Word Count: 2590

~Everin

I look across the room at where Aesira relaxes on the couch.

She hums softly to herself, content after her dinner. She's flipping through a book, filled with my mother's illustrations of flowers from her garden, golden light from the fire gilding the long lengths of her dark hair.

I see my mother everywhere I look here. It's unsettling, feeling her presence yet knowing she is gone. It triggers a grief riddled bitterness deep inside me.

It makes me grimly certain of what I plan to do tonight.

Aesira stifles a yawn behind her hand, stretching her leg off the couch she lies on. It pushes the hem of her light blue dress up her thigh, making my stomach clench.

She is irresistible. It has taken an unprecedented level of self-control to resist her.

I've had enough.

I should be content just looking at her. I've long since learnt every visible inch of her, having committed it to memory. It's been far too easy to recall her in vivid detail whenever I've needed to, which has been more often recently than I would like to admit.

But I ache to touch her. It's a sensation I've never felt before, with any previous lovers.

Aesira is different because she's forbidden. She may be my wife, but she is an Ashwood, and I could never truly make her mine.

That is what I tell myself, anyway. If I don't, this obsession will continue to breed into something unhealthy, and I'm struggling to cope as it is.

Tonight, I just want to play with her. I've been haunted by our wedding night since it happened, and the look on her face when she succumbed to her climax. It's been all I've seen in the moments I've pleasured myself in private.

Now, I don't need to chase my own satisfaction. I'm more interested in watching her fall apart for me again. I won't be content until she's weeping, until she's begging for me.

Until surrenders to me in every possible way.

With a sigh, she closes my mother's book, setting it down. She then rests both hands on her stomach, her eyes fluttering closed.

I was almost driven to insanity earlier, when I scented her desire. It triggered something dark and insidious inside me, and I almost snapped.

I had to take a long walk after that. Otherwise I would have dragged her down onto that floor and fucked her until the reason she couldn't walk had nothing do with her sore leg.

She turns her head to look at me, soft blue eyes glistening. "I have an idea."

I adjust in my seat, which is angled half toward the fire and half toward her.

"What is that?" I ask gently.

She sweeps her legs off the couch, digging her bare feet into the ornate rug. There's a devious glint in her eye, which is likely the result of the single glass of wine I allowed her to drink.

"We ask each other questions, that have to be answered." She grins, that maddening dimple appearing on her left cheek.

My eyes narrow. "Nice try."

She already tried to root out information on my plan with Maven's husband, Malakai. I appreciate the effort, but she will not learn anything about that until I am ready for her to.

Anyway, she owes me a secret or two first.

She gives me a flat look. "I won't ask anything regarding your pack politics, and you won't ask me about my fathers. How about that?"

My interest stirs.

"What else would I care to know?"

"Anything. The questions must be answered truthfully." She accentuates the last word, but I don't feel inclined to lie to her.

There is too much about her I wish to know. So much more than tactical information — information I'm using as an excuse to keep her around. I want to know her to her very soul, as dangerous as it may be.

Because it is not just attraction I've been feeling for her recently. It's something far more potent and distressingly forbidden.

I knead my brow. "I need more wine for this."

I go to rise, but she raises a hand to stop me.

"Hey, if you only allow me to have one, then you shall only have one as well." She gestures at her empty wine glass, the bowl of it smudged with her fingerprints.

"Fair enough." I resettle. "You begin."

She smiles, tugging her hair behind her ear. It bares the long line of her throat to me, tugging at something animalistic inside me. It reminds me of her request for me to mark her.

"Have you always wanted to be Alpha?" Her question rouses me from my quiet assessment of her revealed skin.

"Yes, I have," I admit. "I grew up around it, always knowing I was destined for this. I knew it would be difficult, but I have also harboured a great love for the people of this pack, and have wanted to improve upon how my father ran it."

"How—"

I tilt my head. "My turn, Aesira."

She huffs out a breath, but motions for me to continue.

"Fine, ask away."

I quietly sift through my long list of inquiries for her. There are plenty I've avoided, not wanting to upset her as such questions would upset me. Especially when I learnt about how similar our familial treatment has been in the past.

But now, in the intimate dim of this room, I feel emboldened to seek out the truth.

"Did you father ever hurt your sister, as he has hurt you?" I ask softly.

Any and all amusement drains off her face in a moment. She shifts uncomfortably, and I'm certain she isn't going to answer...

"He never lay a hand on her, but the psychological abuse couldn't bruise, so it was his preferred method of punishing her." Her jaw tightens. "He doesn't love any of us. Neither my older or younger sister."

My hand tightens on the arm of my chair. "I'm sorry."

Why are you so loyal to him? I ache to ask, but how can I explain my own loyalty to my father after what he has done to me? I can't...it seems ingrained in my blood, like a curse I carry yet cannot shake.

Yet I think of her back, marred with gruesome scars. I saw the sight at a glance, before I turned away so the healers could undress her.

I've sat with that same cold, volatile rage ever since.

Her father's days have always been numbered. Now, even more so.

"Did your father hurt your mother?" She asks me.

"No. They are mates, he loved her unconditionally," I explain, although she tired of him. Hence the cottage we stay in. "He just never had patience for me. I was headstrong and proud growing up, and he wanted to humble me every opportunity he could."

Males, he explained to me as a child, must earn their place as Alpha. We stole back the opportunity to lead from the females who had been doing it exclusively for centuries before. I imagine it is why he insists I strive to find my mate as soon as possible.

Aesira tucks her legs back onto the couch. "You could still do with some humbling."

"Likewise." My eyes graze over her cheeks, flushed from the heat of the fire. "How did you meet your lover?"

