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I released her wrists slowly, letting them fall to the furs like something broken. She didn’t pull away. Didn’t move.

Her eyes stayed shut.

I moved over her with deliberate control, the beast in me prowling just beneath the surface. He had waited long enough. I could feel his claws scraping the edges of my thoughts, urging me to take, to claim, to end this. But I didn’t lunge. I didn’t rush.

I needed her to feel every moment.

My hand slid down her thigh, slow, careful. She was burning under the layers, her body slick with sweat despite the cold cave air. Her scent hit harder now—wild honey, crushed pine, and something darker beneath it. Her heat was cresting. She wouldn’t last much longer.

“You smell like you were made for this,” I said, letting mylips trail down her throat, catching the sharp beat of her pulse. “You were never meant to be a stray, Lexa. You were meant to bemine.”

Her breath hitched again, but she didn’t speak.

“You’ve fought me for weeks. Lied. Ran. But look at you now.” I hovered just above her lips, heat bleeding between us. “Sweating. Shaking. Opening.”

“I’m not—” she started, voice cracking.

“Don’t lie. Not now.” My fingers slid up her inner thigh, brushing against soaked fabric. “Not when your body’s screaming for me.”

She whimpered—barely a sound—but it shot straight through me.

“I’ll ruin you slowly,” I whispered, breath against her lips. “I’ll kiss you until you sob. Make you say my name like a prayer. And when I’m inside you, when my knot swells—”

She jerked, gasping.

“—you’ll forget every reason you ever had to run.”

Her hands moved, not to push me away this time, but to grip my tunic, weakly, like she hated herself for it.

“I can’t,” she breathed, eyes fluttering open, glossy with pain and something deeper. “I can’t stop it.”

I pressed my forehead to hers, eyes locked on hers, voice low and final.

“Then let go.”

“No, I hate you.”

Her words burned, but not in the way she wanted them to. Not with the bite they used to carry. They were empty now. Hollow armor.

She was trembling beneath me, not just from the cold—gods, it wasn’t the cold anymore. Her skin was fevered, damp with sweat. Her scent was thick in my throat, coating my tongue, fogging the edges of reason. Sweet. Wild. Ready.

She still held onto that last word like it was a weapon—hate—but it shook in her mouth now, no longer sharpened steel, just a whisper of the fight she was losing. The fight she’d already lost.

I leaned closer, lips grazing hers, not kissing—hovering—until I felt the way her breath hitched when I didn’t touch her.

“You can hate me,” I whispered, “while I fuck the fight out of you.”

She gasped, sharp, as my hand slid beneath the last barrier of fabric between us. Her body jolted when my fingers found just how wet she was. But her thighs parted just a little more.

“Say it again,” I murmured, dragging my fingers slowly through the slick heat of her. “Say you hate me while you grind against my hand.”

She shook her head, tears prickling in the corners of her eyes—not from pain. Not from fear. From the collapse of something she’d fought too long to keep standing.

Her hands clutched my tunic like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

I slipped one finger inside her.

She moaned—and this time, she bit it back, biting her own lip until blood welled.