Chapter 17
FURRY ASS
Anoymous-
She found it.
I watch her hands tremble as she opens the note. Eyes widening with the same cracked-glass grief she wore the day of Anna’s funeral. Her voice is hoarse when she says it out loud: “It's from my journal.”
The sound cracks something in my chest. Watching her break like that—like a memory gasping for air—it makes me ache for her.
For us.
She breaks. Folds over on herself like I nicked something vital.
I could feel it... the moment she read my words. When she realized someone had been inside her drawers. Her pages... Her past.
Her journal holds parts of her she thinks no one deserves, but I’ve earned them. She wrote down the most sacred parts of herself and thought no one would ever touch them, but I did. And now, every time she thinks of Anna... every time she thinks of that night—she’ll think of me.
Andrik can hold her for now. Let him believe he’s enough for her. Let him pretend the bond between them is more real than ours. But it was I who stepped into her most painful moments.
I walked through her memories like a cathedral. Read every word of her grief like poetry. Ran my fingers down the hollow curve where her sister used to live.
She thought she buried Anna, but all she did was unearth me.
She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve been breathing in her pain longer than that beast has been whispering those made-up words in her ear. I don’t need a sacred tongue to speak her language.
Suffering.
Rage.
The little crack in her soul where something dark slipped in and made a home. We are made of the same beautiful, broken thing.
I don't want to take her. I want her to give herself freely. I want her to choose me. And when he touches her—when that overgrown animal wraps himself around her and pretends he can soothe her—I wonder if she thinks of me instead. Not because I’m gentle, but because I see her in ways he never will—and love her despite them.
The way she tries to hide her sobs inside her pillow, like they won't crawl through the seams and beg to be heard—I’ve heard every single one of them.
He told her I wanted her fear, but that’s not what I came for. I came for the raw, ruined parts of her. The pieces she only shows to the ghosts.
I’ll wait, though.
I’ll wait while he coddles her and pretends she’s helpless. While he wraps her in his fur and feeds her lies about safety. While they pretend that mate-bonds and monsters are enough to keep me out.
But one day, she’ll come looking again. She’ll open that journal, trace the line I left her, and feel me.
He thinks he’s earned her because he bares his teeth and growls like a rabid animal. But he doesn't understand her the way I do. He wasn’t there the night the river almost swallowed her.
He wasn’t there all the nights she collapsed in her closet, clutching her sister’s blanket like a lifeline.
I was.
I’ve been with her since the beginning.
Love isn’t claws and fury; it’s knowing which drawer she hides her pain in. It’s folding her grief into origami and leaving it for her to find. It’s rewriting her story until my name is in every line.
When she finally stops fighting that truth, I’ll be waiting.
Palms open. Mouth hungry. And I won’t need a page from her journal to leave her love notes... I’ll use my tongue to trace them along her skin.
Andrik -
I told her five minutes—and I meant it. But something’s gnawing at my gut. Something was in here while we were searching the rooftop.
I don’t know how I know. I just do.
“I can’t smell them,” I mumble, mostly to myself. “But they were here, and they’re still close.”
Rage like I’ve never known it courses through my chest, rattling the cage I already hold shut with fraying restraint.
They were in her space while we were right outside.
“Andrik?” Her voice cuts in softly. “What is it? You look angry.”
‘“Angry doesn’t touch what I feel.” My voice is low, shaking. “They were back in your apartment. I can’t explain how I know, but I do. They’re playing cat-and-mouse with us.”
Before she can speak, I push forward.
“We need to go—now. I don't want them watching you longer than they already have. Grab whatever you want, but you’re not coming back anytime soon.”
Thankfully, she doesn't argue with me this time. She can see on my face how serious this is.
How the thrahk am I supposed to protect her when I can’t track them?
No scent. No trace.
How are they watching her?
She throws some clothes into a bag while I sweep through the bathroom for essentials—her brush, contacts, and a few other necessities. I walk back into the room just in time to see something bright purple sticking out of her bag.
“Really?” I ask. “That’s something you need?”
She doesn’t miss a beat.
“Andrik, if I don’t have this, I will lose my mind. Leave my emotional support animal alone.”
I blink. “Pretty sure emotional support animals don’t require charging.”
She zips the bag with a smirk. “Do you want me to die in the forest, Andrik? I’ll be ovulating in four days. It’s this—or it’s you.”
She winks at me.
I don't even have words.
“That’s what I thought,” she goes on. “You don't want this bond, which means you won't touch me. Because if you do, it’ll snap into place. So the vibrator is coming with us.”
I move quickly, scooping her up.
“I don’t want this bond?” My voice is low and cold. “Is that what you think? Haven’t we been over this?”
My control shatters.
I rip her jacket in half. Buttons fly across her bedroom.
“What are you—”
“No, Lumi.” I cut her off. “You’re done talking.” My grip tightens. “I’m going to talk. You’re going to listen.”
I shove her sweats down, breath ragged.
“I want this bond more than anything I have ever wanted— and I’ve been alive for a very—very long time.”
She gasps as I lift her by the hips. Her legs wrap around my waist.
“You haven’t seen that part of me yet,” I growl. “The one I have to become for the bond to take. For it to mean what it’s supposed to mean.” I drag my claws up her thigh. “And the bond only snaps into place if we consummate it on my land. In the forest that created me.”
