Page 81 of Wolf Caged
He held me fast in his gaze.
His snarled words a vow.
“Whatever someone did to you in the past, they will pay for it one day, Saphira. I will see to it… and I will take care of you. No one here will harm you. You have my word on that.”
And I believed him.
If I told him what Lucas had done, this dark unseelie king would hunt him down and end him, and he would revel in delivering my wrath.
But it was my wrath to deliver with my own hands.
My vengeance.
“Face it,” he growled close to my ear. “Conquer it. Whatever darkness plagues your mind, do not let it win.”
I wasn’t sure I could face it or conquer it. I couldn’t get my eyes off the table, or my mind off Lucas.
Shadows teased my arms, my calves, twining around my waist.
And slowly, those images of him with that female, his rejection ringing in my ears, twisted and morphed, becoming filled with shadows and bellows of terror as those shadows rose up, as they wrenched at Lucas, cleaving flesh open and breaking bones.
And I wasn’t sure it was Kaeleron or magic turning my thoughts so dark.
It felt as if it came from somewhere deep inside me, some vengeful and wrathful part of me that had been unsheathed when Lucas had rejected me.
Freed.
I opened my eyes and looked at the crowd again, forcing myself to watch them and see the truth of them, that this moment they shared was born of pleasure and lust, and that all of them were enjoying it, savouring the release of their inhibitions and this wild, untamed rite. No one here was in pain. No one here was being forced or tortured. This was a moment of pure, unadulterated pleasure.
Heat beat through my veins, an inferno that rose with each second, my blood like liquid flame as I sank into the scene, as I let it surround me and sweep me up in it, no longer fighting it, seeking the joy in it rather than wallowing in the pain I had experienced.
I squeezed my thighs together as I watched Kali where she sat on one of the tables, her legs spread and back arched, breasts thrust towards the starlit sky as one of her mates feasted on her, his head bobbing between her thighs, his hands clamped over them and fingers pressing into her flesh, as if he couldn’t get enough of her taste.
My mind filled with images of Kaeleron like that, of me spread out on the altar, a sacrifice to his pleasure.
Mypleasure.
His gaze seared me, even as a female stopped close to him.
“I am only interested in my current company.” Those words leaving his lips had my gaze snapping to him, colliding with his as the female he had turned down moved on, finding another male to satisfy her.
“You usually participate too.” My voice trembled as I uttered those words, feeling like a fool for not realising before now, and my cheeks flushed hotter as I imagined him out there, in the midst of all those trysts, tangled with the males and females, roaring his pleasure as he came.
He nodded and casually dismissed another female who braved approaching us.
“Don’t let me stop you,” I muttered, shocked by the bitter edge to my words and how the thought of him with another stirred something dark within me and had my wolf side growling low.
He slowly smiled. “I would participate… if you do. As I said, I am content with my current company.”
A clear declaration that if I wanted to join in he would be my partner.
And that look in his eyes warned me he wouldn’t want to share me.
I would be his alone.
A nude female strutted right up to him, her bare hips at eyelevel to him now the tables had been moved and we sat like a king and queen surveying everyone from their thrones.
I glanced at her and then back again, that darkness within me growing stronger, my inner growling becoming louder.
