Chapter 4
I gripped the straps of my bag until my knuckles turned white.
The gym stood apart from the cluster of buildings—a looming structure of gray concrete and iron secluded from the rest of the campus.
As I pushed through the heavy steel doors, the silence of the empty hall pressed against my eardrums, heavy and thick.
It was a tomb, and I was stepping right into the center of it.
Alone.
“Princess.”
Shane’s voice didn’t carry; it vibrated through the floorboards.
He was standing in the center of the polished wood, silhouetted by the high, barred windows.
It was his personal nickname for me. He had changed out of his uniform and now wore a black tactical jacket, the sleeves rolled up to reveal his forearms.
My heart thrashed against my ribs—a frantic, trapped bird facing a viper. As he turned, his gaze didn’t just land on me; it marked me. The heat of his eyes burned as they trailed over me, while dark strands of hair fell over his forehead.
“Thanks for coming,” he murmured, his voice smooth, laced with something as lethal as wolfsbane.
“I didn’t really have a choice,” I croaked, a shred of defiance that we both knew was meaningless.
He didn’t walk; he prowled, his shoulders rippling as he closed the distance before I could even think to flee.
I took a sharp step back, afraid of tripping his wolf’s hunt drive.
My heel caught on the floor, but he was already there.
He stopped just out of reach, but his dominance rolled over me in a wave, carrying the sharp, dark scent of cedar and sandalwood.
I lifted my chin to look at him, swallowing hard. The gym was freezing, but the air between us was electric, charged with an energy I didn’t want to put a name to.
“What do you want, Shane? I have to meet Mavy…”
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he reached out and traced the hollow of my throat with his thumb—a stinging reminder of the smooth, unmarked skin where a mating bond should have been.
His dark hair fell forward as he lowered his head, his breath ghosting over my collarbone an instant before he buried his face in the crook of my neck.
I gasped, frozen in place. He didn’t just smell me; he ground his jaw against the sensitive skin of my throat, a slow, possessive friction that seized the air in my lungs.
My heart broke as my mind screamed. He was scenting me—claiming the space my wolf should have risen to fight him for, marking a territory that didn’t belong to him.
I trembled beneath his touch, but it was his eyes that locked me in place—obsidian looked through me, searching for something I didn’t know if I could give.
My eyes lowered as his lips parted.
“You’re mine, Adea,” he rasped, his voice thick with certainty. He hooked a heavy knee between my thighs, prying them apart before pinning me firmly against the unforgiving stone. “I want you writhing under me, screaming my name.”
My throat dried. He looked at me like I was his. When his lips crashed against mine, it wasn’t a question. It was a violent reminder.
I saw everything. The weight of his hand on my wrist. The distance to the door—too far.
He was faster. I was prey. So I went somewhere else instead.
Not away—I stayed and witnessed every second of it, but I built a wall of glass between what was happening to my body and the part of me he didn’t get to touch. He didn’t get to have me.
I should have bitten him. I should have clawed at those broad shoulders until I drew the same blood he was stealing from my lips.
But my mind was a fractured mess, and my body…
my body was a traitor. It didn’t recognize him as a monster; it recognized him as another—and she was lonely.
The clench and the way my breath hitched were a homecoming I hadn’t asked for.
I hated him. He pinned my wrists above my head, my shirt rising up as he loomed over me.
I hated the way he made me a pig at lunch and a princess in the dark.
He only let his darkest desires surface when no one was looking.
But as his fingers grazed my thigh, I went rigid as a violent shiver ran down my spine—not from disgust, but from the terrifying way my body leaned into his touch.
My mind screamed no, but my skin burned with need.
“You always smell the same, Princess,” he whispered as we broke apart. “Like broken promises and freedom.”
I tried to pull away, but his hand shot out, slamming against the wall behind my head. The sound cracked through the empty gym and rattled the windows. Before I could breathe, his lips crashed against mine again—not a kiss this time, but a rough, desperate claim.
I pushed against his chest, my hands fisted in his shirt, but he let out a low growl that settled into my chest, beating alongside my own heart. He crushed me against the ridged planes of his abs, the unyielding press of his need marking me through the thin fabric of my shirt.
