Noah paced the small cabin with his thoughts rapidly swirling around in his mind. He didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, and he didn’t really have anyone or anything back in Greenwood. At least, nothing that would require him to risk his life attempting to escape the wolves’ territory. He taunted and dared death to catch him constantly, but in this instance, it seemed more prudent to play the role of a palatable prisoner.
Could he stomach once again being imprisoned, no matter how hospitable his treatment? Images of his time in the vampire caverns intruded on his logical thinking, refusing to make way for more rational thoughts. He rubbed at his temples with a grimace. No matter how much he tried to forget the past, the haunting images persisted, never once vacating his mind to make room for peace. In direct opposition to his hopes and dreams, his trauma seemed to be his one constant companion in this lifetime.
“Just be happy you have your freedom. How dare you lust for more?” he whispered to himself while shuffling over to Sylvie’s bed.
Stretching out on the enormous bed, he untied his leather boots and yanked them off of his aching feet. He threw them across the cabin, where they hit the wooden wall with a thud and fell to the floor. Placing his cowboy hat over his eyes, he attempted to secure some rest while he could.
Just as he dozed off, the door slammed open, jolting him awake. In one frantic motion, he jumped to his feet with his cane pointed threateningly at the intruder. There stood Sylvie, and she looked pissed. Her raven hair spilled to her lower back, and her lithe body, which stood a few inches taller than his, was tensed with powerful lean muscles. She was beautiful, but she was the type of beauty that you admired from afar if you wanted to keep all of your body parts and ultimately your life.
He lowered his cane and peered at her from beneath the rim of his hat. “Well hello, my mate. How was your slumber party with the pack?”
She ignored his greeting and inspected the cottage, sniffing the air with quick bursts of audible breaths. Catching something in the air, her head snapped toward him with a growl. “Why do I smell the siblings in my cottage? I forbid you to talk to the other wolves.”
“That you did, Sylvie, and I wouldn’t dare defy you. The siblings remained in their animal form no matter how I tried to coax them into conversation,” he said with a shrug.
She narrowed her eyes at his story but seemed to let the incident go. Her eyes traveled across the cottage until she spotted the ball of blankets Luna had constructed. “Why were you on my bed? I didn’t give you permission to sleep there.”
With a roll of his eyes, he sat back down on the bed and stretched his arms above his head. “Permission? Oh, my mate, I don’t wait for permission to do things. I’m more of a do the first thing that pops into your mind kind of lad.”
Sylvie’s tense body became even more stiff. “I am your mate. But! First and foremost, I am the Alpha of your pack and you will follow my orders,” she growled, slowly stalking toward him.
“Or what? You’ll kick me out of the pack? You’ll kill your own mate?” he asked, not able to keep a chuckle from his voice. She froze, her eyes widening at his audacity.
She let loose a menacing smile that he didn’t like one bit. “The pack hasn’t made you a permanent member yet. They have officially designated you as a Guest of the Pack, with the safety or lack thereof that title provides.”
She walked over to the bed and slowly trailed the back of her hand down his cheek, causing him to shiver. Her smile widened. “However, you have the option to stay in the cabin and enjoy relative freedom, or you can spend your time in the pack prison where no light will ever touch your face.”
Whispering into his ear, she continued, “It is buried deep within the earth, and even the trees will forget your existence in a short while. Is that what you’d prefer, my mate?”
Noah froze and considered his options before jumping up from the bed. “Wait a second! Is this your bed, my mate? Since you escorted me here, I thought it was to be my personal cabin. Of course, I’d never take a lady’s bed and make her sleep on the floor. What kind of ruffian would that make me?”
He somehow left the bed with dignity, his chin held high. Amusement danced in Sylvie’s eyes as she watched his performance.
“So, I assume this is the part where you force your lecherous desires upon me? I must warn you that I am in training to be a monk. I have sworn off the pleasures of the flesh and take that vow more seriously than life itself.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he threw her the most pitiful look that he could manage.
Sylvie smirked at this declaration but didn’t seem too bothered by it. “Don’t worry, my mate. I won’t ravish you the first night we are together. We must get the pack’s full approval before they will stand for me laying with a human.”
She circled around him, trailing her finger across his chest. “We also don’t want to get pregnant with pups until we figure out where this unseelie force appeared from.”
