Page 7

It took much longer than the handful of hours Rey told her it would to sort out what happened at the club. Over a week went by, his temper fraying with each passing day until Rey was a live wire of destructive promise. The slightest look, the wrong word spoken, and he flew into a rage.

At first Devin blamed the pain, something no Alpha was good at suffering. Any perceived weakness rankled their fragile egos. She might have teased him about it, but a single glance at the endless depths of his chestnut gaze was enough to quiet any humor.

If Rey was a wave of destruction, Devin stood closest to its path.

It wasn’t that she feared he would hurt her, not really. Though his hands became rough all too soon as he climbed on top of her in the small hours of the night, violent in the middle of his passions, he hadn’t left more than the print of his fingers and the red ring of his teeth at her breast. Not so much for her to dread it. At least, not yet.

He was cold, aloof in the scarce moments they spent together away from the bed during those handfuls of days. A haunting reminder of the devastating time before Beau tried to sell her. Enough so that a constant generalized anxiety coursed through her veins, worked to a frenzy at the slightest provocation. Threats lingered in every shadow, panic simmering under her skin, waiting to be unleashed. She jumped at the smallest sounds, diving into Rey’s arms for the safety he held at arm’s length. Everything made her upset, which only served for Rey to become colder.

No one would explain what was going on and why Rey was somehow responsible for it. Caught in her personal turmoil, unable to distract herself with Rey’s warm security, she hid in the bed more often than not. A last refuge of safety where his scent was strong and clean, unfettered with the smoky darkness that hung over him now. She stopped cooking, didn’t bother to clean up the mess of takeout containers and coffee cups scattered through the apartment. Rey didn’t say a word about it.

Sleeping for hours at a stretch, languishing in the cold sheets when she pried her eyes open, Devin could admit only to herself the feeling of being bereft. Abandoned with such careless ease as he pored over maps and scrawled notes, shouting at subordinates when they returned with no new information.

Well into the second week, Devin began to have an inkling that something was wrong. Her body ached. Limbs so weighted that even shuffling to the bathroom was an impossible feat. Head so filled with swampy muck that true thought evaded her at every turn.

Time slipped by in immeasurable increments, Rey’s visits becoming sparser with the passage of her waking moments. He no longer woke her every night, sometimes never entering the bedroom for more than a change of clothing and a quick shower.

Adrift in a sea of murky confusion, she stumbled out into the living room to find him at the island with several men she didn’t recognize, Beau standing to one side as he pointed out areas on a map.

As one their attention swung towards her. A pack of predators sizing up the prey who stood hovering in the doorway. Nostrils flaring, they scented the air, even Beau tipping his head back to take a deep breath. Devin swayed forward, inhaling through her nose. The chaos of sights and smells mangling her thoughts, pounding away her reason for emerging in the first place as it all slammed around the inside of her skull.

“I don’t feel so good,” she mumbled to no one in particular as the thought broke free from the slimy mire just before her knees folded, sending her crashing to the ground. Darkness swallowed up her vision, though true unconsciousness skittered away from her.

Aware enough to feel hands grabbing her, to hear the snarls and barked orders, she couldn’t make sense of any of it. Devin knew she was back in the bed, but only from the stale scent of her miserable loneliness saturating every inch of it. Curling up on her side, she buried her whine deep in the pillow. Muffling her pain as something hot and evil scoured through her middle.

“Shh, sweetheart,” Rey said through a comforting purr. The mattress dipped under his weight, his hand a scalding brand down her frozen side.

“It shouldn’t be happening so soon.” Beau’s voice was a whisper, bizarre in and of itself, but the thickness of the deep timbre swirled around her. Adding to the confusion, clawing fingers over screaming nerves.

“Can you get more?” Rey slid further onto the bed, curling his body around Devin’s as she wailed into the suffocating softness.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t exactly easy. In time? Definitely not.”

Skin too tight, constricting her every breath, it twisted over bone until Devin writhed to ease the pain. Spine tangled in agony, she arched and turned to ease the jagged hooks ripping delicate vertebrae apart.

“Fuck,” Rey rasped against Devin’s neck, dragging her arms to her sides as she tried to claw at the prickling flesh of her arms and legs.

“You can’t stay with her,” Beau murmured, ignoring Rey’s violent snarl as he settled his weight at the foot of the bed. “Once was dangerous enough.”

Devin lost the fraying thread of their conversation. Plunged into molten liquid, it burned her from the inside out. Sizzling through her veins with a slithering hiss, laying waste to the very idea of thought. She was nothing but sensation and response. Her every stuttering inhalation scorching, the slide of soft sheets sandpaper rough. Devin writhed in the inferno, suffocating under the implacable weight of fire.