She tenses, clearing her throat. She tells me she ended their romantic connection within the prison, and I believe her. I know I am, to some degree, at fault for that.
 
"I met him within the grounds of my home," she says carefully, still aware that I don't know his identity. "It was all very forbidden and secretive. But we always spoke of marriage, of children. I was going to run away with him."

A sweeping gust of bitterness and jealousy crawls over me. I stamp it down.

"Was he good enough for you?" I ask lowly, huskily, even though I know the answer to that.

No one deserves her. Not me, and especially not anyone on death row.

"That's another question," she reminds me with a raised brow.

I only stare at her, caring little for the bounds of the game. It feels less like playing now, anyway. We're treading into unchartered territory.

"He was good enough...It was no fault in him I found that made me end it." She looks down at her lap, where her fingers pick absently at her nails. There's regret etched into her features.

She thinks she betrayed him. Because of me.

I wipe my hand over my mouth thoughtfully. "Mm."

"I know you speak of wanting your mate." She looks up at me again. "What do you think she is like?"

Her question startles me into silence for a moment.

I've contemplated the notion of who my mate might be every day since I learnt I may be blessed with such a bond. I never allowed myself a preference, deciding that the Goddess will know who is meant for me more so than I shall.

And then I met Aesira, and I can now view my ideal mate with startling clarity.

I lean forward, bracing my forearms on my thighs. "I wouldn't dare to make assumptions, but I like to imagine she is strong, kind and loyal. I want her to be fierce in what she believes in, to fight me where it matters and to love me. Truly."

She gapes at me, lips slightly parted. Then, she swallows slowly, regaining her composure.

"What if—"

I hold up my hand. "My turn."

"Go then," she relents with an exasperated sigh.

I want to ask her about how she views her mate, but it crushes me to know the bond means less to her than it means to me. I can't bear to hear her say she couldn't care less, that she does not believe she will ever encounter her mate.

So I focus on a thought that has been haunting me for days.

"Did you have sex with your lover in the prison?"

"I told you, no," she insists, although her hand drifts to the mark he left on her neck from those few days ago. It's almost completely faded by now, but I can still make out the shape of it.

And it has driven me mad.

What occurred in there? I want to demand she tells me every detail, but I know she will not. Instead, she will allow me to wonder how she ended up without her panties, how he bit her neck and yet she ended things between them.

"Truly?" I whisper.
 
Her throat moves as she swallows. "He wanted to, but I stopped it. I didn't think it was right, since..."

"Since what?"

Her eyes briefly close for a moment. When she opens them, she appears more certain.

"It didn't feel right, after our conversation in the hallway that night," she admits. "I had you in my mind, and I didn't think it was fair to sleep with him regardless."

I lean back, satisfied. "I see."

I know Aesira burns with the same desire I do. It's why I intend to seduce her tonight, to give her the release she desperately needs.

"Did you mean what you said, in the hallway that night?" She almost looks afraid to ask. It's because my answer decimates any pretence that there isn't something happening between us, that we aren't just enemies forced into the same proximity.

I hold her gaze. "Yes. I meant every word."

She shivers, unable to help herself.

"You want to fuck me?"

An indulgent smile curves at the corner of my mouth. "Amongst other things, yes."

"You want to punish me?" Her voice doesn't sound like her own. It is as if she is stuck in a trance.

My cock stirs in my pants, and my attention, already singularly trained on her, gains an intensity I know unnerves her. She has no idea what I've fantasied about doing to her. I'm not so sure she would feel so comfortable taunting me if she did.

I angle my head. "Would you like that?"

She wets her mouth, her knuckles pale where they grip the edge of the couch. I know that stubborn part of her is warring with her desire, begging her not to give me the satisfaction of her submission.

The latter will win out. The air is too charged between us, our attraction pulled too taut for it to not.

"Maybe," she eventually whispers.

I exhale slowly, in an effort to calm myself. My muscles ache with the withheld urge to pounce on her, to make good of my countless threats.

But this requires patience. Restraint.

"Come here," I murmur, gesturing to my lap.

Her gaze drops. I know she can see the outline of my cock. I know she is remembering what it felt like to press herself against it.

"You...you want me to..."

I nod, endeared by her sudden shyness. "Yes. Come here and accept your punishment."

"For what?" She blinks.

"For everything." I lift one shoulder in a shrug, my voice deep. "For allowing your lover to put his hands on my wife, for being an Ashwood, and for driving me fucking insane as you walk around my home, looking the way you do."

Her face reddens even more than I thought possible, and she launches to stand. I just look up at her, sensing this was coming.

"I need some air," she rushes to say.

She takes off to the cottage door. I let her take a step before I'm out of my seat and after her.

Her hand barely grazes the brass knob before I've grabbed her, spinning her. Her back bumps against the stained glass of the door, a soft gasp escaping her.

"Are you certain you want to run from me?" I purr against her ear.

I can feel her pulse where I hold both her wrists. It stutters wildly, as untamed as she is proving to be. But it is not so distracting as her desire, the scent of it is making me feral.

"Everin..." She breathes.

My mouth ghosts over her neck. "If you run from me, Aesira, I'm going to chase you. Then, once I've gotten a hold of you, I'm going to punish you, okay?"

She remains impossibly still against me, her breath shaky.

"I'm about to let you go." I press a kiss under her ear. "So either you run, or you go up to your bedroom for the night, and I will leave you alone."

Slowly, I release her wrists and take a step back.

I've offered myself to her completely. Either she takes what will be good for her, or this ends now, and I don't bring it up again.

She holds my gaze as she makes her decision.

Turning, she grabs the knob and throws open the door, darting out into the night.

I grin at her retreating figure, my entire body coiled with the urge of a predator — to chase, to find, to conquer.

Tonight, I will have her.

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