Chapter Thirty-two: Soaked

SIGRUN

My heart beat faster, listening to his words. A proof that I must not have been in the right headspace was that all he was saying didn’t sound as terrifying as it should.

“My claim is not to be decided by a council of old wolves who secretly fear the dark,” he continued. His jaw tightened so hard a muscle leaped in his cheek.

He looked hungry—ravenous, even—and I knew with absolute certainty that he could hear the frantic, heavy pulse in my throat answering his proximity. He wanted me. I could feel the raw wave of his desire hitting me like a physical force. But there was a rigid, unyielding wall of restraint holding him back.

"I could silence them all tonight," he whispered, his breath brushing the shell of my ear, turning my blood to liquid fire. "I am the Alpha King. I could take the bond, take the consummation, and force this entire court to bow. My predecessor would have done it without a second thought. He would have taken what he thought was owed to the crown."

He paused, and for a second, a flicker of something deeply pained and fiercely, fiercely protective crossed his features. When he spoke again, his voice dropped even lower, thick with a dark, heavy sincerity that made my heart do a strange, painful flip.

"But I am not Kanaan. I do not rule by ruin, and I do not take what is not freely given."

Kanaan—his father. I remembered that much from what Conny had told me. Yeah, he definitely didn’t sound like a good guy. It made me wonder about the tales people apparently told about Varul.

He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, his expression carved from stone, yet his gaze burned through me.

"I can smell your desire, Sigrún. My wolf knows the scent of your arousal,” he said roughly. His hand slowly pushed up the hem of my light shift as though to demonstrate what he was saying.

With his eyes still on mine, his hand cupped my pussy through my panties. I sucked in a sharp breath and his eyes turned darker.

“You are soaked, Princess. Just for me. Dripping…”

His voice sounded like he was the one being tortured. He pushed aside the silk material and slid a finger into me. The sound of my moan bounced off the walls. I was lit on fire.

“Your tight little body wants me,” he said as he added a second finger and pumped in and out of me slowly.

I grabbed onto his shoulders to anchor myself as I rocked against the pressure of his fingers. I was mindless with lust.

His thumb circled my clit and my knees buckled. His hand at my ass squeezed gently and held me in place. It was the most exquisite form of torture.

I wanted him to stop.

At the same time, I was sure I would die if he stopped.

A familiar feeling was coursing through me. I’d touched myself to completion several times before, but it all faded in comparison to this. I trembled silently. Varul watched me come undone, it was almost like he couldn’t bear to look away.

Finally, his fingers slowly retreated and he brought them up to his lips, licking off my come. His eyes held mine the entire time.

I swallowed, hungry for something so deep I couldn’t even name it.

“I can hide the truth from myself and from my wolf, but you want to know the true reason why I have not mated you yet, Princess? Why I did not take you at Windsmoor, at that blasted pool, and why I would not have taken you that night even if my beta had not walked in on us?” He whispered hoarsely.

“It is because beneath the heat, I smell your terror. I smell how trapped you feel in these towers, how much you look at this world and wish for something else. You were bartered away by a treaty. If I sink my teeth into your neck and force a lifetime, supernatural bond onto you while you are cornered and afraid, I am just another monster in a crown."

The realization hit me like a physical blow, knocking the breath straight out of my lungs.

He wasn't holding back because he didn't want me. He wasn't holding back because he doubted who I was.

He was holding back because he understood the terrifying gravity of a mating bond—that it wasn't just a casual hookup or a temporary arrangement, but a permanent, biological fusion of souls. And he refused to trap me into eternity just to appease his council or satisfy a physical whim. He was protecting my choice, even when my own body was screaming to give in.

"When the time comes that you belong to me," Varul growled, his gaze dropping to my lips one last time, leaving me burning up from the inside out, "it will not be because a council forced my hand. And it will not be because your body surrendered to a biological instinct. You will look at me as a free woman, and you will choose it wholeheartedly. Until then, the lords can choke on their fucking rumors."

He let his eyes linger on mine for one last, suffocating second. My heart was hammering so loud against my ribs I was certain he could hear it. My whole body was a chaotic mess of hot and cold.

He turned on his heel and walked out of the map room, his heavy steps fading down the dark corridor, leaving me alone in the quiet.

I stood frozen against the bookshelf for a long, breathless minute, my chest rising and falling sharply. My skin was still tingling with aftershocks of my climax.

I was supposed to be keeping him at arm's length. I was supposed to be protecting my defenses, keeping my secrets safe until I could find a way back home to Brooklyn.

But as I stared at the empty space he had just occupied, a terrifying truth settled deep in my gut.

He wasn't the brute the world thought he was. He was a man fighting his own ghosts to keep me safe from them.

And that made him infinitely more dangerous to my heart.