10. Chapter 10
It was almost dark and I snuck in through the emergency exit and up the back staircase as my wolf, then shifted when I reached the second floor, running through the corridor naked, hoping Nadia was inside.
I knocked.
No response.
“Nadia,” I whispered as I knocked again. “Open the door, it's me.”
I heard movement inside and the deadbolt turned and she peered out.
When she saw me, she grinned, opening the door wider.
I pushed past, her rich scent almost more than I could handle as I headed straight into the bathroom and jumped into the shower, trying to wash away what I’d heard and seen.
I couldn't get what the demon told me out of my mind.
Maybe he was mistaken, maybe there was someone else named Gustav Grayson somehow tied up in this mess.
I grabbed a towel, drying myself, then wrapping it around my waist before heading out of the bathroom. I needed to talk to Isla. Maybe witchcraft was involved somehow, as insane as that seemed. Nadia was staring at me and her gaze interrupted my thoughts.
She was wearing one of my shirts and nothing else and ignoring her was almost impossible. I’d never felt this way before. I’d spent my life reining in the wolf raging inside of me, but as I rifled through my things, I could feel that control being inexorably eroded.
“Are you okay?” I asked, unsure what I wanted to know. I felt instinctively protective of her and regretted taking her into the compound with me. If something had happened, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.
“Yes, but…” her voice trailed off and I stayed put and she shifted her gaze to the jagged cut on my torso. It was already healing, but she slid her finger across the pink, angry flesh. “You’re hurt.”
“I’ll be fine. It'll be gone by tomorrow.” She looked shocked and blinked, gathering her thoughts as she processed what that meant. “One of the benefits of being a lycan.” Her finger lingered on my skin, the light touch electric. “Is something else wrong?”
“It’s just…you seem so hesitant around me. Do you not like me?” Her voice was soft and I couldn't believe she thought that.
“It's not you,” I started, lying. I had to tell her why she felt the way she did, why I was so distant, but it was like the blind leading the blind.
I barely knew anything about lycan sex and females of my own species were still an absolute mystery.
As I turned to face her, that scent swept over me like a tide and my cock twitched.
It was so fucking painful being near her, but she couldn't help it, and I couldn’t have her thinking that something was wrong.
“Well, actually it is you” — she flinched and I held up my hands — “but it's not your fault. You're going through heat,” I said, exhaling. “It makes you extremely…alluring to me.”
“What do you mean? Like a dog?” She grimaced and I hated that she saw it that way. Until now, her priority had been survival, but the difficult part would be adjusting to life as a lycan.
“No, like a wolf. We're lycans, wolfkin, there are a few different names. You go through this…heat once a year, I think…” You know, asshole, remember when you were a pup?
Your mom and dad would disappear for weeks on end.
“It's when you and your mate breed.” I rubbed the back of my neck nervously as the information sank in.
“Oh God,” she looked horrified.
“It's not a bad thing,” I said. “I’ve heard it can be fun.”
“What do you mean? You’re a virgin?”
“No!” I snorted incredulously, and she broke into a smile, her eyes dancing as she laughed.
I liked the sound of it. “I just…I haven’t lived with a pack since I was a kid and I never had the chance to…
” I lowered my voice, even though we were the only ones in the room and swallowed nervously. “Mate.”
“Could you…mate with me?” Her eyes widened and the mere suggestion of her being into it made me forget about everything else.
“Yeah, I mean, of course, but I don’t know if that would be a good idea.” I'd never mated, but understood instinctively how it would happen. Heat seared through me as I thought about claiming her, how my knot would feel as it slid inside, locking us together for hours, until my seed found her womb.
That was the technicality, but the sensation…
Chill the fuck out Max. You’re better than this. You're not like them.
You’re not an animal.
“Are you alright? You look…in pain.” Her dark eyes drifted over me and I wondered if she was experiencing the same desire, the same inexplicable need.
Was it a true heat, or something that had been brought on artificially?
She wasn’t a natural lycan and I wasn’t interested in taking something that wasn’t being offered freely.
“I'm fine,” I lied as her rich scent caressed me. The proximity to her intolerable on every level. “We should go downstairs, get something to eat.” I turned and she grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
“I want to be with you, Max. Ever since I saw you in the kitchen. I…I can’t explain it, but I need you. I need this.” Her voice was a throaty whisper and I didn’t know what to do. She still didn’t understand what was happening to her and I didn’t want to take advantage.
