Chapter 6
STELLAN
She's screaming my name through the door, and every syllable is a knife in my chest.
I could end this. One turn of the lock, and I could bury myself inside her, knot her until the heat breaks, claim her so thoroughly she'd never doubt who she belongs to.
My cock throbs against the confines of my trousers, aching and leaking, demanding what her body is begging for.
The scent of her slick seeps through the gaps in the doorframe, thick and sweet and maddening, coating my tongue until I can taste her without even putting my mouth on her skin.
Instead, I don't move. And that single act of restraint costs me more than any battle I've ever fought.
The first day is the worst. Or so I tell myself, because I need to believe it gets easier.
I've positioned myself against the wall opposite her door, close enough to hear every whimper and moan, far enough that I can't simply reach out and turn the handle.
The stone is cold against my back. My claws have already scored grooves into the wall beside me, a small outlet for the control I'm barely maintaining.
Inside the room, Iris cries out again. Not words this time, just a raw sound of need that makes my wolf howl in response. He claws at the cage I've built for him, snarling and snapping, demanding that I go to her. She's ours, he insists. She needs us. Why do we make her suffer?
I don't have an answer he would understand.
The beast in me doesn't comprehend the value of surrender freely given.
He only knows the instinct to claim, to mate, to fill her until she's round with my sons and daughters.
To mark her so thoroughly that every wolf in this territory can smell me on her skin.
The man in me wants something more.
I want her to remember this. I want her to remember every hour she fought, every moment she told herself she'd never give in.
And I want her to remember the exact instant she stopped fighting.
When she comes to me, and she will, I want her to know that she chose it.
That all her strength and stubbornness couldn't change what she is or who she belongs to.
That's the victory I've been waiting years to claim.
Hours pass. The light filtering through the corridor windows morphs from gray to gold to gray again. Servants approach with trays of food and pitchers of water, but I wave them away with a snarl that sends them scurrying. No one enters that room. No one breathes near that door except me.
Signe arrives at midday, her silver-blonde hair pulled back in a severe braid, her healer's bag clutched in steady hands. She takes one look at me and stops several feet away, her nostrils flaring as she catches the scent of blood and rut and barely leashed violence.
"She needs water," Signe says, her voice carefully neutral. "And cool cloths for the fever. Basic care that doesn't require an alpha's touch."
I stare at her for a long moment, my wolf bristling at the suggestion that anyone else tend to what's mine. But Signe is pack. Signe is a healer. And Signe is female, which means she poses no threat to my claim.
"Five minutes," I growl. "Leave the door open."
Signe nods and approaches the room. I unlock the door and step back, positioning myself in the corridor where I can see the bed through the open doorway.
The scent that pours out nearly drops me to my knees.
Rich and ripe and overwhelmingly female, laced with desperation and need that calls to every primitive instinct I possess.
Iris lies in the center of the bed, her skin flushed and damp, her dark hair matted against her forehead.
She's stripped down to nothing, the sheets twisted around her legs, her hands fisted in the pillows.
When the door opens, her head turns toward the sound, and her eyes find mine through the gap.
"Stellan." My name comes out broken, half plea and half accusation. "Please."
The word almost undoes me. I grip the doorframe hard enough to splinter the wood, my claws sinking deep into the grain.
My cock pulses against my thigh, weeping with the need to answer her call as the knot begins to swell.
Every cell in my body screams at me to go to her, to end her suffering, to take what we both want.
I don't move.
Signe works quickly, pressing cool cloths to Iris's forehead and throat, coaxing water between her cracked lips.
Iris drinks greedily, her eyes never leaving mine, and the hate in them wars with raw, naked need.
She doesn't ask again. Pride won't let her, even now, even with her body tearing itself apart from wanting.
That pride is part of why I want her. Part of why I've waited so long.
When Signe finishes, she gathers her supplies and slips past me into the corridor. I close the door and lock it, ignoring the sob that follows, ignoring the sound of fists pounding against wood.