Noah blew out a sigh of relief or disappointment; he wasn’t sure which. Sylvie was gorgeous, but he didn’t think he’d be the one in control in the bedroom, and that was a road he didn’t want to go down again if he could help it. The sprite fiasco that had ended with him tied spread eagle and on the verge of being sacrificed had taught him a very powerful lesson. His sigh of relief wasn’t missed by Sylvie, who followed him with the eyes of a predator as she sat on the bed.
“So, tell me Sylvie. Why is it that I’ve never heard of a shifter mating with a human before now? What in the world is the magic of your wolf resonating with? Because I assure you that I’m not part fae or part shifter and have no magic of my own.”
She stared at him intensely but remained silent. He waited and waited for her answer, until finally, he was forced to accept she had no intention of sharing any knowledge with him.
“Tell me, Sylvie! You take me prisoner and hold me in a territory of a race that is not my own. You owe me the truth for that transgression,” he said, blowing out a frustrated breath.
In an instant, she rose to her feet and launched him through the air. His back slammed into the wall of the cabin with a thud. The impact forced the air from of his lungs with the wood creaking and groaning behind him.
Her elbow was across his neck in an instant, pinning him against the wall. He grappled at her arm, but it felt more like an iron bar than soft flesh. Forcefully removing the forearm at his throat was an impossibility that he didn’t intend to waste time on. He activated the spring in his cane, and the iron blade shot out. The iron would be less effective than silver, but he hadn’t exchanged the blade after the battle yesterday. Behind her back, he raised his cane, poised for an unseen strike.
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“Tell me? Tell me?” she snarled, her silver eyes glowing in the darkness and illuminating her savage features.
“You do not give me commands. I am the Alpha!” she screamed at him with wildness in her eyes.
Noah held still against the wall, and face to face with an angry wolf who could kill him in a second… he felt nothing. Where was his fear? He felt nothing but the small twinge of excitement that betrayed the madness lurking beneath his conscious mind.
Disappointment turned to devastation before morphing into hopelessness. He tried to bury the emotions deep inside rather than acknowledge how little he cared for his life. If he couldn’t feel anything with a wolf at his throat, maybe he truly was broken inside. He lowered his cane to his side, no longer caring.
“Can you please tell me, Sylvie?” he asked, his voice just barely rising to a whisper. Her glowing eyes dulled until they returned to their normal silver. She slowly allowed his feet to touch the ground and stepped away from him as if his skin had scalded her arm. Her eyes were downcast, regret marring her face.
“I’m sorry, Noah. I am still getting acclimated to the alpha’s instincts. They can override my rational mind if I don’t control them properly. It is unacceptable that I turned those instincts on my mate.” Sylvie walked over to her bed, collapsing onto the hay mattress with a groan. At that moment, he saw Sylvie for what she truly was; a young woman who was in way over her head.
Pressing the hidden button on his cane handle, he pushed the blade back into its hiding place with the help of the floor. He took a few steps toward her when she popped up with a determined look on her face. He didn’t know what she was searching for in his eyes, but she seemed to have found it, giving a slight nod in his direction.
“My father was the Alpha of this pack for almost thirty years. He ruled with absolute brutality and put down any who questioned his reign. He conquered pack after pack until he finally reached the limit of his control and was forced to set down roots in this forest,” she said, her eyes glazing over, lost in memory.
“It wasn’t just wolf packs that fell to his insatiable lust for domination. He annihilated vampire covens, human settlements, and even decimated unseelie forces that had strayed too far from their portal. He created powerful enemies who forced him to pay the ultimate price for his greed, but he wasn’t the only one to be punished for his transgressions.” She shivered, rubbing the goosebumps that had formed along her arms.
“One of his enemies was an unseelie prince. The prince placed a curse on me that severed my magic’s ability to resonate with a mate, or so I thought.” Sylvie rubbed at her eyes, and Noah couldn’t overlook the bone-deep tiredness on her face any longer.
“It seems that the prince wasn’t specific enough in his curse because it only broke my ability to mate with a wolf. When I saw you on the battlefield, my wolf howled to me, claiming you as my mate.” A spark of hope lit behind her eyes, and a smile, reminiscent of a parched man being handed a glass of water, bloomed on her face.
He remained unconvinced, however. “But what is it resonating with? Has there ever been a human mate before?”
She blew out a powerful breath that sent her hair fluttering. “The truth is, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of a shifter mating with a human. Theoretically, it shouldn’t be possible, but the curse that has warped my own magic must have allowed it to be so,” she said, with her head lowered, barely allowing him to decipher her muffled words.
