Virgin Prisoner: Bred to the Beast (Werewolf Breeding Erotica) (Bred to the Beast: The Virgin Trilogy) (6 page)

"As I told your father when he came to me, I will wed you
," she lied, her voice carefully neutral.

Malgar frowned.  "My father?  He visited you?"

Rela kept her face guileless.  "He said that he was to take me first," she said.  "That you would understand it as the price for your disrespect."  She stifled a laugh.  "Did you not know?"

Malgar growled and rose to his feet.  His chest rose and fell in deep breaths, and he clenched his fists.  When Rela looked up, his eyes weren't blue anymore.  They had turned yellow again.  With a snarl, he
strode past her and out of the cell, not bothering to shut the door behind him.  His clothing still lay on the floor of the cell.

Dunner picked exactly the wrong moment to investigate, and he opened the door just as Malgar stormed through.  The burly prince shoved him aside with one arm, and he crashed into the stone wall with a grunt.

Rela rose and gathered her ruined clothing as she hurried out of the cell.  Dunner looked at her in confusion.  "He's gone to kill the king!" she cried.  "Find the Royal Guard!  Bring them to the throne room!"

Dunner's eyes widened in horror, and he bolted out the door.  Rela followed on wobbly legs, stopping to grab the tin cup that Dunner had brought for Magdha.

The throne room was a mass of confusion and chaos by the time she arrived.  On the far end of the room, the huge stained glass window had been shattered.  Gray clouds floated past, and a cold wind blew into the throne room.  Guardsmen ran around shouting, and some lay wounded on the floor.

"What happened here?" she called to one man as he staggered past with a wounded soldier limping beside him, arm slung around his neck.

The soldier's face was pale, and he spoke in nervous, gibbering fragments.  "The king... and Prince Malgar...  they changed into... unspeakable beasts.  Malgar slew his father on the dais, then turned on us as we entered
.  That damn mute from the dungeons brought us here."

"And Malgar?" she urged.

The man glanced up at the ruined window, and the normalcy of the gray sky outside seemed to calm him.  "He... he escaped.  But everyone knows what he is.  If he shows his face in the city again, he'll be killed.  Another House will take the throne, now.  Volgar's line is at an end."

Rela grimaced at the thought of Malgar out there somewhere, but she pressed her hand to her stomach and imagined she could feel the quickening in her womb.  "Not yet," she said.

No one paid her any mind as she strode toward the dais.  Volgar's ruined body lay beneath the throne, twisted into a beastly shape not unlike Malgar's.  His blood darkened the carpet, and she scraped the tin cup through it, gathering what she could.  His muzzle hung open, the tongue limp and still, fangs gleaming white.  One fang hung loose, and she tore it out and dropped it into the cup as well.  She walked from the throne room, an island of serenity amid the chaos, the cup in clutched in one hand and, the open front of her shredded dress in the other.

"Where will you go?" Magdha asked.  Rela stood beside a spirited mare she'd paid far too much for from a horse trader who could smell desperation.

"West," Rela said.  "The king stole Collen from me, and I intend to have him back."

Magdha nodded, then glanced at Rela's belly.  "And the... creature you carry?"

Rela looked down at the old woman.  "You told me that the Dark Craft would mean the ruination of Volgar's line.  Malgar is still out there somewhere, but I will find a way to use his son against him."

Magdha sighed, a bone-weary sound of regret.  "It might have been better if you'd accepted your fate," she said.  "Revenge bears no fruit, and I fear that a long and sad tale lies ahead.  Will you not leave off and stay with me?  Or better yet, go home to your father?"

Rela shook her head.  "I thank you for all you've done, Magdha.  I will remember your warnings, but Malgar must pay, be it today or twenty years hence."

Magdha nodded.  "The blood and fangs of his father may protect you, should he seek to bring you harm.  But use the Dark Craft sparingly, child, and beware its sharp edge."

Rela embraced the old woman and mounted her mare, then set off into the flow of traffic moving through the city gate.  Somewhere to the west, Collen awaited her i
n a remote village called Krall.  They would raise a son together, hers but not his, and someday that child would meet his fate.

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