Chapter 9 Bleed, Bite, Belong #3
The question hangs between us—heavy, weighted with implications neither of us should be considering.
I bite my bottom lip, hard enough to hurt, using the pain to ground myself.
"This is a dangerous challenge neither of us can win," I whisper. "You know that, right? If we—if your knot—"
"I know." His thumbs stroke small circles on my hip bones, a gesture so tender it makes my chest ache. "I know exactly what happens. But what if I want to try anyway?"
"Try?" I let out a breathless laugh that's more hysteria than humor. "Try bonding with the crazy Omega who everyone avoids? Try tying yourself permanently to someone who might actually be too broken to fix?"
"What if I don't want to fix you?" His eyes search mine. "What if I like you broken? What if broken is exactly what I'm looking for?"
The words shouldn't land the way they do.
Shouldn't burrow into my chest and make a home there.
But they do.
I can feel his knot—swelling larger, pressing harder against my entrance.
My body is betraying me, producing more slick in response, trying to ease the way for something my brain knows is reckless.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to take it, to let him lock inside me, to accept the bond my body is begging for.
But instinct has never been my friend.
"Even if the odds aren't in favor of our madness?" I ask, trying to inject some levity into my voice and failing spectacularly.
He smirks—that devastating expression that makes my heart stutter.
"Especially then."
I'm shaking.
Full-body tremors that I can't control, can't count away, can't ritual into submission.
"Your pack will hate me," I say, and it's not a question. "They'll despise me. I'm packless, I'm unstable, I'm—I'm everything they don't want attached to their Alpha."
"Then we run away."
The words are so simple.
So impossible.
Exactly what I've been dreaming about since I was fourteen years old and realized that Ruthless Academy was a cage I'd never escape.
I pause.
Freeze completely, my hips still hovering just above his, his knot still pressing insistently, waiting for a decision that will change everything.
Our eyes lock again.
And this time, the look we share isn't just electric or raw—it's a question.
A dare.
A leap into the void with no guarantee of landing.
"I vow to run away with you," he says, voice low and fervent. "Just you and me out in this ruthless fucking world, escaping all the odds. No pack politics, no academy rules, no one telling us what we're supposed to be. Just us."
The vow strikes the depths of my soul.
Because I want it.
God, I want it so badly I can taste it—freedom, companionship, the possibility of building something that's ours instead of something handed down by people who never wanted us in the first place.
But wanting things has never been enough.
I force a smirk onto my face, even though my heart is racing so fast I might actually die right here, right now, impaled on the cock of the man who's offering me everything I've ever wanted.
"Your vows mean nothing with just words, Wilder," I say, using his last name like armor.
His eyes flash—challenge accepted.
"Fine." His voice drops even lower, rougher. "Let me do something that will make you understand."
Then he bites his bottom lip.
Hard.
Hard enough that I see the moment skin breaks, blood welling up and pooling on his lip—dark red, arterial, proof of commitment rendered in biology.
"Kiss me," he whispers.
The command shouldn't turn me on.
Shouldn't make my pussy clench around him, make more slick flood out to ease the way for his knot, and make every nerve ending in my body light up like I've been struck by lightning.
But it does.
All of it.
I lean down—helpless, compelled, unable to resist the pull of his bleeding mouth—and kiss him.
The taste of copper explodes across my tongue.
His blood mixes with my saliva, metallic and intimate and so fucking primal that I moan into his mouth. He kisses me back hard, one hand leaving my hip to tangle in my hair, holding me in place while he claims every inch of my mouth with his tongue.
When we break apart, we're both gasping.
Both so far past the point of rational thought that I'm surprised either of us can still form words.
His blood stains my lips.
I can feel it—warm and wet and marking me as his in a way that should terrify me but instead feels like coming home.
"Bite me and seal the deal, Sweetness."
The words register slowly.
Penetrating through the haze of lust and fear and desperate, aching need that's been building since the moment I crashed into him at the post office.
Bite him.
Bond with him.
Make this permanent.
