Chapter 27 Miranda
MIRANDA
Jax’s mouth devours mine, tasting of iron and the blood I just fed him. There is no technique, no hesitation. It is pure, unadulterated hunger. The man who cooked me steak and wrapped my ankle is gone; the creature holding me now is pure instinct, burning hot enough to blister skin.
He grips my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh with bruising force. He lifts me. I weigh nothing to him. He slams me back down onto the rough wood of the fishing table, the impact jarring my spine, rattling the jars sitting on the shelves.
"Mine," he snarls against my throat, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin over my pulse. The sound vibrates through my entire skeleton. "Mine to claim. Mine to keep."
"Show me," I challenge, breathless. My legs wrap around his waist, pulling him into the cradle of my hips.
I am burning. The fire isn't just in the room; it’s in my marrow. My skin feels too tight for my body. Every nerve ending is stripped bare, firing rapidly, demanding friction, demanding weight.
He doesn't wait. He doesn't prep. He is driven by a biological imperative that overrides everything else. He shoves my thighs wider, his hands rough and calloused against my inner legs, pinning me open.
I look down.
He is terrifying. Thick, veined, and glistening with arousal. The head is swollen, dark purple, weeping pre-come that smells of musk and cedar. The dimensions don't make sense. The physics of it seems impossible.
"Jax," I gasp, my hips bucking involuntarily. I’m so wet, so ready. It feels like I’ve been waiting for him my whole life.
He drives forward.
He enters me in one long, devastating thrust.
It feels like being impaled by a hot iron; despite this, my pussy creams, as if begging him for more.
He stretches me to the limit of my elasticity, filling every millimeter of space until I feel full to the point of bursting.
The friction burns, a sharp, tearing sensation that instantly transmutes into a blinding flare of pleasure.
I scream. It’s a ragged, torn sound.
"Take it," he growls, his eyes squeezed shut, his face a mask of savage ecstasy. Sweat drips from his brow, landing on my chest. "Take all of it, Mate. Make room for me."
He withdraws almost completely, the loss of fullness an ache, and slams back in. The table legs screech across the floorboards.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
The sound of his hips meeting mine is wet and loud.
It’s too much. It’s overwhelming. But my body... my body adapts. My hips snap up to meet him, matching his rhythm, demanding more violence.
I am not merely a vessel. I am the fuel.
I sit up, grabbing his shoulders. My nails—my claws—dig into his skin. I rake them down his chest, drawing fresh lines of red over the grey, dying flesh of the silver wound.
"Does the Wolf like it?" I hiss into his ear, biting the lobe hard enough to draw blood. "Does he like what I am? Does he like fucking a monster?"
"He loves it," Jax roars, his hips snapping forward, grinding against my clit with ruthless precision. "He wants to consume you. He wants to bury himself so deep you never get him out."
"Then eat," I order. "Feed."
I take control. I leverage my weight, pushing him back until he’s leaning against the wall, impaling me deeper. I start to grind.
I bear down. The friction is blinding. I can feel the texture of him inside me, the ridges and veins rubbing against spots that make my vision white out. He feels hard as steel, unyielding, stretching me open.
"Putain," he chokes out, his head falling back, exposing the scarred column of his throat. "You grip me so well. Like a vice."
"I’m holding you," I pant, squeezing my internal muscles around him. "I’m milking you, Jax. Give it to me."
He grips my hips, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh, bruising me, guiding my rhythm. I move faster. Harder. The sound of our skin slapping together echoes in the small shack, mixing with the wet, guttural noises coming from his throat.
We are covered in sweat, blood, and grime. It’s animalistic. Wild. The smell of the swamp is heavy, but the scent of us is heavier. Musk. Sex. Power. It swirls in the air, intoxicating and thick.
And something else.
Magic.
As we move, I feel it. A hum in the air. A vibration that starts at the point where our bodies are joined and radiates outward.
I look at his flank.
