Carrie #2
“Fuck, Shivs, no!”
He tried for a smirk, but it didn’t stick. Something was wrong in the air—thicker, hotter, the tang of a storm. My mark was throbbing so hard I could hear it in my bones.
I stepped away from the desk, kept my back to the windows, and took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
He didn’t move. “About what?”
I yanked the collar wide and jabbed a finger at the new ink. “This fucking brand.”
For a moment, the wolf in him blinked—surprise, maybe, or something closer to shame. Then he covered it with a laugh. “You knew exactly what would happen.”
“No, I didn’t. I knew you’d fuck me. I didn’t know you’d turn me into… this.” I closed the collar again, the heat from the mark leaking up into my jaw, my eyes. “What did you do to me?”
He shifted, the pose gone from confident to caged. “It’s just a mark. All shifters have it. It’s not a leash, Carrie.”
I grabbed the nearest object—a crystal rocks glass, etched with the company logo—and hurled it at the wall.
It shattered, bourbon-stained shards flying in a radius of three feet.
“Bullshit!” I shouted. “It feels like a leash. It’s burning a hole in my neck.
And every time I close my eyes, I see you. I fucking smell you.”
He advanced, slow, careful. “That’s the mate bond. It’s normal. It fades if you want it to.”
I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “You know what else fades? Nerve endings. Empathy. Self-control.”
He reached out, but I batted his hand away, hard enough that his knuckles cracked together. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
He let his arms drop. “You want me gone, say the word.”
I tried to say it, but the mark clamped down on my throat, every syllable a new wave of fire. I doubled over the desk, gasping, seeing stars. When the spasm passed, I looked up at him, tears pricking the corners of my eyes, and wanted to murder him with the stapler.
“What the fuck did you do?” I whispered.
He watched me, eyes gone green-gold and strange. “I told you: It’s the wolf. It doesn’t let go, not once it’s chosen. That’s what keeps packs alive.”
I sucked a shaky breath, then straightened, daring him to look away. “Well, this isn’t a fucking pack. It’s a company, and I’m in charge. So you listen to me: You are not welcome here, not until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”
For a heartbeat, I thought he’d refuse, or challenge, or try to dominate me the way he had in bed. But something shifted in him, and the heat drained out of his posture. His jaw flexed. He nodded, once.
“Understood,” he said.
He turned to leave, the set of his shoulders so rigid I heard the doorframe creak as he yanked it open.
When the door slammed shut, I let myself collapse to the floor, my knees thudding against the hardwood. The mark pulsed, hotter than ever, but now there was a new ache—a cold hollow in my chest, exactly the shape of him.
I stayed there, clutching my own throat, until the lights flickered and the world outside finally remembered to keep spinning.
The fever hit before midnight.
It started as a shiver under my skin, the kind you get right before the bourbon really takes hold, and the world goes friendly and loose.
Only this wasn’t friendly. It was a burn, starting at the base of my skull and radiating out to every nerve in my body, until my fingers tingled and my knees wobbled just from standing.
I stripped off my clothes and crawled into bed, shoving my face into the pillow and hoping it would pass.
It didn’t.
The hours dragged by in ten-minute increments, each one marked by a new symptom: first the sweats, so bad I soaked the sheets and left streaks of salt on my chest; then the aches, bone-deep and sharp, like a hangover you could feel in your teeth.
I rolled onto my back, every joint throbbing, and watched the ceiling dissolve into shifting patterns of shadow.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Shivs, shirtless and laughing, or sometimes on all fours, fur and muscle, green eyes gleaming in the dark.
He spoke to me in the language of touch—fingers on my collarbone, lips at my throat, teeth grazing the marks he’d left.
Even asleep, my skin remembered every second.
I twisted the sheets tighter, hoping I could wring the ghost of him out of my head.
At 2:54 AM, I gave up on sleep and staggered to the bathroom.
My reflection was a monster: face pale, eyes ringed in red, hair pasted to my forehead in greasy whorls.
The mark at my neck glowed, or seemed to, a bruise so dark it looked like the first stage of rot.
I splashed water on my face, but it did nothing.
The heat was inside, and nothing would cool it.
The voice came just as I gripped the edge of the sink, a sound halfway between a whisper and a snarl.
Come to me.