Signe stands beside me, studying my face with those pale, assessing eyes.
"You could end her suffering," she says.
"Not like this."
"You're either the most honorable alpha I've ever met, or the cruelest." She tilts her head, considering. "I haven't decided which."
"When you figure it out, let me know."
She leaves without another word. I resume my position against the wall and listen to Iris weep, and I tell myself this is necessary. I tell myself the reward will be worth the cost. I tell myself a lot of things as the hours crawl past and her cries echo through the empty corridor.
None of them make the waiting easier.
The second day breaks me open in ways I didn't know I could break.
I haven't slept. Haven't eaten. The stone wall beside my post is gouged with claw marks, fresh ones layered over old whenever her moans grow too desperate to bear.
My own rut has reached a fever pitch, my body demanding release with an urgency that borders on pain.
Twice I've had to trust my beta to guard her so I can shift and run the perimeter until my lungs burn and my legs give out, just to keep from turning that handle.
Iris is delirious now. She calls my name in one breath and curses it in the next, her voice hoarse from screaming.
Sometimes she begs, promises me anything if I'll just touch her, just once, just enough to take the edge off.
Other times she threatens, swears she'll kill me when this is over, describes in vivid detail exactly how she'll do it.
The threats are easier to bear than the begging.
The threats let me pretend she's still fighting.
The begging reminds me that I'm the reason she's suffering.
Torben finds me around midday, his expression grim as he takes in my disheveled state. Blood stains my shirt and trousers. My hair hangs lank around my face, unwashed and unkempt. I probably look like something dragged from a battlefield, and I feel worse than I look.
"You need to rest," Torben says. "Let me take over for a few hours. You're no good to anyone like this."
I'm on my feet before he finishes speaking, my hand around his throat, slamming him against the wall hard enough to crack the stone. A snarl tears from my chest, more wolf than man, and my claws prick the skin beneath his jaw.
"No one else guards her." The words come out barely recognizable, distorted by fangs that have descended without my permission. "No one else breathes near that door. She's mine, Torben. Mine to protect. Mine to keep. Mine to claim when she's ready. Do you understand?"
Torben holds perfectly still, his eyes lowered in submission, his throat bared despite the claws threatening to tear it open. Smart wolf. He's been my beta for fifteen years. He knows when to push and when to yield.
"I understand," he says quietly. "But Stellan, you're in rut. You haven't slept in two days. If you lose control now, after everything, you'll never forgive yourself. And neither will she."
The words penetrate the haze of instinct clouding my mind.
I release him slowly, stepping back, forcing my claws to retract and my fangs to recede.
The effort costs me more than I want to admit.
My control is a threadbare thing, worn thin by hours of wanting and waiting, and Torben is right.
If I break now, I lose everything I've been working toward.
"I won't lose control," I say, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
"Then let me bring you food. Water. Let me stand at the end of the corridor, far enough away that your wolf won't consider me a threat, close enough to intervene if something goes wrong.
" Torben straightens his collar, rubbing the marks my claws left behind.
"You've waited years for her, Stellan. Don't let the last few days destroy what you've built. "
I want to argue. I want to snarl and snap and drive him away from what's mine.
But beneath the instinct, beneath the rut and the exhaustion and the overwhelming need, a sliver of rationality remains.
Torben isn't wrong. And if I collapse now, if I break down that door in a frenzy of need, I'll be no better than the monsters Iris already thinks we are.
"End of the corridor," I say through gritted teeth. "No closer."
Torben nods and retreats to his assigned position.
A few minutes later, a servant approaches with a tray of food and a pitcher of water, leaving them on the floor beside me before scurrying away.
I force myself to eat, to drink, to maintain the body that will eventually claim hers.
The food tastes like ash. The water does nothing to quench the thirst burning through my veins.
Inside the room, Iris has gone quiet. The silence is almost worse than the screaming. I press my ear to the door and listen for her breathing, for any sign that she's still alive, still fighting, still waiting for me on the other side of this hell we're both enduring.