Seduced by the Beast Read online

  She quickly searched the room for some implement to bind him. There were no tools or ropes that she could see, no drapery but the fragile gauze that even she could rip through with ease.

  The furs would be of no use either. They were too tough and thick to bend as needed. She looked back at the squat table. All she had were the sad remains of her robes. Sighing, she picked the robe up and walked softly around to the opposite side of the bed where he lay.

  With quick efficiency, she twisted the length of fabric into a thick cord and looped the ends into knots that she could slip over his wrists and tighten from the top once in place. She knew she would have to move quickly, before he could rouse. Thankfully, he’d angled enough in his sleep that she saw she could bind him to one bedpost.

  She wrapped the length around the post and took a deep breath, willing her nerve not to waver. It was now or never. Her heart drummed in her throat, choking off her breath. Steeling herself for action, she gently slipped the loops around his upraised wrists. The moment she had the loops around his wrists, she snatched the knot at the crux of the post, tightening the binding.

  He awakened at once with a startling growl. Swan leapt atop the bed and straddled him, holding him down with her body while she clamped her hands over his mouth. He went still immediately when he saw her, though his arms tensed with leashed power.

  Alert, he was more frightening than she’d imagined he could possibly be when she’d thought about tying him up. Slanted brows drew down in anger. Fierce black eyes, flecked with gold, stared at her above the level of her hands. Swan watched him warily, swallowing hard past the lump in her throat. She’d caught a wolf, and now didn’t know what to do with him.

  “Are you going to call for help if I take my hands away?” she asked. “Blink once for no, twice for yes.”

  He blinked once.

  Swan regarded him suspiciously for several moments before she slowly withdrew her hands.

  “Why have you bound my arms?” he said, his voice tight, his gaze watchful.

  Swan felt a surge of victory as she realized he was well and truly caught. She’d done it. He was at her mercy. She needed only the strength of will to enact her plan. “Now you are my prisoner,” she said triumphantly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “What do you plan to do with me?” he asked, his voice carefully neutral.

  “Quiet! I’m in control now. You will answer my questions or I shall be the one dining on wolf.”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, condescension evident in his tone. His mouth quirked in a half smile that was as inherently sensual as it was annoying. His lack of an appropriate response spoke volumes--he didn’t believe the seriousness of his situation.

  He leisurely raked his gaze down her nude body, lingering for long moments on the tips of her breasts, peeping through the curtain of her hair.

  Swan flushed at his encompassing look, wishing she’d thought to consider covering her nakedness before proceeding, but there was no time for regret. In any case, she had known she must act fast. There’d been no time to look for something to cover herself if she’d thought to consider it.

  She was in control--she had to remember that fact. Until he satisfied her--she blushed at the turn of her thought, wondering when she’d turned into such a carnal creature. Was it an effect of the spell? She firmly pushed the wicked thoughts from her mind.

  Shadowmere was a barbarian land. She had to make an impact on him, no matter how distasteful it was to her sensibilities.

  She corrected herself--Until he appeased her by agreeing to help, she would use her wiles to whittle down his resistance. After all, he’d promised to practice much the same torment on her. Fair was fair.

  “I want you to agree to help me, Lord Raphael.”

  “I’ve answered you once before. Nothing has changed.”

  “I think you’ll agree much has.” She indicated the cloth binding his wrists to the bed, limiting his movement.

  “What have you planned? I warn you, pain is of no consequence to a beastman.”

  “There are other methods much more pleasant, as you so graciously pointed out, that can be just as effective.”

  He laughed and slanted her an appreciative look. “Do your worst, my lady. My answer will remain the same.”

  His stubborn unwillingness to listen infuriated her. Though he was beast, she could not believe he was not the same as any other man she’d ever encountered, who fell to their knees and begged when presented the opportunity to bed a woman, promised anything for the chance of it. “That is not satisfactory.”

  His mouth quirked, revealing a dimple on one side. “What would it take to ... satisfy you?”

  The heat of her flush crept up her neck. Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t speak to me that way again or I shall gag you.”

  He chuckled knowingly. It infuriated her, but she couldn’t stomach violence--there could be no other choice but the one she’d set out on.

  Leaning forward, she drew her tongue up his neck in one long, slow stroke. Instantly, he went quiet, tense. She rose, met the heat in his eyes and felt an answering fire spark in her depths despite her reservation. Power over a man of such strength strummed her veins with potency.

  Swan’s lips curled into a slow smile. She’d gotten his attention. Bending once again, she nipped one earlobe, secretly thrilled to hear a soft gasp as she sucked it into her mouth. He turned his head to allow her easier access. It was only a matter of time until he was hers.

  Releasing his ear lobe, she licked a trail down his chest, and rounded one small nipple. She circled it, staying just beyond reach. Flicking a nail against the opposite nipple, she raked her teeth over the tiny bud. He groaned, his skin jumped in response, heating with each grating pass of her teeth.

  “Do you like that?” she asked. “I can give you more, if you’ll only agree.”

  “No,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “It will only worsen.”

  Something glittered in his eyes. His jaw hardened, teeth clenched.

