Falling For The Demon Wolf-Chapter 34: Awakened

He filled the doorway like a storm, shirtless, blood on his hands, his eyes—those fierce, burning amber eyes—glowing with something ancient and wild. His chest rose and fell as if he’d run back from the depths of the woods.

The scent of earth, fire, and wolf clung to him like a second skin.

And the moment our eyes met, something snapped.

The mark on my shoulder flared—violently.

He snarled low in his throat, barely human, stalking toward me. His body was tense, like he was fighting something... or barely holding it back.

"What the hell did they do to you," he growled, more to himself than to me.

"Stay back," I whispered, stumbling. "Please."

But he didn’t.

He advanced, slow, deliberate, like a predator circling prey—but there was something deeper in his gaze. Curiosity. Hunger. Recognition.

"You smell like fire," he muttered. "Like war... and something that shouldn’t exist."

I backed up until my shoulders hit the cold stone wall.

The mark pulsed again—this time, with desire.

My breath caught.

Zain halted inches from me. "Your heart is racing."

"Because you’re terrifying," I snapped.

His jaw clenched. "And yet you’re still standing here."

He reached out, fingertips grazing my arm, and the second his skin met mine—

I gasped.

It wasn’t pain.

It was everything.

A rush of heat, of memory that wasn’t mine. A battlefield. A scream. A voice calling my name in another tongue.

He flinched, like he felt it too

"What are you Violet?" he breathed, voice hoarse.

"I don’t know," I whispered. "But it’s waking up."

He growled again, this time not in anger but in instinct. His hand gripped my chin gently but firmly, tilting my face up to his.

"Whatever it is," he said, voice dropping low, "it’s dangerous. And it might kill you"

"I’m a danger to you now. You need to leave," I whispered, chest heaving.

His eyes flicked to my lips. "You’re mine."

That word.

That damn word.

"Don’t say that," I whispered, even though everything in me wanted him to say it again.

But he wasn’t listening anymore.

Not with logic, anyway.

His hand slid down my neck, over my shoulder—hovering just above the mark. "This doesn’t belong to you alone," he murmured. "It calls to me."

His breath was hot against my cheek. "You feel it too. Don’t lie."

My body betrayed me—I leaned into him, breath shuddering. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

And then—

"Zain." Cian’s voice broke through the haze, sharp and cutting.

The tension snapped like a taut wire. Zain pulled away, blinking like he was waking from a trance. He turned slowly, snarling at the interruption.

But Cian stood firm in the doorway. "She needs answers. Not instincts."

Zain growled under his breath, running a hand through his hair before storming past Cian and out into the hall.

Leaving me breathless.

Shaking.

And absolutely wrecked.

The door slammed shut behind Zain, but the echo of his presence lingered like smoke in my lungs. I was trembling from head to toe, my pulse refusing to slow, the fire under my skin crackling with something ancient and terrifying.

My legs gave out.

I dropped to my knees, the stone floor unforgiving beneath me. My vision blurred. My mark—that cursed, burning mark—throbbed so violently I could feel my heartbeat in my ears.

I clutched at my chest, gasping for air.

Too much.

Too fast.

The walls swayed. My body felt like it wasn’t mine anymore.

Then came the whisper—not a voice I knew, not something I understood, but a wordless hum that seemed to come from inside me. A presence. Watching. Awakening.

I tried to stand, but the room tilted sideways.

"Not now," I breathed, struggling to keep my eyes open.

I heard footsteps—Cian’s voice calling my name from somewhere distant. The pounding of boots. A door creaking.

But everything was slipping, like water between my fingers.

And then, just before the black took me, I felt it again—

The mark pulsed one last time, softer now.

Like it had been fed.

And then I collapsed into darkness.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

ZAIN

She went limp in my arms.

I caught her just before her head hit the floor, her body burning with an unnatural heat, her breath shallow and uneven. Something inside her was stirring—waking—and it wasn’t just her wolf. No... this was older. Wilder.

