Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“I’m not hungry,” she says. “And I’m not tired.”
“Then you have some time to kill, to settle in. You’ll have a proper introduction to the pack tonight at dinner. They have been on me to find my mate.”
“Really? Why?”
“An unmarried alpha is a liability to a pack.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one, it means there are no direct heirs, which can cause an unsettled situation if something happens to him.”
“So I’ve been brought here to stamp out a few Armand de Lune babies.”
I try not to take offense to that assessment. “You are so much more than a bitch to be bred,” I tell her. “I hope that you can tell from the way you are being treated that you matter greatly to me. If all I wanted were babies, we would have already begun that process.”
She blushes deeply and adorably and that reaction, along with the topic of conversation, makes my cock immediately hard. Breeding her will be a pleasure. She has a hard outer shell, but she is tender and responsive, and I think when she opens up to me, giving herself fully the way one only can during lovemaking, she will be spectacular.
“You are most welcome here, Beatrix. The pack is eager to welcome you to the family. You are not merely a new member. You are going to be at the very center of our lives.”
She looks horrified at that statement, which I intended to be encouraging, but see how it might be overwhelming instead. For a girl from a terrible old orphanage, being made the center of pack life is probably, well, entirely ridiculous.
“But that will come with time,” I tell her. “Tonight is just an introduction. I’m trying to explain that you are very welcome, that people are excited to meet you, and that I am proud to call you mine.”
Her eyes meet mine, dark and wary and afraid. Deeply, deeply afraid. I really have to stop talking about the pack, it’s far too much. I have to remind her of what is between the two of us, her and me.
Or maybe that’s just my lust talking. Maybe I need to focus more on her, her family.
“Do you remember your pack? Or anything about your parents?”
Her face goes quiet and solemn again. Once again, I have chosen the wrong conversational path.
She does not want to talk about herself. I will not get information by bald questioning. I’ll have to get in touch with the director of the orphanage for information. I don’t even know her last name. Does she?
“What’s your last name?”
She shakes her head and utters something like a curse under her breath.
“You’re not going to tell me anything about yourself?”
She sighs and looks at me as if I am stupid. “I don’t know anything about myself. Everything I ever thought I knew, I got told was a lie. So there’s nothing I can tell you about myself, not that I know is true.”
I make another mental note to kill the director. The man clearly knew precisely what and probably who he had in his custody. He should have reached out to the relevant packs to find her an appropriate home, a place for her to be raised among her own kind. Instead, he hoarded her for money, denied her truth, had her drugged into submission, and caused potentially irreparable damage. He hurt my mate. He will suffer for it.
I want to fuck her.
Even in the midst of sympathy and defensive rage, I feel the need to be inside her. It feels wrong, to need her so deeply, to be so consumed with desire that the tragedy I see in her eyes and every line in her face cannot take priority in this moment.
But she does not want to talk about it. She cannot tell me more than she knows, and the truth of the matter is, if this mate bond is as strong as I feel it to be, she wants my cock far more than she wants my questions.
Our bond demands consummation.
She is lost. Adrift in the world. Separated from her kind. Separated from herself. Our mating will bring her back.
Perhaps that is why, in spite of all the human tendencies to treat someone like her as a victim who should not be touched, my only desire is to take her, to be inside her, and to claim her as my own. It is entirely natural for me to be consumed with need for this perfect creature who is the mate nature, in all her wisdom, made for me.
All my life I have been told how it feels to meet one’s mate, how it is to finally feel complete, to know that the search is over. We won’t entirely enjoy that feeling until we have mated, until this sweet but spicy thing has spread her thighs for me and welcomed me into her depths.