Chapter Twenty-Four
I’m in my final advisee meeting with Dr. Craven on Wednesday morning when she brings up Connor.
“I talked to Mr. Masters, by the way.”
“Connor?”
“Yes. Charming young man. He said you’ve been a great help to him this semester. I know he didn’t need all that much assistance, but I appreciate you humoring me and the board. I’ve gone ahead and sent my recommendation letter to my colleagues at several grad schools on your list.”
“What? Really?
“I know you’re hoping for early acceptance.”
I didn’t have to attend Connor’s final session. But if I didn’t, what then? What if he went back to the West Coast, and I didn’t see him again? There was too much unanswered between us.
“Have you reconsidered staying local?”
I jerk my head up to her. “I—maybe. I’m sorry, I have to go.”
Dr. Craven just nods as I gather my things and float out of her office in a haze.
What the hell is Connor doing? Why would he wait till now to give me an out?
I’m hours early to the library, so I sit outside our study room and try to study for finals. After thirty minutes of doodling spirals and chewing my lip, I start pacing the stacks.
I don’t recognize my own life anymore. Everyone around me continues like nothing’s changed, but there’s been a tectonic shift at my core.
Finally, the time for our session arrives, and I go into the study room and take deep breaths of his lingering scent.
Five minutes past the hour, he’s still not there. Panic starts to drum through my chest. I call Connor, and his phone rings seven times. I mash end before I can find out if he’s got that same accursed voicemail recording.
My phone pings a second later. It’s a text message from Connor—an address, nothing else. It’s local, I can tell that much, but I don’t recognize it off-hand.
I send a question mark in reply, but I’m already opening the address in my maps app and walking to my car.
His sudden absence is making it clear how much I don’t want him to leave. How much I need him in my life.
A mile from my destination, I realize where the GPS is taking me.
I’m surrounded by forest, but the faded billboard for Pherofume that I pass gives it away.
It’s the same one from three years ago; the location’s too remote to resell the ad space.
A woman’s parted lips take up the entire billboard, and in the black space between her lips, ‘ Pherofume’ is written in a white sans-serif font.
I nearly slam on the brakes. A semi blasts past me blaring its horn, and I realize I’m going thirty under the speed limit.
He’s taking me to the ceremony grounds.
What the fuck is Connor playing at? Why would he ever bring me here, knowing what happened?
Just drawing close has my heart racing and sweat beading on my palms. I haven’t been back here since that night.
The closer I get, the more the memories claw at me. The heat. The pain. His damning silence. Clutching his shirt with bloody fingers and praying for it to end. I grip the steering wheel like it might keep me in the present moment.
The clearing appears like a ghost out of the trees. I pull off into the parking area that’s little more than loose dirt and gravel. Connor’s car is nowhere in sight.
I nearly burst into tears when I see what he’s done.
There’s a single table in the middle of the clearing.
And on that table is a shirt.
Every hair on my arms stands upright.
I climb out of my car on shaky legs, checking my texts again, even though I know he hasn’t messaged me back.
It’s the shirt, of course. The one that went missing after my heat. I can recognize the musk of his cum from here.
He’s recreating that night—but why?
What if he doesn’t come?
It’s nonsensical, but I can’t shake the fear. This clearing has been the site of all my nightmares for years.
I walk down the sloping hill to the table, pick up the shirt, and breathe in his scent.
It smells like him. Rich and warm and masculine.
It doesn’t hit me like it did the night of the mating ceremony, but the effect is instant.
My muscles soften. A hot ache blooms between my legs, and my abs clench.
The mating bond stirs. It’s awake and waiting to be fulfilled. Stronger now than it’s ever been before.
There's a scrap of paper on the table beneath the shirt. A single word is written on it in Connor’s elegant hand.
Run.
A shiver runs up my spine.
Is this a trick? Someone’s cruel joke? Connor's way of punishing me?
A gust of wind kicks up as if on cue, snatching the paper from my hand and sending it tumbling into the darkening woods.
The moon is just a pale sliver above the trees tonight. The clearing is darker than I remember. Colder.
Past and present are converging. The air is practically vibrating. The forest feels alive.
Then a motion draws my eyes to the tree line. Connor steps into the clearing.
So, I do the only thing I can.
I run.
