Chapter 63: Fuck Toy To Kael’s Name In 60 Seconds

She was crying before she was awake. The tears came first, then the golden forest, then the wolf, then the understanding that wherever she was, it was not a place the living were supposed to visit twice.

Her forehead was pressed to her knees, and the sound of her own sobs echoed off nothing because there was nothing here for it to reach.

She did not know how long she had been here.

A presence registered before a shape did. Something large. Close. Watching.

She lifted her head, wiping her eyes.

A black wolf stood ten feet from her. Massive, the size of a small horse, with fur so dark it ate the light around it. Its eyes were molten and steady.

She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t.

"D-Do I know you?"

The wolf did not answer. It closed the distance between them in three unhurried strides, lowered its massive head, and nudged her cheek with its nose. The contact was gentle in a way that contradicted the size of the creature delivering it.

Then it sat down beside her. Its shoulder came to her head. Its weight settled against the ground with the patience of a thing that had been waiting and was finished.

Her fingers found its fur without deciding to, stroking it gently. The wolf closed its eyes, thoroughly enjoying this and not bothering to hide it.

"I shouldn’t be here," she whispered.

The wolf’s eyes opened abruptly. It turned to her.

"Unless I’m already dead."

✦✦✦

Guinevere woke to her wolf’s voice first, but the words didn’t register.

Find him. Mate.

The dream slipped away, leaving her with nothing but an unsettling feeling.

Her eyes opened.

Stone ceiling. Firelight on wet walls.

Water sat just below her collarbone, and Maddox’s chest was behind her, solid and radiating heat that the cold water was actively losing the fight against.

She could hear his pulse. Through his chest, through the water.

Something was off. Different. Her heart rate climbed.

Then she realized that she was naked in his lap. No she would never get used to that.

Immediately, his arms tightened.

"Hey baby, I’m here. You’re okay." He pressed a kiss to her hair, followed by her temple.

Her head was throbbing. She racked her brain for what happened before this.

Memories came back in fragments. Incomplete and fuzzy. She remembered running for her life in a cave and jungle. Maddox carrying her for miles in the heat of it.

A wave of gratitude washed into her so fiercely, she didn’t know how to say it. Her appreciation of Maddox for coming for her.

Her hands slid over his. She knew what that would have cost him. The risk of it.

That’s when she started spiraling. Maddox hadn’t brought up what her status and title was yet and she wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t announced it because he didn’t want it to be announced. And likely that was because of what she was.

He hadn’t let her sit in on any council meetings or assign any duties that a queen or wife would be assigned.

That meant that seat wasn’t hers. Kael was calling her a concubine for a reason.

She’d tried to not let herself spiral more and not assume the worst. She swallowed down that for now. There was nothing she could do outside of say thank you because Maddox went into enemy territory for a woman he purchased. A concubine without an heir for him. A wolf in a den of dragons who brought no value outside of merging with his flame that nearly got her killed but he did it anyways.

"M-Maddox ... Thank you for coming to f-find me."

Her voice came out more hoarse than she realized it would and the stutter she outgrew somehow found its way back. She wanted to say more, but the words wouldn’t come. She tried to turn to face him, but his arms squeezed her tight, not letting her move.

That’s when she smelled salt. Maddox was crying and she could feel through their matebond that he didn’t want her to know.

"Always, baby. I will come for you every single time. Don’t ever doubt that," he said, voice steady.

The truth was she wasn’t sure if anyone would be looking outside of Maddox who probably couldn’t allocate resources for her. She’d accepted her fate and her plan in the jungle was to get herself out of there.

The fact Maddox brought a team to find her was more than anything she expected.

Her mind was reeling. Trying to remember the events that led up to the jungle. She woke up in a cave and Kael found her, fought them, then nothing until she woke up next to him.

Her hand flew to her mouth. He assured her nothing happened, but his word didn’t mean much. Her eyes welled automatically. The identical response she had when she woke up in the cave.

"Gwen... hey..." Maddox kissed her.

She didn’t answer. This time she didn’t want him to see her crying because she needed to iron out her memories before assuming the worst.

Her thoughts were everywhere.

Maddox picked her up spinning her around so she straddled him. Then he pressed his forehead to hers.

"I’ve got you, baby. What’s going on?"

She opened her mouth. Shut it. Opened it.

His eyes darkened. "Gwen. Tell me now."

He wiped her tears with his thumb.

"I woke up in a dark fae cave and K-Kael was there. Then we were attacked and the next thing I woke up in another c-c-cave but my zip suit was off and him lying next to me and I don’t remember how. He said it was to absorb my f-flame and swore on his dragon. And he told me he would take me b-back to you."

