Chapter Eleven

Wednesday.

Sam.

As I open my eyes and look around, I realize I am no longer in the castle but back at the cottage tucked into the bed. I roll over and see Alec sitting up against his pillows next to me, his head lolled to one side, and I can hear the soft snores escaping from him. Movement at the foot of the bed catches my eyes and I push back the blankets and crawl to the footboard, looking over it and down into large, deep purple eyes. Dire wolf, he had called it.

“Why hello there,” I tell the creature as I climb from the bed and sit on the floor in front of the fireplace. Then crossing my feet under me, I reach out and brush his side with my hand. There is a fire banked low in the small fireplace, and I feel that its heat has warmed his fur. He turns to look at me and nods his head at my hesitation, granting me permission to pet him.

When I scratch his side, he moves and nuzzles his head under my hand, requesting scratches behind the ears. “Thank you,” I tell him softly. “For saving us.” He nods again and I think for a moment. I know his name. It is on the tip of my tongue. Alec called him by it when we were on the way to the castle. It comes to my mind then. In a voice I don’t recognize as my inner voice, but a soft gentle one.

Ocoee. I jerk my head and look at him and again he nods.

“Ocoee?” I ask, and he nudges my hand with his snout again. “What are you?”

Ancient. Power. Life. The three words in my mind are said in the same voice again.

“You’re talking to me?” I ask him and he smiles at me, his lips curling back over his white canine teeth. “Holy shit,” I say, shocked by the realization that I’m communicating in my mind with an ancient dire wolf.

“Don’t be afraid of the old man,” Alec’s voice from the bed draws my attention and I look up to see him sitting on the end of it. “He is not a harm to anyone, other than my enemies.” The statement makes me flinch. I remember him attacking Colin in his efforts to save Alec’s life. Colin is our enemy now.

“It’s not your fault,” Alec tells me as he reaches out an arm to me and motions for me to join him back on the bed. “Come here, kitten.” I rise from my spot on the floor with Ocoee and make to head for the bed when I feel a small nip at my heel and a whine from the creature on the floor.

“Okay, fine. You too,” Alec tells him, and I watch the white pile of fur stand and stretch. He is massive, clearly bigger than a traditional wolf, but not as large as Finn when he is in his wolf form. Climbing back onto the bed, I curl up near the top at my pillows, and Ocoee follows me, stretching out the full length of the bed, his back legs hanging off of the end as he rests his head in my lap.

“He likes you,” Alec points to Ocoee as he settles next to us. “How are you feeling? You’ve been out for a few days.” I raise my brow at him.

“A few days? What day is it?” I slip my hand through the fur on top of the wolf’s head and scratch him behind the ears again.

“Wednesday. Are you hurting anywhere?” Alec reaches up and brushes my hair behind my ear, resting his hand on my cheek. “I was afraid I might lose you, and so soon after finally finding you.” I watch as tears fill his eyes while he speaks. “Sam, I need to be honest with you about myself, Ocoee, and who and what we are. If you’re feeling up to it.”

Nodding, I lean back on the pillows, a bit dazed by the situation.

“I feel sore and sleepy, like I’m getting over the flu. But I’m ready to listen. I need to know.” I let out an enormous sigh. “I’m sorry my ex tried to kill you,” I say and start giggling at the insanity of my words, I cover my mouth and my eyes go wide. “So fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Come here.” Alec leans back on the pillows next to me again and pulls me into his arms.

Ocoee shifts, his head still in my lap and nuzzles my hand to show me he wants me to keep scratching him. I let the two snuggle me warmly between them and listen as Alec tells me about his past.

“When I was a boy, someone trained my mother as a witch. Back in my time, they would have killed her for this. I’m talking about Salem witch trial days. We were from Maine and when the trials began, my mother feared for her life and mine. She contacted a man she knew who was in the business of training warlocks. They sent me to apprentice under him in Canada. The House of Samuel was where I trained and stayed until I was a grown man. At that time, I ventured out on my own, eager to continue to learn the magic I found came so easily to me. I traveled south, back into the United States and sought a shaman from a Native American tribe who was said to be the most powerful of his kind. I was eager to learn from him and learn his craft.

