Page 21

KEIRA

K eira surfaced slowly, her awareness returning in fragments that clicked into place one by one, each breath dragging her closer to herself beneath the looming sense of something vast, primal, and impossible to name.

Her body felt alien and electric, alive in a way that was both disorienting and intoxicating.

Emotion warred with sensation—relief tangled with fear, awe laced with a flicker of unease.

What had she become? What did it mean to belong to this world now, not just beside Finn but inside something primal and inescapable? She didn’t know, but as she lay still in the dim morning hush, she wasn’t ready to look away.

Cool sheets tangled around her legs. A pulse of warmth curled low in her belly, hazy and slow like the afterburn of a dream. The morning light was barely a suggestion at the edge of the curtains, but she was already awake. Too aware. Every sense humming just under the surface.

She didn’t open her eyes right away—not out of fear, but because she needed a moment to reconcile the girl she’d been with the creature she was becoming.

Her body hummed with something wild and new, and her thoughts felt stretched between past and present, instinct and memory.

A breath caught in her throat, not from pain, but from the weight of everything that had changed in the space of a heartbeat.

Because the world felt different now. Or maybe, just she did.

The night before was a blur of heat, mist, and something wild that still lingered in her bones, pulsing like an echo she couldn’t shake.

Her muscles tingled with the phantom echo of that leap—the rush of it, the wind tearing past her face, the jolt of pure freedom.

The intoxicating power still clung to her skin, even as her mind scrambled to catch up, chasing the reality her body had already embraced.

She stretched, testing her limbs. Everything felt sharper. Not just more sensitive—more hers. Strength lingered in her muscles, not brute force but something nimble, tightly wound, fierce. And beneath that, the memory of Finn’s voice.

'You really are mine now.'

The words hadn’t struck like a claim or a threat.

They settled over her like gravity—undeniable, inevitable, pulling her toward something she hadn’t let herself name.

A truth that had always been there, waiting in the quiet, biding its time until she was ready to feel it all the way down to her bones.

She opened her eyes slowly, blinking against the soft light filtering through the curtains.

Finn sat across from the bed in a low chair, forearms resting on his thighs, his gaze steady—not watchful like a guard, but waiting, like a man who’d been holding his breath since the moment she leapt from the balcony and disappeared into the woods.

He looked like he hadn’t slept. His hair was tousled, the top buttons of his shirt undone, sleeves rolled to his elbows. That familiar, dangerous calm still wrapped around him like armor—controlled, composed—but the edges had softened, just enough to reveal something raw beneath.

There was a stillness in him that unsettled her in the quietest way, a kind of quiet devotion that stripped him bare more than any words ever could. He wasn’t here out of duty. He was here because there was nowhere else he’d ever let himself be.

"You stayed?" Her voice came out rough, dry. Raw in a way that had nothing to do with her throat.

He nodded. "I always will."

She blinked, thrown by the simplicity of it.

Finn rose slowly and crossed the room, each step fluid with predatory grace.

The control in his movements was absolute—measured, grounded.

Still very much the predator. But now, so was she.

That knowledge sparked between them, alive in the silence, a low hum of shared instinct that tasted like danger and belonging.

And damn if that didn’t spark a fire low and molten, something reckless and challenging that curled in her chest and made her want to test him—test herself—just to feel that heat blaze brighter.

He reached for a glass of water on the nightstand and held it out.

She took it, her fingers brushing his. "Am I supposed to feel different?"

His lips quirked. "You do feel different. You just don’t realize it yet."

She drank, the water cool and grounding. Her body buzzed beneath the stillness, restless and waiting, but for what?

Finn sat on the edge of the bed beside her, his thigh brushing hers, the warmth of his body a furnace against her skin.

The nearness wasn’t accidental—it was possessive, a silent claim wrapped in heat and tension that made the air between them feel heavier.

She could smell the salt of his skin, the faint spice of whatever soap he used, and beneath it, something darker, wilder.