I gasped, let go of the porcelain, and nearly buckled to the floor. I knew it wasn’t real. But I also knew it was real, in the way a migraine is real, in the way hunger is real. It was Shivs, calling me. Not with a phone, not with words, but with the bond—our fucked-up, supernatural hotline.
I threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and nothing else.
I didn’t bother with makeup or matching shoes.
My whole body throbbed with the need to move, to get out, to find him.
I locked the house behind me, but I didn’t remember doing it.
My brain ran on autopilot, all the executive function replaced by raw animal want.
The drive was a fever dream. The Escalade ate up the miles, headlights carving tunnels through the early-morning fog, dashboard clock ticking off the seconds like a countdown to execution.
My hands shook so bad I had to grip the wheel at ten and two, knuckles white, arms rigid.
I nearly ran a stop sign at the turnoff for Route 60; the tires shrieked as I jerked the wheel, and the backend skidded into the wrong lane.
For a second, I thought I’d die right there, alone, a bloodstain on the blacktop.
But the car righted itself, and I kept going.
It was like driving through the inside of a gun barrel—cold, loud, every sense on hair-trigger.
At some point, I realized I’d been crying, but the tears evaporated before they made it down my face.
My chest hurt, an ache so sharp I almost wished for the bullet wound Shivs had taken for me. At least that kind of pain made sense.
The RBMC clubhouse loomed out of the fog around four AM, all corrugated metal and floodlights, ringed by a half-dozen motorcycles lined up like cavalry. The parking lot was full, which meant there was a party or a fight, or maybe just the normal rhythm of feral men waiting for the next apocalypse.
I slammed the Escalade into park, stumbled out, and nearly tripped over the curb. My vision blurred at the edges, black spots dancing in the periphery. A couple of prospects lounged by the door, both wearing vests, both smoking. They watched me with undisguised interest.
“Boss lady,” one of them said, voice half-mocking. “You look like shit.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I spat, shoving past him. My voice was raw, unrecognizable. I heard a chuckle behind me, but I didn’t stop.
Inside, the air was thick with beer and sweat and the reek of old cigarette smoke.
Bikers crowded the tables, some arm-wrestling, some passed out, some eyeing me like I was the next round of entertainment.
I didn’t care. I was hunting, and every instinct in me zeroed in on the stairs at the back of the room.
I climbed them two at a time, legs rubbery, head pounding. At the top, a hallway stretched left and right, lit by a single yellow bulb. Doors lined both sides. I could smell him—no, not smell, more like sense him. A trail of heat, a livewire running through the drywall, pulling me forward.
I didn’t knock. I just pushed open the door and stood there, braced in the frame.
Shivs sat on the edge of his bed, shirtless, jeans half-unzipped, a glass of something dark in his hand.
He looked up, and for a second, I thought he might kill me just for showing up.
But the expression on his face was something worse: hunger, yes, but also a kind of terror, a mirror image of my own.
He didn’t move. “You couldn’t stay away.”
I shook my head, words stuck behind my teeth.
He set the glass down, hands trembling, and stared at the floor. “I told you it would hurt.”
“It fucking hurts,” I said, and my voice broke.
He stood, crossed the room in two strides, and caught me by the shoulders. His hands were hot, skin feverish, every muscle in his arms vibrating with restraint. He didn’t kiss me at first; he just held me there, like he was afraid I might evaporate.
I was the one who broke the spell. I grabbed his jaw, pulled him down, and crushed our mouths together, teeth clashing, lips mashed and bruised. He tasted like whiskey and blood. I bit his lower lip hard enough to draw more, and he growled, the sound rumbling through my chest.
I clawed at his back, nails digging into old scars, then lower, fingers grappling for purchase. He lifted me—just lifted, as if I weighed nothing—and carried me to the bed. We landed in a tangle of limbs, his body over mine, all heat and violence and need.
He tore off my sweatshirt, ripping the collar in the process. My breasts popped free, nipples already hard, skin so sensitive it felt like lightning when he touched me. He bent to suck one, hard, and I screamed, the sound muffled by his hand over my mouth.
He pulled my jeans down, over my feet and tossed them aside, spreading my legs and burying his face between them.
His tongue was rough, relentless, working me over like he was trying to break the spell through sheer force.
I bucked against his mouth, hands fisted in the sheets, the pleasure so sharp it almost passed for pain.