The Edge of Denial

POV: Elowen

Pain was the very first thing to greet me. It radiated through my ribs and pulsed deep within the bite marks along my shoulders. I slowly opened my eyes, expecting the familiar, cramped walls of my assigned room. Instead, I found myself lying directly in the center of a massive, luxurious king-size bed. The mattress was incredibly soft, a sharp contrast to my battered, sore body. Crisp, dark sheets tangled around my legs. This definitely wasn’t my room.

I blinked against the dim lighting, forcing my heavy head to turn. Across the vast room, Alpha Killian sat in a high-backed leather chair. He was quiet, still as a statue, with his strong jaw resting lazily on his palm. His dark eyes were fixed on me, intense and piercing, holding a deeply cold and emotionless gaze that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Where am I?" I demanded. My voice came out raspy and hoarse with anger, but I pushed myself up against the headboard, refusing to show weakness.

"You defied me, wolf," Killian retorted sharply. His voice dripped with raw authority, filling the quiet space and pressing down on my chest. "You were to remain indoors, and yet you ran out and tried to get yourself killed."

I scoffed loudly, gripping the sheets. Despite the throbbing ache in my bones from the rogue attack, I refused to cower before him. "I didn't try to kill myself. Don't flatter yourself. I went for a refreshing swim in the lake, decided to take a stroll, and this rabid rogue came at me from nowhere." I glared at him, letting my anger mask the lingering trauma of the fight. "You should have warned me that you had a massive rogue problem on your territory. I am lucky to even be breathing right now."

His expression darkened. The shadows in the room seemed to bend toward him as his jaw clenched tight. "You are badly behaved and uncultured," he stated, his tone laced with heavy insult.

"Well, I didn't ask to be saddled to a meanie like you," I shot back immediately, my voice dripping with venom.

Killian slowly stood from the chair. He stalked toward the bed, his every step deliberate and heavy. His imposing, dominant presence flooded the room, carrying the crushing weight of his Alpha aura. Deep inside my mind, my inner wolf, Lumina, immediately whimpered and cowered in submission, urging me to lower my head. I gritted my teeth and forced myself to hold his gaze.

He stopped right at the edge of the mattress. Without breaking eye contact, he reached out. His large hand hovered over me before he extended a single finger. He deliberately traced that agonizingly slow finger directly down the center of my bare chest. The heat of his skin scorched mine. He dragged his touch past my stomach, sliding all the way down to my navel. A heavy, pooling warmth ignited in my lower belly, fighting against the soreness of my bruised muscles.

"You are too damn stubborn for your own good," he murmured. His voice was a calm, terrifying severity that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "I warned you, and now I have to punish you."

Before I could process his words or formulate a sarcastic reply, his hand shifted lower. He deliberately brushed his large fingers directly against the thin cotton fabric of my panties. He found the slick, damp spot forming there and began lightly rubbing directly over my sensitive clitoris.

My treacherous, touch-starved body instantly betrayed me. It surrendered to the exquisite, burning friction without a second thought. My breath hitched loudly, echoing in the quiet room. Stupid, raging hormones flooded my veins. My hips involuntarily trembled, lifting upward to chase the heat of his hand. The searing, building pressure heavily peaked directly between my legs, pooling thick and fast. My lips parted, and a soft gasp escaped me. I tried to press my thighs together, tried to pull away from his maddening touch, but his gaze remained locked with mine, holding me hostage.

He knew exactly what he was doing. The friction was flawless. Just as I felt the undeniable tightening in my core, just as I was desperately about to shatter into a blinding climax, he abruptly and cruelly withdrew his hand.

He stepped back and calmly sat back down in his chair, leaving me gasping for air.

The severe, agonizing physical ache of absolute denial settled deeply into my core. My body shook with the sheer need for release. I gritted my teeth, digging my fingernails into my palms to hide the heavy panting of my chest. I was in disbelief. As pleasurable as his touch had been, this was psychological warfare. He wanted me desperate. He wanted me begging.

"At the end of the day, you are all the same," he promised darkly, leaning back in his chair. "You will obey me, Elowen Vance. I will break you."

I refused to let him see the sheer extent of my sexual desperation. I forced my racing heart to steady, locking away the throbbing ache between my legs. I tilted my chin up and adopted the most annoying, sarcastic tone I could possibly muster.

"May I return to my room, Alpha?" I asked, flashing him a fake, overly polite smile.

