The Alpha's Willing Captive (Historical Paranormal Werebear Steamy Romance) (4 page)

Thank you for supporting an independent author! Just for my naughty readers, my entire catalog is now FREE TO READ to anyone with a Kindle Unlimited subscription!

Be sure to check out my entire naughty Nikki Wild catalog by clicking RIGHT HERE!

You might be interested to know that I offer special discounts, new release notification, and FREE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT to anyone that subscribes to my Nikki Wild List! So go ahead, sign up is easy and I will NEVER send you spam or share your e-mail address with anyone.

Sign up for the NIKKI WILD e-mail list by clicking RIGHT HERE!

My sisters wept as the old woman lowered the blood-red cloak onto my narrow shoulders, but my mother's eyes were rolling back in the throes of religious ecstasy.  "The gods will bless me for my sacrifice," she exulted, forgetting that it was I who was the actual sacrifice.

The old woman murmured a few more unintelligible words, then dipped a thumb into a pot of something foul smelling.  She marked my forehead with the muck, from the tip of my hairline down to the bridge of my nose.  Her gnarled thumbnail poked me in between the eyes.

"Have you finished?" I asked, trying to keep my tone innocent.

"Tarla, don't blaspheme," my mother admonished me and I had to roll my eyes.  Here I was moments away from saying goodbye to her forever, and yet she could only think to chastise me one last time.

The old woman fastened the cloak at my neck with a silver pin.  "This will protect you until you reach the lair of the wolf-king," she creaked.  "Once you reach the entrance, you must remove it before you are allowed inside."

"What happens if I leave it on?"

The old woman's rheumy eyes narrowed suspiciously.  "Then they will not accept the sacrifice and our village will be damned.  Will you have that on your head, child?"

My sister Lena burst into a fresh round of sobs upon hearing this.  Her fear for my sake was outweighed by the fear of the wolves.  That was true for the entire village.  I was the sacrifice: one to save many.  The price our small, vulnerable village paid for the protection of the wolves. If that protection were ever removed, our enemies would descend on us immediately.

Or the wolves themselves.

"I will do my duty," I said gravely, bending my head obediently.  The old woman looked up at me and waited several moments before she nodded her white head.  Her hair was so white and brittle that she reminding me of a dandelion head in late summer.  One breeze would blow her away.

It occurred to me then that I would never see another summer.  Never see another dandelion.  I would never know anything more that I knew, right now. 

For some reason it was that, rather than my weeping family, that finally made me break down and cry.

The old woman smiled a toothless grin, heavy with malice.  "She is ready," she croaked towards the door.

The door to our hut burst open and the constable and his deputy tromped their muddy boots onto my mother's impeccably washed floor.  "We are losing daylight," the deputy snarled.  "Tell the girl to make her goodbyes and get on with it."

I turned, sniffling, and nodded to my sisters.  I had told them goodbye this morning, putting on a brave, happy face for Sahbine, the youngest.  She was now looking at me with fearful eyes, and so I smiled once more.  "Goodbye, fair sisters.  I trust that my sacrifice will keep you safe."

I was answered with wide eyes and stifled sobs.

As for my mother, well, what could I say?  "Goodbye, mother."  I felt the creeping resentment curl around the edges of my words as I spoke.  "I am glad that it is so easy for you to let go of your first born."

"I have done my village and my gods a service in bearing you.  I will be richly rewarded in the afterlife," she breathed, clasping her hands together in fervent prayer.

I couldn't help it, I rolled my eyes.  "I'm finished," I exhaled, nodding to the constable.  "You may take me now."

He nodded gruffly and turned to the door, assuming correctly that I would follow closely.  And he was right.  What more could I do?  I was walking towards my death, anointed and blessed.  There was no resistance left in me. 

The walk out of the village was an odd one.  Villagers huddled in their windows, watching me silently.  Yesterday I had laughed and worked and sung with all of them, but today no one could find it in themselves to say farewell to me.  It was the fate of the sacrifice to spend the last moments of her life alone.

