Bound to Enemy

9

"Goddess, you gave me this role. I am meant to lead with strength and courage, but... I've seen too much loss. I know too much pain. I don't know if my heart can withstand anymore; I'm so lost," she croaked out. Her head was lifted to the sky and her hands were pressed together like she was saying a prayer. "It's been hard, so... so hard. I can see just how depleted my father is. I know this is my duty, but..."

Her voice trailed off and her chin dipped to her chest. That's when I saw the small trickle fall from her closed eyelid and travel all the way down her cheek.

She was crying.

I looked away. It felt like I was intruding on something sacred and I should walk away.

The full moon was often the time when wolves looked to the goddess for guidance, at the height of our connection to our supernatural selves. These moments of vulnerability between creator and creation were hallowed.

It made sense why she wore the white cloak and had her hair up and out of her face. Whenever anyone wanted to go before the goddess, they had to dress in certain attire.

I didn't know that the wolves of Black Stone upheld such traditions.

Alessandra sniffed before she muttered something under her breath that I couldn't quite make out.

I needed to get out of here before she realized I was here.

I didn't like her, but I respected our customs and traditions. I was not much of a praying man, but I knew that I would not want anyone eavesdropping on my prayers.

I moved my body off the thick bark of the tree and started to edge my way from the tree. I took my first step, hoping that I could move away just as silently as I had approached. But as luck would have it, I was wrong.

In the blink of an eye, a flash of blonde breezed past me. Alessandra stood in front of me, glaring with the fury of a thousand suns in her eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped.

I observed her for a moment. That broken girl I had witnessed only a few short seconds ago was gone, and in her place was the same fearsome she-wolf I had come to know.

"I needed air."

"You needed to get some air in the exact location I was doing my prayers?" Her glare deepened, the fire behind them only getting hotter. "What are you doing here, alpha?"

I blew out a long breath. "You need to stop using my title like it's some kind of insult."

She took a menacing step toward me, but she was as intimidating as a chihuahua to me. She had shown me her teeth, but she had yet to prove to me that she could actually bite.

"Have you no shame, Vale?" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Your pack says that it prides itself on the sanctity of our practices, but yet here you are eavesdropping on my prayer time."

She was right, but I was not about to admit that to her. "I didn't mean to intrude. I woke up and I needed some air. I wanted to be by the water, and then that's when I stumbled upon you. I didn't hear anything."

I was lying right through my teeth, but I was not about to admit that to her. I was trying to de-escalate the situation, not make it worse. What I had done had been disrespectful, and the simpler thing would have been to apologize, but my pride would not allow it.

She poked my chest and narrowed her gaze on me. "Why do you tell lies, alpha? The least you could do is respect me enough to not lie to my face."

I swatted her hand away, to which she growled lowly.

"You do know what you're doing can be viewed as a challenge to my wolf, right? I'm sure you do, seeing as you have been trained to be an alpha." I spat her title back in her face like she had mine. "Careful what you do from here, princess."

Her nostrils flared in anger.

Under the moonlight, her blue eyes absorbed some of the rays, making them look almost silver.

"Don't call me princess." She sneered, "From the moment you've arrived, you have been nothing but pretentious. You think you're so much better than everyone else around you. Just because you were gifted a gene that no other wolf possesses does not mean that you are deserving of respect. You stick your nose up at everything and everyone you think is below you."

"You don't know me, princess."

"Don't call me that!" She poked my hard chest. Her eyes roared with fury, and the silver in them flashed in and out as she struggled to pull her wolf back. "I'm not a fool, Daxton. You are as much in need of us as we are of you. So you can get off your high horse and come down to planet Earth with the rest of us."

"I don't need you," I scoffed.

I did need them. They understood the moonstone better than anyone. Their archives had the answers to what I needed.

But I would first go rogue before I admitted that I needed anything from the Black Stone pack. Their people and I had been feuding for a reason, and whether she liked to admit it or not, her pack was at fault.

I stared my fiancée down, and she didn't let up either. She held my gaze and even went as far as to take another step my way, thereby eradicating the last remaining ounce of space between us.

Sparks of electricity crackled all around us. My body buzzed with the growing tension in the air, which stirred my wolf to life.

She intrigued him and sparked an interest that I was not expecting at all. He liked her fire, and I did too. But not in a way where I wanted to get close to feel its warmth.

I liked her fire in the way in which I wanted to smother it. I wanted to see just how heated she could get just so I could douse her flames.

Cynical, I know. But she started this little game between us when she held her knife to my throat.

But as we continued to stare at each other, something shifted in the air. The heat was no longer one of danger and blood. It had morphed into a heat of hunger and desire.

I could not deny this woman's beauty. I was a man, after all, but why did it feel like I was looking at her for the very first time now? I noticed how her lips curled ever so slightly when she was disgusted. Or the way her eyes would falter and find their way to my lips and then back up again. It was only for a split second, but it was a second long enough for me to notice.

The rays of moonlight kissed her face at the perfect angle, chiseling out her softer features and making her look far more striking and lethal.

My wolf rumbled from deep within me. I wanted to grab her and pull her to my body so I could feel if she was just as soft as I imagined her to be. The time when she had me pressed against the wall with her dagger to my neck was merely not enough time for me to conclude how she felt against me.

She awakened cravings within me that I had not felt in a very, very long time. She was so close I could easily grab her and pull her toward me. My fingers flinched at my side, the need to feel her intensifying.

But I held myself.

What was going on with me? Why was I suddenly feeling like this? She was the enemy and could not be trusted. I could not desire my enemy.

Yet, my wolf all but purred when her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

I wondered how she tasted. Was she sweet? Or did she have a slightly sour taste to her?

I wanted, no, needed to find out.

"So much fire," I breathed out the words, "in such a little body."