9. Lark
LARK
I was going to lose my fucking mind.
Three days locked in this luxurious cage, and I’d already exhausted every weapon in my arsenal of petty revenge. Restlessness crawled under my skin like fire ants.
I needed to move. To fight. To hurt.
“Come spar with me.”
I spun around to find Emile leaning against the doorframe of the home gym, arms crossed over his chest. He’d changed into workout clothes—fitted black technical fabric that showed off every carved line of muscle.
My mouth went dry. It was unfair that he looked so delectable.
“No thanks,” I said, turning back to the treadmill. “I’m good.”
“You’ve been running for forty minutes. You’re not good.” His voice was soft and reasonable and it pissed me the fuck off.
“Fine,” I said, stepping off the treadmill. “But don’t expect me to go easy on you just because you have a pretty face.”
“All I heard was you think I have a pretty face.”
Oh, fuck him and the way he drew a smile out of me, my lips curving up despite myself.
“First blood, first to tap out, or first pin that lasts five seconds.” I snarled.
“Perfect.” His voice was almost a purr. “I do enjoy a hunt.”
His composure made me want to break it. “Awful confident for someone who needs to drug me to catch me.”
We circled each other on the mats. Emile moved like water—fluid, every gesture purposeful. He was studying me, I realized, learning my movements the way a predator does prey.
It should have scared me.
It made me want to purr and rip his throat out at the same time.
He moved first, a testing jab, almost lazy.
Instead of retreating, I stepped into his space, disrupting his reach advantage, and drove my elbow toward his solar plexus. He blocked smoothly, redirecting my momentum rather than meeting it head-on.
“Good girl,” he murmured.
Fuck this patronizing asshole. I came at him hard. He blocked most of it, that infuriating calm never leaving his face, but he hadn’t planned for how fucking mean I could get when I was pissed off.
I landed a solid kick to his thigh and his eyes flashed with unhinged joy even as he grunted with pain.
“You fight like you’re trying to kill me,” he said softly, the words appreciative rather than censorious.
“Ding ding ding.”
His smile was sharp. “Don’t hold back, little one. Show me what you can do.”
The condescension made me see red.
We traded blows and I stopped thinking tactically, stopped being strategic. I just attacked—brutal, violent, mean.
The fucker laughed, delighted, like I was giving him exactly what he wanted.
He swept his leg under mine, but I rolled with it, and came up already moving. Then I ducked under his guard and wrapped my fingers around his throat.
“There she is,” he murmured, catching my wrist. His pulse was steady under my palm, his breathing controlled. “Our exquisite murderer.”
I used his grip on my wrist to spin, breaking free and getting behind him, then I jumped onto his back, legs around his waist, arm barred across his throat.
“Yield?” I panted against his ear.
He reached back, grabbed my hair, and dropped backward, rolling as we fell, so he’d catch the brunt of it instead of landing on me.
I hated how that bit of consideration warmed my chest, even more than hated how much I enjoyed sparring with him.
He was on his feet in a heartbeat, not even breathing hard. “You’re magnificent when you’re trying to hurt me,” he said as we circled each other.
“Fuck you,” I snarled, upset at how much his praise made me want to curl up against his chest and purr, to tell him I liked his viciousness too, the way he didn’t let me get sloppy, the way he treated me like an equal.
“Is that an offer?” He cocked his head, studying me. “Because the way you fight—mon Dieu. You’re exquisite.”
I couldn’t let him see how much those words affected me, so I attacked again.
“You want an omega you can manipulate,” I snarled, feinting left and striking right. “Someone who needs you.”
“No.” He caught my fist inches from his jaw. “I want you. Exactly as you are.”
“Liar!” I twisted my wrist free and drove my palm toward his nose.
He blocked, but I was already moving, using the momentum to spin and drive my elbow into his ribs.
I pressed the advantage, got inside his guard, and when I threw him, we both went down in a tangle of limbs.
We grappled on the mat, sweat-slicked and feral. He was stronger but I was more flexible. And meaner. I bit his shoulder, hard enough to bruise.
Emile stilled. “Putain,” he breathed. His voice was wrecked. “Do that again.” His hands tightened on me, no longer controlled. Almost desperate. “Lark, please!”
The composed, stoic alpha was begging.
Power surged through me, heady and intoxicating. I leaned down and sank my teeth into his other shoulder, deeper this time, feeling him shudder underneath me, his cock hard against my thigh through our clothes.
