Page 144 of Wolf Caged
I paused at the edge of the glade, glancing back at it, seeing a replay of Kaeleron’s transformation and how quickly he had moved.
I brushed my fingers over the marks on my throat and shivered again, my nape tingling and need pooling low in my belly. I shut down that hunger born of my primal instincts to mate, to feel my fated one’s fangs in my nape, marking me as his. It would never happen, and while Lucas’s rejection had deeply wounded me, part of me was glad he had done it now.
I was glad I hadn’t found myself bound to such a ruthless, despicable and unworthy male.
I turned back towards the castle, feeling as if I was turning my back on my past, on that make-believe love I had felt for Lucas, shutting a door on a fantasy that I should have known was just that—a fantasy. Real life wasn’t all white picket fences, an adoring and faultless mate, a blissful bond and two point four pups. Kaeleron was right about that. And I had been a blind fool. Believing life was fair, that my mate was faultless, that everything my parents had done had been right.
But now my eyes were open.
I strode towards the looming castle, tightly hugging my boots and Kaeleron’s to my chest, breathing in his scent and replaying our fight, picking out all the places I had made mistakes or could have done something different to turn the tides in my favour.
Studying it so next time I would beat him.
Without needing to let my wolf out.
I saw a flash of him transformed into darkness and fear made flesh, a male most would have found terrifying and would have run from.
Something was very wrong with me.
Because rather than finding that new, darker appearance disturbing and frightening.
I had wanted him.
And rather than wanting to run from him.
I had wanted to runtohim.
Chapter 37
KAELERON
Letting my darker side steal control of me had been a mistake, but surrendering to my urge to sink my fangs into her delicate flesh had been unforgivable.
I paced across the sitting area of my quarters, still barefoot and unclothed from the waist up, my steps silent on the black marble floor and ornate rug as I moved between the door to the bathroom and my armoury, passing the gold-framed black couches that glimmered in the combination of candlelight from the low wooden table and firelight. My mind churned with disconnected thoughts. Flashes of Saphira fighting, of her laughing, of her looking at me with heat in her eyes.
With something more than lust.
That look in her eyes when I had realised what I had done, when I had found the strength to drag my gaze from my marks on her throat, denying that primal howl of victory within me, had branded me as completely as I had marked her. Such hunger. Such ferocity.
The taste of her…
I closed my eyes and drew down a steadying breath, attempting to calm the raging need to find her, to pierce herdelicate flesh with my fangs again and draw her essence into me, mingling it with mine to keep a piece of her with me.
Dangerous.
I exhaled hard, purging that need. Saphira was a tool. A weapon I would wield. Nothing more.
Yet I found myself glancing at the arched windows that punctuated the black stone walls on either side of my canopied bed, at the fading light, and worry gnawed at my insides, hollowing me out. Had she returned safely from the glade? I drifted to the sheer blue gold-edged fabric that hung from the ceiling above my bed, sweeping through heavy rings affixed to the wooden beams towards gilded columns and draped around them to leave my bed visible to me, and frowned at the world outside the window as I rested my hand on one of those columns.
I should not have left her there.
I should not have let my shock get the better of me like that, leaving her unprotected.
I bit out a curse and stormed to the wardrobes that lined the wall near the door and pulled the doors open, gaze scanning the contents as I hastily formed a plan. I grabbed a loose black shirt and tugged it on over my head, and teleported to the corridor outside her room. I pressed my hand to the wooden door, my eyes slipping shut as I focused my senses, narrowing them to the room on the other side.
And relief swept through me as I sensed her there.
I turned to leave but the door before me opened, stopping me in my tracks, and her soft gasp teased my ears.
