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I wanted to deny it, wanted to fight him, to twist out of his grip and prove that he couldn’t control me, that he couldn’t just decide I was his and expect me to accept it. But every time his palm came down—hard, unrelenting—the resistance inside me cracked a little more, crumbling piece by piece. This wasn’t just a punishment. It wasn’t about control for control’s sake. It was something more.

He was staking his claim.

And the worst part?

Somewhere, deep in my chest, in the part of me I didn’t want to acknowledge, something inside me recognized it, and welcomed it.

Another smack echoed through the room, the force making my hips jolt forward, my breath escaping in a ragged, choked gasp. My ass throbbed, the soreness building, every strike layering over the last, my body betraying me by leaning into the heat, the burn, the undeniable reality of what was happening.

My skin remembered his touch from last night, the way he had spanked me then, but this was different. Last night had been about testing me, pushing boundaries, seeing how far he could take me before I shattered.

This was about breaking me.Not in the way the wolves in the city had tried. Not in the way that forced you into submission. No, this was something older. Deeper. Instinctual and primal.

My body knew it, even as my mind rejected it.

“Still think you’re not my mate?” Silas’s voice was dark and knowing, rich with amusement, but underneath it was a dangerously seductive edge. His fingers flexed against my lower back, his grip strong and unyielding, the heat of his palm burning into my skin even when he wasn’t spanking me.

I wanted to snarl at him, to snap that no, I wasn’t, that I never would be.

But I couldn’t force the words out.

Because with every strike of his palm, it became harder to deny what my body already knew.

That he was claiming me as his.

That he already had.

I clenched my teeth, panting, trying to swallow down the noise clawing its way up my throat. My ass burned, every inch of my skin hypersensitive, the heat transforming into something dangerous and shameful.Arousal.

He could smell it. I knew he could.

I could feel the way his body tensed beneath me, the way his breathing shifted, the way his fingers tightened when my thighs clenched in response to another punishing slap.

I hated that he knew.

I hated that he could scent the way my body reacted, the way I was wet from this, from him, from the undeniable pull of something I wasn’t ready to name.

“You’re fighting it.” His voice was deceptively soft now, his palm dragging over the curve of my ass, his fingers pressing lightly against the swollen, scalding flesh he had just punished. The contrast made me shudder, made me press my lips together, as if that could stop the truth from spilling out.

I was fighting it, but I was losing.

“You’re mine, Wildcat. And every time you defy me, every time you tell yourself otherwise, I’ll remind you exactly who you belong to,” he murmured, his fingers tracing over the sensitive skin, soothing the ache he had left behind.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my breath coming too fast. I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I wasn’t sure I believed it anymore.

“Fuck you.” My voice was shaking, and I couldn’t make it stop.

He only chuckled, dark and knowing, before delivering another punishing slap to the center of my ass. I moaned before I could stop myself. A real, raw sound, one that shattered every single lie I’d told myself about not wanting this.

Silas went still.

For a single, agonizing second, I swore he stopped breathing.

“That’s what I thought.”

The next strike was even harder. It landed right over the most tender part of my ass, making me jerk against him and my legs fly up. The sound echoed through the cabin, loud, decisive, the heat of it seared through my skin.

I gasped, my breath breaking, my legs sawing up and down.