The Alpha's Concubine (Historical Shifter Romance) (14 page)

He was already stirring in anticipation, a subtle tension building in his lower body as he waited for his concubine to arrive. He might enjoy her more than once this evening. He was not weary, and the night was young, with little else to occupy his attention. He smiled at the thought of leaving her panting and limp with exhaustion, her body glossed with perspiration after he was finished. It felt good to leave a female so thoroughly satisfied. Yet another of his duties as alpha well done.

When Netya peeked in through the hanging drape he beckoned her over without a word, smiling as he allowed the girl to straddle his lap and twine her hands around the back of his neck. For one who had been untouched mere weeks before, she was taking to the ways of seduction well. That would be Fern's doing, no doubt. Putting the two of them together had been a good decision.

He lifted a nut to her mouth and allowed her to take it between her teeth, brushing his thumb across her soft lips gently, his gaze transfixed by them.

"You are eager tonight," he said.

"I am always eager to please you, my alpha." She shifted a little in his lap, pressing against the growing swell beneath his kilt.

"You recite those words like a pup learning her first manners." Khelt smiled. "But it would be a lie to say I do not still enjoy hearing them." He pulled her into a kiss suddenly, dragging her smaller body up against his chest as he sighed with pleasure, losing himself in the blissful taste of her.

Netya's scent sometimes clung in his wolf's nostrils when he made the change shortly after coupling with the girl, and it gave rise to a feral hunger in his chest that left him longing to rush straight back to the den and mount her all over again. Had he been a lesser man, the sort of barbarian Netya had first taken him for, like the alphas of the wild cave packs, his wolf might have gathered half a dozen concubines to him and spent every evening rutting in the heat of a warm den. It was certainly a thought that appealed to his wilder side. Pleasure, comfort, and females with which to satiate his every desire. The longings of wolves.

When he broke the kiss Netya was already gasping for breath. His manhood twitched with pleasure. He exhausted the girl so easily.

"I hope I do not tire you too soon," he said. "Because I do not intend to let you sleep until this night is old."

Netya grinned, letting her palms slip from the back of his neck to rub up and down the alpha's bare chest. "I will try my best, my alpha, but Fern has told me I must please you in different ways this evening."

"She presumes to know how her alpha desires his pleasure now?"

"She did not mean any disrespect by it. The next days will be my woman's time, so I cannot lie with you as normal."

Khelt noted the anxiety creeping into her voice as she spoke, and the nervous look in her eyes. As much as she tried to embrace her new duties as his concubine, there was still much of the nervous young girl about her. His heart sank a little, but the steely restraint of his alpha returned to quash the desire that had built in his loins.

"Of course," he said. "I should have known it was coming by your scent. You may return to your own tent, then. I will not call on you until you are ready once more."

"I am still willing," Netya replied. "But as I said, I would please you in other ways."

There was something about her response that stirred the desire in Khelt back to life. The way she had said it was not exactly impertinent, but most other respectful females would have obeyed his order easily without trying to persuade him otherwise. Fern's influence again, no doubt. Or perhaps just another natural difference between the etiquette of her people and his. Still, whether she realised she had been provocative or not, it nudged Khelt's desire to assert his male dominance once again.

"Will you now?" he said. "Has my concubine become so talented already?"

"I know only what Fern has taught me this afternoon." Netya flushed and averted her eyes from him. "But I am eager to try."

Khelt looked at her for a moment longer, then allowed his desire to take hold in full. He pulled Netya into another tight kiss, before dragging her gown off her shoulders to leave the girl naked save for her moccasins. He cupped and squeezed her breasts, drawing each nub to a hard point with his teeth and tongue as he breathed in her scent, relishing his concubine's small noises of pleasure as he explored the softness of her bare skin.

The girl was usually so passive, allowing him to take charge and guide their lovemaking, which suited him perfectly, but this time he felt her hands caressing him back in response. To Khelt's surprise it only spurred him on more, his pulse quickening as her fingers moved lower toward his hips. When she began to leave small, tentative kisses on his chest that strayed gradually downwards, he eased her back and unfastened his kilt, allowing the tension between his legs to spring free.

"To your knees," he growled as he leaned forward to tug at her earlobe with his teeth. "And show me what you have learned."

Netya slid out of his lap, nervous fingers finding their way to his manhood as she knelt at the foot of his throne. He longed to take her as he wished, but for now he would restrain himself to a slower pleasure. The girl's inexperience showed, but he was patient, and when the warmth of her mouth engulfed him he leaned back with a groan of satisfaction, twining her braid around his hand as he cupped the top of her head. His shaft twitched and strained in her mouth, letting her know when her tongue did the things that pleased him most.

If anything Netya was too eager, or Fern had instructed her too well, and several times she ended up short of breath and coughing as she attempted to take more of him than she was yet able. Still, it made Khelt's body stir with craving to imagine the pleasures the girl might bring him once she had gathered more experience.

He fought the building urge to drive himself as deep as he desired, encouraging Netya instead to please him with her hands while her mouth caressed that most sensitive point of his manhood. Perhaps he would not be able to take his concubine many times in the way he had first envisioned that evening, but the night could be spent in other pleasurable ways. He was no longer even thinking of his intent to sire an heir with her by the time his lower body surged with pleasure, his hand tightening in her hair as he reined in the throes of pleasure that gripped his muscles. He grit his teeth with a heavy groan, perspiration beading on his forehead as Netya took his essence into her mouth, fighting the urge to buck as he allowed the girl to take her time.

