Page 216 of Fractured Loyalties

“You want to walk away? Do it,” I growl, pressing harder into her wrists. “But you won’t. Because you crave this.”

Her lips part, breath unsteady. “I don’t—”

I cut her off with my mouth on hers, crushing, devouring. Her gasp spills into me, and when her teeth graze mine, it’s not resistance—it’s the spark of something feral.

Her body bows against mine, legs shifting restlessly, but she doesn’t tell me to stop. Her wrists twist under my grip, not to escape, but to feel the drag of my strength holding her there.

I drag my mouth down her jaw, the taste of her skin laced with salt and fury. My voice rumbles against her throat. “Tell me again you don’t want this.”

She shudders, caught between the words and the heat flooding her. “I hate you.”

“Good,” I hiss, teeth grazing her pulse. “Hate me harder.”

Her hips jerk forward, the sharp edge of the dresser biting into her lower back as she arches against me. I feel the tremor racing through her, the contradiction tearing her apart. Her body betrays her mouth, pressing closer even as her words come out in fragments.

“Elias….”

I drag one hand from her wrists down her side, palm curving hard around her hip, anchoring her to me. My grip is bruising, possessive, everything I’ve been holding back since she walked out of my apartment.

“You belong in cages,” I breathe against her skin, each word a brand. “But only mine.”

Her eyes blaze, wild and wet, as if she hates me for the truth of it—and hates herself more for needing it.

Her nails dig into my hand where I still hold her wrist tight. The sting only drives me further.

This isn’t gentleness. This isn’t safety. It’s another collision in a war we’ve already waged across walls, sheets, and shadows. But this time it’s different—because it’s her defiance I’m taking, not her fear.

And when her head tips backward, lips parting on a sound that’s half curse, half need, I know she’s not surrendering for the first time. She’s surrendering again, and hating me for how much she craves it.

Chapter 37 – Mara - The Terms

The space between us snaps like overstretched wire. His words still hang in the air, sharp and immovable:Cages are what keep predators out.

But the heat in his eyes says something else entirely.

I don’t step back. I don’t fold. My body is trembling, yes—but it’s not only fear. It’s fury. It’s need. It’s something darker, something Elias seems determined to carve out of me until I can’t hide it anymore.

When I tell him the predator is already in the room, it feels like handing him a match. And he lights it without hesitation.

I stay pinned against the dresser. His other hand grips my jaw, not hard enough to bruise but enough to remind me he could. Always could. His mouth is so close that the heat of him skims my lips, and I hate the way my body arches toward it without permission.

“You want to call me the predator?” he murmurs, voice thick, threaded with something lethal. “Then stop trembling like prey.”

My pulse hammers under his grip. “You don’t scare me.”

His laugh is rough, like it’s been dragged over broken stone. “You should.”

Then his mouth is on mine again. Not tender, not coaxing. A brutal claiming that leaves no room to breathe. His teeth catch my lower lip, tugging until pain sparks and pools straight between my thighs.

I shove at his chest, not because I want him gone, but because I need to push back. I need to feel him meet me with the same violence I’ve been carrying inside since the clinic. He doesn’t stumble. He lets me shove, lets me rage against thewall of his body—then tightens his grip on my wrist, he pushes harder, pinning me to the dresser mirror.

The edge is cold against my back. His body is heat, pressing, caging.

“Say you don’t want this,” he commands again. His mouth hovers at my ear, words like fire against my skin.

I should. I should tell him no. I should demand he let me go.

But my voice betrays me, spilling the only truth left inside me. “I can’t.”