Her pulse answered before her thoughts could catch up, a slow, insistent heat that sparked low between her legs and climbed steadily into her chest.

"There’s more coming," he said quietly. "The instincts. The strength. The need."

She swallowed hard. "Need for what?"

His gaze burned into hers, unwavering. "Everything," he said, the word low and rough like gravel dragged through heat. It wasn’t a demand—it was a confession, a promise, and a dare all in one. Her breath hitched as it settled between them, heavy with implication.

The word ignited something inside her, a flash-fire of heat that surged low in her belly and radiated outward, threading through her like molten silk—hot, decadent, and impossible to ignore.

Her cheeks flushed, but she held his gaze. "I’m not broken. I don’t need fixing."

"No," he agreed, voice low. "But you were always meant to burn. Now you just know how."

Something in her chest cracked open at that—sharp and soft all at once.

She set the glass down with hands that trembled just enough to betray her composure.

Then she reached for him, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, tugging until he leaned in, his breath brushing her cheek.

Her heart thudded against her ribs, not from fear, but from the ache of knowing she was about to fall—and wanting it anyway.

"Show me."

She offered him her submission with her eyes first—steady, intelligent, no flinching—but beneath it all, something trembled. Not fear. Not doubt. Just the raw ache of surrender brushing up against the last walls of pride she hadn’t realized were still standing.

His hands were on her before the first breath could settle.

One anchored firmly at the back of her neck, thumb brushing the line of her jaw.

The other glided down her ribcage to her hip, then around to her lower back—a deliberate caress that left her gasping.

He moved with purpose, not haste. With heat that smoldered, not scorched.

Each touch branded her—intimate, controlled, and unmistakably his.

"Say it," he whispered.

Her lips parted. "Yours."

He groaned low in his throat, the sound vibrating against her skin—a raw, primal sound that sent shivers down her spine.

Keira's breath caught, her body arching into his as if drawn by the gravity of that hunger.

Her heart pounded, the charged silence between them bursting with want, and in that moment, she felt utterly known—unraveled and remade in the space between restraint and surrender.

And then, like a dam breaking, restraint gave way to hunger. There was no more waiting.

Clothes disappeared between fevered kisses and roaming hands, landing in forgotten heaps at their feet.

Her skin buzzed, hypersensitive, as though every nerve had been rewired.

The overload—his scent like smoke and spice, the rasp of his stubble, the low growl vibrating in his chest—was a sensory storm crashing through her.

His body caged her against the mattress, heat and power pressing her down, not with force, but possession.

But it was the way he held her—palms reverent, arms unyielding—that unraveled her completely.

Like she wasn’t just wanted, but claimed.

Like she was his gravity, his center. And God help her, she wanted to be.

He pushed her back into the mattress his grip firm yet reverent as he pinned her wrists high above her head.

His mouth moved with greedy precision—along her jaw, down her throat, over her breasts—each lick and bite a declaration, every caress marked by heat and command.

"Mine," he rasped against her skin, his breath hot and unrelenting.

"Smart girl. Beautiful. So fucking brave. "

His teeth grazed the sensitive curve beneath her breast, tongue chasing the sting with soothing heat.

One hand tightened around her wrists, the other sliding down her ribs to palm her hip, dragging her closer as his mouth mapped her like sacred ground.

The air between them thickened with tension—raw, electric, carnal.

She bowed beneath him, a whimper catching in her throat as his praise sank in, igniting every place his touch had yet to claim.

Her body arched, chasing the ghost of his touch, every nerve lit up like a fuse burning toward detonation.

The sheets rasped against her heated skin as her thighs pressed and shifted, slick with need.

Tension gathered low in her belly, a molten knot of urgency twisting tighter with every breath.

He hovered just beyond contact, watching her squirm with a dark, ravenous gleam in his eyes—silent, commanding, ruthless in his patience.

She whimpered, her breath catching in short, shallow bursts, the ache for him a fire under her skin.

Her voice cracked on a whispered plea, raw and aching—and only then did he move, unleashing the storm she'd begged for.