A beat passed when I sensed Jarom’s hesitation and the next thing I knew his nose was buried in the crook of my neck. He breathed in deep and a delicious swirl of heat lit between my thighs. I gasped with unwanted surprise.
Mate. He’d called me mate, but there was no way I was Jarom’s mate. No way I could be. Once a wolf shifter recognized his mate, there was no separating them. Both of them knew instantly, and I was nothing if not pissed and scared.
When wolf shifters met their mate for the first time, it forced the change. For both of them. A niggling worry pricked my mind. Jaromhadshifted, and I was sure he hadn’t meant to, but nothing had happened to me. I hadn’t shifted. As if I could.
I’d never shifted before in my life. I never would because I wasn’t a wolf.
Butsomethinghad happened to me, despite the absolute look of hatred that had crossed Jarom’s face after he’d seen Esoti’s collar on me. Not that I had any say in wearing that brand. If I could have clawed it off me, I would have long before now.
“Esoti sent me on an errand. He’ll be expecting me back. If I don’t turn up, he’ll know something’s wrong. I won’t tell him anything about this. I promise,” I stammered.
Jarom huffed and a warm burst of air brushed my cheek. “I’ve never seen you at Esoti’s castle and I know every being that lives there. Being a slave, he’d have you tethered to his every whim, showing off his power to us because that’s what he likes to do. So, since I’ve never seen you and you’re obviously lying to me, you’re coming with me so I can question you further.”
Chapter Four