“Once I found the tribe in Tennessee, I convinced him to take me on as an apprentice. If he would teach me his magic, I would teach him mine. At the time I arrived, the Shaman was in his sixties. I lived with them for nearly a decade. There were constant battles for the tribe’s land when the frontier was settled. I refused to leave them. I knew at that time that my mother was long gone and that the only family I had was the tribe.

“There was a great battle one day along the Ocoee River. The Shaman and I were there. The two of us got caught in a battle, and he was mortally wounded. I was able to escape with my life and return to him that evening.”

As I continue to listen to Alec’s story, his words filling the room around me and all the while as he speaks, it is as if someone is projecting images of the battles into my mind. I glance down at Ocoee, and he nods at me.

It’s you? I ask him in my mind.

Yes. The same voice he spoke to me with before fills my mind. Now listen, he chastises me and I turn my attention back to Alec. Letting the images fill my mind, seeing the two men by the side of the river.

“The injury was too severe for me to heal him, but at the time, his soul had not yet left his body. I was able to work a spell, using my magic and the magic that he had taught me over my time with him. By doing so, I transferred his soul into the body of a dire wolf, a previously extinct creature who was thought to be a magical being. I still don’t know what magic Ocoee possesses or where he goes most of the time. But since that day, he has been my constant companion. My protector and my friend.”

I turn to look at Ocoee, his head resting in my lap, eyes closed. Soft snoring escapes his lips as he dozes there.

“So, he is a shaman from the 1700s and you’re, what? Over three-hundred years old?” I’m skeptical.

“Yes, I was born in the 1680s. Ocoee’s mortal body died in 1713,” Alec tells me as he leans his cheek on the top of my head.

“You’re immortal?” I turn and look into his emerald-green eyes, hoping to find the answers to all of my questions there.

“No, I cast a spell on myself after Ocoee and I left the tribal lands. He learned some new tricks and taught me how to extend my life. I do not know how long I will live, but I know I age at a much-reduced rate, and I suspect I am not yet middle-aged.” My eyes dart back and forth between his. I know he is telling me the truth.

I have seen these things with my own eyes. My best friends are in relationships with werewolves and vampires. But the idea of magic being real, of all this being real, is still working my mind into a tizzy.

“Hush,” Alec coos to me as he brushes his knuckles over my cheek. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, kitten. But now you still need to rest.”

Nodding at him, I look down at my arms for the first time and realize I am still spotted with long dried bloodstains. I wrinkle my nose at him.

“I need a bath.”

Alec nods and nudges Ocoee in my lap. The wolf raises his head and his eyes meet mine. I get a cold nose in my face before he disappears into the air.

“Where does he go?” I ask Alec as I stand and stretch next to the bed, feeling the soreness in my unused muscles relax.

“I don’t always know. A lot of times, he is near, on another plane watching, other times he is gone to far-off lands on adventures, I imagine.” Alec stands from the bed as I stretch and makes his way to the door, opening it and crossing the hall to the bathroom. I hear him turn on the faucets and let the water run.

The floor in the hall creaks under my feet as I cross to the bathroom and see him, standing next to the bathtub, shirtless. His back muscles are well defined, and I can see the edges of his hips. When he turns the V at the base of his abdomen reveals the top of his pants are unbuttoned and he is not wearing anything under them. I move my eyes over Alec’s body slowly, back up over his pecs and shoulders to his dark hair, with the gray peppered throughout, and then settle finally on his eyes. Those deep emerald eyes pulled me in that night at the bar.

“I’ve spent so long looking for you, kitten. Hundreds of years. Come here, I need to hold you.” Alec opens his arms to me and I rush into his embrace.

As he closes them around me, I let all the emotion from the attack and learning about his past wash over me. I cry, sobbing into his chest as the water of the filling bathtub drowns out my sobs. I let it loose and don’t hold a single tear back.

Finally, sniffing and having cried all of my tears, I tilt my head back and look up at this man, this ancient warlock who is here with me now. His heart is so kind and open to me. I smile and step back.

“I meant it when I submitted to you, sir.” Batting my eyelashes at him, I take off the old, stained shirt and toss it to the floor.