My eyes widen—mismatched irises focusing on his face with sudden, sharp clarity.
He's serious.
Completely, utterly serious.
There's no hesitation in his expression, no second-guessing, no fear of what comes next.
Just certainty.
Just the steady, unwavering belief that this—us—is worth the risk.
We stare at each other. His blood paints my lips like the darkest lipstick, metallic and warm and still flowing slightly from where he bit himself open.
An offering.
A challenge.
A promise written in biology instead of ink.
My heart is hammering so hard I'm surprised it hasn't burst through my ribs yet—one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, the rhythm erratic and useless because no amount of counting can prepare me for what he's asking me to do.
Bite him.
Bond with him.
Make this permanent in a way that can't be undone with paperwork or distance or second thoughts.
My eyes drift to his neck.
The left side is exposed—vulnerable, the pale column of his throat marked with that beautiful viper tattoo that winds up from his collarbone. I can see his pulse there, rapid and strong, proof of life and arousal and the same desperate hope that's currently destroying me from the inside out.
All I have to do is lean in.
Sink my teeth into the sweet spot where neck meets shoulder.
Bite down hard enough to break skin, to trigger the biological imperative that will flood both our systems with bonding hormones and lock us together permanently.
It would be so easy.
So terrifyingly easy.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to do it—my Omega biology recognizing its mate, demanding I claim him the way he's offering to be claimed.
My pussy is producing slick in quantities that should be embarrassing, trying to ease the way for his knot, preparing my body for a bonding that my brain is still trying to logic its way out of.
But logic is losing.
Has been losing since the moment he caught me inside the post office, and I smelled his vanilla delight of a scent that made my body hum in delight and yearn for belonging.
My fingers are twitching against his chest—tap-tap-tap-tap—four times, four times, always four because even numbers are safe and control is all I have left.
Except I don't have control.
Haven't had it since he kissed me in the rain, surrounded by my ruined letters.
Haven't had it since I let him into my sanctuary, into my shower, into my bed, and my body, and the broken pieces of my heart I thought I'd locked away so thoroughly no one would ever find them.
He found them anyway.
Found me.
And now he's offering himself in return—blood and vows and the kind of commitment people like us aren't supposed to be capable of.
I search his eyes.
Looking for hesitation, for doubt, for any sign that he doesn't fully understand what he's asking for.
That he doesn't know I'm too broken to be anyone's Omega.
That he hasn't realized bonding with me will tie him to an Omega with a body count, a trauma history that reads like a horror novel, and mental instability that makes every day a gamble on whether I'll survive until nightfall.
But I don't find doubt.
I find certainty.
Absolute, unwavering, terrifying certainty.
His green-gold eyes are locked on mine, pupils blown wide with arousal and something deeper—something that looks like the loneliness I've been carrying for ten years, reflected back at me in another person's face.
He knows exactly what he's asking.
Knows exactly who I am.
And he wants me anyway.
Not despite the brokenness.
Because of it.
He's not trying to fix me.
Not trying to save, tame, or turn me into some domesticated version of myself that fits neatly into pack dynamics and social expectations.
He's trying to join me.
In the chaos, in the violence, in the beautiful disaster of existing outside every boundary society has drawn.
I've never seen a man look at me like that.
Without an ounce of regret.
Without the subtle calculation in his eyes that says he's already planning his exit strategy.
Without the fear that eventually surfaces in every Alpha who gets too close and realizes that loving me is a death sentence to their sanity.
He's not afraid.
He should be.
But he's not.
And maybe that's what pushes me over the edge.
Maybe it's the certainty in his eyes, or the blood on his lip, or the way his hands are still gripping my hips like I'm something precious instead of something dangerous.
Or it's the five years of letters—of connection built through words and hope and the desperate need to believe I wasn't completely alone in this nightmare.
Maybe it's just that I'm tired.
So fucking tired of surviving alone.
Tired of fighting and killing and bleeding just to earn the right to exist in spaces that don't want me.
