The Lycan King's Defiant Surrogate
Defiant Surrogate 82

Chapter 82

The next morning. I'm sluggish and satisfied, naked in the bed. The covers are over me, but only from the waist down, leaving my breasts exposed while I stretch my arms over my head. Maybe I'm just more comfortable like this.

Or maybe I'm putting on a bit of a show because Caleb is still here and he keeps glancing back at me, through the body length mirror he's standing in front of. He's naked too, so I can easily spot his twitch of interest every time he glances back.

When he does look back at his own reflection, he examines the clear love bite I sucked into his neck last night. It's just under the jut of his jawline. If he wasn't clean shaven, he might have been able to hide it with a beard. It's too high for even his highest collar to fully cover it. I'm satisfied with it, especially after he visited a different consort last night. It pleases me immensely to see my mark on his

skin

His feelings on it elude me, however. One minute he seems amused by the mark. In the next, he's annoyed.

During an irritated moment, he grunts, "I've killed consorts for less than this. No one has the right to mark me. You belong to me, not the other way around."

There's always danger, being in the room with Caleb. He's unpredictable and paranoid, especially when he's raging. After his rage the other night, and Bethany's certainties that Caleb means to harm me, it's difficult to be fully comfortable while in the same room as him. Even as blissed out as I am, I recognize the danger.

Even after everything we shared last night, I'm not sure if he still means to kill me.

Maybe I should cower away from the idea. If I'm careful and submissive, he might decide to let me live, even with all his reasons to kill me.

But I'm not careful or submissive. After all the hardships I've faced, I'd prefer to just know upfront what I'm facing

So I ask, "Are you going to kill me?"

"Maybe," he says, without even needing to think about it. Stepping away from the mirror, he makes his way back to me. His eyes immediately fall onto my bare breasts. "Probably not today

Crawling onto the bed, he moves over top of me, then lowers himself down, face first. His mouth closes over one of my nipples, which immediately perk from the attention.

I comb my fingers through Caleb's hair.

Then, he shifts his mouth away from my nipple and onto the meat of my breast, where he sucks mark after mark after mark onto my breasts and collarbone. The mark I made, he returns tenfold onto my body,

I hold onto him as he does so, entirely at the mercy of his mouth and his touch.

It doesn't take long until he has me panting and moaning and screaming his name.

Later, after Caleb has left and Bethany has returned with the new dress, I stand in the mirror, looking at the love bites Caleb put on me, just as he inspected the one I put on him.

Bethany holds up the dress she's worked on all night, and while it's beautiful and basically perfect, it has a low, scooping neckline, revealing many of the offending bites and marks. "Perhaps we could cover them with makeup?" I suggest.

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Chapter 82

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"Impossible. Bethany crys-King Caleb forbids covering any of his marks. It's in the core rules of this place."

Great. And it's too late to make alterations to the dress. I would even want to ask after how quickly and dutifully Bethany has worked on this. It's clear she didn't sleep much last night, with those dark bags hanging heavy under her eyes.

"People are going to have questions," I say. I know I would, if I saw someone as marked up as me. I look like I got into a fight with an octopus, with suction marks all over me.

"You are in the King's harem," Bethany replies. "Trust me, they won't have any questions."

My face heats up in slight embarrassment. Even as a member of the King's harem, I don't want people to know that much about our sex life. Yet a great amount of detail is right here. Clearly we are passionate with each other. If they see the mark on Caleb, then they will know it isn't one-sided.

How humiliating.

My stomach drops. What is Samuel going to think?

I want to ask Bethany her opinion, but there's a chasm between us that spread apart yesterday and seems insurmountable now. I hate it. Bethany is my best my only friend here, and if things are going to go south tonight, I don't want things to end as they are, this distant. After last night and this morning. I'm not so sure that Caleb wants to humiliate and torture me. He's promised that he won't kill me today. But with his temper and paranoia, it's difficult to say what could happen. I need to be ready for anything, even the bad things- Bethany walks around me, taking in the dress where it needs. She doesn't have much work left. It fits like a glove.

"Bethany," I say. "We should talk..."

"About what?" she asks dully. She definitely knows about what.

But I don't snap at her. Instead, I force myself to keep my calm. Bethany is my best friend and I want her back. I won't let my own frustration carve an even bigger canyon between us.

"I know you were trying to protect me," I say. "It's clear how possessive Caleb is..." I gesture to my chest. "If he had come last night, and I was out meeting Samuel, he likely would have killed me for real"

Bethany sighs and some of the tension eases from her shoulders. I hadn't realized how tightly she'd been carrying herself until she let all that tightness go.

"I'm sorry," she says. "You are newer here than me. You don't know the rules... or how things work. If you met Samuel, the King would have found out about it. Then whatever mercy he's been gifting you by continuing to keep you alive would surely be spent." She shakes her head lightly. "You need to put any sort of escape out of your mind. There is no escape from the capital. Any that have tried have died."

I know about that. My escape attempt landed me in the coliseum, I'm not eager to repeat that misadventure. In fact, I still have nightmares of that place.

"I'm sorry too," I tell her. "I should have listened to your concerns instead of thinking you didn't care..."

"I do care," she says.

"I know. Me too."

We look at each other. I can see my own pain reflected back at me in her eyes.

"I don't know what's going to happen tonight," I tell her. "But I do know that I have a friend here. No matter what happens, you will always be my friend."

I just hope I survi

1. it.

Chapter 82

She smiles as she comes in for a hug, which I eagerly return.

After, when I look at the mirror at myself in my beautiful silver dress, I try to brace myself for whatever could await me tonight.

Something dangerous is in the air. I can f