The knot expands to its full size at the same moment. I feel both — the hot flood of his release and the swelling that locks him in, and the bite, all three happening together, and my wolfexults. She sings. She howls inside me with a joy so ferocious it swallows my horror whole.
“God. Oh, God,” I whimper, and I barely recognize my voice.
A flood of images hit my brain just as I’m overwhelmed by a wave of sensation so intense I feel dizzy. I’m seeing myself from above, feeling soft skin against my body. Warm, clasping flesh enveloping me. And I feel myself coming. So detailed, so intimate, but not in any way I’m familiar with.
It’s him.His thoughts. His feelings. His orgasm pumping out in hot bursts. Entering me in a way that makes the physical joining seem like nothing.
And most terrifying of all is the drive to claim. Enormous. All-consuming. A need that takes up every corner of his mind —this female… mine— and the sheer force of it steals my breath.
“Fuck,” I choke out. His teeth are still in my flesh, gnashing in a way that’s tearing at my skin. But all I feel is the sweet pleasure of it, my body responding with a flood of endorphins that leaves me high.
And him. I feelhim. His shock. Raw. Feeling his control slip away, feeling it shatter. He didn’t choose this. His wolf overrode him the way mine overrode me. He’s as wrecked by what’s happening as I am.
He holds me there.
His full weight on my back. His teeth locked in my neck. The knot sealing us together, his cock still twitching with the tail end of his release. My face is in the grass. I smell dirt, blood, the sharp scent of sex. My wolf is blissful. My human mind is hammering at the walls of the animal’s contentment, and the walls don’t give. They don’t even flex.
Minutes. I don’t know how many. His breathing against my neck, gradually slowing. My wolf, purring.Purring.Like a cat in the sun. Like everything is exactly as it should be.
Nothing is as it should be. Nothing will ever be as it should be again.
Get off. Get off. Get off!
I want to scream, but I know it would be pointless. He’s as powerless to pull out of me as I am to pull free. For the first time ever, I hate my animal nature. The cosmic joke that just tethered me to the one man I despise more than anything else in the world.
His breath begins to slow, no longer panting. His jaw loosens. The fangs withdraw, and the blood runs fresh and warm down my shoulder. His weight shifts. The knot softens, the swelling reversing by slow degrees. I wait. My muscles are coiled. The second I can move, I’m out of here.
The lock releases.
I surge away from him. The separation is violent — I feel it like a wrench that makes us both flinch, and I don’t care. I’m on my feet, shaking from head to toe, blood running from the bite and from my knees and from my palms where my own claws drew blood.
Behind me, he doesn’t stay down. He’s on his feet in one motion — fast, balanced — and when I spin to face him, what I see stops me cold.
His eyes are glowing. Golden, bright, wolf eyes in a man’s face. His canines haven’t retracted. They extend past his lower lip, still wet with my blood. His hands are half-clawed, his chest heaving, and every line of his body is radiating a dominance so dense I can feel it pressing against my skin from ten feet away.
But more terrifying is the fact that I can still sense what’s in his mind. His wolf saying one thing. Over and over.Mine. Mine. Mine.
I clamp a hand to my neck, directing every scrap of hate within me at him. “What did you do?” I yell. “What the fuck did you just do?”
My voice is rough. Shredded. All the control that’s defined me gone.
He stares at me. The wolf eyes. My blood on his mouth.
“I didn’t—” he starts. Then stops. Because he did. He absolutelydidjust claim me.
“I— I came here toendyou, you fucking bastard!” The words come in pieces. My body won’t stop shaking. “I had a knife in your skin an hour ago, and now there’s a… a…” I shake my head, hand tightening over the bite as if I can tear it out of my flesh. “I canfeelyou inside my head, and I want youout! Rightnow, goddamn you! I… I…. I need…” I can’t finish.
His emotions are flooding through me. The shock. The claiming drive still pounding through him. He wants me again, wants to mark every inch of me with his scent. He’s fighting it. I can feel the fight, the effort it takes to stand still when everything in him is howling to close the gap. His body sways toward me — one involuntary lean — and he catches himself, and the effort locks every muscle in his body rigid.
I back up. He doesn’t follow. But his hands are fisted at his sides. The tendons in his neck are standing out, and the wolf behind his eyes is burning.
“I should have fucking killed you!” I scream.
His eyes narrow. “Wait,” he says, taking a step forward.
Wait for what? Does he think we can talk this through? Or is he planning to take me again?
My wolf fucking loves that idea. I don’t. I’m getting out of here. Now.