  “So be it.” It was altogether different being in control. She’d been freed by circumstance, allowed to do as she willed with no repercussions. The shock of power was heady, addictive if sampled overlong.

  Swan straightened above him, smoothed her palms over his chest, reveling in the feel of his taut muscles, teasing his nipples with every pass. A trickle of moisture leaked from her sex down her thighs, until she could slip easily against his hard stomach. She rubbed experimentally against him, the ridges of his muscles abrading her clit.

  Swan bit her lip at the exquisite sensation, at the goosebumps that rode across her flesh as she rocked against him. He groaned as she rubbed her slit back and forth along his lower belly, her folds held open by the spread of her legs. His erection dug into the cleft of her buttocks, insistent, demanding.

  She reached behind, grasped it firmly, massaging its engorged length. He sucked a breath in sharply, jerked against his bonds.

  “Take me inside you, Swan,” he said, his voice hoarse and commanding.

  Swan opened her eyes, met his dark, heavy lidded look. His eyes glittered as the black depths were swallowed by golden flecks. She hesitated at the leashed wildness in his eyes. “Do you agree to help me?”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at him a moment, uncertain she could accept such an easy capitulation. Finally, however, she decided she could take him at his word. He’d given it. He surely would not go back on it. “Good. I-I will release you to tend to your own ... needs.”

  He shook violently, his look thunderous. She gripped him with her thighs to stay upright until he stilled. “To tease a man is foolhardy. To tease a wolf is perilous.”

  Swan shivered. She’d not intended to provoke him so far. Her control had lapsed. “They say all is fair in war.” She shifted to get off him, not so sure now that she wanted to untie his hands.

  With a deep growl, he snapped the bonds like paper. In the blink of an eye, he grabbed her and rolled un
til she lay beneath him, trapped by the cage of his body. The color of his eyes bled to purest amber, near glowing with ferocity. Wolf’s eyes.

  He captured her hands before she could flay him, drew them up over her head until he’d manacled her wrists in one hand. Swan opened her mouth, and he covered her full lips with his own, muffled her scream. She bit his lip as he sawed his mouth across hers. He bled but a little before the wound closed.

  Her legs splayed wide round his hips, she could do nothing as the enormous head of his erection parted her folds and prodded her opening.

  She’d only experienced the penetration of a man once before, and it had been a gentle affair—nothing like this. Her pussy wept in a wet plea that she remain still and allow him to ravish her however he deemed appropriate. The strength of her will demanded she do no such thing, no matter how much her treacherous body might want it.

  She tore her mouth from his, gasping and feigning an anger she didn’t truly feel. “You would force me?”

  He looked deep in her eyes. His own glittered with brutal animalistic need. “You think I cannot smell the sweet hot scent of your pussy begging for my possession? We both know you want me,” he growled.

  She trembled, though not with fear. Excitement, coarse and wild, shuddered through her every nerve, leaving her feeling as though she dangled over a precipice. Anticipation surged through her, making her cunt tighten. Her nipples throbbed beneath the brush of his silky haired chest.

  She hadn’t realized his sexuality would be so potent, so alluring. She’d caught herself in her own trap and had no way to escape it. And did she really want to?

  “I’ve no interest in bedding an animal,” she ground out.

  He hung his head low, a threatening tone to his voice. “You think that highborn pussy of yours is too good to be fucked by a wolf?”

  The utterance of those words were nearly enough to send her over the edge. He punctuated each with a hard stab of his cock against her spread, wet nether lips. She barely restrained a whimper, biting her full bottom lip to keep from crying out.

  “You may not want me, but I will claim you,” he said and forced her jaw to open for his kiss. “You can’t tease a wolf and expect him not to bite back.”

  She tried to assure herself that accepting his kiss didn’t mean she’d given in. He overwhelmed her senses with his wild possessiveness. His lips slanted over hers, his rough tongue swept with voracious hunger through her mouth, tasting every angle and crevice until she was panting into him. Her nostrils flared, couldn’t seem to drag enough air in to keep her from feeling lightheaded.

  She’d prodded the wolf, awakened the beast. Swan jerked against him, the sudden need to feel him inside her strong and invading and completely alien to her. Her hands flexed, her wrists aching with the hold of his hand pinning her to the bed. She longed to move, to beg for something, anything to alleviate the tightness clenching her lower belly.

  She half expected him to want to take her fast and hard. That he seemed to enjoy ravaging her mouth stunned her. The thick erection nudging her tender lips made her whimper.

  One hand snaked down her body, cupping a breast and pinching the chocolate dark nipple until it was rock hard. He nipped her lips, making them sting.

  “You will accept me,” he said with sensual menace.

  The drawl of his fingers sliding down her chest, her waist, to her cleft left shivers of want tracing over her skin. When his rough, calloused fingers parted her to tickle her swollen cleft, she whimpered.

  He whirled his fingers around her small hole, collecting her juices over her center.

  She should have been disgusted, but the dark arousal flooding her body seemed to wipe all thought of fleeing out of her mind.

  “Are you a virgin?” he asked suddenly, his voice heavy, rumbling with lust.

  She looked at him, her eyes wide and nervous. “No,” she finally whispered.