“I think we should wait.” The words came out, but there was no hiding the fact that I didn’t mean any of them. My instinct was overruling my logic center and the need to mate her surged from the most primal place inside of me.
“For what?” She whimpered as she peeled off her t-shirt and tossed it to the floor.
I’d caught glimpses of her body, but had tried not to look.
Now she wanted me to and I did. The insides of her thighs were slick, glistening, and the scent absolutely mind numbing.
Her breasts were perfect — round and full with soft pink nipples that tightened slightly as my gaze drifted over her.
I’d never been so hard and my knot was throbbing, the intensity like nothing I’d ever known. As she glanced down at it, her eyes widened and the embarrassment I’d always felt faded away. She was made to take it and she wanted it and there was no reason not to give it to her.
“What is it?” she asked, sliding her finger over the bump and I swallowed, the urge to fuck her so all consuming that it was difficult to control myself.
“It’s my knot.” Her fingernail slid over it and I inhaled sharply as I wrapped my hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer. “Once I’m inside you, it locks us together.”
Her eyes widened. “For how long?”
“Hours, I think. It’s for breeding, but we don’t have to do that now,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt.
The truth was that I had no clue how it worked.
My father had been killed before he got around to the birds and bees talk, and I had to piece together what I knew from conversations I’d overheard as a kid.
“If we mate, I have to mark you,” I murmured as I cupped her cheek, then brushed aside her hair, fingering the spot on her neck where my mark would go.
“What's that?” Her eyes widened as I cupped her breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers as she rubbed her thighs together needily. Her pouty pink lips parted slightly and I jerked my hand away, trying to keep it together as she took a step closer and wrapped her hand around my dick.
“I bite you and the mark I leave indicates to other alphas that you've been claimed.” She inhaled sharply, her voice a whisper, her hot breath brushing across my bare skin.
“I would like this, to be claimed by you.”
Oh God…
That was all the permission I needed, there was no reason to fight it.
My mouth pressed against hers and I pushed her towards the bed, falling onto it and I rolled her onto her back.
I was still unsure about how it would happen, but I knew how to fuck, I was good at it, and would just take it from there.
I spread her legs, her fragrance surrounding me, that sweet musky odor that made my wolf shudder. It was the only time he'd ever supplicated and as I took the first taste, I knew why. She was so wet, and each touch made her quiver with need.
I buried my face between her thighs, my tongue sliding through her slick folds and she gripped the sheets, squirming, bucking as I teased her, pushing my fingers inside as I felt for the place where my knot would fit. It was there.
She was lycan.
I kissed my way up her body, lingering on her breasts, still nervous about the act itself, but as I pushed into her, slowly, then withdrawing, making sure she was still into it, I felt my knot extend, filling her and her eyes widened.
Her moans grew louder as I thrust faster and harder, and I kissed her then rolled her on top of me, her weight driving me deeper inside of her.
Her hips bucked and her breasts bounced as she ground against me, shouting profanities I didn't understand and just as I was about to come, I pulled her towards me and bit her neck, the sensation almost as satisfying as the sex itself.
I immediately felt different, physically, mentally.
I was suddenly aware of her breath, her heartbeat, her movements in a way that I wasn’t before.
The crushing emptiness was gone, replaced by the comfort of her presence.
I was a pack animal and she was my pack and it felt divine, sacred, like every day without her in my life had only been an illusion.
“I feel strange,” she murmured as I wrapped my arms around her, her heart beating to the same rhythm as mine.
“Me too,” I confessed. I had always thought it was about the sex, knotting, breeding, but I'd been wrong.
It was the connection, the sensation of her bare skin against mine, her scent that was permanently imprinted on me.
I'd be able to find her in a sea of millions and she would search for me no matter the distance.
All of these thoughts cluttered my mind, brought home what had actually happened and made me regret the fact that I'd been actively pushing this part of myself away.
We were locked together and I could feel myself getting hard again as she lay on top of me, her lips finding mine as I pulled her closer, rolling her onto her back and thrusting softly as my lips found hers, relishing her taste, her presence.
I had found my mate.