He joined her on the bed, but she kept her head down, eyes never leaving the floor. “Sylvie, I understand what a mate means to a pack. I won’t make light of this situation. What I want to know is where do we go from here?” he asked, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t set them on a tragic course.
She finally raised her head to look into his eyes, their faces hovering inches apart from one another. Biting his lip to retain his focus, he held her gaze. He was incapable of being subservient due to his past; even if it was with a woman nature had chosen as his perfect mate for this lifetime.
“Next, you will attempt to integrate with the pack, and hopefully, gain their approval. Once you do, you will be the mate to the Alpha of the most powerful wolf pack in a thousand miles,” she said in enticement.
He rolled his cane between his hands, averting his gaze to the floor. “And if I don’t want to be your mate or stay with the pack?”
“You are my mate and you will stay by my side where you belong!” she bellowed, growling and baring her teeth at him.
“You would imprison your mate against his will?” he whispered as he returned his eyes to her face, searching for her true intentions.
True vulnerability spread across her face for the first time. The alpha mask she clung to so fervently dropped for a split second. “I’m sorry, Noah. I don’t have a choice.”
He went silent at her decision. Denying someone their freedom took only a split second and few words, but the scars it induced on the psyche endured forever. Staring into her eyes, he realized that these wolves would never allow him to leave this territory. A mate was too important for the pack’s survival and was doubly so for the Alpha.
He’d have to escape alone and without 125’s planning to guide him this time. He would do it, though, no matter what it took. 125 didn’t sacrifice his life for Noah to end up in another prison. Freedom or death.
Stepping away from Sylvie, he lay on the hardwood floor, using his hat as a pillow. Cold air seeped through the floor, chilling him and causing him to shiver. An approaching shadow darkened his vision, and a thick blanket fell over his face before he could dodge. Claustrophobia induced him into a panic as he scrambled to remove the blanket and clear his vision. He glanced over at Sylvie, who raised an eyebrow at his display of trauma that he normally kept locked away and hidden deep inside.
“I’m a wolf. I don’t need it,” she said, and he sighed in relief when she didn’t question his frantic response to a simple blanket.
Shrugging at her kindness, he placed the thick blanket over himself to keep the chill of the forest off of him. He heard shuffling coming from the direction of the bed, and upon peaking one eye open, saw Sylvie bare-chested and in the process of pulling her leather pants down.
He bolted upright; the blanket flying across the room. “Holy shit!”
Sylvie tensed at his outburst and shifted into her wolf form instantly. She stood in front of him, facing the door, while growling and snapping at the air. She sniffed the scents in the air and cocked her head toward the door, ears flickering as she tried to perceive the threat against her mate.
Picking his jaw up from the floor, he blushed and cleared his throat. “Ah, there’s no danger, Sylvie.”
The wolf’s head snapped around to glare at him. After a brief glimmer, she was in her human form once more, but this time naked save for her leather pants. When the wolves shifted, it seemed that they preserved whatever they were carrying or wearing upon returning to their human form.
Her eyes glowed silver and she clenched her fist as she ground out, “If there is no danger, what startled you, my mate?”
He smiled at her attempt to rein in her anger. He discreetly, or not, roamed his eyes up and down her naked chest. “Oh, I suddenly remembered that I forgot to lock my home in Greenwood. My priceless artifacts will be vulnerable to thieves now. However, it is a worry for another day. I am sorry to have startled you, my mate.”
Her eyes bulged open even wider, and he could practically see the impending blow-up, but she paused. He looked up to see her glowing silver eyes and the smirk on her face.
“Thieves, you say? I have not seen you show fear yet, my mate. You showed no fear while on a battlefield of certain death. You showed no fear as you were taken prisoner deep into an enemy’s territory. And yet, the thought of thieves makes you cower?”
He could feel the blush spreading across his cheeks and heading towards his neck. Nodding his head and clearing his throat, he attempted to preserve whatever dignity he had remaining. “Thieves are the worst sort of criminal. They would instill fear into the King of the Unseelie himself.”
Her smirk widened at his nonsense. She pulled down her leather pants and sashayed toward the bed, giving him a view of her ass.
“Goodnight, my mate,” she whispered, the amusement in her voice informing him that he had lost the first of many battles he would wage against his mate.