The little blue-eyed wolf girl shot me a crushed look. “Because I’m broken?”
Blind?
I was instantly contrite for yelling at her. Knowing she couldn’t possibly understand my real motivation.
“You’re not broken.” I corrected her. “There’s nothing wrong with you. The fact that you have such a challenge and have been able to overcome it, makes you twice as strong as everyone else.”
“I can’t see and barely hear.” She argued. “Do you know what a pack of wolves does to those weaker than the rest?”
Slaughter them.
Yet, they hadn’t killed her.
But now, if I had to guess, I’d bet she lived in that house outcast from the others.
“You seem to hear me.” I pointed out.
She paused as if realizing that surprised her. “What are you?”
“People say I’m a Spark.” I explained.
“It must be incredible to be so special.” She murmured wishfully.
***
Reimus and Verias had retraced
Lionel’s scent was stronger. Which had Gray a bit alarmed. Knowing that whatever the Gallions would do to them, they’d double upon a stray wolf intruding in their camp. Gray rushed past the square boulder and toward the ravine where he found, Lionel backing along the creek. Knowing that being any closer to the travelling pack would be a grave mistake. “Where is she?” Lionel chittered twice and bopped his head up and down. Giving a short growl. Gray nodded. Easily speaking the language of the beast that consumed half his genetics. He clambered back up the ravine and aimed for the stable. Only to come face to face with the malicious face of the Gallions Alpha. “What is the Commander of the Pyre Army doing intruding in Gallion territory? I thought the Eternus King and I, had a sound truce.” There was clear contempt in the Alpha’s expression. “You do.” Gray eased back. Knowing he needed more distance between himself and this man to
“Orin, please! Gray is here!” “I did what you asked.” “Not spilling into me?” I asked askance in panic. “It was all you did.” “I could’ve given you young.” “And trapped me forever.” I braced the foot I had on the trough. Fighting desperately. But I weighed to little and Orin was too powerful. He stretched his other arm over the side of the trough to reach beneath my skirt. Pushing the fabric up to caress the inside of my leg. “No! Orin!” I yanked wildly. He was able to reach a pawing hand toward my crease, stretching a finger to slip into me. “Ahh.” He moaned in pleasure at finally getting to touch me so intimately. Sighing in lustful relief. He rose from the water. It poured off him in trickling streamers. Revealing his long hair and the shape of his sharp features and deeply inset eyes. His tight mouth and narrow lips. His slender, almost frail chest and narrow hips with the jutting member erect. The w
He couldn’t save her. Not without hurting her himself. He had to rely on Lionel to do what he could not. It sickened him that Orin had just hurt her. Close enough he could’ve ripped the man apart. Literally torn his shoulders from his spine. But he could do nothing without unleashing either part of him that would hurt her. Eternus or wolf. “Dammit. Dammit!” He swore. Shaking his head at himself. His entire body quaking with the urge to change. “It’s a dangerous thing, isn’t it boy?” The Gallion Alpha drawled. “To be a wolf so close to your mate?” Gray blew a long breath and twisted his head from between his outstretched arms to peer at the man below one elbow. Still unable to move without risking changing. “You wanted to kill that mage.” “I wanted to rip out his spine.” Gray confirmed. “If you’d have gotten close to her in this state,” The Alpha gestured to his length, “you’d have mounted her.”
“Then you’d be the first innately kind person I’ve known in a long time.” “Oh? Who was it before?” Jackson. Was the immediate answer. “Someone I thought I knew. Turns out, I was wrong.” “What happened?” “He killed my family.” “Why?” “I don’t know.” Maybe because he wanted me? But that made no sense because I was already promised to him. I didn’t really know why he’d done it. That wasn’t something I liked thinking about. Because realizing that he might’ve killed everyone I knew for no other reason then because he felt like it, was terrifying. I’d thought we were all like a large family. I was wrong. How could he do that to us? In all reality, it hadn’t benefitted him. It had taken him from being successor to the throne to Commander of an Army. But he’d always said he didn’t want to be King. Ma
The Day I left Pyre I’d stood there. Staring at Gray who stood in the doorway of my brother’s bedroom. Covered in blood. Still holding the dagger. All of me had died. I looked from that blade to his face. Before I could utter my confusion, Gray caught my arm and dragged me down the servant stairwell to the back door before tossing me out. I called to him, but he’d rounded and roared for me to go and never come back. I’d immediately burst into flame like a flint catching heat. All of me. My eyes began to burn like they were melting in my head. What should’ve been tears emerged as lava. “Your eyes. Your eyes…” Gray gave me an astonished look. “They hurt!” I wailed. Falling to my knees in anguish and covering them. “They’re red…” He murmured painedly before slamming the door closed. Banishing him from my sight. And leaving me there alone. In the worst pain I’d
It didn’t take much to determine the dark-haired mage was talking about King Liam of the Eternus. That’s who he was saying would be crueler to me than Orin. The new King of the Eternus. Sitting on a stolen throne. I thought bitterly. Orin had told me that Gray’s parents had been killed that night also. So King Liam could assume the throne. The rumors swore that it was Gray himself who’d murdered them. It fully registered that Orin implied I was happy to be at his bidding. I’m anything but. I’m his slave. Something I had never in my life, thought I would be. “I’m not, Orin.” I promised him. Shaking my head. “Please let me go. Or give me to him. I don’t care.” “You don’t know what fates await a beauty such as you. You don’t yet understand what you are.” He was petting my bound body like I was a favored hand. His disgusting hands roving over me possessivel
Three Months after Pyre I dutifully opened. Feeling the hard ridges of his rod jamming into my mouth and too far back into my throat. I promptly gagged and pressed back on his thighs to try and get him out of my neck. I can’t breathe! What is he doing! He tasted like ash and smelled unwashed. I felt myself gagging, even when he was barely in my mouth. “Mmm.” His head fell back as I caressed my tongue along the side of him. “I love you, Little Slave…” I made a fake pleasured sound around him. Making him groan and jerk. Using the distraction, I sunk my teeth into him hard enough I was sure it’d leave scars. He screamed. A pained shout, retracting his hand from my head to wave it helplessly around me. I twisted once for good measure and whirled on my knees. Hoping that blinding pain would keep him from blocking my exit. It did. I ran through that d
“Gray.” I said dully. A wary way of acknowledging his intrusion into my path. “Baby Girl.” He dipped his head in greeting. So still, he’d almost appeared a statue before that moment. Just like he might have months ago. Before he destroyed me. “What do you want, Gray?” He frowned. “Jackson. You’ve never call me Gray.” “Well, I’ve learned since then that your heart is as gray as the charred ash in the bottom of a mantle just before a maid takes it out.” He flinched. “You would think so.” He visibly paled. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.” “No? Just to kill me?” I asked acidly. Knowing I was trying to be defiant while barely clad in an oversized chemise stolen from a wealthy matron’s fence. Where her undergarments had been drying. Now they flowed around my small frame. Making plain that she was surely more substantial than I was. Most people are. By now I was half-st