What The Fox? (Completely Free!)

Chapter 28

Author's Note: The Plot returns after this chapter. I promise. 

Chapter 28

Momentarily, I stopped breathing. My legs felt weak and I nearly collapsed into the icy waters of the holy lake. I imagined myself being enveloped by those black waters and drifting through the underground tributaries back to the mountaintop permafrost to spend all of eternity.

Anything would be better than being dragged back to the werewolf encampment. Anything, even being encased in ice, would be preferable to be made to answer for my attempt to escape into the Imperial side.

Alix smiled at me but the expression didn't reach his eyes. His irises glowed as though they had stolen the light of the moon. He took a step toward me and I felt my foot slip against the side of the cliff. I contemplated jumping off into the waters but Alix caught me by the wrist as I leaned backward.

"Don't—"

I tugged but his grip was like iron. Alix's smile faded, and his expression was replaced by one of confusion.

"You would rather drown than talk to me?"

"I would rather die than spend one more second in your presence, dear Alpha," I snorted back with every fiber of my being. There it was out, out in the open, the truth. There was no denying it now. I had tried to run, and worse yet, I had tried to defect over to the humans, to my ex-lover, to Julong who Alix envied so ferociously he would rather kill me than let me return to him.

"Stop it," Alix shook me as though he were trying to break me out of a trance. "Selene, you once swore to me you wanted to kill Julong. Is your will so easily bent? I thought you were made of steel but now I see you change as swiftly as water."

"What Julong has done to me is nothing compared to what you have done! And what you are now about to do!" I screamed. How dare Alix bring up what I told him in confidence back in the Imperial City? I had confessed my history with Julong in a moment of weakness. Back then, I thought Alix was my confidant — my friend. Now he was my captor and my tormentor. How could he still believe himself to be my ally?

Alix had enough of my relentless struggling to free my wrist. He reached out and wrapped his muscular arm around my waist and dragged me up close against his chest. It was a position that I had become accustomed to taking in the past couple of days, my chin tilted upward in an attempt to stare into his fearsome eyes. His inky brows were furrowed now. I had succeeded in angering him. There wasn't a hint of a smile that lingered on his gorgeous lips.

"You. . .wanted . . .this," Alix hissed at me through clenched teeth. "This was the only way I knew how to get to your heart."

"What?" I screamed. "You tortured me, imprisoned me, to make me love you?"

"Isn't that how you love, dear Selene?" Alix laughed but humorlessly. "You were aroused, where you not when I forced you to submit to me? Perhaps your body is more honest than your words."

I pounded my fists against his chest but he didn't budge. I only managed to open his shirt further along the collar so that I was pressed against the wild, coarse hair of his chest. He held me closer to put a stop to my struggling which had managed to only serve as an annoyance to him.

"How would you like me to love you?" Alix whispered, his voice suddenly showing an unconventional measure of gentleness. "How did Julong worm his way into your heart?"

"You could start by setting me free. I don't want to go back to your prison camp. I don't want to be your Luna, give it to that girl who offered you that crown. She seems up to the task."

"But I want you," Alix retorted back, his nostrils flared in fury. I was testing him again. His patience was wearing thin and I feared that he would take back his offer to let me choose my fate. Perhaps, he believed that if he broke me enough, I would stop trying to run, that I would grovel at his feet for mercy like the other members of his pack. The fury faded from his face as his hand drifted toward the swell of my hips. He caressed my curves and then his hand drifted down into the valley between my thighs.

I lifted my leg and wrapped it around his waist. I felt his manhood through his clothes and it pressed up against my most vulnerable parts. I smiled at him. That was a lie but he was a wolf. He must have smelled my arousal. That wasn't a lie.

Despite my better judgment, he was right. My body longed for his cruel judgment. I wanted his to engulf me, to enter me, to tame me.

I licked my lips.

"Then stop teasing me. Take me."

Alix smiled, this time it was a crooked smile, one that I recalled from back when he was human. He picked me up and dragged me into a grassy perch by the foot of the dove tree. The ground was littered with a bed of soft, white, handkerchief-like flowers.

Alix ripped my tunic open and set my naked body down on the bed of flowers. My lower back was still sore but I soon forgot all about my ailment. Alix undid the leather strap around his waist and stepped out of his linen pants. He flicked the lash at me, lightly, playfully this time. It slapped me against my cheek and I winced reflexively even though it didn't hurt.

He was right. I longed for his dominance and for his command. Just the sight of him standing there, with that leather strap in his ends, was enough to make me want to please him, to take him into my most secret places.

"Loosen your knees, my little harlot."

I didn't do as he ordered. As I glimpsed the size of his male organ, my throat tightened in fear. He was larger than any human man could be. Alix chuckled and forced my legs apart. His lips found mine and he kissed me with all the passion of a warrior soundly defeating his most difficult prey.

"I will not stop once I have started," Alix warned me. "Not even if you scream."

I bit my lip and braced myself against the trunk of the dove tree. My poor aching back was scraping against its bark but I didn't move from my position. My toes curled up in anticipation as Alix entered me. I expected to howl in agony as I had when his punishing lash dug into my skin earlier that day.

Yet I did not. Alix's manhood filled me, stretched me, and sent ecstasy radiating into my deepest core. The soft, sweetly longing desire I felt for his touch bloomed into uncontrollable waves of pleasure. I moved my body with him as he penetrated me again, and again. My legs wrapped around his waist and pressed him ever closer against me, as though I wanted to be made one with him.

I suddenly understood what it meant to find one's soulmate.