Joints screaming, he pried her open. Limbs dragged around the impressive breadth of a mountain that tried to destroy her with the intensity of its heat. Devin’s eyes rolled under the earth-shattering thunder ripping her apart. It slammed against her, slick folds parting with wanton eagerness. Clenching around the throbbing length as he withdrew with an agonizing slowness just to do it again.

The decadence of espresso flooded her senses. Body alight as she clawed at his back, digging her nails into the hard muscle of his ass to pull him deeper. His roar was glorious. The brutal rhythm he set even more so. Devin’s breathy cries spiraled into the air saturated with the scent of slick and pheromones as she begged for more.

Pleasure seared through her as his hands gripped. Pulling her into the punishing thrusts as he demanded she open her eyes. He lowered himself over her, curling her body on itself. Giving Devin no option but to endure the glorious ache as he snarled and growled inches from her face. Breathing in his dark sounds, she gave him her breathy moans, her high-pitched trills making his shoulders shiver.

Hand stealing between them, his fingers found the swollen nub of her clit. Pinching, pulling, he sent her soaring. Unadulterated bliss shot up her spine, blasting through misfiring synapses as she opened her mouth wide on a silent scream.

The dark embers of his gaze grew large, close. The hot wash of his breath scorching her lips as he licked at the cracked flesh.

“You. Are. Mine.” Each word punctuated by the punishing breadth of his cock slamming deep, battering her cervix. He twisted her clit in his tight fingers, baring his teeth in challenge. Daring her to deny him.

She was lost. Falling through the abyss to the crashing tide of molten bliss. Slammed against the serrated edge of his desire. Fire pulsed in violet-red bursts through her limbs, locking every muscle tight. The savage roar echoed through her. Splitting her open, shredding away such paltry things as flesh and bone. His teeth sunk deep into her shoulder. Grinding through muscle with a shattering crunch.

Devin writhed, a rush of hot slick inviting the swelling base of his cock deep. The rippling contracting of her pussy wringing the knot as the Alpha groaned at her shoulder. Tongue lapping at her blood as he bit even deeper.

Before the last shuddering wave of pleasure could leave her lax in his arms, he began again. Rocking the thickness of the knot within the tight clench of her pussy. Thumbing her clit as he forced yet more pleasure upon her.

* * *

Adrift in fluffy clouds that buffeted her in a warm breeze, Devin fought against the awareness prickling at the peripheral of her dreamy world. Solid, massive, he rested beneath her. His low rumbles of pleasure pushing deep into her entire body as she sprawled on top of him.

It was the ache in her shoulder that brought the nagging clarity to the forefront. A twinge she sought to stretch out with a slow roll, working her way up the broad chest redolent in her scent. His hand pushed her back down, her twitch all the struggle she offered before snuggling back into him.

The soft clouds drifted away with every slow exhale. Discomfort became pain, morphing into excruciating agony. Her shaky cry had him purring, crushing her back against his body. He couldn’t stop her from looking, though. Head twisting against the bunched muscles of his chest, Devin screamed at the raw edges of flesh she could just make out on the rounded shelf of her shoulder.

“No, no, no,” she wailed, clawing at the monstrous bastard as he sought to soothe and calm. Purring long and loud as he tumbled them across the bed, his weight pushed her deep into the soft hills of the nest she didn’t remember building.

“Get off of me!” Devin bucked, screaming again as the knot tugged, threatening to rip her insides out.

Rey didn’t bother with words. He suffocated her in his calming presence, drowning her in the purr. She could feel it slithering its way through her. A slimy hand clutching at her heart as it wound deep into her chest. Against her will, her limbs grew slack. Body pliant as he poured more of that perfect sound into her. Everything went soft around the edges as he stroked her hair and scrubbed at her scalp.

She felt every thick surge of his come bathing her insides. The warmth filling her, sating a savage need that still crawled across her skin in violent pulses. Mind trying to piece together the dream vague snippets, the chaotic jumble of memories, she could only guess it’d just happened. Too full, too needy, it couldn’t have been long.

“How long,” Devin demanded in a watery croak.

She didn’t think he’d answer, not as his head dipped down to nuzzle the violent crimson pain centered on her shoulder. Lips ghosting over the side of her neck, he grunted.

“Eight days.”

Devin sobbed. Tears leaked down wan cheeks, staining the fine hairs at her temple as she stared unseeing at the ceiling beyond the tousled perfection of his dark hair. Icy and flushed in turns, she tore at the bedding as he pushed her deeper into the bed. Refusing to give her a scant inch of space to come apart.

The sickening worm snuggled deeper within her chest, the sibilant hiss of it whispering devious words of calm and acceptance. Suffusing her with warmth as Rey trailed a line of gentle pecks to the corner of her lips before claiming them in a devastating kiss. Teeth and tongue invading, assaulting her senses until Devin couldn’t tell where she began, and he ended.