  “Good,” he said, and she felt the thick head of his cock push once more against her tight passage.

  Her entire body seemed to clench with the impending threat of his forceful invasion. Her womb wept, her channel trembled.

  “For no innocent could survive what I want from you this night,” he ground out, and then plunged into her tight pussy. The slow torturous moves he’d been exacting on her body ended with his sudden full slide to the deepest part of her body. The thin, delicate flesh that marked the entrance to her vagina stretched around his engorged length, feeling as though it would tear with the thickness of him.

  The sound of her breath heaving in her chest sounded loud and desperate in her ears. As he moved back and forth, she felt her muscles jerk in reaction to his slow, sensuous slide.

  She bucked against him and the restraint of his hand on hers. He released her, and she clung to his shoulders, her nails digging in to his hard muscles. He grunted.

  “What have you done to me?” he said, his voice hoarse, ragged.

  He filled her to overflowing, so much so that she thought she would split in half. Pain burned through her center, making her body weep with tense excitement.

  He ground his pubic bone against her clit as he buried himself inside her tight passage, sparking a reaction in her core. He stilled a moment, breathing heavily, leaving no doubt he possessed her body in totality, that she was his to do with as he willed. He allowed her to adjust to the immense girth of his erection. Pleasure and pain mingled as one.

  With agonizing slowness, he pulled his hardness out until the head teased her opening, then parted the tender leaves and drove inside once more, gaining momentum with each stroke until he pounded against her and moved her body forcefully against the bed. Her clit throbbed with the blissful friction, sharp sensations of pleasure ricocheting through her body. He jerked, his body tense as he enjoyed her reaction to him, the grip of her muscles tightening and unclenching.

  A savage growl broke the stillness surrounding them, and then he was plunging and withdrawing like a man possessed. The thick intrusion of him, that hard driving motion made her skin crawl with lightning, lustful sensations. He stroked the walls of her cunt until every nerve inside her tensed with anticipation. She was insane with the need to reach something, something just beyond her reach that she’d never experienced.

  She felt it draw closer, tighter, moving in on her with savage deliberation. Every muscle tensed. Her heart pounded a rough tattoo. She called out his name as the flooding sensation enveloped her fully.

  She closed her eyes against the intensity, screaming as pleasure bloomed and his strokes reached a fever pitch. Vibrations shook her to the core, riveting her beneath him, and she felt the hot wash of his own feverish release exploding through her.

  Her body wracked with ecstasy that rippled through her like a crashing wave. Her channel milked him, drawing out every drop of his essence, until he was gasping above her.

  Swan arched her back, her blood racing, her clit throbbing with each grinding movement. He continued sucking her tongue, sliding his own against hers, cupping one breast with his freehand. He pinched her nipple hard, broke from her mouth to bite her ear. She gasped as the tremors increased. She locked her legs around his hips, her mind shutting down to pure animal lust, until there was only the tempo of his cock ramming into her passage.

  The culmination of her orgasm blinded her with its sudden intensity, slamming through her body until she panted for air. She trembled, her inner muscles tightening and jumping against his faltering erection as he continued pumping the last of his release.

  Breathing heavily, he lay atop her, nuzzling her neck and lazily tracing her waist. Swan pushed his shoulders, bucking against him to be free.

  “Get off me,” she gritted out.

  He rose and held her gaze steadily. He slid a finger along her jaw and she snapped at it with her teeth. Grinning feral, he rolled off her and stood, stretching. Swan grabbed a fur and covered herself with it, flashing him a look that should have killed him on the spot.

  “That is what hap
pens when you tempt the beast, my lady.”

  “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” she said, oozing sarcasm.

  “I did, and so did you. You cannot deny it.”

  “You bastard.”

  “You should never start something you don’t intend to finish.” He gave her a heated look that left her skin feeling singed, as if the fur was no barrier to his vision. Swan glared at him. “I will send someone with garments. We leave within the hour.”

  She started to say she wanted none of his charity, but his second statement stopped her cold. Surprised, she blurted out, “You’ll still help me?”

  “I always intended to.”

  Rage surged through her as his words sank in. How dare he! He had played her like a complete fool, enticed her to behave so outrageously! Swan fumed inside, unable to believe her lot in life. She’d gone through all that trouble for nothing, nothing but humiliation. Her pride was stung. “You could have gotten loose at any time, couldn’t you?” she demanded furiously.

  He smiled at her and strode from the room.

  She wished she’d had something to throw.

  * * * *

  Raphael summoned Arion with the Flow. A current of thought known to beastmen, the Flow was necessary to them for communicating when they shifted, for they could not talk while they were in animal form. Though it did not work over vast distances, it was invaluable to their way of life. Raphael used it now rather than wasting precious time locating his second in command.

  He was in the great hall when Arion found him. Seated on the mantiam throne, he was staring pensively into the darkness, troubled by his reaction to the human woman. Never had he been so tempted to break old laws. And yet, he was disturbed to find the urge within himself to do so, particularly since he was no youngster, but a man full grown and aware of the consequences of doing so. His friend, Blasien had done so--he’d nearly lost his woman because of it.