Page 102 of Wolf Caged
So I could maybe take Elanaluvyr in a fight, using what little training I had received before my parents had discovered what was happening and had disciplined both Chase and Morden.Training I could barely remember, but hoped came back to me in the heat of the moment.
Elanaluvyr scoffed. “Even if the magic of Beltane made my king make a poor decision, he will make the right one when the time comes. He would never choose a mutt for his queen. When the time comes for him to wed, you will be displaced as his favourite and relegated to his whore where you belong.”
My claws punched out of my fingertips, my wolf side growling and baring fangs at the female.
A female who wanted him.
Who had offered herself to him at Beltane and had almost tempted him when Vyr said he hadn’t participated in the last decade.
“When I am warming his bed, satisfying his needs night after night, I will ensure you find yourself in the dungeon, and that any male who wishes to slake his lusts will find you there, collared and chained like the dog you are.”
Broken images of cages, of chains and steel collars, of Lucas and that female, of Kaeleron and this one, stuttered across my eyes.
Elanaluvyr leaned towards me, just as she had leaned towards Kaeleron, her body bared to him, tempting him, and whispered, “You are nothing but a disposable whore to my king.”
I saw red.
Before I knew what was happening, I had the female’s throat in my hands and I was choking her as I snarled, as I bared my fangs for all to see.
“You’re nothing but a spineless bitch,” I snapped, shaking her hard with all my strength, anger at the helm, a fury born of the thought of this female with Kaeleron, with the power she might wield and how she would use it to have her revenge on me. It wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it. “Desperate for a male who doesn’t want you. Pathetic whore!”
Elanaluvyr loosed an unholy sound and launched at me, ripping my hands from her throat. Her fist slammed into my gut, lifting my feet off the ground. Pain spiralled along my limbs as my breath left me in a grunt.
“You are the whore.” She fisted my hair and yanked my head back, and struck me hard across my face.
I staggered, stars winking across my vision as I tripped across the flagstones, fighting to remain on my feet as the world spun around me and I tasted blood. Not good. I had been wrong. This female did know how to fight.
Or she was being fuelled by pure, unadulterated rage like I was.
I twisted, keeping low as Chase had taught me, and unleashed a fast uppercut that caught her under her jaw, snapping her head back in a far too satisfying way. Before she could recover, I slammed my fist into her gut, my blow clumsy as adrenaline stole control of me, the high of the fight swiftly claiming command of all my faculties. I growled and struck again, swinging my left fist this time, a follow up blow Morden had drilled into me in the limited time he had been able to train me.
The fae easily blocked it as she recovered and hit me with a punch of her own, one that sent my head reeling again and fiery lightning spiderwebbing over my skull as I staggered away from her, seeking space to recover my wits before I attacked again.
She caught me by the front of my blouse and hauled me back to her, and held me aloft before her, my feet dangling and toes scuffing the ground as I wriggled in her grip. I flinched as she yelled at me, spittle splattering my face as hers reddened with each word she hurled.
“The whole castle is speaking of how you lured him away from the rites, endangering our strength—the strength of thiscourt—and making it vulnerable. Maybe it is better I eliminate the threat of you right now before you destroy this court!”
She hurled me.
Fucking hurled me through the air like I weighed nothing.
I cried out as I hit the wall of the castle, sure I heard the sickening crunch of bone near my shoulder as it took the brunt of the impact, and screamed as I dropped to the ground, whatever bone had broken jarring with the secondary impact and sending fire shooting down my arm and over my skull.
My breaths shortened, pain stealing the air from my lungs together with my courage as Elanaluvyr ignored her friends’ pleas to stop and launched at me again.
Nailing my hip with a fierce kick that vibrated along my bones.
I curled inwards, protecting my vital organs and covering my head with my forearms, panic and fear melding to have fur rippling over my skin as my wolf side charged to the fore. I was stronger in that form, but changing would leave me vulnerable for several seconds in which this bitch could easily deal a killing blow. I couldn’t risk it.
The way she kept up her barrage of kicks, hands against the wall above me for support now as she hemmed me in, said I wasn’t getting out of this alive either way.
I gritted my teeth, struggling to bear the pain building inside me with each hard blow against my shins or forearms, and when she began stomping on me, slamming her heel down against my hips and sides, I made my decision.
Better to die as a wolf than endure this shit like a little lamb.
I growled low, urging the shift, forcing it as the pain clouded my mind, threatening to strip consciousness from me.
But the pain was too much.
