Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir
Chapter Three
Cassandra grew increasingly stir crazy inside of the city, and especially inside of the castle. She tried her best to adhere to her duties, both as Aeron’s shifter mate and pack leader, and also as his Queen in Grenvich. But while Aeron was busy spending his days attending to what seemed like endless tasks of royal duties and matters to handle in the kingdom, and Theo was busy being attended to by scholars and servants, Cassandra longed to return to the wild so badly that she ached inside. It wasn’t long before her ache wasn’t just on the inside but became very apparent on the outside as well. In the mirror, her pale face started to look drawn and weary; the sparkle in her eyes t grew dull and faint. In the end, Aeron took a day of absence from his royal duties to attend to his wife and mate.
Cassandra had just finished dressing for the morning and was wrestling with the strings on her corset. She hated wearing corsets and found them to be some sort of torture device that humans concocted to shape the beauty of women. She missed the feeling of fur instead of flesh. Just as she was about to tear the ties from her bodice in a fit of frustration, Aeron walked into the bedroom and mused at her.
“You know, any number of servants would help you tie that,” he said as he smirked and looked at her.
He didn’t find amusement in her frustration.
“I don’t want a servant to help me clothe my own body. That must be one of the most ridiculous constructs that humans have come up with, although they seem to have plenty,” Cassandra said as she huffed and pulled the strings tighter.
“I have a surprise for you,” Aeron said. He walked closer to Cassandra and took the ties from her hands. Then, he pulled them loose instead of tightening them, and the whole bodice of her corset fell open.
“Aeron!” she scolded. “Now I have to start the lacing all over again. Do you have any idea how long this stupid thing has already taken me?”
Cassandra had an actual pout on her face. She was near the end of her patience and wanted to run straight out of the castle and into the forest.
“You don’t need to wear this today,” he said with a wide grin. “Not where we’re going.”
“Where are we going?” she asked curiously.
“Home.”
Cassandra’s felt like she lit up inside. “We’re going to the woods?”
Aeron nodded. He reached for her hand, and they both walked quickly out of the bedroom and toward the hidden castle exit. It was for the royal family in case of an attack. As Aeron figured now, the emotional state of his wife was at least as equal an emergency as a civil uprising.
As they walked, Cassandra’s dress started to fall off one layer at a time, and she stepped over the pieces that fell beneath her footsteps. She thought that it was ridiculous to wear so many layers of clothing and figured that it must have something to do with the humans’ inferiority complex about not having fur. Aeron was also quickly tossing his robe to the side of the corridor and undoing the collar of his shirt as he went.
When they shifted, their clothes would tear, but that was not what had prompted them to start peeling off clothing before they had even reached the outdoors. They both just wanted to feel free. He might not have needed this little reprieve as much as his wife did, but he did still want to take a day to get away with Cassandra in the wild. The corridor led them right up to the edge of the forest, and as soon as it opened into the woods, Aeron and Cassandra took an leap into the air and shifted before their paws touched back to the ground.
The two of them ran through the woods together at a feverish pace, running free across the mossy ground and leaping over small streams and the tangled mazes of thick tree roots. They ran and howled and felt the cool breeze sift quickly through their fur that rippled against the air like waves in the ocean. When they ran enough to pant heavily and their haunches ached from exertion, they stopped alongside a small brook that ran through the far side of the forest and shifted back. This part of the forest was beautiful and enjoyed by many of the wolf packs, but at the moment, it was only filled with the vast and quiet beauty of a reclusive sanctuary.
Aeron stared at Cassandra with a fierce longing in his eyes as she stood before him completely naked, only her long black hair falling over her body. The tips of her breasts protruded between her silky strands of hair, and her strong and curvaceous physique reminded him of how perfectly their bodies fit together when they made love. Her eyes sparkled. His jaw still hung open as he panted from the furious run and sucked in giant mouthfuls of the crisp air.
Cassandra’s heartrate slowed as she eyed Aeron’s muscular body. He was powerful and chiseled as both man and wolf. She walked toward him with lips slightly parted and reached her hand up against his chest so that her flattened palm could feel the pounding of his heartbeat beneath his warm flesh. It had been too long since they had indulged in each other. Lovemaking for shifters was a primal and wild thing, and the castle wasn’t as conducive a setting as the damp, earthy ground beneath the blowing canopy of trees.
As soon as she touched him, Aeron pulled his wife into his chest and laid her down onto the forest floor. He climbed over her and pushed his massively swollen cock inside of her until she howled with a delight that echoed throughout the woods.
The sound of pleasure was not an unfamiliar one in the forest. Humans had a restrained modesty, hiding the act as if it were some sort of sin instead of the fruition of love and nature. In the forest, sexual delights were enjoyed with reckless abandon.
But Cassandra’s sounds of pleasure were different in one way from the others. Hers drew the attention of Rubius, who happened to be not far from where Aeron and Cassandra were appeasing their physical desires, and who recognized the sound of her voice in any setting. He crept closer to the edge of the small clearing and peered out from behind the trees with his dark eyes as he watched the two undulating bodies moving in a synchronous dance against the earthy ground.
Rubius shifted into human form so that he could try to calm his engorged cock, throbbing at the sight of Cassandra’s nude body. When the act was done between Aeron and his wife, Cassandra got up to bathe in the refreshing water that ran alongside the soft patch of grass that they had been lying on. Aeron stayed on his back and stared up at the sky in contentment as the daylight began to turn to dusk. Rubius watched Cassandra as she walked and followed her silently from behind the trees until he had put some space between them and where Aeron was lying. He stared, transfixed, while she lifted her long mane of hair above her shoulders and stepped into the water, which seemed to kiss her soft skin as she submerged herself. Rubius wanted to be the droplets of water that stuck to her rounded breasts, or the swirling tendrils that wrapped inside the creases between her thighs. His breath became labored as he watched her and thought about how much he wanted to move inside of her.
But even his silent prowling couldn’t hide his scent and the sound of his breathing from Cassandra’s keen shifter senses. When she stepped out of the water, she turned her head to stare between the trees and right into Rubius’ ebony eyes. He stepped out from behind the trees just enough so that she could see him. He had no reason to hide. He looked at the water sliding down her soft skin, and the more he kept his eyes on her, the more hardened and pronounced the desire between his legs became. Cassandra looked at him, all of him, and she couldn’t help but feel the same sense of longing that had been there between them in the city. She felt a heat grow between her thighs as her breath caught in her throat and her fingers lifted to touch gently to her breastbone. For a single, elongated moment, they both knew how much they wanted each other. And for that frozen piece of time, the need to be with each other felt more powerful than packs or kingdoms, or any thread of self-restraint that they were trying to hold onto.
“Cassandra,” Aeron’s voice called as he came into view just seconds after Rubius had slipped back behind the trees. “I think it is time for us to head back to the city now.”
The look on her face changed from one of passion to one of imprisonment.
Rubius waited tensely for Cassandra to tell her husband that he was there behind the trees, watching her and becoming even more aroused at the temptation of having her for himself. He knew that Aeron was an honorable alpha and king, but he was also a devoted husband that would protect his mate against the threat of a rival pack leader’s desires. He waited and got ready to either shift and run or shift and fight – he didn’t know which he would choose yet. But instead, Cassandra didn’t tell Aeron about the presence of Rubius there at all. Rubius was surprised as he watched the two of them shift back into wolves and leave the forest to head reluctantly back to the castle.
But he wasn’t nearly as surprised as Cassandra was herself. She could neither explain nor understand why she didn’t tell Aeron about Rubius watching her, and perhaps that was why she ran much slower as she left the forest.