My hands shake from how badly I want her.
“When we do this...” I pause, tipping her chin so she’s looking straight into my eyes.
“It will send you into a rhavari heat. That’s if it hasn’t already.
.. which I suspect it has.” She pants against my neck and drops her head to my shoulder.
I retract my claws and slip my fingers beneath the band of her lace velis?n. (Panties.)
“You think ovulation is bad? My sweet human, you have no idea.” Thrahk, she’s vaelis’kai. “You will need me constantly. Over and over. There won’t be room in your body for anything else but me.”
Kai'theln ves narh—veyl'kaev?n ves thrae'morin. (My mind is empty—all of my blood has gone to my cock.)
This was a stupid idea.
I stroke her once, and she jerks—fisting a handful of my fur. Thanl?n ves kai’narn.
“Do you understand now, Lumi?” My forehead drops to hers, fingers tracing small circles over her kaelinae. “You are my Sael?n. My mate. The other half of my soul. And if I let the bond snap into place now, I will lose myself—which means I might lose you too.”
Her nails rake through my fur, and she whimpers—a sound so desperate it almost breaks me.
I pull my hand away. My restraint is a thorn against my throat, but I hold it willingly, for her. For us.
“Oh, and Lumi.” I press a kiss to her neck. “Once we deal with this veyrak’thar…” I nod at the bag. “You’ll never need that again.”
I lower my voice, leaning in until my mouth brushes the shell of her ear, breath cool against her heated skin.
My words drop like a vow:
“Velkar’kai Sael?n. Thrak’ven ael’kai viral. D?marin star, kai’mor gods?n.” (I will mark you, soulbond. Thrust my name into your core so deep, you’ll never remember needing anything else.)
Lumi-
What in the actual fuck just happened?
He pulled his hand away and left me burning. There’s no other word for it. Every part of me is scorched, trembling—like my body has been pulled into orbit and left suspended, waiting for the gravity of him to come back and finish what he started.
He sets me on the ground, and I’m just standing here panting with a ripped jacket and twisted pants around my feet. My thighs are slick, and my nerve endings are rioting like live wires.
“ I will mark you, soulbond. Thrust my name into your core so deep.” Oh, I’ll tell you what you can thrust where, buddy.
I don’t know how I understood it. But something in me did, like a puzzle piece finally clicking into place.
His words echo in my blood.
“Hey! You overgrown snow monster,” I yell at his back.
He freezes in the doorway, and his head turns slowly to the side.
Whoops.
But it’s too late to turn back now:
“Why don’t you walk your big furry ass right back over here, so I can stroke you a few times and then run away like a big idiot.”
His body stiffens.
He turns the rest of the way around. His gaze is glowing and locked on me like a predator that has just been taunted after letting its prey go.
The bond, or whatever this little firework is in my chest, flares to life. Every single hair on my arms stands up.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
Oh shit.
He doesn’t say anything. He just tilts his head and looks at me. And in that look is a hundred different emotions: Danger. Hunger. Worship. Need. Barely leashed restraint.
I swallow hard.
“Okay—maybe that was a little rude,” I giggle nervously, trying to grab the shredded halves of my jacket.
He takes a step toward me. I take one back.
“I’m sorry,” I try again, softer this time. “But you were kinda being a dick. Actually... I’m not sorry at all!”
Another step.
His eyes stay fixed on mine, unblinking. Glowing brighter with each step.
I square my shoulders, gripping the torn sleeves of my jacket.
“Who even does that?” I snap. “Ohh, let me teach her a lesson about self-control while I try to make her super horny.” I snarl. “Honestly. How very noble of you.”
Another step.
My brain is screaming at me to shut up, but I’ve never known how to stop while I’m ahead.
He stops two feet away and bends down so his face is level with mine.
“You said you’d be ovulating in four days,” he murmurs, voice like sin.
I freeze.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Still true.”
He leans in—just enough for his breath to ghost my lips.
“Then let’s hope I kill your stalker before then. Because if I don’t…” His lips brush my jaw—barely. “... I will not be noble again.”
I hate him. I hate that I don't hate him.
I fling myself backward onto the mattress like a dramatic Victorian widow—arms splayed, hair a mess, body still soaked in heat.
Can you die from horniness?
I sit up and shout toward the hallway, “Keep this up, and I’m going to throw my emotional support animal at your big, stupid, not-hot-at-all face!”
Nothing.
“Oh, now you’re silent? That’s convenient!”
I yank my pants up, still fuming. Everything inside me has turned to jelly. I should shower. I should change.
But HA!—Joke’s on him. He said this scent bothers him.
Good.
I hope he chokes on it.
And how dare he?
Leaving me here mid-spiral after whispering sacred forest porn in my ear.
I hate him.
I storm to my dresser and start yanking out clothes: Hoodie, leggings, tank top, a sports bra I haven’t worn since eighth grade.
“I’ll mark you so deep only the gods will remember, blah blah blah,” I mock under my breath, slamming a drawer shut.
“I hope the gods are watching. I hope they die from horniness.” I snarl. “Just like I am,” I shout down the hallway.
I finish packing. “Your move, Bambi!”
Still–no answer.
“God, you’re so lucky you’re hot,” I whisper under my breath.
A low chuckle bursts from the hallway, making me scowl. “So glad I amuse you,” I shout, hoisting the bag over my shoulder.