CeCe
The Crown Prince... no... the Alpha, holds me in his lap as the car's tires hum over the pavement. Every tiny bump of the wheels sends my body crashing into his until I give up on holding myself apart and simply relax in his hold. A tiny, triumphant smile curls up the corners of his mouth when I do.
I meet his shining eyes for only a moment before I duck my head onto his shoulder and hide my face. One of his arms is wrapped securely around my hips. The other strokes my hair down my back. My she-wolf shivers agitated at a touch that speaks of ownership more than comfort.
I am terrified. Not only did the powerful, intimidating male holding me in his lap utterly dominate me and run roughshod over any protest I could think of, let alone voice, but I'm also headed to BlackFur with the same male.
I should have told the king the truth. BlackFur scares me. My she-wolf won't stop pacing in my mind. I grew up hearing only the most frightening stories about BlackFur. I can still hear mama's voice, the only memory I have of her, telling me that BlackFur destroyed our family.
"Don't be afraid, little mate," the Alpha croons. "BlackFur will protect you. The wolves there are strong."
And I'm not strong! I want to protest loudly, but settle for shutting my eyes tightly as he chuckles under me. Despite my better judgment, I breathe in his spicy male scent. Strength and iron rush into my lungs. My she-wolf settles a bit, her fur still ruffled, ears twitching madly, but she lies down and curls up. How bizarre, that the male who scares us is who we naturally seek comfort from.
"My sweet mate," he murmurs. His hand drops to my bum and squeezes gently. "You're too sore to take me again so soon," he mumbles, as if truly disappointed he can't have sex with me in a car with untinted windows and two wolves in the front seat. "We're hours out, sweetheart. Why don't you rest?" he says softly. A low rumble fills his chest. It takes a while, twenty minutes at least, but at last, it soothes me into a restless doze.
"Run, my darling. Before the BlackFur alpha devours you. He musn't find you. He musn't ever know who you are."
I obey the voice that long-since disappeared. My mother, who abandoned me in MoonGlist and fled into the dark. No amount of Knowing has ever revealed what happened to her or why she left me with such cruel wolves.
I run as fast as my legs can move as my weak muscles burn from exertion. I'm on feet, instead of paws. I want to shift, pray for the natural urge to defend myself to overtake my fear, but the shift to paws isn't natural for me. I lost the instinct to shift. My she-wolf is a mere shadow of herself after being denied her freedom and mate for so long. The forest ground is cold on my bare feet. Bare feet... my feet are bleeding from running through the forest. Every once in a while my feet slip on the frozen ground and I'm forced to catch myself on sharp twigs and bark. Branches pull at the delicate silk dress that rips and tears so easily. Strips of lavender silk stick to the bloody shallow cuts on my bare legs. The thin strands of silk tangle and I fall, crying out as I catch myself with my hands.
Paws pound through the underbrush. I scramble to my feet, ignoring the gashes and scrapes on my hands and knees. Tears are blinding me. My lungs heave with exertion but I still can't catch my breath. This is my nightmare. The dark beast is going to catch me, but the forest is strange and unfamiliar. Lost. I am lost.
The dark beast is there before I've taken another step. His head towers over me, his fangs level with my terrified gaze. He lowers his head, golden gaze staring at me in triumph. Throwing his head back, he howls into the night. Other voices echo him. Too many to count. Too close for comfort.
The Dark Beast shifts back to feet. Nude, a sheen of slick sweat on tanned muscles, black hair a wild mess, golden eyes glowing from the hunt, he scowls at me. "You didn't shift, beloved."
A breathless sob is all the answer I can muster. I wait for the recriminations, the disdain, the mocking laughter. Instead, he steps forward and takes me into his arms. "Caught you, beloved," he whispers against my cheek. "Don't be afraid. You're trembling and bleeding, CeCe."
He maneuvers me as he picks me up, wrapping my legs around his waist. His thick erection presses against my panties. His heat burns right through the thin fabric. I freeze in his arms like a tiny rabbit. His fingers push my panties out of his way. His cock starts to enter me.
"Please, no, Alpha. Not here," I manage to gasp out, but it's lost in the groan of pleasure that is ripped from his chest. I bury my face in his neck. Eyes of the black-furred pack peer at us from all around. Watching. Judging. Spying.
He pauses in his relentless entry into my abused body. "My Luna," he replies quietly, "I only wanted to chase, to play. We are home, beloved." He has mercy on me, enough that he withdraws from me.