The words tumbled out. Her heart was cracking even as she said it aloud. She inhaled sharply. "I’m s-s-sorry Maddox."

Maddox blinked, trying to sort through the tangle of her emotions. She was worried like she dishonored him. That was not what he was expecting whatsoever.

"Guinevere." He cupped her face with both hands. "If Kael swore on his dragon then he’s telling the truth. And he was right about your flame."

The words tasted like ash to say but his wife was upset and Maddox didn’t want her thinking something happened when nothing did.

She said it like she was confessing she murdered the elders and hid their bodies. He sometimes couldn’t believe how pure and honest this girl was.

"Breathe for me. You didn’t do anything wrong." He pulled her against his chest.

She melted onto him, hiccuping. Guilt, relief, fear, and exhaustion all crashed together and Maddox couldn’t untangle it.

"Gwen, do you remember the jungle?" he asked cautiously.

She swallowed. "I remember seeing a ritual that was disgusting."

Maddox let out a laugh. "Disgusting is what Ryker called it too."

He held her like that, stroking the back of her scalp, until she relaxed into him fully. "Do you remember after that?"

Guinevere thought back to it, but nothing came.

"No," she whispered. Then her face turned scarlet remembering something else. She woke up on Maddox in their bed.

Maddox felt her blush through their matebond and blood immediately rushed to his groin. She was still shy with him. Timid.

He shifted his hips and pushed himself into her. Her breath hitched sharply against his neck.

"That’s it... take my cock, baby."

She winced. Sore was an understatement. The stretch burned in a way that reminded her she had been doing this for less than two weeks and her body was still learning the shape of him. She bit the inside of her cheek and breathed through it.

She pulled away from him, looking at him in the eyes. Maddox gently pulled out and pushed in four times, until he was fully seated inside of her.

He started bouncing her up and down on his cock, rapidly. Each downward stroke sent two messages at once. The first was pain, the dull ache of muscles that hadn’t recovered from the last time. The second was pleasure, building underneath the soreness like heat beneath bruised skin. Her body couldn’t decide which one to listen to, so it listened to both.

"Good girl... such a good fucking girl."

At some point the ache stopped mattering. She couldn’t identify the exact thrust where pain became background noise and the pressure building low in her core took over, but it happened, and once it did, her hips started moving on their own.

Both hands went into his hair. Rational thought left the building.

Guinevere felt unwanted joy at that praise. Like her body craved his approval.

Her heat began to rise aggressively fast. He was hitting a spot inside of her that was making her see stars.

"You like being my fuck toy. Say it."

Every time he dirty talked to her it did something to her.

"I like being your fuck toy," she whispered.

Maddox’s dragons surged, his eyes turning for a split second.

"He touched what’s mine." When he spoke his voice was no longer singular, his dragon speaking through him.

The possessiveness should have scared her, but it didn’t.

He fucked her harder than he ever had, like he was trying to erase every trace of Kael from her body, snarling.

"Mine. Mine. Mine." His thrusts grew more frantic. "Cum all over my cock. Now."

Pleasure suddenly spiked through her. Her whole body flushed hot as tension coiled tighter inside her. Then her orgasm exploded.

Every sore muscle she’d been ignoring seized at once, the ache in her ribs and the bruising on her hips and the rawness between her legs all compressing into a single white-hot point that broke through everything.

She gasped loudly, body jerking against him while her pussy throbbed and clenched repeatedly around his cock, flooding with wet heat.

Maddox’s hips stuttered. "That’s it. Milk me."

He released cum in long, intense spurts while holding her close through the shared pleasure.

Her orgasm was still rolling through her when someone entered in her peripheral.

Her head snapped towards the movement on instinct. Maddox didn’t stop. His hips were still driving into her, his face buried in her neck, his arms locked around her waist in a grip that said his dragon was steering and his brain had clocked out.

Kael Ashenvale stood in the doorway.

His iron eyes found hers mid-pulse, mid-gasp, mid-everything, and his pupils blew so wide the iron nearly disappeared. His nostrils flared.

She couldn’t look away. Her body was still convulsing around Maddox, still flushed, still making sounds she couldn’t stop, and Kael was watching every second of it with an expression that started as surprise and ended somewhere she didn’t have vocabulary for.

She blinked and he was gone.

Her lips moved on their own.

"Kael."

Maddox stopped breathing. His body went from motion to marble in under a second. His hands, still gripping her waist, tightened.