Page 46

Selene

T he blindfold slips into place plunging me into darkness.

The soft fabric is pulled taut around the back of my head, cutting out all the light, the comfort of one of my strongest senses.

Everything else heightens—the breeze moving across my skin like fingers trailing, the cool temperature of the damp forest floor beneath my bare feet, the air full of him .

His scent moves in slow curls as it surrounds me. Like pine, smoke, and something deeper, almost mirroring scorched earth and need. Our arousal clings to the trees, teasing the moss, living in the breeze, and it’s already driving me wild.

Behind me, his voice comes low and deep as if it’s not him talking at all, but something darker. “Let’s see how well you can hunt, little Leni.”

There’s a rush of air. A breath. Then nothing.

He’s gone.

My pulse picks up beating like a drum, low and steady.

I slowly pull air deep into my lungs, centering myself, determining my first move.

His scent is everywhere as though he rubbed it on every tree, shrub, branch, and rock he could before running away.

Smart asshole. I can taste it in the air, but I can’t pinpoint him, and that’s exactly why he did it.

He’s toying with me.

I should have known that someone as smart as Cal would never have let it be as easy as following his scent trail. The terms were simple. Only use my instincts and scent. No using the bond to pull me to him. Hunt as if he is the prey and I’m the predator.

I take a step. Then another. The dirt and pine needles crunching under my feet, every sound feeling louder in the dark.

Every whisper of fabric across my skin adds another layer of distraction.

I can hear a squirrel pushing his acorns around in his nest somewhere off in the distance.

I can hear an animal munching on leaves.

My body is wound as tight as a coiled spring ready to burst. It’s restless and desperate as it aches for something… something only he can give me.

A twig snaps close to me.

I turn, pausing, my breath stalling in my lungs. I wait. My chest is rising and falling rapidly as my hands clasp and unclasp at my side. Slowly, I draw air into my lungs, cataloging every single scent as it comes in. There. Faintly, as if just beyond where I’m standing is something I recognize.

Mine.

The word roars through me as I take my first steps out of the clearing we started in.

My pace picks up, each step measured and deliberate, guided only by my instincts and the unbearable hum. He wants me to give in. Let my wolf take over. He wants me to stop using my human instincts and become what I’m designed to be.

So I do.

Crouching down I press my fingers into the damp soil, cold against the tips of my fingers as they coast along the recently disturbed ground.

My lips twitch. “You’re close.”

Just off to the right, a low laugh.

The bastard’s taunting me. Which can mean only one thing.

“Oh Cal,” I say in a singsong voice. “You make this too easy on me. You better be ready when I catch you.”

Silence.

And then, as if he anticipated all of this, his words whisper across the forest, low, amused, and hungry.

“I’m counting on it.”

My heart rate kicks up, almost taking away my ability to hear as it pulses in my ears. The forest is alive with sounds, but all I can hear was me.

Heavy. Ragged. Hunting.

The blindfold clings to me, damp with sweat, but I refuse to take it off. I made the rules and I’d agreed to the game. If I wanted him, there was only one way to get him. I had to find him and not with my eyes.

His scent clung to everything as I walked through the woods. Nothing was fresh, all of them were meant to distract me from my true target.

I wanted to snarl.

Something’s changed though. The world has quieted. The air thickened as the wind shifted. As if pulled by a thread my nose turns to the right, each breath shallow as I quickly track the scent.

There.

A breath.

So close.

I don’t wait. I don’t think.

My body collides with his, sending both of us to the ground with a humph. His laugh vibrates him below me as I whoop above him. My knees straddle each side of his hips, the moss and needles providing me something soft to kneel against.

He doesn’t fight it or even try to resist as I grab his arms and pin them above his head. No, instead he lays there. As if he's offering himself to me, his body softened below me. Each muscle loose, his heart rate lowering, and his legs spreading.

I lean close to him, our noses only a hair apart.

“Found you.”

His chest rises with a soft chuckle. “Did you?” he rasps. “Or did I let you?”

I reach up and tear the blindfold off. Glancing down I find him with a soft smirk playing on his lips, eyes blown with lust, and his cheeks already red from the adrenaline. His hands are splayed out on each side of him, not even attempting to touch me.

“The rules said no touching until I found you,” I murmur against his cheek.

