“I can see that you grasp what true strength is,” Maya said carefully a moment later, but her face was still firm, still skeptical. “But knowledge and understanding are not the same thing.”
“That’s why I need help. I know the pack functions in a hierarchy, but I don’t understand how it works. I know Cazz has been wounded and that’s why he lashes out, but I don’t understand why he chose me if I trigger that. I know wolves are having conversations in their minds all the time that I can’t hear, but I don’t understand how the packmind works… or if I can access it without that stupid drink.”
Maya frowned. “All things your mate should have explained and helped you understand,” she grumbl
~ JESSE ~After getting a grasp on the bare skeleton of the hierarchy, there was the whole issue of the dominance challenge. I had thought a challenge was just a physical fight. One wolf fighting another for dominance based on strength. But I’d been wrong about that too.“A wolf’s sheer will can take dominance without so much as anyone snapping teeth,” Maya had sighed. “Your human way of seeing strength, of believing it is only brute force, is so narrow—”“No, we don’t see strength as only physical,” I had argued. “But I thought that wolves did. I thought this whole submission and dominance thing was won by fighting and whoever wi
~ JESSE ~ On the sixth day meeting with Maya, I returned to my chambers later than usual. Usually I left her before lunch, but we’d been making progress, so she’d had food brought to us there at her rooms. By the time I got back to the royal wing I was utterly exhausted, still slightly pissed at Maya, but also elated. She had insisted that we spend the entire morning working on my awareness of the packmind and ability to link. Then she had proceeded to spend hours poking at me, goading me, and venting her frustration when I didn’t make progress. At first I had despaired. It was the closest I had come to giving up since she started meeting with me. As if she knew that, she grew disdainful—and kept pressing. “Is this what you believe a Queen should be? Flinching and self-pitying? Or is it a ruse? I know there is strength within you. Do you pretend weakness to disarm an opponent? Is that how you work?” “Maya, you aren’t my opponent!” “Oh no? You fight the submission. You resist m
~ JESSE ~I gaped at him, my head screaming with protests. My chest roaring with anger. My whole body flinching with the unfairness of it all.“You’re saying it’s my fault that I’m not pregnant? You haven’t touched me in two weeks.”His eyes narrowed and the fierce disapproval on his face cut me like a blade, right through the middle. Those fucking tears rose without my permission, and my vision of him blurred.I cursed and turned my back on him, wiping at my face and biting my lip, trying desperately to get myself back under control, but pissed because I had thought I was getting stronger. I hadn’t cried more than a minute since
~ CASIMIR ~I stormed through the tunnels of the Palace, furious at her and furious at myself, and even more furious about that because I didn’t understand it.But one thing was becoming clear; I should never have claimed her. I should never have invoked the immutable bond. I should have known. I did know! But I’d been caught up, and the pack was descending and…“Fucking fuck!” I muttered. One of the servants passing me squeaked and cowered.I kept walking, muttering to myself, my mind closed like a steel trap so no one else could overhear it.She is my mate. She is a breeder.
~ JESSE ~The next morning I woke feeling pale. I didn’t even have to look in the mirror, I knew what I would find, because it felt like my entire body was… less there. And when I forced myself to get up, it felt as if at any step the floor might fall out from under my feet.I had barely slept, haunted by those images of Cazz, fierce and disapproving, despising me.I had to scramble to push away the chittering fear at that thought, the desperate hurt, and make myself move. Make myself dress and brush my teeth, and be human. But my eyes ached with tiredness. I didn’t want to eat.
~ CASIMIR ~“Where have you been?” I asked abruptly as the other wolves settled and stepped back to allow Jesse to greet me first as was our tradition. She was my mate. She had first right to my attentions. But she didn’t seem to realize it was an honor they bestowed upon her and she blinked nervously, glancing at them over her shoulder before turning back to me.“We were… playing hide and seek, I suppose. I’m learning to sense others. I was using a group link to find them.”My heart rose sharply—she was linking? I was stunned.“You can access the packmind without an aid?”She shrugged, but a hint of th
~ CASIMIR ~The flash in her eyes sent a zing of power and desire through me so shockingly potent, my breath shuddered.I didn’t break eye contact. I had one hand planted on the wall over her shoulder, the other gripping her throat. There was a fleeting urge to curl my fingers into her flesh and tear out her throat—a flash of threat and fear. But then she swallowed and I felt it under my hand.With a low growl, I lifted the hand from her throat to trail a finger along her jaw, down the line of her elegant neck to her collarbone, then dipped my fingertips into the V between her breasts.“And if I said strip… right here?” I rasped.Jesse hesitated. Then to the delight of my wolf, she began unbuttoning the jeans she
~ CASIMIR ~“Cazz… Cazz…”I was panting hard, fighting the urge to bite her, as she tensed and writhed, seeking my touch, my tongue, and the fleeting promise of her climax. But when she began pulsing around me, her breath stopping, I knew it was time, because I wasn’t going to give her that satisfaction.Not yet.So, when she began to shake and her breath was catching and holding, I dropped her knee off my shoulder, but cupped her thighs as I stood, pulling her knees wide and high, hitching them over my hips as I straightened, lifting her, pressing her into