The black web of the silver poisoning is pulsing, it’s retreating faster compared to earlier. With every thrust, with every connection, the black retreats. The necrotic grey flesh flushes pink. The heat radiating from him shifts from the dry burn of fever to the wet, living heat of the Wolf.
"It’s working," I gasp, raking my nails down his chest again, drawing blood that smells like copper and life. "You're healing faster. Look at me, Jax. Look at what we're doing."
"I don't care," he grunts, his eyes snapping open. They are pools of molten gold, swirling with madness. "I don't care about the blood. I just want to fill you."
He grabs my hips, stopping my movement.
"Jax?"
"I can't... I can't hold it back," he groans. His body goes rigid. The muscles in his thighs turn to rock against my legs. "The Wolf... he needs to lock you down."
Inside me, he changes.
I feel him swell. The base of his shaft expands, blooming outward, stretching me beyond what should be possible.
The Knot.
Panic flares for a microsecond—the claustrophobia of being trapped, of being locked together. The pressure is immense, a feeling of being stretched to the tearing point.
"Jax, stop! It’s too big!" I cry out, my hands gripping his shoulders, my nails drawing blood.
"Don't fight it," he commands, his voice a deep, subsonic rumble that vibrates in my womb, forcing my muscles to relax. "Yield to me, Miranda. Take the knot. Let me claim you."
He thrusts upward, one final, bone-jarring stroke, burying himself to the root.
The bulb at the base of him pops past the entrance.
We are fused.
The sensation is absolute fullness. It’s a pressure that borders on pain but lands squarely in the center of blinding, white-hot pleasure. I am completely filled, plugged, claimed. There is no space left inside me that isn't him.
"Mine," he roars, his hands crushing my hips.
The lock engages.
And the magic explodes.
It’s not a spark; it’s a detonation. Power floods my system, rushing up from my core like a geyser. It burns through my veins, hotter than the silver, hotter than the fire outside.
Jax throws his head back and screams—a sound of agony and ecstasy.
I watch the wound on his flank vanish. The skin knits together in seconds, sealing over smooth and unblemished. The silver is purged, burned away by the sheer force of the mating bond.
But the power doesn't stop with him. It slams into me.
CRACK.
My spine arches. A sound tears from my throat that isn't human.
It feels like my bones are being pulverized and reassembled. My jaw aches, a sharp, splitting pain as it reshapes. My muscles tear and reknit instantly, denser, stronger. My vision goes red, then gold, then ultraviolet.
"Jax!" I scream, clutching him. "It hurts! It’s tearing me apart!"
"Let it happen!" he shouts, gripping me tighter, anchoring me as the knot holds us together through the transition. "Let the Wolf in! Don't fight the change, mo coeur."
I climax.
It hits me at the same time the transformation takes hold. The pleasure is a white-hot spear through my center. My walls clamp down on his knot, milking him, drawing everything he has into me.
Jax roars, emptying himself. I feel the pulses of his release, hot and heavy, filling me, seeding the bond deep inside.
The energy surge is too much for the room.
The air pressure drops instantly. The windows rattle in their frames. The jars on the shelves shatter, raining glass.
My body twists. My skin feels like it’s boiling. The power builds in my chest, a scream that needs to get out.
I let it go.
It’s a howl.
It’s not a human scream. It’s a sound of pure, hybrid power—the harmonics of a wolf and the psychic resonance of a vampire screaming in unison.
BOOM.
The shockwave blasts outward from our joined bodies.
The heavy wooden door of the shack is blown off its hinges. It flies twenty feet into the darkness of the swamp, splintering against a cypress tree. The roof groans, shingles stripping away in the wind of our release.
Then, silence.
Heavy, ringing silence.
The lantern has been blown out. The shack is pitch black.
We are still locked together, breathing in ragged, synchronized gasps. The scent in the room is overpowering—ozone, sex, and the terrifying smell of an apex predator that has just been born.
Slowly, in the darkness, eyelids flutter open.
Two pairs of eyes glow in the gloom, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
One pair is solid, burning Gold.
The other is a swirling, nebular Violet, flecked with the same dangerous Gold.