Jericho’s canines tore past skin, drilling through tendon and bone. A white-hot lance of pure agony seared through me and my mouth parted around a silent scream.

My legs buckled and I struggled against him, but he held me in place, his arm banded around my waist with bruising strength.

For a moment, my life flashed before my eyes and I was sure I was dying.

But then, I felt it. It was behind my ribs, below my heart and above my stomach. No. It was everywhere. It was inside me. In my cells. In my blood. In my mind.

It was familiar presence, and yet it was foreign. It was dark. It was vast. It was hungry. A deep rumble echoed in my chest as it opened an eye.

A wave of malevolent power, ancient, cold and mean began to force its way into my veins. A gasp escaped me and my spine arched.

It felt like burning larva being poured into my arteries, beginning from the point of Jericho fangs in my skin. My vision swam and then sharpened, and I could suddenly see colors I had never seen before, hear sounds that came from outside, and if I tried harder, I could hear as far as two streets away.

I could smell things. The antiseptic used to clean the floors was sharp, but I could also smell them. I could smell the power on the four of them. It was abhorrent and ruinous. Colossal. The power in one body large enough to decimate a small town.

I smelled the bond between them. Raw terrifying power leaked from them, surrounding me, teasing, coaxing, seducing.

It was a perfect fit. I didn’t understand what that meant.

But the creature inside me did.

It excited her.

I was suddenly shoved into the back seat and she took control of me, and the snarl that escaped me sounded nothing like me. I tried to claw my way to the surface, but she shoved me down easily. It wasn’t even a fight.

I understood then why they thought I wouldn’t survive the transition. I was too weak to subdue her and the sheer power she controlled was too big to contain my body.

Jericho released my neck, my blood dripping from his mouth as he smiled. There was something wild in his eyes. "There you are."

He reached for me, no doubt, to force me into submission as his eyes began to bleed into black.

But the creature possessing me cocked her head. "How presumptuous," she said.

And backhanded him.

The force of it released a blast of power that sent him flying across the bathroom. He hit the far wall with a thud and I heard bones breaking.

I—we—raised our hand and stared at it, and the excitement in us grew. Play. We wanted to play.

We whirled just in time to see Soren try to tackle us. He was pretty. We wanted to touch him. We wanted to see him without those clothes on. We let him tackle us into the wall because we liked the feel of his chest pressed to ours.

"Anytime fucking time now, Jericho," he grunted, holding our hands above our head.

"Kiss me," we said.

Soren’s eyes fell to my mouth and darkened. Then he blinked, as if to clear his head.

We frowned. "You want me. I can smell it on you." We bared our neck for him and his violet eyes dilated. "Take me. Bite me. Fuck me."

Soren’s breath became harsh. Something hard poked against our stomach. His eyes fell to our breasts pressed tightly against him. His lips parted. But he shut his eyes and shook his head, letting out a bitter laugh. "You’re really going to despise this when you come back to yourself, Adams."

We knew it then. He would not give us what we wanted.

So, we headbutted him.

He staggered slightly, but it was all the opening we needed. We shoved him, sending him sprawling, but we hadn’t moved an inch before we got tackled again.

It was Mercer. He pressed my front into the bathroom, holding me in place with trembling hands.

He was pretty, too, and we decided we wanted him. He was rougher and less controlled. If we pushed hard enough, he would play with us.

We rocked our hips backwards into a full circle. He hissed sharply. "Fuck. Adams." His breath was hot on my ear. "Don’t do that."

We did it again.

His hand left the wall beside our head and banded over our stomach. "You’re playing with fire, sweetheart." And then, he wrapped his hand around our throat snuggly, and whispered, "And I’m not a very patient man."

We felt the rough edge of his words go straight to our core. Yes, we thought, dropping our head back against his chest as his hand lowered, teasing the neckline of our blouse.

Our breasts grew heavy, nipples tightening and aching.

But at the last second, he swerved and pushed me, right into the waiting arms of Quinlan.

We thought it was funny. They were passing us around like a dodgeball.

"Hello, handsome," we crooned and tried to kiss him. We heard his heartbeat speed up.

His mouth curved into a small smile.

"I just might like you better this way, Adams," he murmured. Then his eyes flicked somewhere above our shoulder and we realized too late that it was a trap. "Now, Jer."

We jerked back, but we weren’t fast enough as a vise-like grip clamped around our shoulders. And I felt a hot mouth on our neck, right before sharp canines bit down hard on the exact same spot.

We thrashed, bucking and heaving. It took two of them to hold us in place. We didn’t want to be silenced. It felt like a violation and the harder we fought, the more it hurt.

I felt the separation. She screamed in my head, the shriek unholy, as dominant, unseeing hands pushed her down, down, down.

Until it was just me. Until she was nothing but a mischievous and displeased presence lurking in the back of my mind and I felt myself slip back into control of my own body.

And as Jericho’s fangs receded, I felt something else take the place of the pain.

Pleasure.

It pooled below my abdomen, then exploded like a supernova of pure sensation. Every nerve ending in my body lit up, awakened by the touch of four.

My back arched violently, a moan climbing up my throat. A deep throbbing need began between my legs and I started to shiver and pant at the desperate, aching emptiness inside me began screaming to be filled.

Jericho nuzzled my neck, his tongue gliding over the sore spot.

I wanted. Goddess above, I wanted. I wanted hands on me, inside me. Any hands. Every hand.

Another stroke of his tongue in the puncture and I barely felt the wound close as another torrent of unbridled lust slammed into me.

"Oh god... please," I whimpered, tugging at their grips. My nipples pebbled painfully, begging to be pinched and sucked. But Quinlan’s arm remained around my waist.

A little higher. I needed him a little higher. Or lower. Anywhere would do. I was going to explode.

And just as quickly, it began leaking out of my muscles.

It felt like the low after an ecstatic high. The lust and residual energy swiftly drained out of me and my chest heaved before my breath steadied.

When they were sure I wouldn’t keel over, Jericho and Quinlan stepped away from me. It took Jericho a little longer to take his mouth off my neck.

Other than the trembling weakness in my legs, I felt... oddly... good.

And I finally took notice of my surroundings.

The bathroom was destroyed. Three doors were hanging off their hinges. The walls were cracked, splintered and broken.

Soren and Mercer were a healthy distance away from me, their gazes dark, nostrils flared and fists clenched. There was blood on Soren’s temple from where I had headbutted him. I whirled and Jericho had a split lit from where I hit him.

The last few minutes came back to me and I wished I could say it was a blur. It wasn’t. It was precise and clear as day, and shame and embarrassment warmed to my cheeks as I opened my mouth.

To apologize?

Where would I even begin? From hitting Jericho? Doing that would make me in turn apologize for humping against Soren and asking him to...

Oh God.

I was going to die of embarrassment.

So, rather than look them in the eye and face what I had done like a mature woman, I tucked tail and ran the hell out of there.