“They did,” he says, his voice thick with lust and adoration. “So touch me.”

I lean down and run my tongue along the edge of his ear. “Why did you do this? The game I mean?”

His fingers flex against the dirt. “Because I wanted you to hunt me like I’ve been hunting you. I wanted you to have the chance to claim me in the ways I’ve already claimed you.”

My throat tightens.

I kiss him.

There’s nothing soft or sweet about it.

It’s wild. Hungry. His lips crush against mine like he’s been waiting for this moment his whole life, and maybe he has.

With my hands braced on each side of his head, I roll my hips against him, feeling his dick press against me, hard and hot even through the layers between us. He groans—low and guttural, the kind that makes my toes curl. He lets himself go and the feelings rush through him.

“Selene,” he says breathily.

I rock slowly, moving against him. Feeling his muscles coil tightly with each rock of my hips.

My teeth bite down on my lower lip as I watch him unravel.

Watch him fight every instinct to take control.

It’s so fucking hot watching what I do to him.

I roll my hips up his impressive length, stopping when my core hits the blunt head of his dick.

Pushing down against it, teasing him with the idea of thrusting up into me.

He was letting me have this, even though I could see just how hard he was fighting against his own urges.

Leaning down, I run my nose along his neck, blowing softly against his sweat slick skin as the bumps pop and he shivers. “You’re mine.” My lips brush against his ear as I say, “You know that right?”

A soft breath leaves him. His voice shakes as he answers me, “Always have been.”

My lips drag along his jaw before I lean up and look down at him.

I know my eyes are glowing when I see them reflecting in his blown pupils.

In a voice not entirely my own, “That’s a good boy,” I say before I sink my teeth into the curve of his throat.

The coppery taste of his blood hits my tongue as his chest rises off the ground.

His dick jumps between us as if it could bust out his pants at any second. I can feel our bond strengthening with each passing second as the lust from him comes pouring in like a fountain on full blast. Our arousals mingle until there’s no way to determine whose is whose.

His whole body shudders.

And then he flips us. My teeth release from his neck with a pop as I hit the ground, a feral Caelon hovering over the top of me. My tongue licks along my canines grabbing every possible drop as I run my finger along his bite mark gathering more. Sucking my finger dry as I chuckle.

His chest heaves, his eyes glowing that beautiful crystalline blue, the one that haunted my dreams for weeks. His claws dig into the dirt beside my head as he presses me further into the ground.

“Claim me big boy, I’m all yours.”

That’s all it takes. Like the beast he is, his teeth clamp down in the same spot that I marked him.

With one hand he reaches down between us, wasting no more time, he rips another of my black leggings before shucking off his own shorts.

I can’t even find it in myself right now to care about those leggings, all I can think about is his teeth in my neck and his dick pressing into me.

There isn’t any hesitation, he doesn’t wait a single second before he thrusts forward, slamming to the hilt into me.

I feel it before I understand it—like a tsunami wave crashing to shore.

One second I’m feeling the suck of his mouth along my neck, the pull of my blood, the fullness of him settled into me—the next I feel the world almost pause.

He growls against my neck, guttural, lower, wilder.

He pulls back, chest rising and falling sharply, shaky breaths leaving him, eyes feral and glowing brightly. I know that look, I’ve heard about it.

Rut .

It pulls him under like a rip current taking the very breath from him. Leaving him no choice, but to submit.

His head thrashes as he tries to gain control, but there’s no fighting nature.

He’s trying to hold back for my sake.

I can see it in the way his hands are trembling as he grasps his hair. His jaw clenches, a flicker of resistance—then another growl tears out of him and I know it’s over.

He’s gone.

The fur begins to sprout along his arms, his shirt shreds like plastic against heat as his chest expands.

His once human skin covers in fur as his face distorts into his humanoid form.

I’ve never seen it in person, only the whispered words and tales that gossiping old hens say.

If I thought his wolf form was large, it has nothing on his humanoid form.

Where he was once hovering over me at eye level, is now a ripped and defined chest with that beautiful smokey gray fur that I’ve loved for a long time. When his transformation is complete, he looks down at me. Eyes glowing, a raw and desperate growl rips from his throat.

“Shadow,” the words whisper out of me in reverence.