It left her breathless, gasping as he pulled away. The dark flames of his eyes gauging, taking note of her every shift and sigh as he eased the knot deeper. His smile brilliant in the dark pit of her heart as she cried out and wound her limbs tighter around him. Clutching at him as if he was the last bastion of her sanity.

He granted her the small mercy of holding still after that. Noting the exhausted tremble of her arms, the dark bruises under her eyes, he smothered her with his body and scrubbed at her scalp with a gratified purr.

They lay like that for what felt like eons. Long enough that the pitch blackness of the room eased into the pale blue light of dawn. As the first timid fingers of pale gold crawled over their joined bodies, Rey refused to abandon his position even as the knot abated. The girth of his hard shaft stretching her became unbearable, her quiet shift and near silent whine met with a baring of his teeth.

“Hurts,” Devin whispered as she sent trembling fingers over his shoulders and down his back. Soothing the beast before the tension building in those long muscles could take hold.

Rey grumbled, but pulled his hips back. A rush of fluids leaked from her swollen pussy, face warming in absolute mortification. He found it amusing, lips twitching as he pressed them against her hot cheeks before nuzzling her chin aside to view the red ruin of her shoulder once again. While she should be used to the sensation by now, this was so very different. The insane urge to scream at him to put it back, the aching moan at the loss clawing at her throat. An overwhelming feeling that he wanted the same.

Unnerved at the path of her thoughts, Devin thought to push her luck. She scratched her nails over his back, denying the feel of deep gouges and half-moons or the very real knowledge that she’d put them there. “You’re heavy.”

Rey chuckled against her neck, obsessed with the sight of the agonizing wound. Still, he wrapped his arms around her back and rolled to his knees, dragging Devin up with him so she sat on the hard planks of his thighs. Forced to look at him in the cold light of day, she snarled at the evil snake at her ear telling her of his prowess, his strength. How very well he fucked her, how much she wanted more.

Flinching from his warning growl, Devin ducked her head. Hiding beneath the fall of tangled curls as she offered him her submission, though her fingers sought that slimy strand to claw it out of her chest.

“Stop that.” Voice a low thunder, he supported her weight on an arm, climbing from the bed and carrying her towards the bathroom. He tugged her hand away from where she left red welts on skin bruised and peppered with bites.

Devin tried for the shower as soon as he let her slide down the length of his body. Caught on the leash of her arm, she hissed and tried to double over as the excruciating pain ricocheted up her arm and into her chest, a brilliant crimson explosion blinding her as he swung her around into the hard edge of the vanity.

Pressing against her back, he wedged her between the literal rock and a hard place. Opening her clenched fist, he slapped the handle of her toothbrush into her hand, his single concession to hygiene.

“Please let me shower. It’s been eight days and—”

“No.”

“Give me a break! I’m not going around reeking of—”

“You’ll wear my scent as long as I tell you to,” Rey snarled against her nape, the sharp edge of his teeth a waiting threat.

Devin opened her mouth, but the words died on her tongue, crawling back down her throat on a shrill gasp. Eyes wide, she brought her hand to the mangled flesh of her shoulder. Trembling fingers not daring to touch the ragged edges of flesh, she stared at her reflection. Mouth working, she couldn’t breathe past the panicked wail building from the depths of her soul.

He’d marked her. Claimed her. Far deeper than it needed to be, she wondered at the pale sheen deep in the angry red muscle. Was there cartilage there, or had he hit bone? She knew nothing of anatomy, the random urge to beg for a phone so she could search for images pinging around her skull.

Somehow, seeing it was worse than the murmuring tones voicing its ecstasy at his dedication, the proof of his desire a badge for all to see. A random thought tripped, careening through numbed synapses before it caught hold and plunged straight into the bottom of her stomach. Hand dropping to flutter in nervous anticipation over the soft swell of her belly, panic widened her eyes. Showing too much white as her pupils shrank to hysterical pinpoints.

“Not this time,” Rey murmured, nuzzling her now as he wrapped Devin up in his arms. Covering her faltering fingers in his, he cupped their joined hands low over the cradle of her hips. “Soon though.”

“Soon?” The single word cracked, shattering in the air as it fell in cutting shards all around her.

“I’ll give you what you need, sweetheart.” Rey groaned, grinding against her ass so she felt the throbbing heat of him. “I’ll fucking live in that perfect pussy of yours until I do.”

“I-I don’t… I mean—”

“Shh, sweetheart. I know it’s disappointing, but you weren’t ready yet. You will be next time.”

