The Forbidden Wolf King: Kings of Avalier, Book 4(42)

“You have my word.”

They looked pleased with that and all nodded once. One by one we left the cell and went in search of Zara. That woman was the strongest I knew, but my brother forcing himself on her was not something I could imagine her enduring. The very thought of it called my wolf to the surface and before I could stop it, I was shifting. Zara Swiftwater was the love of my life. Her laugh had been imprinted on my soul since we were fifteen.

Hold on my love, I’m coming.

THIRTEEN

Zara

Ansel paraded me down the hall against my will and I tried to scream and thrash, but it was no use. My breathing came out ragged, but nothing more. Halfway down the hall his wife disappeared into another room and I wondered how long his hold on her lasted. Was it based on distance? Or did he merely have to think about her to control her? Were Axil and the queens of Avalier still under his control? It had to exhaust some well of energy within him to use this power, but if it did, he didn’t show it. One leg moved in front of the other and no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I walked right into a bedroom with him.

No. No. No.

He closed the door behind me and then spun me around to face him.

“Tell me, did you pine for my brother all those years I had him locked up?” he asked, and I felt my throat loosen. He was allowing me to speak, if I could just keep him talking and not unbuttoning his trousers maybe I could find a way out of this.

“Yes. Since I was fifteen.”

Ansel shook his head, looking disappointed. “Love weakens. I tried to teach him that and yet you still ended up together somehow.” He removed his tunic, causing my breath to come out in ragged gasps. I was frozen to the spot, unable to move a single muscle except to speak.

“He’s my mate,” I told Ansel. “Love was the only path for us.”

Ansel looked at me sharply then, his eyes narrowing. “The Queen Trials aren’t about love, they’re about strength. They’re about marrying the strongest woman of our kind.”

Keep him talking, I told myself. Just keep talking.

“Can’t one have both?” I questioned as he kicked off his shoes. “Love, and the strongest woman?”

His eyes went half lidded then and my stomach tied in knots. “I don’t think I’m capable of love, but you can sure try.”

I opened my mouth to speak again only to find that he’d cut off my words and then I was moving, against my will to the bed.

No.

Reaching down, I grasped the hem of my tunic and pulled upward, stopping halfway as pelts of fur rippled down my arms.

He was undressing me. No. He was forcing me to undress myself. A low rumble sounded in my throat, breaking through his hold on me but then an intense sharp pain sliced through my head and I screamed, reaching up to grab my skull as he allowed.

It was like a hot blade had been stuck inside of my ear and twisted. I panted as the pain came in waves and then just as quickly as it started, it was gone.

My chest heaved as I fought to catch my breath.

Ansel was standing before me in only a loin cloth, grinning. “I like a feisty female,” he stated and I saw red.

I lunged forward, breaking his hold for only a few seconds but it was long enough to land a slap on his cheek. Then I was frozen in the air, held in place by his power as he seethed at me.

The skin of his cheek was pink from where I’d hit him, his eyes wide in fury as his pulled his lips back into a grimace.

“I’m going to enjoy putting a pup in your belly,” he growled and then stepped forward. I braced myself for his assault, but his face suddenly slipped into panic. Eyes wide, he clawed at his throat while he stared at me in shock.

I was so confused. My slap couldn’t have had that kind of effect, right?

He was turning purple.

What in Hades?

A slight wind rushed through the air, picking up my hair like a calling card.

Madelynn was here. This power was unique to the fae queen.

As Ansel’s power over me slipped and began to fade away, I slowly regained control over my muscles.

This bastard was going to pay for his treatment of me and the others. I immediately started to shift forms, allowing my head to be the first to turn to beast.

The bedroom door burst open and I didn’t even wait to fully shift before I lunged forward. I wanted to be the one to finish him and with the fae queen taking his breath, he was too weak to fight back. I grasped Ansel by the back of the neck with my hands that were shifting to paws and then took his throat into my wolf’s mouth. With one clean yank, I ripped it out. Axil had been the first one to burst through the door in his wolf form and now he stood wide-eyed before me and his brother, staring at the scene before him. I spat Ansel’s flesh onto the floor in front of Axil’s wolf and then Ansel’s body hit the ground with a thud. I forced myself back into human form, not fully completing the shift. Then I fell to the ground in front of Axil, pulling his wolf onto my lap.

Axil whined, nuzzling his wolf’s snout into my neck.

“I’m okay,” I whispered to him.

The three queens were standing in the doorway and looked down at us.

“Are you hurt?” Madelynn asked.

I peered up at her and shook my head.

“Let’s give them some time alone,” the dragon queen said. “We’ll be in the hall.”

Then the door closed, it was just me and Axil alone with his brother’s corpse. After a full minute of holding him, my heart frantically beating against his wolf, I gently nudged him off and stood. Axil started his shift back into human form and I walked over to a set of drawers at the far wall, throwing clothes on the floor at Axil’s feet. I then went into the attached bathroom and washed the blood from my face and mouth, scrubbing my teeth with a brush.