Five breaths.Six.The forest swallowing the sound of her retreat.
Then I hunted.
The shift didn’t come, not fully, but I let the wolf rise enough to feel the change in my senses.Sight sharpening until the darkness became shades of gray.Hearing amplifying until I could track her heartbeat through the trees.Scent becoming a roadmap that led directly to my prey.
She was fast.Clever too.Doubled back once, tried to mask her trail by wading through a shallow stream.Amateur tricks against a predator who had been tracking prey since before she was born, but I appreciated the effort.
I let her think she was getting away.Her heart rate spiked with the thrill of escape.The fear and excitement blended together until her scent was intoxicating.
Then I closed the distance in three silent strides and caught her against a massive tree.
She gasped as my body pinned hers to the rough bark.Her chest heaved against mine, her pulse hammering so hard I could see it jumping in her throat.
“Caught you.”
“You cheated.”Breathless.Not afraid.“No one moves that fast.”
“I never said I would play fair.”
Her laugh was shaky, bright with adrenaline.“What now?”
I unbuckled my belt and pulled it free in one smooth motion.The leather hissed through the loops.Her eyes widened when she saw it, but she didn’t pull away.Didn’t tell me to stop.
I turned her to face the tree and gathered her wrists behind her back.Wrapped the belt around them, looping it tight, the leather warm from my body.She tested the bonds, found them secure, and made a sound that went straight to my cock.
“Is this what you wanted?”My mouth found her ear, my body pressing her into the bark.“To be caught?To be helpless?”
“Yes.”The word escaped on a moan as I ground against her from behind.“I wanted to know what it felt like.Being hunted by you.”
“This is what happens to prey that runs from me.”I sank my teeth into the curve of her shoulder, not hard enough to break skin, just hard enough to make her gasp.“Caught.Claimed.Fucked against this tree until you understand who you belong to.”
I had fantasized about this.Her, bound and willing.Mine to take however I wanted.The reality was better than any fantasy because she was real, warm, trembling with want instead of fear.
My hands found the hem of her sweater.Pushed it up to expose the smooth skin of her back.She arched into my touch, seeking more, and a low growl of satisfaction escaped me.
I took my time.Tasted the salt of her skin, the rapid flutter of her pulse.Found the places that made her gasp and exploited them without mercy.My pants were painfully tight, but I ignored my own need in favor of building hers until she was begging.
“Please.Raphael.Please.”
I freed my cock and took her against that tree.
“You ran.”The words came out guttural, barely human.“I caught you.Now you’re mine.”
The man was receding.My beast was surging forward with every thrust, rough, primal, with her bound wrists pressed between our bodies.She cried out with each thrust, pushing back to meet me, demanding more, harder, deeper.Snarls and growls tore from my throat with every stroke, sounds no human throat should make, but she only moaned louder, arching back into me like she craved the animal as much as the man.
“Take it,” I growled against her ear.“Take all of it.Every inch.You ran, and now you pay.”
I slammed into her, all control abandoned, roaring as the pleasure built to unbearable heights.I gave her everything the wolf demanded.Everything she had asked for when she ran.
The orgasm built at the base of my spine, inevitable.I wrapped a hand around her throat, not squeezing, just holding.Claiming.
That was when it hit.
The shift.
Not the controlled partial transformation I used for hunting.This was different.My control fracturing, giving way, with a force I hadn’t known since I was a teenager learning to manage the beast inside me.
I tore myself away from her so fast I stumbled.Horror flooding my veins like ice water.