Maisie

I’d die for him.

No, wait a minute . . . that’s not where this was supposed to begin.

But left to my own devices, I’d have preferred to skim over the events of the next few weeks, and whisk you through those days with glossed-over details that casted me in a more flattering light.

Nobody looks good in their darkest hour. But it’s those hours that make us what we are. We stand strong, or we cower. We emerge victorious, tempered by our trials, or fractured by a permanent, damning fault line.

Or maybe I was just making up excuses to justify the shit my Lycan made me do.

Either way. Let’s get scarred for life together.

***

I charred, my skin blistered, bones fused from sexual heat no human, no wolf could’ve endured.

Lust consumed me. It was killing me slowly. Tearing apart my soul.

Helpmesomeonepleasehelpmemakeitstop.

Before, I thought I understood what the word ’mindless’ meant.

But I was wrong.

It started slowly. I began forgetting things. Important things. From the earliest things. Like Dad and Mom. The heat was in my mind, turning it all to mush, pushing it all so far out of reach that I could no longer tell why and what a Mom and Dad was.

All I knew was the word, BreedBreedBreed.

Sister? Not important. Memory gone.

School? Too much effort. Gone.

Friend. Friends. What were their names? Couldn’t remember.

Mate? I knew the word. It was interchangeable with breeding, wasn’t it? Or was it a person? Did he have blonde hair and green eyes? I suddenly felt anger.Why did he reject me?

No. Not mate. Douche. What did Douche mean? Unimportant. Gone.

Soon, all that was left of me, was that bedroom.

The black sheets teased my oversensitive skin. My wrists were raw from yanking at the cuffs, healing, then tearing open again. I didn’t care.

A babbling stream of incoherent noise poured from my mouth. Grunts, snarls, pleas in languages that didn’t exist as I kept rolling my hips in desperate, filthy circles, thrusting back and forth in a primal dance, clenching around nothing but air. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

It felt right. It felt necessary. I could feel my own slickness begin to trace a hot path down my inner thighs. The whole room smelled like desperate, needy sex.

All my blood had pooled between my thighs, making my clit pound with a relentless, aching rhythm. A low, pathetic whine slipped out of me as another orgasm ripped through my body, sharp, painful and unsatisfying.

And still, it didn’t stop.

Skin was all I was. Skin that was alive that hungered, that ached, that needed to be touched to endure. I was hollow. I was barren. I was empty. So empty...

The lock clicked.

His scent crashed over me like a drug. Dark, electric, masculine. My body reacted instantly, back arching violently off the bed, thighs spreading wide, nipples tight and throbbing.

He loomed over me. He was beautiful, powerful. He was lust. He was mine. One of mine.

I jerked frantically at the chains.

Yes, yes, yes, you are what I need!

He leaned over me and brushed damp strands of hair from my forehead. The small touch sent electricity racing across my skin. I whimpered in relief, pressing into his hand like a desperate animal.

"More," I begged, voice wrecked as I arched my chest towards him. "Touch me. Please."

His violet-blue eyes darkened with heat and he inhaled sharply, but he shook his head. "You have to eat something, Adams."

Food? The word felt foreign. Disgusting. I spread my legs wider instead, rolling my hips in the air. "You. Want you. Inside. Now."

He sat on the edge of the bed, eyes scalding hot as they dragged over my dripping, flushed body. "And who am I, Adams?"

Adams? Something buzzed in the back of my mind. A name, but it was gone in that instant, along with everything else.

I licked my lips. "Mate?"

He laughed softly, eyes twinkling. "My name. If you get it right, I’ll give you something. But if you don’t, you will eat. And until you get it right, there will be no touching."

Thinking felt like trying to swim through molasses.

I didn’t want to think. I bumped up and down the mattress and sank my teeth—fangs—into my bottom lip. His eyes latched onto my bouncing breasts and I said again, "Mate?"

He lifted the tray. "Wrong answer."

I had failed our game. I snarled in frustration and yanked at the cuffs.

He held up a spoonful of something brown. It smelled pleasant. Familiar.

I turned my face away. I didn’t want it. I wanted nothing more than the touch of his skin to mine.

"A few bites, Adams, and I’ll reward you for it," he said.