“Fuck.” He flipped us, pinning me beneath him, but there was nothing restrained about him now. His pupils were blown, his breathing ragged. “You magnificent, vicious creature. You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Tell me.” I arched up against him, grinding my clit into his pelvis, giving into my instincts. I’d brought this alpha low, and I couldn’t wait to pay the price.
“I’ve spent two years watching you kill.” His hands were everywhere now, desperate and rough. “Two years studying you, imagining us, you—”
He broke off when I slid my hand between us, palming his cock through his pants.
“You like it when I hurt you,” I said, wonder and heat mixing in my voice.
“I love it when you hurt me.” He caught my wrist, pressed my hand harder against him. “I love your violence. Your rage. Everything about you.”
I wrapped my legs around his waist and used the leverage to flip him, straddling him, my hands planted on his chest.
“Yield?” I demanded.
“Never.” He surged up, trying to reverse us again.
We grappled, rolling across the mats, a tangle of roughness and need. I drew blood from his lip. He left marks on my hips. Neither of us surrendered—neither of us wanted to.
Finally, I got the upper hand, pinning his wrists above his head, my full weight on him.
“One,” I counted.
He bucked beneath me. I ground down harder, feeling his cock throb.
“Two.”
He was panting now, staring up at me like I was his damnation. Or maybe—my breath caught—or maybe his salvation. He could flip me, shove me off—Emile was twice my size. But he didn’t.
“Three.”
“Lark—”
“Four.”
He rolled his hips under me and I moaned.
“Five.” I leaned down until my lips brushed his ear. “I win.”
Then I bit his earlobe, hard enough to make him groan.
His control shattered completely.
“Oui,” he gasped. “Oui, you win. That’s what you need to understand. With us, even when you lose, you win. Please—”
I’d never seen him anything but composed, and now he was coming apart beneath me, desperate and needy and mine.
The power of it went straight to my head.
I released his wrists and sat up, still straddling him. His hands immediately went to my hips, gripping hard enough to bruise some more.
“You want to fuck me?” I asked, rolling my hips slowly.
“Yes. I need—” He broke off with a moan as I ground down harder.
“Need what?”
“I just need—” His fingers dug into my hips. “You. I need you.”
I pulled my sports bra over my head, and his eyes went molten.
“Good.”
I’d barely gotten the word out before he surged up, hands fisting in my hair, and kissed me like I was oxygen and he was drowning—desperate and consuming.
This was raw desire, and I was drunk on it, drunk on the scent of ocean breeze surrounding us, drunk on his alpha pheromones, drunk on his need for me. This beautiful, controlled alpha needed me as much as I needed him.
I kissed him back just as hard, biting his already split lip to make him gasp.
He moaned against my mouth. “More. Mark me, little one.”
I raked my nails down his back, bit his shoulder again, marking him everywhere I could reach as we tore each other’s clothes off. He took it all with broken French and desperate pleas for more.
I sank down onto him in one hard push and his back arched, a broken sound escaping his throat.
There was nothing controlled about the way we fucked. He grabbed my hips and drove up into me with desperate, irregular thrusts. I rode him hard, chasing my own pleasure, my nails leaving bloody tracks down his chest.
“Yes, yes, putain, yes,” he chanted, dissolving into French.
I came with a cry, clenching around him, and he followed immediately, my name on his lips.
We stayed like that for a long moment, both shaking, covered in sweat and blood and each other.
“Goddess,” I finally managed.
“I believe it was my name you were screaming,” he said, but his voice was still wrecked, no smugness in it.
I looked down at him, at the marks I’d left, at the blood on his skin, at the way he was looking at me like I’d given him a precious gift.
“You really meant it,” I whispered. “About my violence.”
“Every word.” He cupped my face, thumb gentle on my bruised jaw. “You’re perfect exactly as you are. Deadly and dangerous and absolutely magnificent.”
Oh.
Oh fuck.
Conor appeared beside us with water bottles and towels, his expression soft with wonder. “You’re incredible, baby. Both of you. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He pulled me into a kiss that tasted like chocolate and peppermint. When he released me, both alphas were looking at me like I’d fucking hung the moon in the stars.
I grabbed a water bottle to give my shaking hands something to do. “I need a shower.”
“Want company?” Conor asked, grinning.
I should say no. I was going to leave them, and goddess, it was going to hurt when I did.
“Yeah,” I heard myself say. “Yeah, okay.”
The truth was, fighting Emile hadn’t worked out my frustration at all.
It just made me want them more.