Holding his hand out, Alec helps to steady me as I step over the edge of the old tub and sink my foot into the warm water. I watch the steam rising from it as I settle my other foot in and slowly sink into it. Allowing the heat to soothe my body and wash away the day I have no desire to remember. Other than that, it was the day I showed my submission to Alec.

Grabbing a loofah and some soap, he lathers it up, kneels beside the tub, and cleans me. Alec lathers every inch of my body in the soft scent of lavender. The smell fills the room and I giggle when he tickles me by accident as he cleans under my arms and then again over my hips. Catching his mouth in mine quickly, I kiss his lips as he leans over me to clean the opposite side of me.

When I splash him and the bubbles coat his chest, I reach out and run my hands over his skin. Tiny water droplets follow my fingers, flowing down over his body and to the waistband of his still unzipped pants.

“I think I’m all clean now.” I wink at Alec as I slip one fingertip under the waistband of his pants and slide it slowly back and forth. Feeling the smoothness of his body against my skin. I want more. I crave his touch and to finally have his body pressed to mine.

“Mmm, kitten. I think you’re a dirty girl still,” he says and chuckles at me as he drops the loofah into the water and reaches in to pull the plug.

Instead of bringing his hand up out of the water, he trails his fingertips along my leg. They travel upwards from my ankle to my knee, over my thigh, and stop mere inches from my sex. I clench my thighs together. Trapping his hand there between them and wiggle, encouraging him to travel further.

“See, you’re proving my point,” he says as he jerks his hand free of my grasp on it and splashes me. I giggle at him again and watch him turn to grab a towel from the rack.

I stand from the bath, leaving the filth behind me, not wishing to see again a single drop of my blood or other memory from the day Colin burst in here. As I step out of the water, I squeeze my eyes closed and resolve to only move forward now. Alec wraps the towel around me and then, bending, places his forearm behind my knees and lifts me up and into his arms. Taking me back to the bedroom, he tosses me on the bed and jumps on after me.

I let out a peal of laughter as he pounces on me and then takes my mouth with his in a warm kiss. His lips roam over my jaw, down my neck to my collarbone, then over my shoulder. Back to the edge of the towel where it is wrapped around my ample breasts, the only thing between our bodies. He reaches out and takes it from my grasp. I let go of it and let him pull it from my body, exposing my still damp form to him. His sharp intake of breath surprises me, as he has seen me naked on more than one occasion now.

“What? Is something wrong?” I ask, propping myself up on my elbows and looking into his eyes.

“No, kitten. I just can’t believe you are here in my bed. You’re mine. You know who and what I am and you have still chosen to gift me with this.” He motions toward my body and then leans down and kisses me again. I’m out of breath by the time he releases my mouth, gasping for air. But still need him to kiss me more. “You’re beautiful, Sam.”

I blush and feel the heat creep over my cheeks, down over my neck and onto my chest. “God, you’re even more beautiful when you blush.”

Dropping his head to my chest, his hot mouth closes over my nipple and I arch my back, pushing my breast into his mouth, filling him with me. Swirling his tongue around it, I feel my body reacting to him, my nipples hardening and standing erect, giving him more of me to nip at. When he catches one and then the other between his teeth and bites me, I cry out. The sensation shoots through my body and I feel a tingle between my legs.

As he continues to lavish my breasts with kisses and grope at me with one hand, the other slides down my body and finds the small patch of curls at my sex. Parting my lips, he sucks in another sharp breath when he slides his fingers into me.

“So ready for me,” he growls around my breast filling his mouth.

I wrap my legs around his waist and rub myself on him through his jeans, his hand still pinned between us. “Sir,” I gasp out the word. His mouth and hands on me make me come undone, and I need him to take me now.

“Oh, kitten. Don’t rush me. I have wanted you from the moment I saw you, and it took everything I had not to toss you over my shoulder and carry your naked body out of that auction house. I will take my time with you now.” His face still hovers over my breasts and as he murmurs the words to me, his lips tease my nipple, softly brushing against my skin.

I whine but let him unwrap my legs from around his waist and watch as he kneels at the end of the bed. Sliding his pants down over his hips, he frees himself from them and it is my turn to suck in a sharp breath at the sight of him. The glorious image of the man in front of me is massive. His hard erection is flat against his abs. I’m unsure if my small hand will even wrap around his girth. He is shaved, completely smooth, and I lick my lips at the thought of running my tongue down over his abs, down the V between his hips and taking him into my mouth.