I start to weep piteously in his arms. The eyes watching grow disdainful, angry, filled with the recriminations that this male refuses to show me. I am a weak luna and they know it.
"Shh, shh, CeCe. My luna. You will make yourself ill," the Dark Beast scolds me.
"Sorry! I'm sorry!" I can't tell him that I've been traumatized by pack runs in the past. They have only ever been a source of cruelly and loneliness for me. It is a minor miracle that I still had my virginity for this male to steal.
"Will she not honor you, Alpha?" comes a voice from the deep shadows under the trees. Another whisper, just loud enough for my ears to hear, "is she a rankwhore who won't spread her legs?" My stomach drops. I am a female who has climbed rank... worse... I have caused the Crown Prince to lose his. The Dark Beast has no choice but to devour me.
I sob, hearing the snarls from the trees. I can feel their disgust with me. I am already a hated luna. Tivo was right about me all along. I am only worth spreading my legs, nothing else.
My fear feeds the nightmare.
The moon rises, blood-red behind the trees. Familiar trees. I am back home. The pack is burning...
The Dark Beast lays me down in a pool of molten lava. The liquid rock is golden, clinging to my skin. The trees around us are lit in red and orange, the world aflame. My dress catches fire, tiny spurts of flame that burn the silk to ash but leave my skin untouched. I can hear the screams of wolves and the ferocious triumph of the black wolf attackers. I'm on my back, rather than my hands and knees. I wonder, wildly, insanely, if this position is mercy or cruelty. Lava spurts from the ground next to me, shining gold droplets fall to my skin. He glows. How can such a bright color still be so dark? His hand goes to my neck, squeezing, as his other hand strokes my cool flesh.
"I need you, little mate," he growls. "Submit to your alpha."
My whine of submission is choked from the pressure on my neck. My chest is tight. Too tight. I can't breathe.
"CeCe," the Dark Beast sounds angry with me for the first time since starting this game. "Open your eyes, beloved. Now, CeCe. Wake up."
The Knowing falls away, crumbling quickly into consciousness. My eyes spring open. The Alpha's golden gaze stares back at me. Flashing lights whirl past. Cool white, nothing like the red and gold flames of my Dream. Under my head, his thick, heavily-muscled thighs cushion my head from the car's shaking.
The car.
"You dreamt of me chasing you," he murmurs. "I was planning a chase tonight, CeCe. An introduction to the pack. Your dream was very... realistic." I stare up at him, mute and trembling. "You were so frightened," he says softly, brushing my hair from my face. "Afraid of our pack, of their hatred," he growls, "of me."
Tears are already streaming down my face, but when he says that they come faster and harder. "I can't shift if I'm afraid," I confess, a bit inanely to tell the truth. I sense the unease coming from the front seat of the car. I bite my tongue, hard enough to hurt. I shouldn't have said anything with two strangers listening in.
"Your she-wolf has been hurt by rejection, beloved," the Alpha easily dismisses my confession as unimportant. "In this dream, you were afraid of me raping you... as the world burns around us?" His hand brushes my tears away again. It trembles against my cheek, but unlike me, I'm fairly certain his shaking is from a well-hidden rage. "Why don't you tell me about that, my luna? I heard it, you know," his eyes glitter with malice. "It was a minor miracle that you had your virginity intact? Only good enough to fuck? Who told you that, beloved?" he prods.
The temperature inside the car drops to arctic levels. "I-I don't-" I'm caught in his volcanic fury, trapped by golden lava pools. The dark trees warping and melting away to a land of fury and pain. Not mine, I realize, but my pack.
This male could destroy the entire world if he wanted to. My chest hurts. I can't breathe. Tears cloud my vision, making his golden eyes swim blurrily.
"CeCe?"
Goddess, no. The Dark Beast is truly going to destroy the world.
"CeCe, don't be ridiculous," the Alpha says sharply. His snarl fills the tight confines of the car.
I vomit. Embarrassingly, humiliatingly toss-up the dinner the King had insisted I eat before we left. Choking on the acrid scent, I sob, gasping for precious oxygen that now stinks of the insides of my stomach.
"Shit, baby."
The car comes to a screeching halt. Doors open in every direction. I'm picked up and carried a fair distance away.
"Breath, CeCe," the alpha command washes over me. "Deep breaths." He kneels with me in his arms, then sets me on the ground so that he can whip off his vomit-stained shirt. "Easy, Beloved," he murmurs. "Breath, CeCe. That's it, good girl."
