Page 48 of The Forbidden Wolf King
I dropped the ball of wax into the tin and snapped the lid shut, looking up at the three women.
“Help me save my mate and I will give you whatever you ask,” I told them.
The elf queen nodded. “We ask that you march an army across the realm and fight to defeat the Nightfall queen and liberate our people. Can you do that?”
Go to war. Pull my people from their peaceful lives and march for an issue that did not yet threaten us? I felt the weight of the tin box in my hands and knew that if Raife, Drae and Lucien had sent their wives, it meant they themselves were currently fighting and I would not let them down.
“You have my word.”
They looked pleased with that and all nodded once. One by one we left the cell and went in search of Zara. That woman was the strongest I knew, but my brother forcing himself on her was not something I could imagine her enduring. The very thought of it called my wolf to the surface and before I could stop it, I was shifting. Zara Swiftwater was the love of my life. Her laugh had been imprinted on my soul since we were fifteen.
Hold on my love, I’m coming.
THIRTEEN
Zara
Ansel paradedme down the hall against my will and I tried to scream and thrash, but it was no use. My breathing came out ragged, but nothing more. Halfway down the hall his wife disappeared into another room and I wondered how long his hold on her lasted. Was it based on distance? Or did he merely have to think about her to control her? Were Axil and the queens of Avalier still under his control? It had to exhaust some well of energy within him to use this power, but if it did, he didn’t show it. One leg moved in front of the other and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I walked right into a bedroom with him.
No. No. No.
He closed the door behind me and then spun me around to face him.
“Tell me, did you pine for my brother all those years I had him locked up?” he asked, and I felt my throat loosen. He was allowing me to speak, if I could just keep him talking and not unbuttoning his trousers maybe I could find a way out of this.
“Yes. Since I was fifteen.”
Ansel shook his head, looking disappointed. “Love weakens. I tried to teach him that and yet you still ended up together somehow.” He removed his tunic, causing my breath to come out in ragged gasps. I was frozen to the spot, unable to move a single muscle except to speak.
“He’s mymate,” I told Ansel. “Love was the only path for us.”
Ansel looked at me sharply then, his eyes narrowing. “The Queen Trials aren’t about love, they’re about strength. They’re about marrying the strongest woman of our kind.”
Keep him talking,I told myself.Just keep talking.
“Can’t one have both?” I questioned as he kicked off his shoes. “Love,andthe strongest woman?”
His eyes went half lidded then and my stomach tied in knots. “I don’t think I’m capable of love, but you can sure try.”
I opened my mouth to speak again only to find that he’d cut off my words and then I was moving, against my will to the bed.
No.
Reaching down, I grasped the hem of my tunic and pulled upward, stopping halfway as pelts of fur rippled down my arms.
He was undressing me. No. He was forcing me to undress myself. A low rumble sounded in my throat, breaking through his hold on me but then an intense sharp pain sliced through my head and I screamed, reaching up to grab my skull as he allowed.
It was like a hot blade had been stuck inside of my ear and twisted. I panted as the pain came in waves and then just as quickly as it started, it was gone.
My chest heaved as I fought to catch my breath.
Ansel was standing before me in only a loin cloth, grinning. “I like a feisty female,” he stated and I saw red.
I lunged forward, breaking his hold for only a few seconds but it was long enough to land a slap on his cheek. Then I was frozen in the air, held in place by his power as he seethed at me.
The skin of his cheek was pink from where I’d hit him, his eyes wide in fury as his pulled his lips back into a grimace.
“I’m going to enjoy putting a pup in your belly,” he growled and then stepped forward. I braced myself for his assault, but his face suddenly slipped into panic. Eyes wide, he clawed at his throat while he stared at me in shock.