I carried her to the bed, laying her down carefully, the scent of her tangled with my own now, clinging to my skin like a damn brand.

Her mark shimmered faintly in the moonlight, still glowing beneath her sleeve like a heartbeat. I pulled the fabric back, jaw clenched.

The pull toward her was unbearable.

I wanted—no, I needed—to mark her. To sink my teeth into the soft space between her neck and shoulder and make it known to every creature in the forest that she was mine. My fated mate.

My wolf howled inside me, desperate and violent.

I leaned in—closer than I should have—lips brushing just over her collarbone.

"Mine," I growled, voice low, primal.

"Zain," came Cian’s voice behind me, sharp and cold. "Don’t do it."

I snapped my head towards him, "you knew."

"Come on, anybody that had eyes could see how you yearn for her."

I didn’t turn. "You feel that, don’t you? She’s not just some human servant. She’s mine. The bond—" I broke off, dragging a hand through my hair. "It’s real."

"Yes I know, but She’s not ready," Cian said, stepping into the room. "And you’re not thinking clearly. You want to claim a girl who doesn’t even know what she is yet?"

"I know what she is," I snarled, standing slowly, eyes glowing with the Alpha’s command threatening to rise again. "She’s my mate. My fated one. I felt it the second I saw her. But this—" I gestured to her limp form on the bed, "—this thing inside her, whatever it is, it’s dangerous. If I don’t mark her soon, she could lose herself to it."

Cian folded his arms. "Or you could mark her and trigger something worse. You don’t know what claiming her will unleash. None of us do."

A beat of silence stretched between us. The only sound was Violet’s uneven breath and the pulsing storm beneath my skin.

"I can’t hold it back much longer," I admitted, voice barely more than a whisper. "Every time I see her, every time I breathe her in, it gets harder."

"Then don’t be alone with her," Cian said, his tone softening. "At least until the full moon passes."

I looked at him, finally. "You really think I can stay away from her now?"

He exhaled slowly. "No. But you must. If you mark her before she’s ready... it could destroy her."

My fists clenched, nails biting into my palms.

I looked down at her again—her chest rising and falling, her brow slightly furrowed even in sleep. She looked fragile. Breakable. But I’d seen what lived under that skin. That fire. That fury.

She wasn’t just mine.

She was a human, well at least for now, the descendant of Author Hawthorne, her grandfather’s that killed my family.

I can’t possibly mark her and make her my mate, that will be against very I’ve ever worked for.

And part of me wanted her even more for it.

I turned my back before I did something I’d regret.

"Stay with her," I said hoarsely. "If she wakes up and I’m near her... I won’t be able to stop myself."

I needed to get away.

The walls were closing in. Her scent still clung to my skin, tangled in the fibers of my clothes, in the air, in me. And my wolf—gods, my wolf was thrashing inside, demanding I turn back. Demanding I claim her.

But I couldn’t.

Not yet.

Not like this.

My bones cracked as I shifted mid-run, muscles stretching and tearing as fur erupted across my skin. I hit the tree line behind the packhouse and tore into the woods, paws pounding against the earth, breath steaming through my snout. The night swallowed me whole.

I needed the cold air in my lungs.

The silence of the forest.

The space between me and her.

Because if I stayed a second longer, I wouldn’t have stopped myself.

She had no idea what she was waking inside her—what that mark meant, or why it pulsed like it had a will of its own. But I did. Or at least... I was starting to.

And if I claimed her now, with that power still dormant, still unstable, it could trigger something we couldn’t control. I’d already seen it flare—how it reacted to me. To my voice. To my touch.

Fated or not, she was dangerous.

Descendant of Arthur Hawthorne.

The name was like ice down my spine. Her bloodline had hunted mine. Her grandfather was the reason my mother never lived to see my first shift. And now fate, in all its twisted cruelty, had tied me to her.

She was mine.

But she was also his.