His weight was a crushing force, stealing the oxygen from my lungs until I was lightheaded from more than just his touch.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
I didn’t remember closing my eyes. I forced them open. His gaze was consumed by gold that burned with intensity. His beast surged to the surface, scratching at the door, demanding. This was my first time being face to face with the beast beneath his skin. I needed to tread carefully.
“You were so eager to be seen by the creek,” he rasped, his voice a dark caress that made my skin crawl. “If you’re that desperate for an audience, I’ll give you that. But this time, everyone will know who owns you.”
My heart plummeted.
“Let me escort you to the Festival,” he murmured against my lips, his other hand sliding beneath the hem of my skirt. His skin was fire against my ice.
“I’m going with Mavy,” I gasped, struggling against his grip. “I won’t be your trophy, Shane.”
His grip tightened, his fingers bruising my wrists. “You’ll be whatever I tell you to be. Agree, and I’ll stop.”
His hand moved higher, his fingers ghosting over my panties. The betrayal of my body was the true horror; I felt the heat blooming between my thighs, the clench of a core that wanted to please her alpha, even as my soul recoiled in disgust.
“Okay!” I choked out. The word tasted of something I couldn’t take back.
“Okay. I’ll go. Just… stop.”
He stilled.
For one breath, I believed he was capable of it. Of keeping his word. Of being something other than what he was.
He leaned in, his teeth grazing the column of my throat as his hand swept the material out of the way. “Good girl.”
I hated those two words more than anything he’d done with his hands. He said it like he’d trained me.
“You said you’d stop,” I whispered. My voice broke on the last word.
His eyes didn’t change. “I said I’d stop if you agreed.”
“I agreed.”
“Did you?” His head tilted, something ancient and cold moving in his beast’s eyes. “Because your body is saying something else entirely.”
He drove a finger inside me, and I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting back the tears that burned as he forced my body to react. My pussy clenched around his intrusion, but it was the way he watched me through those all-consuming eyes—he was drinking in my undoing—that truly broke me.
I felt the slick slide of my own wetness coating his knuckles, a silent confession of a need I didn’t want to own.
“That’s right,” he whispered, his breath fanned my face. “Feel what I do to you.” He pushed deeper, a low groan vibrating from his chest into mine.
But as his fingers moved inside me, something—the silent, hidden part of me—didn’t growl. She purred.
I squeezed my eyes shut against something worse than shame. My body was a traitor I understood—biology, alpha dominance, years of isolation, and need. But her? She was supposed to be mine.
He buried his face in my neck, his fingers moving with a rhythmic, punishing speed. My breathing hitched, the friction building into something terrifying and sharp. He nipped at my neck, his fingers pumping harder until a broken moan escaped my lips.
My pussy clenched around him despite everything in me screaming not to.
“Eyes on me, Princess,” he commanded gruffly, his fingers continuing their assault. “I want to watch you cum. Look. At. Me.”
I forced my eyes open, meeting that gold just as the wave broke. It wasn’t a release; it was a shattering. I sobbed, my body racking with a climax that branded itself into me, my forehead dropping against his shoulder as I came all over his hand.
“Good girl.”
He stayed there for a moment, letting me shake against him, before he finally pulled away.
I was thankful for the stone at my back to lean on.
To my horror, he looked down at his damp fingers.
A slow smirk pulled at his lips. His eyes never left mine as he brought them to his mouth.
As he swallowed, the gold in his gaze bled back into shadows.
“This is our little secret, Ady,” he whispered, readjusting his clothes with the cool composure of a man who hadn’t just taken a piece of me. “I’ll see you at home.”
He walked out, the heavy gym doors thudding shut with the finality of a casket lid.
For a moment, there was nothing. Just the gym—the ticking of a clock somewhere above, the cold coming up through the floor, and the sound of my own breathing. The world had continued. The walls were still standing. Nothing had moved.
Then my knees hit the hard floor, my legs tucked into my chest as the first real sob tore out of me.
I looked at the door, then at my own trembling hands.
This didn’t happen. I began to frantically scrub at my skin.
I yanked the hem of my shirt up, rubbing the fabric raw against my neck and collarbone, desperate to erase the lingering memory of his jaw.
I didn’t have my wolf, but I could smell him all over me.
I couldn’t be the woman who belonged to the monster.
I wiped my face until it stung, smoothing my hair with shaking fingers as I forced my breathing to level out.
This never happened.