Something primal drives me forward as I bolt for the forest. This doesn’t feel like a game—the stakes are very real. But he wouldn't hurt me, would he? Not like this.
My feet fly until I reach the trees, where I’m slow by branches catching in my hair and vines ripping at my jeans. The cold air burns my lungs, but I keep running. I don’t know where I’m going; I only know he’s behind me.
And he’s not playing, he’s hunting.
Slick soaks my panties. My omega is awake, and she’s thrilled.
Wet leaves slip beneath my feet, and I catch myself against a moss-slick tree.
But I don’t stop. I’m not sure I could if I wanted to. Every nerve in my body is stretched taut, every sense locked onto the hunter at my heels.
I can hear him stalking me. Quick, light steps. Controlled breathing.
A low, ragged growl rumbles through the trees like thunder.
“Keep running,” his voice calls from behind me. He barely sounds human. “You know how this ends.”
The cold night air is split open by his scent. It crashes over me like a wave, and I’m drowning.
A root catches my foot.
I stumble forward, landing hard on my palms and knees. It knocks the breath out of me.
Before I can move, he’s on me, pressing me into the forest floor with his body.
He cages me in with his arms. I half expect him to pin me by the back of the neck and force my submission, but he just hovers above me, a rumbling growl in his throat.
I pant into the damp earth. It smells just like it did on the night I discovered he was mine, but this time he’s here .
The world spins as he flips me onto my back and lowers his body atop mine.
His lips find my throat, just beneath my ear, and paint me with his saliva. A deep vibrating sound comes from his chest and shoots straight to my core.
“Why here?” I pant.
“This is where it all began. I want to rewrite the past.”
“What if I’m not ready?”
He presses his forehead to mine “Then I’ll wait. My whole life, if I have to.”
“And if I move on? Choose another?”
His entire frame tenses, his muscles shifting.
“Then I will suffer. As I deserve.”
And god help me, part of me wants him to suffer. Wants him to ache the way I did. To know what it’s like to burn without being touched, to scream without sound. To wake up with a mouth full of blood and my name on his tongue, a nightmare chasing him into the waking world.
But there’s been too much suffering between us already.
He swallows hard.
“Forgive me, Birdy. Forgive me, and let me keep loving you, because I never stopped. You once gave me your heart unreservedly. I’ve no intention of giving it back. You have me—I am yours. Then, now, and always."
My chest aches with the need to believe him. To believe this is finally real and true. I stare up at him, my vision swimming. “Connor?—”
“Let me give you everything. My bite. My bond. My knot.”
The woods hold their breath, and I say nothing. The second I lean up and brush my lips against his, Connor breaks.
He surges forward, slamming his mouth into mine. We’re tongue and teeth and desperation. It’s not soft or sweet. It’s a joining of two forces held apart for three long years.
Our movements are frenetic, like it’s our first time.
His hands are everywhere—tangling in my hair, cupping my jaw, yanking my tank straps and bra cups down like he’s starved for the feel of my skin.
And I’m just as hungry.
I claw at his shirt, dragging it up over his head, and he shrugs it off, barely breaking the kiss. His bare skin presses against mine, and I melt into the forest floor. The severed bond lights up inside me like a struck match.
"Haven't been able to sleep without you beside me," he pants into my skin. “Leaving you in that bathroom—not knotting you—you have no fucking idea, Birdy.
His hands go to his belt, and we both spend a moment shimmying out of our jeans before coming back together with nothing between us.
His cock is hot and hard against me. The scent coming off of him is feral now—thick with need. I can taste it on my tongue. I feel drunk on it.
Connor’s fingers slide between my legs, and I gasp as he slips between my lips and caresses me. He groans, low and primal.
“God, Birdy—you’re soaking. Did you slick yourself as soon as you smelled my shirt? Did it make your cunt ache for me?"
Did he mean today, or three years ago? I can’t answer. My brain is static. My omega is clawing at the inside of my skin, desperate for him to claim me, body and soul.
He kisses every inch of my bared skin with reverence and hunger.
“You’re perfect,” he breathes. “I should have told you years ago. You’re so goddamn perfect.”
I writhe beneath him. “Need you.”
He settles between my legs, cock splitting my slick folds. I’m so wet I can feel it dripping down the backs of my thighs and pooling beneath me. I wrap my legs around his hips.
Connor slides in slowly, his breath hitching.
