Page 5

CHAPTER 5

T wo days trapped in this forsaken cabin felt like two centuries. The walls closed tighter each time the sun sank, and they returned from their animal forms, naked and hungry. Not for food. For me. I pretended not to notice their stares that burned through my clothes, but my body betrayed me with every flush that crept up my neck, every quickened breath when one of them passed too close.

The silence had teeth. The walls whispered things I wasn't ready to hear. Seven men, seven beasts, seven pairs of eyes that followed my every movement. I paced restlessly during the day when they prowled the forest in their animal forms. I sat at the windows trying desperately not to look when they returned human at sunset. I failed constantly.

My eyes always found someone. Garrett's broad shoulders tense as he built the fire. Ronan's smirk from a shadowed corner. Kade's silent, unblinking stare that somehow touched me without contact. I couldn't decide what was worse, the way they looked at me or the terrifying hunger I felt looking back.

At least today I had convinced Garrett to let me stay in the more comfortable bed in the main cabin during daylight hours instead of the cold, musty cellar where I'd spent the previous nights. Progress, if one could call it that.

None of them had touched me. Not really. But the air between us crackled every time we shared space. They kept their distance, barely. I saw the effort it cost them in white knuckles and tight jaws. And I started to wish, dangerously, stupidly, that one of them would stop pretending they didn't want to cross that invisible line.

In all reality, it was a stupid wish. They wanted my heart cut from my chest just like my step-mother. But there was something else there… something calling us together and I didn't understand it. I felt it, but it was beyond all reason to give in.

Sleep avoided me that night. The bed felt too soft, too empty, too safe. My skin tingled with awareness of seven men breathing beyond my door, seven heartbeats pulsing in rhythm with the forest magic that saturated the walls. Past midnight, I abandoned the pretense of rest.

The wooden floor was cool against my bare feet as I wandered into the main room. Garrett sat before the fire, completely naked, his massive body silhouetted by flames. His muscles looked carved from stone, tension evident in every line of his back. He didn't turn when I entered.

"Can't sleep?" His voice rumbled through the room, striking something deep in my belly. I ignored the heat that pooled deep between my thighs.

"Not with the seven of you breathing like you're one deep sigh away from devouring me," I answered truthfully.

A soft laugh came from the shadows, not from Garrett. Ronan materialized from the darkness, his lean body moving with predatory grace. That sharp smirk I was learning to both loathe and crave played on his lips.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he murmured, eyes glittering dangerously.

I felt another presence before I saw him. Kade, tucked into the darkest corner, watching. Always watching with those obsidian eyes that seemed to see straight through my nightdress. Where they'd found a nightdress for me, I didn't know. And I refused to ask. Kade never spoke unless absolutely necessary, but his silence communicated volumes.

I sat down between them before I could reconsider. The air felt heavier here, thicker. Magic seeped through the cabin walls like fog, settling on our skin, making every breath an effort.

"Tell me the truth," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady despite the rapid beating of my heart. "What happens if one of you touches me?"

Footsteps approached from the hallway. Cassian slinked into the room, his hair wild, his green eyes dancing with mischief that couldn't quite hide something darker beneath.

"We lose control," he said with a wink, but there was no humor in it. His usual playfulness was stretched thin over barely contained hunger.

"You shift?" I guessed, though somehow I knew there was more to it.

"No." Evander's voice came from the stairs as he descended like a ghost, his movements impossibly graceful for a man his size. "We claim."

The silence that followed was deafening. I looked from face to face, finding the same raw desire in each expression, though differently masked. Garrett's jaw clenched tight. Ronan's smirk twisted with something almost painful. Kade's eyes narrowed to slits. Cassian's perpetual grin faltered. Evander looked away completely.

"And that would kill me?" I asked when no one volunteered more information.

The question hung in the air. Glances exchanged between them carried entire conversations I couldn't decipher. The tension pulled tighter. Their hunger became a physical presence in the room, pushing against my skin.

I stood suddenly, desperately needing space to breathe. The moment I turned toward the door, Kade materialized before me. Not touching, but close enough that his body heat radiated against mine. His pitch-black eyes held me immobile. His jaw clenched, every muscle in his powerful body visibly straining against some invisible force.

"Don't run," he rasped, the words clearly painful to form.

"Why not?" I whispered, my breath shallow, heart pounding wildly.

"Because I might follow," he said, and it sounded more like a threat than a promise.

Another presence pressed close behind me. Leif. I recognized his wild energy before I felt his breath stir my hair.

"Or I might not stop him," Leif added, his voice tight with restraint.

My skin buzzed with awareness. My legs trembled. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm I couldn't control. I stood frozen between them, prey caught between predators, yet something inside me thrilled at the danger.

"Enough." Garrett's voice cut through the tension like a blade, authority resonating in that single word. "No one touches her. We can't risk it."

They backed away. Barely. Just enough that I could breathe again, but not enough to feel safe. Never enough for that.

Panic surged through me. My body reacted before my mind decided. I bolted. The door flew open with a bang as I slammed into it, the freezing night air hitting my flushed skin like a physical blow. I tore across the clearing, barefoot, my borrowed nightdress whipping against my thighs. The moss felt slick beneath my feet as I fled toward the treeline.