So tired of pretending I don't want soft things—love, partnership, someone who chooses me first instead of tolerating me as a last resort.
I lean in.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Giving him every chance to change his mind, to push me away, to remember that this is insane and reckless and will complicate everything.
He doesn't move.
Doesn't flinch.
Just watches me with those devastating eyes, waiting.
As I lean toward his neck, I let my weight drop.
The movement is simultaneous—my mouth descending toward his throat while my hips lower fully, taking his swelling knot inch by impossible inch.
My pussy stretches.
Goodness, it stretches—wider than I've ever taken anything, accommodating the thick bulge at the base of his cock as it pushes inside, forcing my inner walls to expand around it. More slick floods out, easing the way, my body betraying every logical thought I've ever had by making this possible.
The pressure is intense.
Overwhelming.
The burn of being stretched beyond my limit mixed with pleasure so sharp it borders on pain.
But I don't stop.
I keep lowering, keep taking him deeper, keep allowing my body to swallow up his knot until—
There.
The widest part passes my entrance, and suddenly he's locked inside me, the knot fully seated, pulsing and swelling even larger now that it's where it belongs.
We're locked together.
Physically bound in the most primal way possible.
And in the exact same moment, my pussy clenches around his knot—milking it, sealing us together below—my teeth sink into the left side of his neck.
The flesh gives way easily.
Easier than it should, like my body knows exactly how much pressure to apply, exactly where to bite, exactly how to trigger the biological cascade that will bond us permanently.
The taste of that pinch of blood seeps onto my lips.
Copper and salt and something else—something that tastes like vanilla and smoke and every letter I've ever written to him condensed into a single, perfect flavor.
His whole body goes rigid beneath me, back arching off the mattress, hands gripping my hips so hard I know there will be bruises in the shape of his fingerprints.
I feel it happen.
The bond.
It's not gentle.
Not a soft, creeping thing that builds gradually.
It's a fucking explosion.
A supernova that detonates in my chest and radiates outward, burning through every nerve ending, every synapse, every carefully constructed wall I've built around my heart.
Suddenly I can feel him—not just physically, not just the pulse of his knot inside me and his blood in my mouth—but emotionally.
His loneliness crashes into mine.
His hope tangles with mine.
His fear and desperation and the bone-deep relief of finally, finally not being alone—all of it floods through me like I've been struck by lightning.
And he can feel me too.
I know he can because I feel his shock at the depth of my trauma, his rage at everyone who's ever hurt me, his determination to protect me even though I don't need protecting.
His love.
Fuck.
His love.
Raw and new and absolutely terrifying in its intensity.
I release his neck, licking the wound to help it clot, tasting his blood one more time before I pull back to look at him.
His eyes are wide.
Stunned.
The green-gold irises are practically glowing, and I wonder if mine look the same—if the bond is visible in the way we're staring at each other like we're seeing each other for the first time.
Maybe we are.
As though this is the first time anyone has ever truly seen me.
The good, the bad, the absolutely fucking terrifying.
It’s the most out of body experience I’ve ever had a taste of.
"Seraphine," he breathes, and my name sounds different now.
Weighted. Sacred.
Like he's saying a prayer to a god he just discovered.
I open my mouth to respond—to say something, anything, to acknowledge what we've just done—but the words die in my throat.
Because reality is crashing in.
Cold and unforgiving and impossible to ignore.
I just bonded with him.
With Sage Wilder.
An Alpha I met hours ago but have loved through letters for five years.
An Alpha who has a pack.
A pack that never asked for an Omega.
A pack that definitely didn't ask for me—the packless, unstable, murderous Omega with a body count and a brother people whisper about in terrified tones.
They don't know who I am yet.
Don't know that their pack member just bonded himself permanently to Seraphine Eastman.
To the girl who kills without remorse.
To the Omega who's survived Ruthless Academy through violence and ballet and sheer stubborn refusal to die.
To the sister of Knox Eastman—the name that makes even hardened criminals flinch.
But they're about to find out.
They're about to find out exactly who I truly am.