Chapter 10
Zoe
The world had narrowed down to a single point of contact.
I wasn't Zoe Carmichael, the Dean’s daughter. I wasn't an Olympic hopeful. I wasn't a physics student struggling with torque.
I was a vessel. I was a harbor. I was… full.
Rory was heavy above me, his weight supported on his forearms, but his body was pressed flush against mine. Our chests rose and fell in a synchronized, jagged rhythm, the sweat on our skin mingling until I couldn't tell whose was whose.
But it was what was happening inside me that consumed my entire reality.
He was still inside me. Deep. Impossibly deep. And he was… expanding.
The sensation was alien and overwhelming. It was a pressure that bordered on pain but settled firmly into a profound, terrifying pleasure. It felt like he was anchoring himself to my spine. It felt like he was rewriting my genetic code with his presence.
"Breathe," Rory rasped, his voice a vibration against my collarbone. "Don't fight it, Zoe. You can't fight it."
"I’m not fighting," I whispered, my voice sounding wrecked, unfamiliar to my own ears. I ran my hands down his back, feeling the slick, hot skin, the ridges of his spine, the tension in his massive muscles. "It feels… incredible."
He groaned, burying his face in the crook of my neck. "The knot. It locks us. It tells your body that you're mated. It tells my wolf that he succeeded."
"Succeeded?"
"In claiming you." He lifted his head, his eyes finding mine in the dim light.
The gold was swirling, brighter than I had ever seen it, but the manic edge of the violence was gone.
It was replaced by a heavy, lidded look of pure possession.
"You're full of me, Zoe. My seed. My scent. You're overflowing."
A flush heated my cheeks, spreading down my chest. "You really… you didn't pull out."
"I couldn't if I wanted to," he admitted, a dark smirk playing on his lips. "Biology is a bitch. Or a blessing. Right now, I’m thinking blessing."
He shifted his hips slightly.
I gasped, my nails digging into his shoulders. The movement sent a shockwave of sensitivity through me. I was so stretched, so open.
"Too much?" he asked instantly, the smirk vanishing, replaced by concern.
"No," I panted. "Just… sensitive. I’ve never…"
"I know." He kissed my forehead, tenderly brushing a damp strand of hair away from my face. "You gave me everything. Your first time. Your trust. You opened the door to the monster and let him in."
"You aren't a monster," I said, tracing the line of his jaw with my thumb. "You're just… a lot."
He huffed a laugh against my skin. "Yeah. I’m a lot."
We lay there in the quiet of his cave-like bedroom. The blackout curtains held the world at bay. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator in the other room and the settling of the house.
I should have been terrified.
My father was coming at 8:00 AM. The movers were coming to strip my life away, to drag me back to the dorms, to put me back in the glass box.
But lying here, pinned to the mattress by two hundred and forty pounds of wolf-shifter, literally locked together by a biological mating mechanism… I felt invincible.
I felt real.
"How long?" I whispered.
"The knot?" He rested his forehead against mine. "Ten minutes. Maybe twenty. Depends on how happy the Wolf is. And he is very, very happy right now."
"So we're stuck."
"Trapped," he agreed. "Nowhere to run, little bird."
"I don't want to run."
"Good." He kissed me then—slow, deep, and lazy. It tasted of sex and intimacy. "Because if you ran, I’d just catch you."
As the minutes ticked by, the intense pressure began to subside. The swelling reduced. The lock disengaged.
Rory pulled out slowly.
The sensation of emptiness was immediate and aching. I whimpered, an involuntary sound of loss.
"I know," he murmured. "I know."
He rolled off me, but he didn't go far. He reached for the box of tissues on the nightstand—a mundane object in the midst of something so primal—and cleaned us up with a surprising, gentle efficiency.
He tossed the tissues into the bin and pulled the dark grey duvet up over us, cocooning us in warmth.
He pulled me against his chest. I curled into him, fitting my back to his front, my head resting on his bicep. His arm draped over my waist, heavy and protective, his hand resting flat on my stomach.
"Sleep," he ordered, his voice thick with exhaustion. "We have a war to fight in the morning."
"Rory?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you really think we can win?"
His hand tightened on my stomach. "I don't know," he whispered into my hair. "But I know I’m not letting you go without a fight."
I closed my eyes, letting the scent of cedar and rain lull me into the deepest sleep of my life.
I woke up to darkness.
For a second, I didn't know where I was. The sheets were unfamiliar—silkier, colder than mine. The room was pitch black.
Then, the heat registered.