When we reached the edge of the village, the constable halted.  "You go alone from here," he barked.

I stood, confused, staring down the long road that vanished into the dark trees.  "How will I know the way?"

The two men darted a quick look at one another.  I saw uncertainty and fear in their eyes.  "You...you don't know, do you?" I guessed.

"You will know," the constable recovered quickly.  "The way will be shown to you."

"By who?"

The deputy puffed up his chest.  Instead of answering my question, he unrolled a parchment and started to laboriously read the words aloud.  "Our sac...sacrifice is made on this day.  We beg for the forest's con...continued protect...protection as acknowledgment of our tritty."

"Treaty," I muttered.

"Be quiet girl.  Show some reverence." The constable darted his eyes quickly into the encroaching woods as if he expected something to jump out and punish me for my insolence.

I had had enough.  "And why should I do that? I am expected to walk into the woods and face my certain death just to keep the rest of you safe.  This is not reverence, this is murder."

The deputy gave me a hard shove in the chest, knocking me down to the muddy road. "May the gods forgive you.  Now go."

I scrambled back to my feet.  "May the gods forgive
you,"
I answered.  Then I turned my back to the stammering men.  I only had a few more minutes to live.  I didn't want to waste them with fools.

Each step took me further and further away from the only life I had ever known.  In all my nineteen years, I had never been further than the edge of my small village. But I had seen every inch of it, including some haylofts and back rooms that my mother would be scandalized to know I had frequented.  I wasn't the unsullied virgin they all believed me to be.  Living my life knowing I was to be sacrificed gave me a yearning to experience as much as I could before my time was up. 

I spent much of that time experiencing the stable boys’ cocks.

I heard a little giggle tear from my throat and soon I was laughing out loud.  The trees swallowed up my laughter, a heavy silence hanging over everything.  But still I walked and as I walked, I laughed. 

Because this was just so absurd.

The more I walked, the more I wondered what was stopping me from just continuing down this road and into the great unknown.  There had to be villages out there.  Villages that were not held in thrall by murderous wolves who demanded blood sacrifice at odd intervals.  If I continued down this road, I could just walk out of my life entirely.  There was nothing to do but just put one foot in front of the other.

And the thought bloomed in my mind; I heard a noise over my shoulder.  I froze, heart pounding, as I stared into the dense trees.

"Who is there?" I called.

There was no response, unless you counted the moan of the wind and the creak of bough against bough.

I shuddered, feeling suddenly colder.  I pulled the blood-red sacrificial cloak more tightly around my shoulders and quickened my step.

This time the noise was over my other shoulder.  I whirled around and caught the faintest glimpse of a gray shadow in the trees.

"Who is there?!" I demanded.

The shapes were so large it seemed that they unwound from the trees themselves.  Two wolves, larger and more powerful than any I had seen before, strode out from the forest. 

I felt my heart drop to my shoes.  My knees gave out and I sank down into the mud.  "So this is it," I said.  "There is no escaping my sacrifice.  Instead of me going to you, you have come to me."  I closed my eyes tightly.  "Please be quick about it."

I knelt there, waiting for that first stab of pain, waiting for their teeth to sink into my flesh and devour me.  I waited, feeling nothing except the unfairness of it all.

I heard a low exhalation.  When I opened my eyes, one of the wolves was sitting in front of me, his posture one of bored indifference.  When he saw that I had opened my eyes, he stood back up and trotted in front of me.   Pausing to look back over his shoulder, he leapt into the trees.

"Oh," I said, and moved to follow.  The second wolf, gave me a slight nudge with his head and I stepped into the forest.

"I can't see you!" I called into the trees.  "It's getting dark and your eyes are better than mine."

I heard that exhalation again.  It truly did sound like a sigh of exasperation.  Then the first wolf came trotting back into view.  He came just to the edge of my vision and sat.

"I see you now," I said.  "Thank you."

