Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
I should keep her around for that, but the fact she doesn’t seem inclined to shift at this precise moment makes me think she is not about to. Sometimes it takes several matings to trigger the first full shift.
I could sweep her up in my arms right now and carry her off to the reserve. Part of me thinks that is the only correct thing to do. She needs to be taught to behave. She needs to be shown what true submission means, not just when she is so aroused she can barely think.
I can see a glint in her eye, and I suspect that is what she wants me to do. She wants to be forced to obey, over and over again, never offering any obedience of her own accord.
I know one thing for certain. Her hunger has been woken, and she is going to want to be bred again and again. She can play this little game if she likes. She will be crawling back to me before she knows it, and the shame of having to beg for her next mating will teach her a lesson that forcing her to go to the reserve will not.
“I’ll call you a car,” I say.
The look of shock on her face tells me I just made exactly the right choice. She wants to be able to fight me and have me rip away all the fundamental parts of her so she can cast herself as my victim. But I like who she is, and I want to preserve as much of it as I can.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. You’re my mate. Not my prisoner.”
She almost looks disappointed. I reconsider. I could perhaps call her a car and have that car deliver her to the reserve. That would amuse her on some level, I think.
But I know if I were to kidnap her, I would have no end of trouble. Constant escape attempts, the illusion that she does not need me as badly as I need her reinforced over and over again. It would be messy, the pack would be party to it, and I want to bring her in with a certain level of decorum that does not seem to come naturally to her, and used to not come naturally to me.
“Is that not what you want?” I lower my voice and my chin, so I am looking at her with the eyes of a predator. “Do you want something else, my little mate? Do you want to be captured and owned? Do you want to be imprisoned against your will? I can give you that, if that’s what you want.”
“No,” she starts to stammer, even as the blush on her cheeks tells me that’s precisely what she was hoping to hear. This little monster wants an even bigger monster to hold her.
I get out of bed and walk toward her. Her eyes widen in that adorable way they do when she thinks she might be in trouble. I don’t think my mate truly understands any of her internal impulses yet. I think she follows them like the little animal she is, but she needs time to really understand who she is.
I grip her by the wrist and pull her close to me.
“Don’t you dare leave my side,” I growl in her ear, feeling the shiver that runs through her as she enjoys the intensity of my displeasure. “You impudent little whelp. Don’t you understand your place with me? You will do as you are told. You will obey me willingly. And you will present yourself for mating when I desire you.”
Her eyes widen, her face pales and then flushes almost immediately as fear turns to arousal. It’s the animal in her; it needs this intensity. The same way she wanted to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck, her life in my jaws, she wants to be held by me now in this more human form. She is mating with my beast just as much as she is mating with me.
I smack her ass hard. I feel myself get harder at both her yelp and the way her ass feels underneath my hand, soft and pliable and punishable. She is awakening the darkest parts of me. Perhaps I am not merely playing along with her desire to be ruthlessly dominated. Perhaps she is bringing out in me the very things that she needs from me, changing me as I change her.
I like the way it feels being the bad guy she wants.
I have spent years making myself conform to a more civilized standard. I have pushed rougher, darker, more controlling impulses down, replaced conquest of the flesh with conquering board rooms. I have become incomparably wealthy as a result. But I have not felt this alive.
I have one of her wrists in my grasp. She takes hold of my arm with the other. I do not know if she wants mercy, or if she wants to feel me.