Chapter 13

The days following Karl's overt seductive taunts in the wake of the invasion were a simmering descent into madness. No matter where I turned in the stifling confines of the subterranean compound, it seemed his domineering presence lurked around every corner like a malevolent specter.

In the dimly lit corridors, his musky, masculine scent appeared to linger, filling my senses with intoxicating whispers of primal potency. In the shadows of the training chambers where I took my daily frustrations out through grueling combat exercises, his pale, penetrating stare burned imaginary furrows along the curves of my glistening, exerted body.

At night when I finally collapsed onto my thin pallet in solitary respite, carnal dreams would descend with disturbing vividness. My subconscious conjuring wickedly elaborate fantasies of being pinned helpless beneath his powerful, sweat-slicked form as those chiseled alpha features contorted in rapturous release. I'd awaken panting and slick with traitorous need, forced to bury my mortified whimpers in my stale bedding.

Every waking moment was an agonizing tightrope walk between despising Karl for the manipulative torment he persisted in subjecting me to, and a burgeoning obsession with surrendering to the undeniable, primal allure I found myself succumbing to more and more. It was psychological warfare on a devastatingly intimate level, and the worst part was knowing deep down, this sadistic brute harbored the sole power to grant reprieve if he so chose.

The omnipresent tension finally reached its inevitable flashpoint one sweltering afternoon in the cavernous training arena. I had been honing my combat drills to a fever pitch under the watchful tutelage of Karl's most seasoned trainers, working every ounce of my coiled aggression out through flurries of strikes and punishing defensive forms.

My skintight tank clung to my skin in damp patches of glistening exertion, leaving little to the imagination of my lithe, feminine curves beneath. As I transitioned from one rapid-fire series of blows to a lightning-quick evasion tactic, I nearly lost my footing mid-pivot. Perhaps distracted by the suddenly thickened, maddening musk saturating the air around me like an airborne aphrodisiac. One I knew all too well the source of, given that horribly familiar presence now radiating across the mat behind me.

"Enough of these paltry amusements, little Lexi," Karl's deep rumble rolled over me in smoky tendrils of audible sin. "You've apparently mastered all my soldiers can teach you of battle tactics and swordplay. Perhaps it's time I took over your..more intimate training regimens?"

My lungs burned with my efforts to remain outwardly composed, heedless of how my nipples pebbled and moisture dampened my core with each gravelly syllable from his lips. Firing up every channel of stubborn defiance ingrained in my alpha nature, I rounded on him with an imperious sneer twisting my flushed features.

"And subject myself to whatever degrading depravities you deem worthy of an 'elevated education'?" I scoffed, somehow managing to inject a sufficient degree of disdain into my tone to conceal the fluttering unrest storming beneath. "I'm not so desperate for any male's approval that I'd breach that kamikaze level of stupidity, thanks."

A wicked smirk carved itself across Karl's chiseled lips, somehow amplifying his rugged masculinity another blistering degree. Slowly, he began circling me with that cocksure, predatory gait that never failed to elicit a visceral response from my compulsively attracted hindbrain no matter how vehemently I willed against it.

"Such scathing words from my would-be luna," he murmured in a nonchalant aside, his pale gaze shamelessly roving the contours of my athletic physique with ravenous appreciation. "Tell me - what precisely do you fear more, precious? My lessons in submission training living up to your most depraved expectations...or shattering them entirely with tame, insipid instruction that leaves you unfulfilled and dissatisfied?"

That smirk became a condescending sneer as I bristled in outraged silence, utterly bereft of a retort sharp enough to deflect his verbal barbs. Karl could clearly sense my rising agitation, his pale eyes glittering with unholy mirth as he stoked the fires of my indignation ever higher.

"How delicious that you refuse to admit it out loud," he crowed softly, resuming his indolent circling while trailing one hand over the front of his snug workout pants in a casually brazen gesture. "That your clever little mind wars endlessly with wanting to revel in the debauched hungers you fear I might stoke to feverish life in that delightfully untamed little body of yours."

Heat exploded across my cheeks as my eyes instinctively followed the lewd display he made of cupping his rapidly swelling arousal. My tongue felt leaden in my suddenly dry mouth, paralyzed by the charged invitation radiating from his every move, every word dripping from that sinful mouth. It took every ounce of willpower not to openly track the sensual trail of the solitary bead of perspiration tracing between the etched sinews of his sculpted abdomen, disappearing beneath the elastic waistband in a mesmerizing display of male virility.

"I know you felt it from the very first moment our eyes met," Karl crooned in a smoke-rough timbre that bordered on gravelly outright menace. "That electric frisson that jolts straight through your womb and detonates every cell into frenzied desperation for total ravaging by my thick, engorged seed...?"

The final taunt left his lush mouth in a sinuous hiss of pure seductive venom. My entire body thrummed with an infuriating betraying mixture of molten arousal and enraged umbrage, the dual urges clashing so violently that I nearly vibrated apart from the strain. One final sharp volley from that pointed tongue would surely shatter the last vestiges of my resistance.

Stealing myself for the imminent, I dug deep and steeled my own glare to match Karl's with every ounce of imperious, alpha arrogance coursing through my resolve. When next his lips curled around a silken threat, I was ready and waiting to cut him off.

"I wonder what..." was all he managed before I abruptly seized the initiative with a savage outpouring of unleashed savagery.

"ENOUGH!" I roared in a voice that reverberated off the practice room walls. Then, moving with the blinding speed and dexterity of my years of intensive combat training, I erupted across the space separating us.

My fists lashed out with punishing force, only to be expertly deflected by those impossibly quick reflexes of Karl's. Within a heartbeat I felt his hulking frame engulfing mine in a crushing vise, his powerful arms entangling and immobilizing my own as his caged weight propelled both our tumbling forms to the mat with a jarring thud. We impacted in an ungainly sprawl, all tangled limbs and feral growls.

Yet still, I raged on with unchecked fury until those blood-stoked alpha instincts imploded in a searing nova of primal, animalistic lust. My mouth found purchase along the chiseled column of Karl's throat, bestial snarls bleeding into the wanton press of lips and questing tongue against the fevered tang of his flesh. Moments later, our roles abruptly reversed as he ruthlessly bucked and rolled atop me, caging my wildly thrashing body in the vise his powerful, sweat-slicked form.

I clawed and writhed like a hellcat beneath him, spiraling further into the seething delirium of our cataclysmic coupling. In one savage motion, Karl seized both my wrists in one meaty paw and slammed them over my head, spreading me obscenely vulnerable beneath his hovering, scorching stare. Leaving me just enough leeway to keep our bestial frenzies clashing in electrifying counterpoint, even as his other hand raked down my torso towards the juncture of my thighs...

The harsh grind of my leggings tearing like tissue paper beneath his brutal questing shredded what little reason remained intact in my psyche. In that explosive instant of mating frenzy and pure debasement shattering any last pretenses of propriety, his swollen member sprang free in a blaze of blunt masculine glory aimed with unerring accuracy at my exposed, throbbing sheath.

Our eyes met and held in a soul-searing clash of wills, the air itself crackling with the sheer weight of our combined savagery and burgeoning mate frenzy. Just as I sensed the merciless thrust of his invasion being unleashed, a deafening metallic screech cut through the madness - signaling an intrusion no longer relegated to just our mating haze.

The compound was under attack once more, this time from an unknown force hellbent on interrupting our explosive collision. Both our bestial impulses would have to be reined in...or embraced to survive the coming onslaught of primal warfare barreling our way.