There was a furnace pressed against my back. A solid wall of muscle and heat.
Rory.
I shifted, and his arm tightened reflexively around my waist. He was awake.
"What time is it?" I whispered, my voice raspy.
"Four a.m.," he rumbled. His voice was deep, gravelly, sending shivers down my spine. "The witching hour."
"Why are you awake?"
"Thinking."
"About?"
"About how you smell." He nuzzled the back of my neck, his nose cold against my warm skin. "The vanilla is gone. You just smell like musk. And me. It’s… distracting."
I turned in his arms, facing him in the dark. My eyes had adjusted enough to see the outline of his face, the gleam of his eyes watching me.
"Distracting good or distracting bad?"
"Distracting dangerous," he growled.
He moved his leg, sliding his knee between my thighs. I gasped as the friction hit my center. I was sore—a dull, throbbing ache that was a constant reminder of what we had done—but the soreness was inextricably linked to pleasure.
"You're sore," he noted, freezing. "I can smell the inflammation."
"I’m fine," I lied. "Just… stretched."
"I should let you rest," he murmured, his hand moving up my spine, tracing the vertebrae one by one. "I should be a gentleman and let you sleep until the movers get here."
"I don't want a gentleman," I whispered, bold in the dark. "I have plenty of gentlemen in my life. They open doors and tell me to smile and treat me like glass."
I reached down, my hand finding the heavy ridge of his arousal. He was hard. Again.
"I want the Wolf," I said.
Rory hissed in a breath as my fingers wrapped around him. He was silky, hot, and pulsing with life.
"You are playing with fire, Zoe," he warned, his hips bucking involuntarily against my hand.
"Burn me," I challenged.
He didn't hesitate this time.
He flipped me onto my back in one fluid, violent motion. He loomed over me, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand.
"You want the Wolf?" he snarled softly. "Fine. But the Wolf doesn't ask. He takes."
He didn't wait for me to adjust. He didn't tease.
He spread my legs with his knee and positioned himself.
"Look at me," he commanded.
I looked up. In the darkness, his eyes were glowing—literally glowing—with a faint, bioluminescent gold light. It was terrifying. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"Good girl," he praised as he saw my submission.
He pushed inside.
It wasn't slow like the first time. It was one smooth, heavy stroke that filled me completely.
I cried out, arching my back, the soreness flaring into a sharp, blinding pleasure.
"Take it," he growled, withdrawing and slamming back in. "All of it. Every inch."
"Rory… yes…"
"Who do you belong to?" he demanded, setting a punishing rhythm. The bed frame groaned, hitting the wall with a rhythmic thud-thud-thud.
"You," I gasped, my head thrashing on the pillow. "I belong to you."
"Say it louder." He released my wrists to grab my hips, his fingers digging into my flesh, leaving marks I would wear like trophies. "Tell the universe. Tell your father."
"I’m yours!" I screamed, uncaring of the thin walls, uncaring of the neighbors. "I’m yours, Rory!"
"That’s it," he panted, his sweat dripping onto my chest. "Be a good girl for me. Take my knot."
He drove into me, harder, faster, deeper. He was hitting a spot deep inside me, rubbing against my cervix in a way that made my vision blur. It was animalistic. It was purely biological.
He leaned down, capturing my mouth in a bruising kiss, swallowing my moans as the tension coiled tight in my belly.
"Come for me," he ordered against my lips. "Now."
And I did. I fell apart. My orgasm ripped through me, violent and consuming. I clamped down on him, my body convulsing.
He roared, his control snapping. He drove into me three more times—hard, fast, brutal—before stiffening.
I felt the knot swell again.
He groaned, collapsing on top of me, his weight crushing me into the mattress. He buried his face in my neck, biting down.
This time, he didn't stop.
I felt the sharp pinch of teeth. Then the pressure.
He didn't break the skin—not fully—but he dented it. He bruised it. He left a mark that would turn purple and stay for weeks. A pseudo-claim. A warning to anyone who looked closely.
We lay there, panting, sweating, tangled in the sheets and each other.
The knot held us fast.
"I love you," I whispered.
The words slipped out before I could stop them. They hung in the dark air, heavy and terrifying.
Rory went perfectly still above me. His breathing stopped.
I froze. Oh god. Too soon. Too much.
He lifted his head slowly. The gold in his eyes was fading, replaced by a dark, human brown filled with something that looked like panic… and awe.
"Zoe," he rasped.
"You don't have to say it back," I said quickly, tears stinging my eyes. "I just… I needed you to know. Before tomorrow. Before the war starts."