I tried to hurry along, but the silver flash seemed always just out of my range of sight.  We plunged deep into the thick forest and it was not very long before I was completely turned around.  Trees, roots, bramble and branches all clutched and clawed at my arms and legs.  The cloak tangled in a tree limb and I screamed in frustration.  "Where are we going?" I demanded.

The first wolf trotted back into view.  He came right up to me and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end when he ducked his head and took my arm into his jaws. 

But instead of clamping down, he only tugged gently.  I allowed myself to be led a few steps.  The trees fell away and I walked into a clearing bathed in silvery moonlight.

Before me rose the dark hulk of a lonely mountain.  And there in the rock face was the deep black of an opening.  A cave, dark and forbidding.  The wolf tugged my arm gently and we stepped inside.

I put my hand to my throat.  The silver pin was still fastened there.  I felt the pull of wickedness, and I took my hand away without removing it.  Let the wolves see the silver.  Let them be as afraid of me as I was of them.

As we stepped into the cave, I felt a vibration in the air.  Suddenly, I was not walking with two wolves. Rather, I was flanked by two tall, deeply muscled men.

I barely had time to register my shock before one of them grabbed a torch from the wall and turned to me.  "Tarla.  We have been waiting for you."

I wanted to ask how he knew my name, but before I could form the words, we stepped into a great chamber.  The ceiling rose high above us, nearly invisible.  All around us were pools of torchlight and before us a great bonfire roared.  And around the bonfire stood wolves and men.

Behind the men was a raised platform upon which a wolf sat.  When he looked down and spied me, the air vibrated around us.  The wolf shimmered and dissipated, simultaneously stretching and shrinking until he stepped forward in the form of a gray-haired man.

"Tarla," he boomed heartily, his voice echoing off of the stone walls of the cavern.  He spoke my name as if it was an answered prayer. "You are welcome."

I looked at the assembly.  Hungry eyes stared back at me.  "Are you mocking me?" I demanded.  "Why would you give me welcome?"

The gray haired man laughed.  "Why wouldn't we welcome you? This is a celebration!"

My mother's pious posturing flashed in my head and my resentment flared anew.  "I am so thrilled that my death is so easy for everyone to celebrate."

The gray haired man rose from his makeshift throne and nimbly hopped down from his platform.  "Death?"

I was getting angry.  "Do what it is I am here for.  If I am to die, just get it over with."

"What do you think you are here for?" The gray haired man demanded.

"I am the sacrifice.  I am here for you to devour me so that my village stays safe."

The laughter of the men mixed with the howls of the wolves until all of their voices were an echoing cacophony around me.  I stood in the midst of their mirth with anger rising like fire through me.  I felt hot color bloom on my cheeks and my stomach twisted.  "Enough!" I cried, my voice louder that the din that surrounded it.  "Silence!"

The laughter ceased immediately.  Only the faint echo remained.

The gray haired man nodded as if I had spoken a great truth.  "You were born for this," he nodded.  "The blood of the wolf runs in your veins."

My hot rage was clouding my judgment.  "I was born to be my village's sacrifice, yes I know this.  Now will you please just get it over with?"

"We are not going to eat you, Tarla!" a voice shouted from the crowd.

"Well, only a little." Loud shouts of laughter greeted this speaker's jest. 

I turned angrily to the gray haired man.  "What aren't you telling me?"

"The women in your village are the last of a dying breed," the gray-haired man explained.  "You are the only ones with whom our kind can mate."

I felt hot thudding in my ears that had nothing to do with anger.  "Mate?"

"If you prove worthy, Tarla, you will be our queen."

I looked out over the crowd of men gathered watching.  I saw several of them nod their heads.  Others bowed in reverence.

"Your queen?"

"Yes Tarla.  You will reign over all of us.  We will pledge our lives to you and you will give us the next generation of our pack.  But first, we must bind you to us."

I felt heat rising up from my core.  I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was the only female in the room.  All around me was a swirling mass of masculinity. Each one of them was taller, broader and stronger looking than the last.