Page 8 of His Claim
When I pulled back, panting, blood streaked my lips. She lay beneath me, chest heaving, her eyes still wild but softer now, like the drug’s grip had loosened. Confusion flickered there along with pain and anger.
Her body trembled, and I tightened my grip, pressing my forehead against hers.
“It’s done,” I rasped. My voice was hoarse, thick with an emotion I hadn’t let myself feel in years. “You belong to me now. No one will ever take you from me.”
Her lashes fluttered, her breath warm against my lips. She didn’t answer, maybe she couldn’t, but she didn’t fight me anymore either.
Her body was still trembling beneath me, every muscle quivering from the fight, her chest heaving against mine. I kept her wrists pinned above her head. Her scent was everywhere now, full of blood, sweat, and something else that was darker, spicier, hotter.
Desire.
It hit me like a blade to the gut.
I lifted my head and gazed at her, then froze, panting, my teeth still wet with her blood where I’d marked her. I hadn’t meant to notice it, hadn’t meant to breathe it in, but once it was there, it wrapped around me like smoke, coiling into my lungs, throughmy blood, until my cock was pressing hard against the seam of my pants.
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath, dropping my forehead to hers again, trying to will it away. This wasn’t the time. She wasn’t herself.
Then she moved against me, hips bucking unconsciously, and the heat of her body seared through me. My grip on her wrists tightened, my restraint stretched thin as a wire.
Her eyes flickered open, still rimmed with gold and madness, but softer now than when she’d been trying to tear out my throat. Her lips parted, and a soft, broken sound escaped, halfway between a sob and a moan.
My wolf surged, snarling ‘mine’ so loud it nearly drowned out my reason.
“Easy,” I rasped, voice low, strained. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not in your right mind.”
Her scent said otherwise. Her scent said she wanted me, even through the haze of whatever drug they’d injected into her, even through the rage. It wound around me like chains, dragging me closer. My body pressed harder into hers, every instinct begging me to take her, to claim her hard and rough.
Her thighs shifted beneath mine, spreading a fraction wider, and my pulse thundered in my ears.
Gods help me, I wanted to feel her, to taste every inch of her, to bury myself inside her until neither of us remembered this blood-soaked hallway and I forgot my own name.
“Not like this,” I growled, more to myself than her, forcing the words through clenched teeth. Even as I said it, my cocktwitched, my body betraying every ounce of discipline I’d ever had.
Her scent only grew stronger.
Her body writhed beneath me, not with the same feral violence as before, but with a deeper, more primal instinct. Her hips rocked, just enough that I felt a whisper of her heat through the thin hospital gown, and my cock pulsed so hard it hurt.
I sucked in a quick breath, and that was a mistake.
Her scent hit me again, sweet, slick, and thick with need. It lanced straight to my gut, winding low and hot, coiling my muscles tight.
She tilted her head, baring her throat, and the sight nearly undid me. My wolf roared in my chest, demanding I sink my teeth into her again, deeper this time, claiming her until she screamed my name.
“Gods,” I snarled, dragging my teeth across the mark I’d just bitten into her skin. She gasped beneath me, the sound a little bit broken, and my cock jerked against her thigh like it was answering her.
I ground down harder, pinning her, my breath hot against her ear. “Do you feel that?” I growled, my voice low and rough with need. “What you’re doing to me?”
Her eyes fluttered, drugged, wild, but there was no mistaking the way her body arched against me, the soft whimper that slipped from her lips.
I wanted her.
Ineededher.
Fuck, this girl wasmy mate.
My free hand slid down her side, fingers grazing the curve of her hip, pausing at the edge of the thin gown. Her skin burned under my touch, fever-hot, trembling, and I shuddered at the thought of pushing the fabric up, tearing it off, and burying myself deep inside her until the madness in both of us burned clean.
“Mine,” I rasped, the word tearing free before I could think. “You’re mine.”