My dress is next. Underneath is the pale lavender grey slip that the Queen had put me in. The same slip from my Dream.
"Shh, baby. There are no gold volcanoes here. No forest. Easy, baby. Breathe, little mate."
I suck in a breath of cold air. The Alpha gathers me close as shock takes over. My body starts to shiver so hard my teeth clack together. I snuggle closer to his life-giving warmth.
We are on the outskirts of a city. The lights glow in the distance from the valley below. The winding road we're on is well-lit, which explains the flashes of bright white light illuminating the interior of the car. The very expensive, fancy car I vomited in.
"Don't," the Alpha cuts off my apology before it can even form. "I think I understand," he says quietly. "You were sexually traumatized and I brought back those memories," he condemns himself quietly.
He thinks my Dreams are just nightmares. He doesn't know that- I cut off my thoughts. I don't want him to know about the Knowing. Nothing good ever came from that, either.
"Not your fault," I settle for saying.
He smiles at me wryly. "Well, Beloved, this won't be the entrance I had planned." He fingers the slip. He's still kneeling in the dirt in his fancy suit. We still smell faintly of vomit and I'm sure the interior of the car reeks of it.
"I'm-"
"Don't," he cuts me off again. "I will tell you when you need to apologize to me, Beloved."
I feel my eyes widen on him. He will tell me? But...
"Sire... Alpha," one of the other wolves says respectfully, keeping his distance, "the other car is ready."
The Alpha picks me up and carries me to another car from the convoy. The recent occupants are standing nearby.
"How will they get back?" I whisper, worried that I've just disrupted everything.
"They will run, beloved," the Alpha says dismissively. "Now, let's get you warm." He climbs back into the car with me still cradled in his arms. "Rest a bit. We'll forego the run and take a bath, instead."
I obediently sit but refuse to let my eyes close. I can't have the Knowing sneak up on me again. My mind knows what my heart can't accept. The words in my Knowing echo. I am the rankwhore who caused a prince to become an alpha.
---
Gavin
I shove down the burning fury, deep because I think my little mate can feel my anger even without her Mark on my neck. She's a sensitive little thing. The urge to head north to Tilain's pack and destroy it all fights with the instinct to make sure my mate is safe and protected.
Her dream was eerily sharp. Unlike everything I've been told, tapping into my princess's thoughts was not fuzzy or indistinct in the slightest. Oh, she has her secrets, but her nightmare was as clear as watching a movie. Seen through her eyes, it was a fascinating glimpse of her thoughts... especially about me.
She's not wrong in picturing my aggression and dominance. I've spent years mastering hiding my temper, but it still burns as bright as her golden volcano. Amazingly, her nightmare had details that I would have never thought she had time to notice in the day-and-a-half that she's known me, like the small scar just next to my right ear from when I played with a silver dagger as a pup. Her slip, the actual dress she has on right now... was shockingly precise.
I am an unhinged beast, just like dear ole' dad, but I'm sane enough to realize that securing my mate's place by my side needs to be my top priority. She's terrified of BlackFur, the irony not escaping me. Dad left his pack, his home, and took the crown in part because of Mom's hatred of his pack. She is a Royal, through and through and her pack worships her, but Mom's never liked Dad's BlackFur.
But my little mate... she was born to the damn MoonGlist pack, who subsequently treated her horribly, so why the reluctance toward BlackFur? Tilain and his cunt son, Tivo, aren't on friendly terms with BlackFur, but we aren't enemies, either.
I stroke my beloved's hair back from her sweet face. She has her secrets, but I'll uncover them, one by one. Her submission to me is important, more important than I sense she knows. BlackFur is a traditionalist pack and a gentle luna is to be protected at all costs. She is their alpha's heart and should be treated as such.
No matter. BlackFur will see CeCe and understand what a perfect treasure I have found.
"Bring us to the Moon's pond," I order Javi, our driver.
"Yes, Alpha," he responds. I narrow my eyes at his sullen tone.
"Javi, is there a problem?" I snarl a bit. CeCe stiffens in my arms.
"Sire, the pond will be cold. The luna-"
"Will be kept warm by her mate," I cut him off. I've thought of this. Idiot, I seethe quietly. I don't want CeCe to be cold. She's delicate, an omega, so they say, although I sense that she's not. Still, she's not a strong she-wolf and it's quite possible that she may not have the constitution of a normal she-wolf. Still, I want her clean for her sake. She is already afraid of BlackFur's disapproval. I won't humiliate her by marking our arrival home with the scent of her illness all over her.
