The Wolf King (Wolf King, #1)

by Lauren Palphreyman

They burn into mine and my heart beats a little faster.

The first time I saw Callum, I thought him a monster. He looked like one in that fighting ring, his broad chest bare, his torso as hard as rock. Yet the true monster that night was sitting beside me. He threatened to take me like a common mutt on our wedding night. He said he’d throw me into the kennels after for Callum to use in the same way.

Even though he is a powerful enemy of my people, I cannot deny the truth. He is the better choice.

“Telling people. . . It’s not the same. We may not have noblemen and ladies like you have in the south. But we have rules, and laws, and traditions. Like, if I were to challenge Rob and win, I would take his clan and title.” He nods at the item in my hand. “Wear this, and you won’t be harmed. It’s wolf law. Unbreakable. Inevitable. Just as we are bound to the Moon and must shift when she touches us.”

“Because. . . Because I’m an alpha!” “And I’m a princess!” He groans and rubs his face. “You’re impossible. That’s what you are.” “And you aren’t?”

He steps forward, so that we’re only inches apart, and his scent envelopes me. “The full moon is getting closer, Princess. We’ve got a wolf inside of us. All of us.” He puts a hand on his chest. “It affects us as it gets closer. It brings out certain. . . instincts. You’re not safe. Not unless you wear this. Not unless people think you’re mine.”

Okay Jamie Frazier

“I’m going to get some breakfast. You can stay here and think about your choices. Wear that, or have me at your side twenty-four seven.” He leans in the doorway, and the corner of his lip quirks. “Unless that’s what you want, Princess?”

I put my hand on his stomach in an attempt to push him away, then I still. His torso is solid, and I can feel the ridges of his muscles through his linen shirt. His body heat sears my fingertips. I have never touched a man like this before. My gaze flits up to his. The humor has gone from his eyes—and just for a second, before he blinks a couple of times—I think I see his irises change shape.

She nods. “Aye. I get that. You know, it’s freer up here for females than it is in the Southlands. We can fight, and work in the stables, and we have a say in the clan politics. But you’ll have noticed that there were no females sitting at that alpha table in the Great Hall last night. And there are certain old wolf traditions that, in my opinion, should be wiped out.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Callum doesn’t like it as a tradition, either. And wearing it will give you the freedom to go about the castle without fear.” She bites her bottom lip and looks like she’s deciding whether or not to tell me something. “Honestly, I’m surprised he decided to give it to you. The cost is as high for him as it is for you.”

My eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?” “Perhaps he’ll explain it to you sometime.” She pushes off from the desk and walks back to the door. “You should wear it though. The full moon is coming and you’re a human.” Her eyes darken in the morning ...

I read more of that horrible book of experiments, flicking through pages titled The effects of wolfsbane on a wolf’s ability to heal, The order in which a wolf’s bones break when they shift, and Provoking the inner wolf: A half-wolf’s response to emotional trauma

A slow grin spreads across Callum’s face at that. “Aye. Like Isla.” I scowl and tell him to leave. “But I’d prefer it if you wore it, Princess.” A traitorous smile crosses my lips that I quickly hide from him.

Before I can think too much about it, I open the box, pick up the collar, and fasten it around my neck. It’s restrictive—a reminder that I am allowing myself to belong to yet another man. Or at least for it to look that way. The jewel is cool against my skin, and I feel its weight—heavy and prominent—just as I’m sure I will feel the weight of this choice in the days to come.

He sucks in a deep breath. “Okay. But if you wear that in public, there are things that will be expected of you. Things that will reflect badly on me, if you take no heed of them.”

He huffs out a laugh. “This is the first rule—if I ask you to do something, I need you to do it.” “Why?” “Because I’m an alpha. And it’s expected.”

A soft grunt of displeasure scrapes against his throat as he folds his big arms. I have to stop myself from staring at the way his biceps strain against his sleeves. I have to suppress my smile, too. Why is it so satisfying to get a rise out of him?

“I won’t, Rory. I promise I will not ask you to do anything that will cause you harm, nor compromise your morals or integrity. And in return, while you will be mine, I will be yours, too. I will be your alpha. And I promise to take care of you. For as long as you’re here, with me.”

ooooop

“There’s another thing,” he says. He follows me, then crouches down. The floorboards creak beneath his weight. He runs his thumb along the ribbon around my neck, and I forget how to breathe.

“People know I do not like this as a tradition,” he says. “When they see you wearing it, they’re going to think one of two things. One is the truth. They’re going to think I’m hiding something from them and protecting you because you’re important. We cannot let them think that.”

“Because someone might challenge you?” I ask. “Aye. And I’d win, make n...

“What is the other option?” “If you’re wearing that, people are going to think we have been. . . intimate. . . with one another. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

My gaze drops to his broad chest, and his shirt collar, unbuttoned to expose his thick neck. His hands are on the bed by my thighs, and I think of them grabbing my hips. I Imagine him flipping me over and taking his pleasure from me. A spark of heat flickers inside me.

“If you wear that, people are going to think you’re my mate,” he says. “It is the only other explanation for why I would have given you this. And we must encourage this explanation.”