He looked at me for a long, agonizing silence. He traced my lip with his thumb.
"I can't say it," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Not yet. Because if I admit that… if I admit that the monster loves the princess… then I have everything to lose."
He kissed me gently.
"But I feel it," he murmured against my mouth. "God, Zoe, I feel it in every bone in my body."
It was enough. For now, it was enough.
We didn't sleep again.
We lay in the dark, talking in whispers, touching, memorizing the landscape of each other’s bodies. I learned about the scar on his hip from a skate blade. He learned about the birthmark on my ribcage.
We watched the window turn from black to grey.
6:00 AM.
7:00 AM.
The light crept into the room, revealing the aftermath. The tangled sheets. The clothes strewn on the floor. The bruises on my hips. The mark on my neck.
7:30 AM.
"We have to move," Rory said, his voice flat. The reality was crashing down on us.
"I don't want to go," I whispered, clutching the sheet to my chest.
"You have to. If you're not there when he arrives, he’ll come here. And if he finds you in my bed…" Rory shook his head. "I won't let him expel you. I won't let him ruin your skating."
"He can't expel me for sleeping with you."
"He can make your life hell. He can cut your funding. He can trade me to a team in Alaska."
Rory got out of bed. In the daylight, he was magnificent. And terrifying. He looked like a god of war—scars, muscles, tattoos.
He pulled on boxer briefs and sweatpants. He tossed me his hoodie—the one I had stolen, now recovered.
"Put this on," he said. "It covers the mark on your neck."
I touched my neck. It was tender.
I got up, my legs wobbling. Rory was there instantly, steadying me.
"You okay?"
"Just… reminder pains," I managed a weak smile.
I dressed quickly. The hoodie, my jeans from last night.
We walked to the front door of his unit.
Rory stopped me before I could open it. He pulled me into his arms, hugging me so tight my ribs creaked.
"This isn't the end," he vowed into my hair. "Let him move you. Let him think he won. But you're mine, Zoe. The knot proved it. The mark proves it."
"I’m yours," I promised.
He kissed me one last time—desperate and searing—before opening the door.
I slipped out onto the porch. The cold morning air hit me like a slap.
I walked to my unit, Unit 4B. I unlocked the door and went inside.
My apartment felt cold. Empty.
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.
I looked wrecked. My lips were swollen. My hair was a disaster. My eyes were heavy with lack of sleep.
But I looked… alive.
I pulled down the collar of the hoodie.
There, right over my pulse point, was a bruise. A dark, purple oval. The shape of a wolf’s bite.
I traced it with my finger.
At 7:59 AM, a black SUV pulled into the driveway. Behind it, a moving truck.
I watched through the blinds as my father got out of the car. He looked immaculate. Cold. Controlled.
He walked up the steps.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
I took a deep breath. I pulled the hoodie up tight. I squared my shoulders.
I wasn't the girl who had moved in here a week ago. I wasn't the fragile glass doll.
I was the storm.
I opened the door.
"Good morning, Dad," I said, my voice steady.
My father looked at me. He scanned my face. His eyes narrowed. He sniffed the air—he wasn't a shifter, but he had spent enough time around them to recognize the scent.
I smelled like sex. I smelled like cedar. I smelled like Rory Thorne.
His face turned a dangerous shade of red.
"You," he whispered, his voice shaking with rage. "What have you done?"
"I packed," I lied, gesturing to the boxes. "I’m ready to go."
"You reek of him," my father spat, stepping into the entryway. "Did you think I wouldn't know? Did you think you could play house with a mongrel and I wouldn't find out?"
"I didn't play house," I said calmly. "And don't call him a mongrel."
"He is a beast!" my father shouted. "And you… you are tainted."
The word hung in the air. Tainted.
It should have hurt. It should have shattered me.
But it didn't.
Because being tainted by Rory felt a lot like being saved.
"Are we moving or not?" I asked coldly.
My father stared at me. He looked at the hoodie—Rory’s hoodie. He realized, in that moment, that he had lost. He could move my body, he could move my boxes, but he couldn't move my loyalty.
"Get in the car," he snarled. "The movers will handle the rest."
I walked past him.
As I reached the car, I looked back at the duplex.
Rory was standing in the window of Unit 4A. He wasn't hiding. He was standing there, shirtless, his hand pressed against the glass.
Our eyes met.
He didn't wave. He just nodded.
I see you. You're mine.
I got in the car.
The war had begun. And for the first time in my life, I was ready to fight.