“Alec,” I breathe out his name as I watch his manhood bob up and down with the motion of him taking off his pants. “Sir! Please!” I can’t help myself. I shift up onto my knees and take his face in my hands. One of his feet is still in his pants and I knock him over. Catching us, he turns his body and laughs as he falls backward onto the bed, with me on top of him.

I continue to kiss him feverishly, so ready for him. So ready to have this man make me his and dominate me. But first I need to taste him, doing exactly what I was imagining moments before I kiss down his chest, run my tongue over his abs, and into the dip where his groin meets his hip.

The salty taste of his skin on my tongue is delicious and I want to taste more of him, all of him. I slide my hand up over his thigh, the soft hair tickling my fingers as I do, I’m greeted with the smooth sensation of his balls as I grip them in my hand. He tries to sit up, but I push my hand down on his chest, holding him down.

“Kitten,” he warns me, “who is supposed to be in charge here?”

“You are, sir.” I look up at him with hooded eyes as I move my hand up his shaft and lift the tip of his dick to my lips. “But I just want one little taste,” I tell him as I close my lips around him and slide him all the way into my mouth. His full length buried in my throat, the velvet like skin is soft and warm and I chuckle around him.

Alec tosses his head back on the pillows and moans loudly. I know the sound of my laughter is reverberating through my throat around him. His hand finds my short hair, and he takes a handful of it, holding me down on him. Then slowly, he tugs, and I’m lifted off of him. His dick pops out of my mouth with an audible pop, and I lick my lips as I look him straight in the eye. Daring him to come for me.

In one quick motion he does, flipping me onto my back with his hands around my waist. I’m tossed back on the bed. On his knees, his legs between mine, he uses his to push my thighs open, spreading me wide to him. “Turnabout is fair play, kitten.”

I hear his words and don’t fully process what he means before he drops his head and his mouth is on me. Teeth brush against my clit, and his tongue flicks over it. I raise up on the bed, looking down at the head of hair between my legs. I grab a handful and push him down onto me. He laughs into me and then drives his tongue into my pussy. Swirling it around inside me, I nearly scream at the sensation. He is bringing me so close to the edge, I need to come already.

“Please, sir,” I pant at him.

“No,” he says, his mouth still on me. Sucking me and nipping me. He lifts his head for a moment and looks me in the eyes. “You wanted to pretend you were in charge for a minute. You had your turn, now it’s mine.” The pure dominance in his voice knots my stomach and butterflies twist and turn inside me.

“Yes, sir,” I answer him, still panting as he slides two fingers inside me, spreads them and spins his hand rubbing my inner walls.

“Hands above your head, kitten, and keep them there.”

I do as I’m told and raise my arms above my head, crossing my hand over my wrist and gripping it tightly as my reminder to remain still.

He teases me for what seems like hours with his mouth on me. My body is covered in sweat and I’m shaking by the time he finally lifts his mouth. His lips and chin are covered in my slickness and I can taste myself on his tongue when he kisses me then, hard, and commanding.

One hand closes around my wrists and the other creeps slowly between us as he stares directly into my eyes. I feel him rubbing the head of his cock on me then slowly up and down my soaking slit. I don’t dare move a muscle. So close to having what I want, I don’t tempt him by trying to take something he did not yet offer to me.

“Mmm, good girl, kitten.” His words ignite me as he thrusts forward into my eager, waiting pussy. He stretches me tight around him and stills when he is buried to the hilt, with me wrapped around him.

Not breaking eye contact, he bends and kisses me softly, gently but still doesn’t move inside me. I whine at him, my whimpers coming out as I shake around him.

“Please, sir,” I say so softly I’m not sure if he will hear. But I see him nod and then slowly, torturously, he slides out of me, then back in. Each time he does, he picks up his pace an infinitesimal amount.

“I’m going to make you come all over my dick, then I’m going to show you who you belong to, kitten.” I clench down around him and wrap my legs tighter around his waist, his hand still around my wrists, pinning me to the bed as he fucks me then, hard, fast and deep.

I can hear the sounds of our bodies smacking together fill the room and I toss my head back and laugh. So happy to be here with Alec, to be fucked properly, the way I need.