Devin gaped, mouth hanging wide like some stupid cartoon movie character. He actually thought the plummeting of her heart was discontent, not the welling panic at his promise to breed her. Grasping at the fraying strands of her sanity, clutching them tight to what remained of her soul, she twisted in his arms. Craning her neck all the way back, she peered up at him. Gauging the clarity in the deep umber wells of his eyes, she decided that while he no longer suffered the intensity and brutality of the rut, he was most definitely insane.

“You’re going to… what? Induce a…” Devin couldn’t even say the words, the thought so horrifying her throat strangled her breath down to a painful wheeze.

Rey tutted, a small shake of his head dismissing the wave of bitter fear tainting the air. Strong hands took hold of her hips, lifting her onto the vanity. An incongruous expression swept over the hard lines of his face, jaw clenching as he brought out a package of thick gauze pads and tape from a drawer.

It was sadness, though that wasn’t quite right. Regret seemed closer, with his face clouded in darkness as he applied the bandage to the claiming bite. Hiding it away.

The reason he didn’t allow her to bathe became clear within the hour.

As if the minor victory of her own clothing had never transpired, he tugged his shirt onto her body. Playing dress up while she struggled against the drowning waves of his will and swirling sensations that weren’t hers.

She felt him deep in her chest. The essence of expensive espresso and a hint of tart strawberries underlying her sweetness, and it had nothing to do with the flaking layers of his come. She felt his heat from the inside out, blanketing her in secure bands that tightened with her every breath. Trapping her within the tight circle of his control.

Dressed in a sweater saturated in his scent, a pair of long sweat shorts bunched at her hips where he’d tied the string as tight as it would go. It still rode low on her hips, a single tug able to pull it down. The fact he wanted it that way, that no one but his hands would dare test the precarious elastic, slammed into her solar plexus. It stole her breath, chest constricting under the heavy weight of his need, as Rey wrapped her in a possessive arm and led her out into the living room.

He deposited her in the chair that she’d once favored for the view of the city lights it afforded, back in that other life, before what was left of her world crumbled. Devin swayed and stared without seeing. This must be shock. Had to be. She felt numb, nothing of her own emotions or thoughts gaining a foothold as Rey arranged her into an approximation of decency. It was all him, everything tightening down to a hyper focus on the male as he covered her with a gray throw she half recognized before moving around the apartment.

Devin tracked his movements through a haze, vision swimming from one moment to the next. She didn’t know when he put the bottle of water in her hands, why she didn’t feel the chill through the thin plastic. Still, she sipped it as he urged her to do.

Startled by the door opening, he was there before she could lose her grip on the bottle. Curling her fingers tighter around it until the plastic crackled, he turned her eyes to meet his with a brush of his fingers. Lost in the decadence of his chestnut gaze, she swayed forward, matching his smile with one of her own.

“Stay quiet and drink your water, sweetheart.”

She gave a slow nod, having already forgotten the smoky darkness and lumbering bodies of Alphas she didn’t know. The spicy, herbal scent of dangerous Betas mingled with them, but the only one that mattered was his, overpowering them all. Devin sipped her water, snuggling deeper under the blanket.

There was the loud murmur of voices, none of it registering in the cottony fluff of her thoughts. Warmth enveloped her. It radiated from her chest, down through her arms and legs. Pulsed low between her legs. The soreness there became a teasing throb that brought a contented hum to her lips. Devin sipped her water, smiling wide each time he came close. A rough swipe of his hand over her tangled hair brought her head back, cheek against his hip. She nuzzled closer, a sigh of satisfaction feathering over the denim pulled taut over his erection.

The men wouldn’t leave, though. Their grinding tones infiltrating her cozy pocket of comfort before Rey’s large palm covered her ear. Muffling them further, silencing the grating resonance of voices that weren’t his.

When Rey left her side, she whimpered. The pathetic sound barely over her lips before he returned with hand outstretched. Sliding her small fingers across his palm, a chill doused her in sparkling clarity. Staring at their joined hands for a stammering heartbeat, she raised her horrified gaze to his.

“What have you done to me,” she whispered, trying to withdraw from his physical presence as much as the writhing heat coiling through her chest.

“Come to bed, sweetheart.”

Devin shook her head. Sobbing as she rose from the chair, she stumbled into his side. Shoving at his bulk even as she pressed her body closer. He silenced her devastated wail with a savage kiss as he lowered their bodies into her nest.

Though she arched and moaned at his call, he couldn’t stop her tears. Ripping at his clothes to suck and bite at his skin, they fell in icy rivulets. As he entered her, the slick glide of his flesh more than proving her readiness, she sobbed.

She wept through it all.

He crooned over her with promises of gentleness, lapping up her misery. Giving her no mercy as he devastated her one tender caress at a time.