Page 22

KAIA

H is teeth scrape my lower lip, sharp enough to sting. I bite back harder, tasting iron. The growl that rips from his chest vibrates through my bones.

"Still think you're in control?" My fingers tore at his leather jacket, seams splitting under the strain of whatever new strength pulses through my veins. The garment hits the floor with a wet slap—raining season had left everything in this ruin damp except the heat between us.

Elias's hands find my hips, thumbs digging into the divots above my jeans. "You started this." His pupils swallowed the blue of his irises whole, twin eclipses burning through the dim.

"Finish it then." I yank his shirt collar until fabric shreds. Pale scars crisscross his chest, old silver wounds, poorly healed. My nails catch on one as I shoved him backward. He stumbles into the kitchen's rusted sink, pipes groaning in protest.

The cold edge of the counter bites into my spine as he lifts me onto it.

Cans of preserved peaches rattled to the floor.

His mouth crashes against mine again, all desperation and cracked restraint.

I hook a leg around his waist, pulling him flush against me.

The hard line of him through his pants draws a ragged sound from my throat I don't recognize as my own.

"Kaia." My name sounds like a warning between his teeth.

"Don't." I fumble with his belt, fingers trembling not from fear but the raw current under my skin. "Don't you dare stop being a bastard now."

Leather hits linoleum. His hands still mine when I reach for his waistband. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought he'd pull away—play the noble monster. Then his claws slide out, just enough to slice through my tank top. Cool air kisses my stomach.

"Better." I arch into him, all defiance and frayed nerves. His palm slides up my ribcage, calluses catching on sensitive skin. When his thumb brushes the underside of my breast, the world tilts.

He freezes. "You're shaking."

"From wanting to strangle you." I drag his mouth back to mine, swallowing his dark chuckle. My back hits the counter as he leans over me, fangs nipping at my jawline. Distantly, something shatters—a jar? A plate? The sound barely registers over the blood roaring in my ears.

His fingers dip below my waistband. "This what you want?" A challenge, not a question.

I grab his wrist, pushing his hand lower. "What do you think?"

The first touch drew a gasp I refuse to let him hear. I bite his shoulder instead, salt and smoke flooding my tongue. He hisses, the vibration of it traveling straight to my core.

"Fuck patience," I breathe against his collarbone.

His claws prick my thigh. "Begging suits you."

"Go to hell."

"Already there." He presses an open-mouthed kiss to my pulse point. "You feel that?"

I do, the tremble in his arms, the way his breath hitches when I scrape nails down his back. The great Elias Vorn, coming undone. My victory tastes sweeter than any magic.

"Now," I demand, nails digging crescent moons into his shoulders. "Unless you're?—"

He surges into me with a snarl that shakes the cabinets, a sound caught between wolf and something older, the kind of noise that makes the copper pans above us shiver like wind chimes.

The world fractures into sensation—the stretch bordering on pain, the burn of friction igniting sparks behind my eyelids, the unbearable rightness of it like a spell finally snapping into place.

My head cracks against the cabinet behind me, glassware singing a high, sharp chorus against wood.

He growls against my throat, all teeth and velvet threat. His fangs graze the same patch of skin where his training left a bruise last night—a twin claim.

I choke on a laugh that becomes a moan, the sound swallowed by the slick slide of his hips.

Every thrust scatters thoughts like gunshots— no Order, no lies —just this primal rhythm pounding louder than my heartbeat.

The wild thing in my chest snarls back at him, all claws and Fae-starved hunger I still don't have a name for.

His fingers tangle in my hair, tilting my head back until I'm staring at the water-stained ceiling, until the ache in my scalp blurs with the delicious sting of his grip. Silver rings dig into my skin—cold metal against the fever-heat of him. I arch, reveling in the contradiction.

"Look at me."

I force my eyes open. Gold eclipses the blue entirely now, his true self laid bare.

His hips jerk forward and I lock my legs behind him, forcing every inch until there’s nowhere left to go but hell. My grip on his shoulders tightens.

“Faster.” The word rips from me like a dare.

Elias’s laugh is all fang. “That’s not how this works.” He drags out, slow, excruciating, until the stretch burns. “You want punishment?” His breath scalds my ear. “Beg prettier.”

“ Rot .” The curse tears from me like a storm wind cankering peach blossoms—too sweet for what hunts in my marrow.

I buck against him, teeth sinking into his lower lip hard enough to taste my own ruin.

He snarls, slamming me back against the counter’s edge hard enough to rattle ceramic jars of wolfsbane behind us.

The sudden fullness punches a choked gasp from my throat, all lightning and gravel.

“There it is.” His thumb drags over my bottom lip, smearing vampiric blood that glitters faintly against my skin.

Gold drowns his irises completely now—werewolf hunger fracturing through vampire ice, a collision of primal legacies I feel in the scrape of his fangs against my jugular.

“That delicious desperation you keep choking down.”

I choke on a moan as he shifts angles, fire licking up my nerves. My nails carve crescents into his shoulders, drawing twin beads of black-blooded pearl. Wait. Wait. Damn you, not yet.

His claws dig into my hips, pain flaying through pleasure’s syrup. “Let go.”

The counter bites into my spine. My pulse races where his throat meets my teeth. “Make me.”

He does.

The climax cracks through me like glass shattering, brutal and blinding. My nails gouge his back as I arch, a broken noise tearing loose. Elias’s forehead crashes against mine, his own release shuddering through us both. The sink faucet drips three times before I remember how lungs work.

His claws retract first. Cool air rushes between us as he steps back, leather sliding up his hips in one practiced motion. I scramble off the counter, yanking my shredded tank top into place. My hands won’t stop trembling.

He watches me dress, expression unreadable. “Regret’s a bad color on you.”

“Shut up.” I snatch my jacket from the floor. Peach syrup from shattered cans smears the fabric.

“You said yes ," he reminds me as he pulls on his own pants.

“To the punishment, not the commentary.” I jam my arms into the sleeves. The linoleum creaks as he steps closer.

He stills. “Running won’t file this under ‘mistake’.”

“Watch me.”

The door splinters when I shove through it, unable to deal with what I had just done. Rain soaks through my clothes in seconds, but I don’t slow. Stupid. Reckless. Order-trained discipline dissolved in five minutes flat. My boots skid on wet concrete as I round the corner, alley walls closing in.

I break into a sprint.

What did I just do?