The growing feeling inside me tells me I’m close to orgasm, but again I wait and squeeze my eyes closed. Holding it back. When Alec bends forward and whispers in my ear I get goosebumps from the feeling of his breath over my skin, “You want to come for me, kitten?”

“Yes, sir.” I’m gasping for breath now, so close to the edge that a feather could knock me over.

“Come,” the one-word command in my ear undoes me, and I explode around him, my cum coating him and me both. The sheets, already wet with our sweat, are sopping between my legs where I squirted onto him.

“There’s my good girl,” he tells me as he raises himself up on both of his hands now, looking down at me. “I know what you need, Sam. I read the file at the auction. Do you want me to give you what you’re craving?”

My eyes fill with unshed tears, and I nod. Thinking briefly back to my time with Sara last year. Needing her to dominate me, needing the release so I could feel free.

I watch Alec stand from the bed and walk to the closet, his words drifting to me, “Stand up, Sam.”

I do as I’m told and stand by the bed, waiting for my next instruction. I watch as he shifts through things on the shelf in the closet. When he turns around with a riding crop in his hands, my stomach does a flip and I hold back my smile.

“On your hands and knees, slave. Come here,” the loud command shatters my hold on reality and I let go, letting myself slip into subspace.

Dropping to my hands and knees, I crawl across the floor to Alec standing by the closet. It is a small room, and it doesn’t take me long to reach him. When I do, he steps around me and I can hear the crop flying through the air before it meets my ass. I don’t cry out, I don’t flinch. I take the strikes he is gifting me with over and over. He punishes my bare ass with the crop, giving me exactly what I need. Then I hear the crop hit the floor. Looking back over my shoulder, I see him kneeling behind me.

“My turn, kitten,” he says as he slides into me from behind. I toss my head back and he grabs ahold of my hair, pulling me back onto him. Fast and hard this time. Relentlessly, he fucks my pussy. Smacking my still stinging ass as he does.

“You want my cum in your tight pussy? Making you mine, kitten?” His question fills my ears, but doesn’t frighten me. I do. I want to belong to this man. I want him to own my body.

“Yes, sir. Please,” I answer him clearly, making sure there is not a shaky word in my voice as I speak.

“Say it,” Alec leans forward and whispers in my ear.

“I want your cum in my pussy, sir,” I say the words just as he smacks my ass and I cry out from the pain and being surprised by the assault.

“I want you to come with me.”

Reaching around my body with his free hand, he squeezes my hip and then slides his fingers down to my clit. He rubs small circles around it as he fucks me and the tingling starts in my toes, moving up my legs and through my body.

“Sir, I’m going to come.”

“Good,” he grunts as he continues to pound into me. “So am I.”

I reach my climax at the same time he does and I feel him still inside me, my body twitching around him, sucking him into me deeper, and filling me with his cum. When he moves back from me, I collapse forward onto the floor, exhausted.

“Don’t move,” he commands me as he walks to the other side of the bed and grabs his phone off of the nightstand. I stay where I am, ass still in the air, leaning forward onto my elbows, my cheek resting on the floor of the bedroom.

I can feel our mixed cum dripping from me when I hear the camera's shutter sound on his phone.

“Look,” he holds the phone, so I can see the screen. My ass is bright red, my pussy is stretched open from his massive cock, and white cum is seeping out of me in the image. “You’re mine now, kitten, and this is just a reminder.” Smacking me on the ass again, he helps me up and I wobble to the bed.

The days spent sleeping while I healed and now the strain on my body has me exhausted. “Here,” Alec says, gently now as he helps lower me onto the bed. “I’ll light you a fire and get you something to eat.”

I nod and watch as he snaps his fingers and the now dying fire in the fireplace is reignited and brought back to life.

I laugh. “So it really stung having to a light fire the old-fashioned way in front of me, didn’t it?” I tease him.

“A little, but for you, kitten, I would give it all up, just to keep you.” He kisses me on the cheek and I collapse back onto the pillows, letting the exhaustion take me over as he leaves the room and heads to the kitchen.

I feel like I have been sleeping for hours when I feel a soft nudging on my shoulder. “Sam, wake up. You need to eat.”