"Yes, Alpha," Javi replies.
I think for a moment, then tell Karl, in the other seat, "call Nicolas and have him bring towels, soap, lotion. All that shit."
"Yes, Sire."
"We could bring the luna to a hotel," Javi presses. He indicates the city lights flashing by.
"And have someone snap a picture?" I glower at the back of his head. Fucking idiot. My wolf snaps and snarls, wanting Javi's blood. Everyone in this city knows me. I can't go anywhere with any expectation of privacy. I want to keep CeCe on the down-low until she can be introduced properly to the pack. Besides which, hotels are where I've brought my casual fucks, including Salvatore's mother. CeCe is worth more than that.
"He's just trying to help, Alpha," comes a small, sweet voice from my lap. CeCe pats my chest with one palm. "I'm sorry I was sick. It's not his fault."
I smile down at my sweet female and feel my wolf settle a bit. Proud, I tighten my hold on her. "It's not your fault, either, Beloved," I croon to her. Even with my soft voice, her green eyes are wary.
"Beautiful CeCe," I murmur. "Almost home." We pull off the road and the car starts to shake. I smile as my beautiful female edges closer to me, practically pouring herself into my lap. She turns a little pale and I remember that she was sick less than an hour ago.
"Drive more carefully," I snap at Javi.
"Yes, Alpha," he replies with just the slightest bit of sarcasm. There are very few wolves who can speak to me that way. Javi is one of them. He slows down, the car crawling over the rough dirt road. I roll down the window so that my mate can breathe the fresh air.
"Here we are, baby," I croon to CeCe as Javi puts the car in park. I climb out, first and hold out my hand. Tentatively, CeCe puts her hand in mine and lets me pull her out of the car. We walk a few hundred feet, and the forest opens up in the small clearing.
"It's beautiful," she gasps in astonishment at the sight of the Moon's Pond.
"It's pretty," I shrug. A perfect semi-circle, it was built by some long-ago BlackFur alpha as a gift for his lover. She was not his mate, but the dedication to her speaks otherwise, in my opinion.
The place glows in the moonlight. Some sort of phosphorus is under the water. At the edges of the pond, there is the slightest sheen of ice and the small, bare branches of the fruit trees are covered in frost.
I strip the rest of my clothes off as my mate examines the glittering clearing with a look of awe on her face. At the edge of the pond, she tilts her face up to the night sky. Bathed in moonlight, she is the most ethereal creature I have ever seen. A gift from the goddess herself.
"Goddess, you're a lucky bastard," Javi mutters as he shoves a bundle of bathing products into my arms. "Go play with your mate," he tells me.
Smirking, I walk to the pond and set down the armful of soaps and lotions on a smooth, flat rock, then approach my beautiful princess. Tugging her into my arms, I smile as her green eyes flare wide open.
"We're going to bathe, my luna," I murmur. I slowly peel her thin slip off of her and suck in my breath. Is she more lovely than she was just a day ago? Grabbing a bottle off the rock, I pick my silent female up and wade into the pond. Despite the freezing temperatures, my cock is hard as stone.
When her dangling feet touch the water, her squeal of surprise makes me laugh. "No!" she scolds me, fire flashing in her eyes. She scrambles in my arms, up to cling at my head like a kitten chased up a tree. "It's too-"
"Ready, gorgeous?" I wink at her, cutting off her protest as I reach waist-deep water. Without another word, I plunge us underneath the surface. When we resurface, she is sputtering and shivering, her lips already turning blue. She shoots me a quick glare. I laugh again and shake the bottle open.
I feel as if I'm bathing a very sexy, pouting kitten as I scrub her clean. My cock bobs along the surface of the water and every so often she steals a peek at it.
"Gorgeous," I murmur, soaping up her small, high, breasts. I lean down and kiss her pouting lips, frowning at the chill. "Let's rinse, princess." She whimpers a bit, shivering and looking miserable as I dunk us a few times. I wrap her up head-to-toe quickly in the towels Javi left on the rock, shielding her from the biting chill in the air.
I laugh as I soap my body up. Only her nose and eyes are peeking out of the thick towels, watching me as I wash myself. When I dive under and come back up, splashing and sending water everywhere to rinse the soap off, I hear the soft sound of her giggle.
Grinning, I stride out of the water toward her. Reaching out, I tug the towel away from her body. "Time to get you warm, beloved," I murmur, before tipping her back onto the rock and claiming her sweet mouth.