Behind me came sounds that weren't footsteps. Growls. The beating of wings. Movement that belonged to creatures, not men. All seven of them gave chase. The curse must have wavered with their control, allowing partial shifts even in moonlight.

The forest blurred around me. Branches clawed at my arms. My lungs burned. My heart screamed in my chest with each desperate stride. Something slithered ahead of me, faster than anything natural should move. Then a pale blur struck from the trees.

I slipped on wet moss. Fell forward. But instead of hitting the ground, I landed against something solid. Cold. Scaled.

Nikolai caught me before I could fall, his serpent form coiled beneath me like a living net of muscle and magic. Not fully beast, not fully man. His torso was human, pale and bare in the moonlight, but his lower half rippled with serpentine coils that gleamed like oiled silver. Like a Naga creature from forbidden fairytales whispered about in my childhood.

His arms wrapped around me, cradling me against him as his coils shifted, pulling me tighter against his chest in a possessive, almost reverent hold. His breath ghosted against my neck, cool compared to my overheated skin. I couldn't stop the shiver that ran through my body.

"You run... and I find you," he murmured, his voice a whisper dipped in venom and silk. "You tremble... and I feel it."

My breath caught as he tilted my chin up, forcing me to look into eyes that glowed with an unnatural light. Pupils slitted like a snake's.

"You awaken things... things that slither through shadow and dream, little flame," he continued, his thumb tracing my lower lip with impossible gentleness.

"You're hurting her," Garrett barked, suddenly there at the edge of the small clearing. He stood furious, naked, wild-eyed, clearly restraining himself from charging forward. "Let her go."

Nikolai didn't even glance at him. His attention remained fixed entirely on me, his gaze studying my face with unsettling intensity.

"You would cage her," he whispered, still watching me. "I would worship."

"She's not yours," Garrett growled, stepping forward, leaves crunching beneath his feet.

"She will be," Nikolai said softly. "I plan to make her. All of ours the stars say."

I gasped, my body going stiff in his arms. His gaze didn't waver. It burned with something darker than mere desire, something ancient, patient, and terrifying.

"You belong to the curse," he murmured against my cheek, his lips barely brushing my skin, "but I... I belong to you."

Garrett stormed toward us, his voice rough with command. "Let her go, Nikolai."

Nikolai didn't flinch. "No."

That one word was soft. Quiet. But it cracked through the clearing like thunder, shocking everyone to stillness.

"You're scaring her," Garrett snarled, visibly struggling to keep himself calm though his fists clenched tight at his sides.

"She's already scared," Nikolai whispered, curling another length of his silvery tail around my thigh in a possessive caress. I couldn't stop myself as I finally moved, my hands going to his bare chest. "Not of me... of what she wants."

Cassian emerged from the trees, leaves stuck in his tousled hair, no trace of his usual playful grin. "Niko, come on. Don't do this."

"I already have," Nikolai replied. "She ran. I followed. She fell. I caught. This is what fate does when it's finished playing polite. Hesitant I am not."

"Stop talking in riddles," Leif snapped from a low branch, perched there with eyes sharp and glowing in the dark, something birdlike in his movements despite his human form.

"She's the thread in the tangle. The center of the snare," Nikolai whispered, his lips brushing my temple with terrifying tenderness. "I am the fangs in the dark... and I will not uncoil."

Garrett growled, taking another step forward. "You're crossing a line."

Nikolai smiled then, slow and glacial as he pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes again. "I was born on the other side of it."

Evander stepped forward cautiously, hands raised in a placating gesture. "We all want to protect her, Nikolai. But this isn't the way."

"She doesn't need protection," Nikolai said, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly. "She needs possession."

A shiver tore through me, not from fear, though there was certainly that, but from the terrible truth inside his words. They didn't just want me. They were already unraveling because of me. The realization was both horrifying and intoxicating. My thumb stroked his chest as I watched his reaction. It was barely perceptual as his eyelids closed a fraction, like he was reveling in the sensation.

Kade's voice cut through the night, cold as steel. "Release her. Or I will make you."

Nikolai tilted his head, and for a moment I glimpsed it, the briefest flicker of serpentine glee in his inhuman eyes.

"You cannot unmake what has already begun."

Then he looked down at me again, eyes glowing with that unnatural light, voice so soft it barely stirred the air between us.

"You'll see. Soon. The bond is hungry. And I... am patient."

His coils shifted beneath me, muscles rippling like silk over stone as he adjusted his grip and pulled me tighter into his chest. He didn't release me. Didn't ask permission. Simply turned toward the cabin, carrying me with him, ignoring the growls and shouted warnings from the others as though they were merely the wind.

"They don't understand," he whispered, his lips brushing my ear with unsettling reverence. "They see flesh and fear. But I see the thread inside your soul... coiling, coiling, coiling toward mine."

His voice was almost tender, but every word slithered through me.

"The forest chose you. The curse called you. But I... I claimed you first."

As he carried me across the clearing, silent and undisturbed by the chaos around us, I couldn't tell what chilled me more… His words or the terrifying part of me that wanted to believe them. That wanted to surrender to whatever dark fate bound these seven men to me, and me to them. The curse whispered through the night air, and somewhere deep inside, something inside me broke. They couldn't resist me, and I could no longer resist them. It was fate.