With his initial lust satiated, but his energy far from spent, Khelt took her to his bed, allowing the last of the light to fade outside as minute after minute slipped by. He lost himself in the pleasure of discovering everything his concubine had begun to learn, testing her body's limits and easing them further as he explored all but the one entrance that was forbidden to him. The hours of slow, gentle pacing intermingled with her cries and his own growls of release, driving all other concerns from his mind. He was bothered by not a single unwelcome doubt until at long last, with the fire burning low, he and Netya collapsed against the furs in a tangle of damp skin and soaked hair.

She fell asleep immediately, her body cupped into the curve of his own as he looked down at the exhausted girl with a smile. He did not even bother to clean the oils they had used and the remnants of their lovemaking from the bed before joining her in unconsciousness, wondering how he had ever managed to sleep soundly without such a willing young female to drive the toils of leadership from his mind.

Khelt awoke to rays of morning sunlight creeping across the walls of his den, filtering in through the gaps in the cave roof to bring a warm brightness to the chamber. He enjoyed these summer months when he could leave the openings uncovered. Winter was a dark and lonely time, and he would have gladly slept huddled with the others in their communal shelters when it came time for the pack to retreat from the harsh weather. Propriety, however, kept the alpha isolated to face the long winter nights on his own.

But this season he might have a warm body to share his furs for the first time in years. He watched Netya as she slept, bringing his lips to within an inch of her shoulder, then hesitating. He would allow her to sleep a while longer yet.

Climbing over his concubine as gingerly as he could, he slipped out of the bed and went to wash, bathing the scent of her from his body reluctantly. He longed to breathe it in again when he took the shape of his wolf and opened his senses to their full breadth, but that was a distraction unbecoming of an alpha. Netya would still be here when he returned. A well-earned reward for the duties of the day.

He stepped out of the pool and wrung out his mane of long hair, flicking it back out of his eyes as he blew the dim coals of the fire back to life and fed them fresh kindling. The sound of footsteps approached from the cave's entrance, and a moment later the drapes parted.

Khelt waved a hand over his shoulder in greeting. There was only one person who would walk into his den at this hour without invitation.

"What news this morning?" he said as Caspian sauntered into the den, a bowl of nut meal cupped in one hand as he picked at it with a flat piece of wood for an eating utensil.

"Brae claims she saw omens of Vaya's herd moving into the forests in her dreams last night. Vaya says it will not happen, but the others trust the word of a seer over hers. She is preparing for a hunt now, though she is not pleased about it."

"Then perhaps she is not as confident in her tracking as she claims," Khelt said, rising to his feet to dress as Caspian perched on the edge of the table. "If she knows where the herd are moving she should stay put and prove Brae wrong. Then she will have a seer to add to the list of rivals she has bested."

Caspian gave him a wry look. "You joke, but you know that is how she will see it."

"As long as she keeps bringing back fresh kill she may see the whole world as her rival for all I care. I worry more over half my young hunters rushing off at the whims of a seer."

"Brae is right more often than she is not."

Khelt growled under his breath as he put on his kilt and fastened the leather tie to tighten it around his waist. "Let me trust what I can touch and scent with my own body over what the spirits whisper into my dreams."

Caspian glanced over at Netya as she stirred, his expression thoughtful. "Like your new favourite princess?"

"You haven't called a girl that in years," Khelt snorted.

"Not since you had a fresh female to catch your attention every other week."

Khelt looked to his friend and smiled, then returned his gaze to Netya. They were conversing in their own tongue, but he hoped she was still asleep regardless. "I think she has taken to our pack well," he said, fishing for affirmation. He had not told Caspian of the girl's emotional state the night Erech and Nathar fought.

"Better than I could have hoped, for sure."

Khelt sighed. There was that unspoken
but
in Caspian's tone, one he was all too familiar with. "I know bringing her here was unwise, but it has all been for the better, has it not?"

"Will you forbid her from leaving?"

"She does not wish to leave. She is content here. I have asked her often."

"And I believe that," Caspian said, "but have you not listened to the way she speaks of her home with Fern? It does not sound to me like she views it as a place she will never return to."

"You dwell too much on these things. What does it matter how she talks if she is content? If she wishes to return one day, then I will —" He hesitated.

"Will you let her go?"

Khelt's brow knotted in contemplation. The bestial part of him deep inside cursed Caspian's wisdom. "Yes," he muttered at last. It was not something he would have admitted to any other man. "She is a sweet girl, regardless of the people she comes from. I would not keep her captive against her will."

"Then you should tell her. Better she know now than spend all her days wondering. It may even make her all the more willing to stay."

"Why do you think that?"

Caspian shrugged. "Some things lose their hold over us once they are no longer forbidden. Perhaps simply knowing that she may leave will be enough for her."

Khelt sighed and sat down at the table, resting his chin atop his knuckles as he watched Netya. "You should have been alpha," he said, only in half-jest. "I have no head for these things."

"Just as I have no stomach to hold your title. It was never my path to lead our people."

"And yet the ancestors gifted you with the wisdom for it." He clapped a hand on Caspian's shoulder. "I will tell Netya she is free to leave. Then will you take her to help with Vaya's preparations? I would like for her to start learning the ways of the hunt."

"Of course." Caspian smiled. There was no further lecture this time. He knew when to leave Khelt to figure the rest out by himself, and there was certainly much for the alpha to puzzle over. The deep tug in his soul longed for nothing more than pleasurable comfort from the female in his bed, content in the knowledge that she was happy and willing. That she might wish to leave one day was a distant and pointless thought, or so the more primal part of him believed, but a strong leader had to face unsettling truths.

If he allowed Netya to leave, he would be handing the location of his pack directly to his enemies. He wanted to believe the girl would keep it a secret, but how could he ever be sure it would not slip out some day, or be forced from her against her will? The Sun People could be ruthless, and perhaps, with the location of a wolf pack's den in their hands, they could muster enough warriors to finally brave the journey across the open plains.