Reward translated to fuck.

My face jerked forward and I opened my mouth as wide as my jaw could go.

The spoon slid in. I barely tasted it. My eyes stayed glued to the massive bulge straining against his pants.

He kept feeding me though, his voice rough as he spoke words to me that I didn’t understand. "The most dangerous thing about the transition is that the woman becomes pure sexual need. Everyone around her feels it. However long it takes her to transition, she forgets everything else... even basic needs. Bathing. Eating. Sleeping. Everything comes down to one purpose. Breeeding. She could starve to death while trying to fuck anything that moves."

At the word fuck, my core clenched violently and fresh wetness pooled between my thighs. I moaned loudly.

"Yes," I gasped, hips jerking. "Me and you? Fuck? Now? Please? I ache."

He kept talking. I hated that he wouldn’t give me what I wanted. "And even if she didn’t, the constant intercouse in unsustainable for an underfed body, even for a Lycan..."

Lycan? The word floated through my mind and vanished.

My gaze dropped to his lap again. He was so hard. So big. Perfect. My mouth watered. Why wouldn’t he just take me?

"Stop staring at my cock, Adams," he snarled when he realized I wasn’t listening.

The word sank in immediately. And I suddenly had the word I was looking for. I wanted cock.

He poised another spoonful in front of my mouth.

"Don’t want food," I growled. "I want you."

Something dark and hungry flickered in his eyes.

"You don’t want me," he said quietly. "You hate me. And you’ll hate us even more when this is finished."

Hate? How could I hate him? And even if I did, hatred and desire could coexist. I started to tell him that, but I realized I didn’t know what those words meant, either.

I laid back against the bed and stared at him from under heavy lashes. "Reward. Fuck. Now."

He let out an exasperated sound. It went all the way to my tippy toes and curled them.

The bed dipped as he leaned over me, bracing his hands on either side of my head. "I need you to remember what I’m about to tell you, Adams. It may sink into your subconscious, but when you come back to yourself, you will remember this conversation."

I barely heard him. His scent was driving me insane. I stretched up as far as the cuffs allowed and tried to capture his lips. He pulled back just in time.

"Please..." I whimpered, tears of pure frustration spilling down my cheeks.

"This happened quicker than any of us anticipated," he continued seriously, even as I hooked my left leg around his waist and yanked him down with surprising strength.

He cursed as I locked both legs around him like a vice and immediately started grinding shamelessly against the hard length of his cock through his pants. The friction was heaven and hell at the same time. I cried out, back arching sharply as another brutal, unsatisfying orgasm tore through me.

It still wasn’t enough. Never enough. It hurt. So bad. More. I wanted more.

"Everyone’s timing is different," he murmured against my ear, voice strained, while I continued bucking against his hip. "Some last from a couple of weeks to a month. Some take longer. The heat will not break on its own. Physical union is required. You need us inside you. You need us joined with you, skin to skin, again and again, until you’re settled. Without this connection, the heat becomes endless torture. You will keep burning like this for weeks and may very well remain in this condition until it kills you. The longer we wait, the worse it’ll become."

So many words I didn’t understand. I was a bundle of pain and heat. "It hurts... make it stop," I sobbed, body trembling against his.

His lips brushed my forehead, fingers gently tangling in my damp hair. His voice was tender and some part of me knew I didn’t know this man to be tender as he said, "I know you’re not truly lucid right now."

His thumb gently stroked my scalp. "Normally, it is my right as your first marked mate to be the one who takes you first. But I won’t claim that right without your choice."

His voice was strained and scraped raw. "Say the name of whoever you want to be your first. Whoever comes to mind when you wake. I’ll bring him to you. Even if it isn’t me. I need you to remember that I gave you this choice when this is over."

I whimpered and pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses along his neck, sucking and licking at his skin like I could devour him.

He let out a pained grunt. He leaned down, lips brushing my ear. "Here’s your reward, Adams."

My body shivered in anticipation.

"Sleep."

The command sank into me like a warm blanket, heavy and tantalizing. For the first time since the burning began, the haze pulled back just enough. My exhausted limbs grew heavy. My eyelids fluttered.

The world finally went dark.