The Wolf King

“Look, Princess, like I said, the wolf hasn’t quite settled down. And you’re in my bed, with the scent of another male all over you. And I don’t like that. I don’t like that one bit. I want you to smell like me. When another wolf is close, I want it to be my scent they smell on your skin.”

“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.”

“He expects you to treat him as your alpha, and to do everything he says. And he doesn’t know what to do with you, now he’s found out you won’t.”

“And there is evidence it holds the power for us to shift whenever we choose, to be free.”

“Oh, I would protect you from the Wolves outside these doors. But if you’re going to do something reckless, it’s me you’ll have to contend with.”

“So if I started prancing around without my clothes on, you’d be perfectly okay with that?”

“I’ve wanted this for so long. I’ve wanted you for so long.”

“I will not hide from you that I want you. I’ve wanted you since the moment I first set eyes on you. I told myself I took you from the Borderlands because I needed you for the Heart of the Moon, but I think even then, I knew the truth. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you there.”

“You’re saying the Elderwolf was once able to change whenever he wanted. That the curse wasn’t that he had to transform into a wolf, but that the power was taken away from him.”

“But the ability to transform into a wolf was not the curse.”

“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. 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.”

“The Elderwolf lived here long before the first men arrived, when all kinds of ancient dangerous creatures roamed the earth. The Moon—or Ghealach as we call her—would watch him as he endured. Impressed by his strength and his will to survive, she fell in love with him.”

“I could see the determination, and the strength, and the fire in your soul. Most people would’ve looked away from me if I’d looked at them the way I looked at you, but you didn’t. And I felt the hatred in that gaze. You hated everyone in that room, and you hated me. Goddess, you hated me.”

“My whole life, I have been treated like a prize or a possession. I thought. . .I don’t know. I thought it might be different here. Like, maybe I could be something, or someone, else. If I wear that thing, I just belong to another man. It’s the same as back home.”

“And I wanted you. Goddess, I wanted you. I’ve been like a lovesick pup since that moment. I think about you all the time. I want to make you smile, and make you happy, and to impress you.”

“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. . .I may have to touch you from time to time—”

“He wasn’t trying to kill you. He was protecting you. And Blake doesn’t do anything unless it’s within his own interests. So I want to know why.”

“But the Sun had underestimated the power of the Moon’s love. So distraught to have been parted from him, to see him suffer from her prison in the sky, she ripped out her own heart. She cast it down to the earth so he could keep it, and he could always be close to her power.”