Page 122 of Wolf Caged
Was he checking my collarbone was healed?
How sweet of him.
I relaxed a little, my nerves washing away as he stared at his hand, at my chest, his look so fierce and intense.
And then screamed as pain flared where his palm touched me.
I instinctively jerked backwards, trying to escape his touch as the scent of burning flesh singed my nostrils, but he seized my other arm in a bruising grip, his expression grim and dark as he held me in place.
My lungs tightened, head swimming as the pain grew stronger, as the fire licked hotter across my skin, chasing in circles beneath his palm, and the edges of my vision grew dark as unconsciousness loomed.
And then he released me.
My teeth ached from clamping them against the pain as I fought to breathe through them, my vision spinning, twisting the world around me.
“That is why I summoned you,” Kaeleron growled.
I looked down, blinking back tears, and frowned at the trail of golden embers that chased over my skin, finishing forming a black circular mark on my flesh. A stag that had a crown suspended between its antlers and five stars above it, surrounded by a ring of symbols.
Confused and struggling against the pain that continued to thrum in that spot, I lifted my unsteady hand towards it.
Kaeleron captured my trembling hand and tensed, something like regret flashing across his eyes before they hardened again. “It was necessary.”
“Necessary?” I wrenched free of his grip and staggered to my feet, my mind clearing in an instant as the reality of what he had just done hit me. “What was necessary? Marking me like livestock?”
Rage like I had never felt it blasted through me, incinerating any trace of the desire I had felt when he had held me on his lap. I snarled at him, flashing fangs, hating him for what he had done.
He had marked me.
BRANDED ME.
Like I was a fucking cow.
Or a slave.
Declaring me his property.
“You will be safe now.” He sounded too calm, too unaffected by the anger I levelled on him as I stared him down, as my chest heaved and lungs burned, as I fought to hold back the shift and the urge to sink my fangs into him. He picked up his glass and held it out to me. “Now, I command you to pour me a drink.”
I stormed to the decanter, hurled the stopper from it, and marched it back to him.
And poured the contents all over his head.
“I’m tired,” I snapped, unsure whether I meant I physically needed sleep or was tired of his games and him being an overbearing asshole. Probably both.
I didn’t stick around as he lifted his hand and wiped the amber liquid from his eyes.
I stalked right out of the door and slammed it behind me.
And broke into a run that had me back in my room and slamming that door behind me in under a minute.
I pressed my back to the finely decorated wood, breathing hard and trembling, silently cursing his name as heat scorched my veins and his scent filled my lungs, and the memory of the soft rasp of his tongue against my skin maddened me.
I shut it all down.
To hell with him.
I touched the mark he had placed on me, a beautiful brand but a brand all the same, and tears filled my eyes, hurt welling up as everything I had begun to believe about him crumbled before my eyes, revealing what a fool I had been.
