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Find her. Claim her. Mate.

She couldn’t outrun me here beneath the open sky.

Her hair caught the moonlight, a beacon amidst the deep emerald of the palm fronds. Another flash, her pale body catching the light as well.

Shining.

For me.

I leapt—catching her hard on the back of her shoulders.

She braced for the impact. We hit the ground, rolling together, her hands clutching my front legs, nails digging into the thick white fur.

The night spun around us. Moon, stars, the thick scent of the red dirt we kicked up as we fought our way into the center of the clearing.

Predator and prey.

You are mine, I snarled, pinning her to the ground.

One powerful paw on each shoulder, her chest heaving, those magnificent breasts rising and falling with each breath. Her eyes burned bright, even in the filtered moon-and-starlight.

“I belong to no one,” Veyka snarled back, gnashing her teeth and tossing her head.

Long strands of her hair, torn free from her plait during her flight, caught and tangled around my paws. And disappeared.

The exact same shade, I realized.

My power was darkness and death to all who encountered it, but my beast’s fur was moon-white. Exactly the shade of Veyka’s hair, unseen anywhere else in Annwyn.

A perfect match.

I snarled again. It grew to a growl that filled the clearing. Then I lifted my head and howled it to the entire world.

Her resistance was futile.

She’d never escape me.

When I dropped my gaze back down, Veyka was staring. Temporarily stunned into silence.

As soon as she caught my gaze, her blue eyes burning into my wolfish ones, she started thrashing again.

I vaguely wondered if my eyes still burned with desire when I was in my beast form. Did she wonder— if it was male or beast in control?

It didn’t matter—we were one when it came to wanting Veyka.

She wasn’t afraid of me.

Veyka was afraid of the bond, of her power… but not my beast.

She could thrash all she wanted. But I could smell her desire even more keenly now, in this form.

I dropped my snout to her neck. She stilled beneath me, some instinct to be wary in the face of Annwyn’s ultimate predator. But she didn’t try to hide her throat.

She bared it for me.

I could see her lifeforce, thumping wildly just beneath the surface of her pale skin. My beast breathed her in, burying my snout in the nape of her neck. Sweat, need—Veyka.

I bared my fangs, long as a child’s forearm, sharper than any blade forged by man or fae. I dragged them from the tender spot below her ear along the dancing pulse in her throat.