Page 17

I wanted her. Gods , I wanted to tear the rest of that dress off her, to see her spread beneath me on that table like a feast, to taste every wicked sound she could make when she broke for me.

My wolf howled behind my ribs, no longer satisfied with the scent of her skin—it needed the scent of submission, of surrender, of ruin.

But then—Something shifted.

In the dark, in the firelight, in the high of lust and fury, I caught it. Her eyes. Green, yes—but wrong. Not like before. Not wild or wounded or sharp.

There was something rotting there. Poison curling behind her gaze like smoke behind stained glass. Her body was pliant in my hands, but her expression—beneath the moans, beneath the pretty purrs—was empty.

Detached. Like she wasn’t really here. My wolf recoiled. It didn’t understand. It didn’t want to stop. But it knew. Something was wrong.

Even as I kissed her throat, even as her nails raked across my shoulders, I could feel it—an unease threading through the hunger. I pulled back, just enough to catch her eyes again. Her pupils were too wide, her skin slick with sweat, her body shaking.

And still she smiled.

“Where would you go?” I asked against her lips, voice hoarse, breathless, trying to cling to logic while my body begged to sink deeper into hers. “If I say yes—if I let you go in the morning—where would you run?”

She didn’t answer. Just leaned in to kiss me again, slow and drugging.I growled and gripped her chin, hard enough to stop her. Her eyes met mine—glassy. Hollow. Tainted with something that didn’t belong.

Rotting magic.

“You’re going back to that witch,” I snarled, fury building like a storm under my skin. “Aren’t you?” My grip on her jaw tightened. “You were going to let me fuck you and then crawl back to her before the rest of your wolf breaks—just so you could carve her out again.”

I saw the truth flicker in her eyes. Guilt. Shame. Rage. But not denial.

The beast in me—Alpha—rose like fire through my blood, not from lust this time, but from betrayal.

“You were going to let me fuck you,” I growled, dragging her closer, pressing her to the table’s edge, “just to distract me long enough to crawl back to that cursed witch and slice the rest of your soul out, weren’t you?”

Lexa still didn’t speak, but the sharp breath she sucked through her teeth was enough. Her lips parted, her chest heaved, and I could feel the war happening inside her. The fracture lines. The desperation.

She twisted, wild and vicious, all that polished seduction cracking like glass beneath fire. Her nails clawed at my chest, her legs kicked with the strength of something feral clawing its way out, and her body trembled with fevered desperation. It wasn’t lust in her eyes anymore—it was terror.

“You don’t understand!” she cried, voice warping under the weight of something breaking. “You can’t! You don’t know what it’s like to wake up every day with that thing snarling beneath your skin—waiting to take over, waiting to consume you! I need the runes—I need her gone!”

Her breath came in short, ragged gasps. Her pupils were huge, devouring the green of her irises, and sweat slicked her skin like oil, soaking through the fine red silk she wore like it weighed a thousand pounds.

She was coming undone. And it wasn’t fear causing it—it was withdrawal. The second rune was failing.

I could see it in the way her limbs shook violently, the way her teeth ground together like her jaw couldn’t remember how to relax, the way she fought my touch one second and collapsed into it the next.

She was burning from the inside out. Her body was screaming for the dark magic she'd relied on for too long, and it was punishing her for daring to try and survive without it.

I tried to hold her steady, to keep her from thrashing so hard she’d hurt herself, but her fury exploded like venom spat in my face.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “You sanctimonious bastard—you think you’re better than me? You’re not! You’re just a spoiled, overgrown mutt playing king in a crumbling castle full of slaves who pretend to worship you because they’re terrified to do otherwise!”

Her eyes blazed, fever-bright, wide and wild.

“I’ve seen the way they look at you,” she spat. “Like a god, like a savior, but you're nothing more than a beast with a crown! I’d rather fuck a Crescent Moon loyalist in a ditch than pretend you're worth even a second of my submission!”

That one hit hard.

I growled, jaw tight, fury boiling in my blood, but before I could speak, she kept going, more unhinged now, her words broken glass she kept pushing deeper and deeper into her own flesh.

“And your little Omega princess?” she laughed—high, sharp, mad.

“Tanya? That shallow, perfume-soaked sow parading around in silk like she’s already your Luna?

She’s pathetic. She couldn’t handle your wolf if you knotted her for a century.

She's too soft, too dumb, too desperate—just another bitch in heat, waiting to be bred!”

The moment the words left her mouth, something inside me snapped. My hand slammed the table beside us, wood splintering beneath my palm.

“You talk like you're better than her—than any of them—but you're worse, Lexa. At least Tanya owns what she is. You? You’re a coward, dressed up in fire and lies, too scared to face your nature, too damn proud to admit what you are. You’ve wrapped yourself in poison and shame and dark magic and you think that makes you untouchable?” I leaned in, lips brushing her ear as I hissed the next words.

“You’re not untouchable. You’re just rotting, from the inside out. ”

She opened her mouth to strike back, already forming some venom-laced insult, but the words twisted in her throat. Her lips moved—once, twice—but no sound came. Her eyes widened.

And then it began.

Her body jerked, sudden and violent. Her spine arched like someone had driven a blade into it. Her limbs trembled, convulsing in my grip. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, her hands clutching at her chest like she couldn’t breathe.

“Lexa—”

But she couldn’t hear me.Then came the scream.

Gods.

It ripped from her throat like her soul had been torn free. It wasn’t just loud—it was shattering, pure, soul-deep agony. My wolf recoiled, terrified, folding in on itself beneath the weight of her pain.

And suddenly, nothing else mattered. Not the argument. Not the insults. Not the heat or fury or lust.

Only her.

Lexa collapsed in my arms like a lifeless thing, her skin burning, soaked with sweat, breath hitching as her body trembled and went still.

I caught her, my heart pounding—not with anger this time, but with a bone-deep protectiveness that stunned me. I held her tighter, rocking her slightly, whispering curses to whatever force had allowed her to hurt this much without killing her.

Gently, I carried her to the bed, laying her against the dark sheets like she might break beneath the weight of anything heavier than breath.

I pulled the covers up to her collarbone, brushing damp strands of hair away from her temple.

Her face was still twisted in pain, even unconscious, and I could see the shine of fresh tears on her lashes.

I released a slow, ragged breath, forcing my heart to settle before carefully sinking onto the edge of the bed beside her, close enough to feel her warmth, yet far enough not to disturb the quiet rhythm of her breathing.

She lay still, her features softened by sleep, free of the usual fierce defiance she wore like armor.

Quietly, cautiously, I leaned toward her, waiting until I was certain she had slipped far enough into sleep that my words would remain mine alone. My mouth brushed softly against her ear, my breath warm on her skin as I whispered words I'd never dare say while she was awake.

“I’m glad it drives you mad,” I murmured gently, my voice low and edged with quiet triumph, “the thought of Tanya wearing a crown that doesn’t belong to her.”

Slowly, tenderly, I pressed my lips against her cheek, the skin still flushed, still damp with the remnants of anger and exhaustion and pain. I lingered there a moment longer, savoring the rare intimacy, the softness I’d stolen while she slept.

“Don’t worry, little stray ,” I whispered, quieter now, my voice more promise than threat. “I’ll claim a Luna soon enough, I just need to rid her veins of the poison first.”