A knowing smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. "I see how quickly you want to ease your need for me alone in that room of yours."

"You wish," I spit back aggressively, dropping the fake smile. I wanted to wound his pride just as much as he was torturing my body. "Firstly, my own fingers would do a far better job than your clumsy fingers. Secondly, I wouldn't cum with your ugly image in my head. You are simply not my type and too damn old."

The smirk vanished. His dark eyes instantly flared with absolute, unbridled rage. The air in the room grew thick and suffocating.

I didn't stop. "Are you going to punish me again or let me leave? Please save me the torture of touching me indiscriminately. I find your touch repulsive."

*You've done it this time, Elo,* Lumina whimpered violently in my mind, pacing in a panicked circle.

Before I could even register his movement, Killian closed the distance between us. Without another word, he reached down and violently hauled me directly over his broad shoulder. The sudden movement jarred my injured ribs, forcing a sharp gasp from my lips, but he didn't care. He effortlessly carried my battered body out of his bedroom and into the wide hallways of the packhouse.

I bounced against his hard shoulder with every long stride he took. Stunned, wide-eyed onlookers stopped in their tracks, staring at their Alpha carrying a bruised and half-naked girl down the corridor. I squirmed and kicked my legs, but his iron grip around my thighs held me firmly in place. He marched straight to my small room, kicked the wooden door open, and stepped inside.

He aggressively tossed me down onto my own bed. I bounced against the mattress, scrambling backward, but he was already climbing over me. His large hands grabbed the collar of the oversized shirt I was wearing—his shirt, I realized—and he violently tore it open. The fabric ripped down the middle, exposing my chest to the cool air.

He didn't give me a chance to cover up. He relentlessly resumed his physical torture. His fingers expertly flicked my exposed nipples, pinching and rolling the sensitive peaks until they became rock hard and aching. A traitorous moan ripped from my throat. I tried to bite down on my lower lip to hold the sound back, tasting copper, but the dam finally broke.

While one hand tormented my breasts, his other hand traveled downward. He intensely rubbed my aching, dripping wet center directly through the soaked fabric of my panties. He moved with maddening, perfect control. The friction was agonizingly precise. I arched my back, my fingers twisting into the cheap bedsheets as pleasure spiked through my nervous system.

"Killian—" I gasped out, unable to form a coherent sentence.

He didn't answer. He deliberately built the intense sexual pressure, pushing my body to dizzying heights. My vision blurred. My toes curled as the crest of an explosive release built in my lower stomach. I chased it, my hips bucking up against his heavy hand, desperate for the climax.

Just as the wave was about to crash, he cruelly stopped. The pressure plummeted. I let out a frustrated, needy whine, my body shaking uncontrollably. But before I could recover, he started again. He viciously teased my clitoris over and over again, bringing me right to the very edge of salvation, only to snatch it away. He firmly and absolutely denied me the explosive release I desperately craved, leaving my core throbbing with a painful, hollow ache.

I was weeping from the sheer frustration of it, my chest heaving, sweat mixing with the lingering blood from my wounds. He watched my face the entire time, his expression hard and unyielding. He was in complete control, and he wanted me to know exactly who held my pleasure in the palm of his hand.

When he was finally done sexually tormenting me, he pulled entirely away. He stood up from the bed, effortlessly adjusting his clothing. He intentionally left me lying there—a heavily panting, trembling, and deeply frustrated mess on the ruined sheets. My legs were spread, my chest rising and falling rapidly as my body begged for an ending that wasn't coming.

He looked down at me, a cruel gleam in his dark eyes. "I believe I have given you something to work with in fantasy land," he maliciously taunted.

He turned his back on me, heading directly for the wooden door.

Every instinct in my body screamed at me. I desperately wanted to lunge forward, grab his broad shoulders, pull him back onto the bed, and forcefully make him finish what he had expertly started. The need was a physical pain, burning through my veins. But I dug my nails into the mattress and tightly controlled myself. I refused to beg. I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me plead for him.

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving me alone in the suffocating silence of my room.

My body still thrummed with a heavy, unfulfilled ache, but as my breathing slowly leveled out, my mind sharpened. Instead of successfully breaking my spirit, Killian had made a massive miscalculation. He had unknowingly given me a brand new reason to defy him even more. If he thought he could control me through sexual dominance and denial, he was dead wrong.

I stared at the closed door, wiping a stray tear of frustration from my cheek. I was going to be an incredibly stubborn and very, very naughty wolf.