Daughters of the King |✓|

Chapter Nine

Which meant that if I was married to one of their soldiers, then I was also one of the few fertile women left in the world.

The gun was immediately lowered from my head.

I held my breath as I watched these beasts of the forest shed their wilderness, wilting like flowers from the sheer weight of my presence. Slowly, at first, and then all at once. The contempt in their eyes transformed into something else—fear? Awe?

Jealousy?

The one closest to me opened his mouth to hiss between his wolf's teeth, "My apologies."

It was one thing to attack us, but it would be another matter entirely to attack or steal a Daughter from the enemy army.

They evidently decided it would be better not to get involved, since they scattered. The sound of their steps receded into the forest, their forms melting back into the shadows, until they were gone completely.

I stood my ground and waited—waited until we were alone again, until we were surrounded by the silence of the woods—then my head snapped in the soldier's direction. He didn't look away as I glared at him. More broken rules, more sins committed. Not that I cared. It was his immortal soul that he was condemning, if there was any truth to be found in his beliefs.

He still had his gun, but I didn't care about that, either. I was done playing games—done being the captive. My humanity left me. The animal inside raised its haunches, that deep-rooted instinct which I'd been taught from birth to rely on always. Perhaps sympathy brought out the most violent parts of me. Perhaps if I was more of a girl, less of a beast, I wouldn't act as I do.

But I have been an animal all my life, and don't know how to be anything else.

I lunged forward, and he made a move to raise the weapon, but it was an empty threat. I slapped it right out of his hands, and it was almost laughable how little he resisted. He dropped the gun as if he'd always meant to.

Then he recoiled, landing on the forest floor flat on his back while I landed on top, my teeth bared. A vein in his forehead pounded and his face contorted from pain. Was it the pain of sin?

I straddled him to keep him still, and as he fought to get out from under me, I felt the tension in his body beating like a frantic pulse. Watching him from afar, he barely seemed human, too controlled, but feeling him up close was different. I could smell it on him, that animalistic energy burning within.

He was as alive and hellish as I was, no matter how much he might try to deny it—no matter how much he might try to be good and disciplined.

His eyes hardened, and turned dark, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to see him snap. We became two animals, both of us wrestling to assert our dominance over the other. He'd had the position of authority for long enough, too long for my own comfort.

My hands latched tight around his neck, stark white against his bronze skin, but it was like trying to bend steel. The more he resisted, the tighter I held him, until we were both panting from our efforts.

He could have thrown me off. Rolled me over and crushed my skull into the dirt. Anything but lie there doing nothing.

He needed me for something. Why else would he have kidnapped me—chased me? Why else would he know my name? I had my suspicions, of course, but they were almost too horrible to consider.

I leaned close, "How do you know my name?"

He didn't answer. I tried to shake him, but it was like trying to shake a mountain. My hair fell forward, the blood-dyed ends touching his face. He jerked to the side, desperate to avoid the contact, and my power over him was intoxicating. Almost too intoxicating.