“It’s a wolf thing. Rare, but powerful. Stronger, even, than love. Two souls chosen by the Moon Goddess to be together, their fates entwined. So. . .” He gives me a sheepish grin. “I may have to touch you from time to time—” “You do that anyway.” “And you ma...

“You’re still in pain from riding?” he asks, arching an eyebrow. “Ghealach, it’s been. . . what. . . four days?” “We can’t all be big muscly Wolves like you.”

“I wasn’t allowed to do much else. I was ill for a lot of my childhood. And my father would never let me go out and do the fun things the other children were allowed to do.” I shrug. “It wasn’t appropriate for my station. So I found my own ways to pass the time.”

Shes a wolf im calling it

“What kinds of things do you like to sew?” “Dresses, mostly. I love fashion.” I swallow. “And my mother taught me how to embroider. I liked to create the scenes she would tell me in her stories as a child. I would pretend I was living in them.” I shake my head. “It’s silly, really.” “No,” he says. “It doesn’t sound silly at all. What else do you like to do?” “Well. . . I like to read, I suppose.”

Blake leans against the outer wall of the castle around three hundred feet behind us. He’s speaking to a girl who is carrying a dead pheasant, but his eyes are on me. His gaze drops to my neck, and the corner of his lip quirks.

“If Magnus tells anyone who she is, I’ll kill you.” Callum is breathing hard, his teeth gritted and his jawline tense. Even a hundred feet away, Blake hears him, looks over his shoulder, and arches an eyebrow. He says something I can’t hear, and a low growl vibrates in Callum’s chest.

The skin on my arms turns to gooseflesh. The crowd has swallowed me, my shoulders are knocked by big muscular arms, and I catch flashes of weapons and clan colors and eyes filled with hate. I need to find Callum. If these Wolves realize I’m the king’s daughter, I’ll be torn apart. I don’t think a collar will save me now.

A low growl reverberates from his chest, vibrating at such a frequency it rumbles around the courtyard. He has growled a few times in my presence, but this time, it is pure animal. It reminds me of what he is. A wolf. A killer. An alpha.

Another current of emotion passes through the crowd. Someone growls. A female spits on the floor. “She’s mine,” says Callum. My mouth dries at the power he commands. His gaze seeks mine, and I raise my chin. He nods, and I nod in return.

It’s strange—the power seems to shift in the room, too. Even though Callum is the more muscular of the two males, he seems smaller, somehow, as Blake stalks forward.

Blake kneels beside Callum, and Becky growls as he lifts up one of Ryan’s closed eyelids. “Make that noise at me again and I’ll rip out your tongue.”

I watch as he unbuttons the cuffs of his sleeves, then rolls them up—revealing corded forearms, and a nasty scar just beneath his elbow.

Candles flicker in the infirmary, and the light dances across Blake’s chiseled features. “Come on, you know the answer to that, little rabbit.” “Why should I?” Blake clucks his tongue. “So, you’ve wandered into a den of Wolves with no idea what weakens us? That’s not very smart, is it?”

“I expect stupidity from him,” Blake continues. “You. . . no. Small and fragile things cannot afford to be stupid. They’re too easy to break.”

His eyes are glinting as if he’s challenging me to find the answer.

Dread fills me. “Wolfsbane,” I say. “Good girl,” says Blake.

My gaze flits back to Blake. “Can he be cured?” “There’s only one person in the Northlands who knows the antidote,” says Blake. “You?” His lips curve into a smile. He goes back to the workstation and starts mixing something in a beaker.

“Then take the girl outside, and leave your pet,” says Blake. “She is of more use to me than you.”

Callum’s eyes narrow on him. “If you touch her—” “Yes, yes, you’ll kill me in an undoubtedly unimaginative way. Don’t worry. I don’t harm things that are useful to me.”

“Others could be in danger?” Blake rolls his eyes. “You’re a manipulative little thing, aren’t you?” I glare at Blake. I do not like being called that. I wasn’t being manipulative. I was trying to help. “I got him to leave, didn’t I?” Blake smirks.

“Wolfsbane is an intriguing poison,” says Blake. “It attacks the wolf inside us. Stops us from healing, lowers our temperature, drains our strength.”

Blake looks at me curiously. Then his gaze flits lazily to the door. “You seem to be in some pain yourself, little rabbit,” he says. “Muscular pain, from your journey here, I presume. If you come to my chambers tonight, I have just the thing to help.”

Ooop

My skin turns cold as I rip it open and read. A present for you, my love. Think of the boy as a betrothal gift. I know you were fond of him from our time at the dog fight. I’ll be seeing you soon. Yours, Sebastian

“My father was a. . . difficult male.” His fingers are on either side of my waist as he runs his thumbs in gentle circles down my spine. I have to suppress a moan. “He was the alpha of Highfell before me, and he believed that leadership was all about dominance and bending others to your will. If you’re not a wolf, you’re a sheep, he would say. He did not treat his people well. Nor did he treat my mother well.”

“He was possessive. Jealous. Angry. When he’d lose his temper, he’d say it was the wolf that made him do it. It wasn’t. It was him.” He swallows.

“When does protectiveness become possessiveness? Can you even be an alpha if a part of you doesn’t like to be in charge?”