Page 19

19

KENDALL

T he cabin door groans like a dying animal when Callum kicks it open. Pine needles crunch under my boots as I follow him inside, the scent of mildew and old wood smite hits me. Moonlight slices through cracks in the boarded-up windows, catching on dust motes that swirl around his shaggy hair.

He tosses the car keys onto a rusted wood stove. "Home sweet shithole."

"Charming." My laugh comes out brittle. Fake. I press my palm to the peeling wallpaper—cold, damp, alive with rot. "How many girls have you brought here to impress?"

"Just the ones I'm trying to piss off." Callum's eyes flash green in the dark as he drags a hand through his hair. "You should sit."

"Sit? I just wolfed out in front of my boy.. ex boyfriend, Callum." I thrust my hands between us, fingers still streaked with dried blood under the nails. "He saw. All of it. The claws, the teeth, that... sound I made." My voice cracks. I spin away, shoulders hitting the stone fireplace. "They found his parents in pieces, you know. Supernatural kill team or some bullshit. Now I'm the monster under his bed."

Callum's boots scuff closer. "You're not a?—"

"Don't." I press my forehead to cold stone. "We were already sinking. Now? He's never looking at me without seeing fangs."

Silence. Then the heat of him at my back, breath stirring the silver streaks in my hair. "You think that's the worst thing someone can see in you?"

The dam breaks.

I whirl, shoving both hands against his chest. "My dad lied ! My whole life, hunting with him, tracking scat and—fuck, Callum, we ate venison chili the night after he made me this!" My claws erupt on a sob, slicing the air between us. "You know what he said when I shifted? 'Now you're safe.' Safe? I'm a loaded gun!"

Callum catches my wrists, grip firm but not crushing. His pulse thrums under my fingertips. "You think I don't know what it's like? Hiding?" His thumb brushes the raw skin. "Waking up hungry for things that scare you?"

The cabin breathes with us, walls creaking.

I go still feeling whatever this is between him and I even stronger now. It's pulsating. It's all I can feel, maybe it's all I want to feel after what happened. I finally ask, turning around wildly, him already close enough for his breath to move my hair.

"This pull between us...is it real? Or am I just?—"

His mouth crashes into mine.

No poetry. No hesitation. Just heat and teeth and the low growl vibrating from his chest into mine. I bite his lower lip, tasting copper and pine, hands fisting in his shirt to drag him closer.

We break for air, foreheads touching.

"Still feel crazy?" he rasps.

I answer by slamming him into the wall, boards splintering under his shoulders. His laugh is pure wildfire as I reclaim his mouth, the world narrowing to the scrape of his stubble and the rightness coiling low in my gut.

The wall cracks behind Callum’s skull when I slam him into it. My teeth find his lip before my mind catches up, the metallic tang of his blood flooding my tongue. His shirt tears under my claws like rice paper, buttons pinging against the woodstove.

“Fuck, Kendall?—”

I can't seem to stop myself. Hell, I don't think I want to or could if I tried.

I drop to my knees. His belt buckle snaps between my fingers, denim shoved past his hips. The musk of him hits me first—pine resin and sweat and something feral that makes my throat vibrate. He’s already slick when I take him in, salt and heat searing my tongue. His groan shakes the rafters, one hand fisting in my hair hard enough to sting.

“Look at me.”

I glance up through my lashes. Moonlight catches the green in his eyes, his free hand braced against the wall like he’s holding the whole cabin up. My jaw aches as I take him deeper, nails digging into his thighs. His hips jerk once, twice, then he’s spilling down my throat with a snarl that sounds more wolf than man.

I swallow, panting. “Now you.”

He hauls me up by the arms, claws shredding my shirt. Cool air hits my breasts as he bites my collarbone—sharp, claiming. My back hits the floorboards, his teeth dragging down my sternum.

“Callum, I need?—”

“I know.” His fingers plunge into me, crooking just right. My hips snap off the floor. “Christ, you’re drenched.”

“Less talking.”

He laughs, low and dark, ripping my jeans down with a single jerk. The first thrust steals my breath—stretching, burning, filling , like he’s carving a claim my body memorizes. His rhythm’s brutal from the start, the floorboards creaking beneath us as each snap of his hips punches a moan from my throat. I taste copper—my own teeth piercing my lip to stifle the sounds he’s determined to wrench loose.

“Eyes on me,” he growls, palms slamming my wrists into splintered wood.

I lock onto his gaze, green bleeding into molten gold—wolf and man warring beneath his skin. My climax builds too fast, a live wire sparking up my spine as untamed musk floods the air between us. Heat pools where he splits me open, every ragged breath a harmony of leather and midnight frost clinging to his skin.

He swears when I clench around him, fangs grazing my shoulder hard enough to brand. “Again,” he demands, urging my leg higher over his hip. The command vibrates through bone, primal, ancestral, unfamiliar . My answering snarl surprises us both.

“Flip.”

The command ripples through me like a shockwave, my wolf stirring beneath the surface, answering before my human mind can protest. I scramble onto hands and knees, splinters biting my palms as the cabin’s pine resin scent mingles with the salt of sweat and the musk of his need. Callum doesn’t wait—never waits—slamming home with a grunt that’s more beast than man. His hand fists in my hair, yanking just shy of pain, while the other digs into my hip hard enough to bruise tomorrow. I’ll wear the marks like secrets.

“Faster—” I rasp, slipping out unbidden. His breath scalds my neck, teeth grazing the tendon there as his pace turns punishing. The wood creaks beneath us in rhythm, each thrust a collision of hunger and restraint. I feel the shift in him—the prickle of claws retracting against my skin, the molten gold of his eyes burning my periphery. He’s holding back, always holding back, even as his hips snap like a storm against mine.

When I shatter this time, it’s with a scream that shakes dust from the ceiling, my spine arching as the wolf in me howls through clenched teeth. Callum follows with a roar that echoes off the cabin walls, fingers bruising my hips even more as he spills inside me. I feel the tremor in his arms—the fight to keep his fangs from breaking skin, to leave no trace of this. No evidence of the animal, the truth , we both carry.

As we collapse, panting, I catch the flicker of green returning to his eyes. Human again. For now.

Silence.

His weight collapses onto my back, both of us heaving. Reality seeps in with the cold air on my skin.

Callum grabs a massive blanket from the couch beside us and throws it over our naked body and my shame. He says nothing, just covers me and lays beside me.

My hands tremble—streaked with his blood, my sweat, the proof of what we just burned down.

He says nothing and I'm grateful. I don't know what to say, what to do. I cling the blanket closer to my chest as my eyes burn with tears. It's not regret, but it did scare me. I shouldn't have done that… not like this. But what scares me even more is how bad I wanted to and how much I still do.