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Her lips parted, but she said nothing. Her eyes flicked to the cave mouth—there was nowhere to run. And we both knew it.

“You want to know what happens now?” I whispered against her temple. “First, I’ll take that mouth you love to curse me with and see what else it can do when it’s not busy spitting.”

Her chest rose sharply. Sweat beaded along her collarbone.

“Then I’ll strip you bare,” I went on, voice thickening, darker, “make you crawl across this cave floor and beg for what you swore you’d never want.”

Her pulse pounded at her throat, and I could smell it—fear, fury, and something sweeter rising beneath it. The scent of surrender she hated.

“I’ll make you come on my fingers first,” I said. “Then on my tongue. Then I’ll bend you over, sink my teeth into that prettyneck, and knot you until the fire inside you is nothing but ashes.”

Her breathing broke, sharp and hitched—and still she glared at me through the haze of heat building in her body.

“Go fuck yourself,” she spat, voice raw.

“Too late,” I smiled. “I found something better to fuck.”

She tried to push me away. Weak, sluggish movements that barely brushed my chest. I caught her wrists with one hand, pinned them above her head, and watched the flicker of panic return—flicker, but not flare. She was burning too hot now. The fear was still there, but it was tangled in something else. Something primal.

Her body trembled beneath me, sweat clinging to her skin despite the cold air pouring in from the cave mouth. Her scent was thick now, feral and rising. She was fighting a war inside herself—and losing.

“I can smell it,” I said against her throat. “The heat. You tried to starve it, kill it, carve it out. But you can’t stop it now, can you?”

She shook her head once. A lie. I tightened my grip.

“Say it.”

“No.”

“You’re burning up, Lexa. And I’m the only one who can put it out.”

“Go to hell.”

I slid my free hand down, pressed my fingers to the curve of her hip, just above where her legs clenched shut.

She gasped. Her whole body arched, the wolf inside her clawing up her spine, howling beneath her skin.

“I’ll make you feel everything you tried to forget,” I said, lips brushing her ear. “I’ll ruin you for every cold, lonely night you spent pretending you weren’t one of us. I’ll drag your wolf out and make her mine, too.”

Her head thrashed against the furs. “I hate you.”

“Good,” I growled, nose brushing her jaw. “Hate me on your knees. Hate me while you’re begging.”

“I won’t beg.”

“You will. You will, Lexa. Before I even knot you, you’ll be soaked and shaking and begging me to finish what your wolf started.”

Her whole body jerked, a helpless sound tearing from her throat.

The bond pulsed—hot, tangled, real. She was falling.

Her hands stopped resisting. Her wrists went slack in my grip. Her legs trembled once, then shifted. Not wide, not yet—but enough.

She turned her face away, teeth clenched, eyes wet from pain and exhaustion and fury.

I watched the way her head lowered, that small, shuddering motion—defeat drawn in breath and bone. She didn’t say the words, but her body had. Every tremble, every twitch, every shallow breath dragged through clenched teeth.

She was done.