I groan as he stretches me open.
When he bottoms out, he stills, his forehead pressed to mine.
“Feel that?” he whispers. “That’s me. Right where I belong.”
I nod, tears slipping down my cheeks. “Don’t stop, Connor. Please.”
He kisses me tenderly and starts to move.
Every thrust is deep and deliberate, every roll of his hips stroking right where I need him. I’m writhing beneath him, biting his shoulder and dragging my nails down his back.
“You’re so tight,” he groans. “So fucking good. I’ll never stop. Never let you go.”
He kisses down my neck until his teeth drag over the delicate skin where my mating gland throbs, swollen and begging.
He licks the gland, and I arch off the ground and whimper. When he lightly presses his teeth to it, my vision blurs.
“Do you want it?” His voice is barely human. “Do you want my bite?”
My entire body trembles. “Yes. Please.”
Connor doesn’t hesitate.
His teeth sink into my neck, deep and sure.
Pain flares when he pierces the gland—sharp and bright. He isn't gentle. His bite is hard and deep. Sure to scar.
And then the bond snaps into place.
It’s like being struck by lightning. My body bucks, and Connor’s emotions slam into me—desire, guilt, devotion, fear. Has he been feeling me this intensely since I bit him, or did the bond have to be complete first? The pain is wiped away, and slick floods me as he sinks even deeper into my cunt.
He holds me through it, licking the wound tenderly, his tongue soothing the torn flesh. His teeth are red with my blood. The bond stretches between us, golden and molten and indestructible.
We haven't been fucking long, but his knot is already swelling. It feels impossibly large and deep. Bigger than during my heat, if that’s even possible.
He shudders above me, cock jerking deep inside me as he starts to come.
Connor slides his hand down to my clit and strokes it as he rocks his knot inside me.
"Come on my knot, baby." He bites my mating gland again as he spills inside me, making me his. Then my orgasm hits hard and fast.
I cry out as my pussy clenches around him.
He groans against my throat. "Fuck. That's it. Take my cum. It's all yours."
I stroke my hands down his back, his face, his arms. I can’t help it. I need to touch him, feel as much of his skin as possible to reassure myself this is real.
Connor collapses on top of me and rolls us so we’re lying on our sides facing one another.
I nuzzle against his neck, licking the sweat there. He starts to purr for me, and everything in me relaxes, all my muscles loosening at once.
“Mine,” he says roughly. “Finally.”
"Yours."
He growls with satisfaction and claims my lips, kissing me hard and deep.
The forest is silent save for the sound of our heavy breathing and the rustle of leaves in the wind. His knot is still engorged, pulsing gently inside me as he fills my womb. I can feel every twitch of him—every slow, satisfied throb.
Connor strokes his fingers down my spine reverently.
“Are you okay?” he murmurs.
I nod against his chest, too blissed out to speak.
“I didn’t hurt you?”
“No. Perfect.”
He lets out a long and shaky breath. His hands stroke my body, moving up to my shoulder to manipulate my bite mark, then back down to cup my ass.
“I thought I lost you.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You’re still inside me.”
His laugh is hoarse. “Yeah. That’s not going away for a bit.”
The knot is firm and snug, anchoring us together. Every little motion has me tightening around the bulb as it stretches my sensitive walls.
We lie like that for a long time, bathed in moonlight beneath the pines. The bond hums softly in my chest.
Connor wraps both arms around me, pulling me close and hugging me until my ribs ache. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, Birdy, but I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. If you’ll let me.”
“Don’t be dramatic,” I murmur, tucking my face into his neck. “Just stay.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
He brushes hair out of my face and cups my jaw. "I know I can't rewrite the past, but if we could start again from here?—"
"Yes."
"You're sure? Because I'm serious about forever."
“Probably a question you should’ve asked before biting me.”
He starts to frown, and I chuckle. “I’m sure, Connor Masters.
I want to come home to you. I want to wake up and fall asleep in your arms. I want your scent on my pillow, your clothes in my drawers, your toothbrush next to mine.
I want to annoy you until we’re old and cranky, but still fucking like teenagers. ”
“Dad is going to be thrilled.”
I snort.
We lie there as the night stretches on. His knot slowly softens, but he stays buried inside me.
His fingers thread with mine.
The wind sighs through the trees. The stars blink overhead.
And for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m right where I belong.