CHAPTER 230: HEAT DESIRES

Damon POV

Her scent—fierce, wild, and seething—rushed into the room like a storm. And with it... her wolf.

The witches froze.

Too late.

Because Elena had already shifted. Not fully, but enough. Her hands were claws. Her eyes glowing gold with fury. Fangs bared.

And then—

A blur.

She lunged.

The witch kneeling before me shrieked as she was kicked in the chest, flying backward into the wall, naked and stunned. Another witch tried to grab her cloak, but Elena backhanded her mid-move, sending her sprawling across the floor.

The third shrieked, scrambling to escape as Elena advanced, half-shifted and fully furious.

"OUT!" she snarled.

The witches fled—half-dressed, terrified, crawling and scrambling like rats from a fire.

I stood there.

Still panting.

Half-hard.

The witches had scattered like vermin.

Half-dressed. Claw-marked. Terrified.

I stood there, panting like an animal.

Still painfully hard.

Still burning.

And fuck me — Elena’s scent didn’t help. It made it worse. My wolf. My vampire. That other, darker thing inside me — all of them were on fire now. How the hell do she-wolves survive this?

I could barely stand.

Then her voice cut through the haze.

Sharp. Commanding.

"Come in."

I blinked.

What?

From behind her stepped a man—mid-thirties, clean-cut, and visibly trembling. A pack doctor. I hadn’t even realized she’d left the training hall to get him. She hadn’t run from me. She went to help.

Shit.

"What’s wrong with him?" Elena asked through clenched teeth.

The doctor looked at me, eyes widening in a mixture of horror and medical intrigue. He circled me slowly, his nose twitching, reading my scent.

"...He’s in heat," he finally said, baffled.

Heat?

Elena turned to him slowly, her expression darkening like a thundercloud. "What the fuck do you mean heat?"

He flinched but stood his ground. "I—I don’t know how else to put it, Luna. It’s like a reversed she-wolf heat — but magnified. His scent confirms it. Overwhelming, primal, feral. Like something’s awakened in him that was... dormant."

He paused, nervous. "I believe you can tell by his scent. Or... if you’re uncertain, I can call a ranked she-wolf to come and—"

"No woman is allowed near him." Elena’s voice was a growl. Not a suggestion. A command. The kind that makes your bones freeze.

The doctor visibly paled. "Understood."

Elena stepped toward me.

And gods help me, I wanted to pounce.

Everything inside me — beast, bloodlust, hunger, the burn — roared. Her scent was everywhere, and fuck, it was laced with want. Her wolf was surfacing. I could see it in the gold swirling in her eyes, the tension in her jaw, the flare of her nostrils.

She wanted me.

No — she wanted to ease this.

Not out of lust.

Out of instinct.

Pack instinct. Mate instinct.

But she stopped herself just shy of touching me. Smart. If she so much as brushed me, I’d break — and take her. Right here. Against the wall. On the floor. Wherever.

My body vibrated with restraint. Veins pulsing. Muscles twitching.

Her voice, strained and low, slid past the madness.

"Get him into the bath," she told the doctor, still not looking at me directly.

The doctor hesitated. "The bathtub?"

"Our bathtub" she clarified. Her voice was a tight thread of control. "The one in our room."

He nodded hesitantly and went to move toward me.

I bared my teeth.

"Don’t." I growled.

My wolf lunged inside me.

The doctor halted in place, palms up. "Okay—okay."

"I’ll do it," Elena snapped, stepping forward.

I watched her.

My mate.

Shoulders squared, fury in her spine, desire wrapped in every line of her body — and yet she was containing it. For me.

She touched my arm.

Just lightly.

And I shuddered.

A sound, halfway between a groan and a growl, clawed its way up my throat.

She grabbed my wrist, heat flashing in her eyes like she’d felt it too. "Come on," she murmured, pulling me after her.

I followed. Obediently. Like a leashed beast.

Because I trusted her not to let me burn alone.

Even if I wasn’t sure I deserved it.

*****

The first mistake was her touching me.

The second?

Being so close. So warm. So fucking mine.

I hadn’t realized just how razor-thin the thread of control holding me together had become until her fingers wrapped around my wrist — and all hell broke loose inside me.

I didn’t think.

Didn’t pause.

Didn’t breathe.

One second, she was leading me calmly toward the bedroom.

The next, I had scooped her into my arms with a growl that barely sounded human. Her gasp, startled and sharp, cut through the hallway air just as I blurred us forward in a blink — perks of my vampiric side — the world rushing past us in a streak of walls and shadows.

And then we were in the bedroom.

She barely had time to register the shift before I dumped her gently — too gently for how violently I was shaking — onto the bed.

The sheets bunched beneath her. Her chest rose and fell like she was preparing to run or fight or maybe both. Her lips parted in stunned silence as she looked up at me.

But her eyes—

Gods, her eyes.

Wide. Caught.

Struggling.

She wasn’t afraid of me. Not really.

She was afraid of herself. Of what my scent was doing to her. Of the part of her wolf that was pacing and growling and begging to answer the call of mine.

And fuck if that didn’t make me harder.

My body throbbed with need. My hands ached to rip her clothes off. My mouth watered with the urge to taste every inch of her skin. My cock strained against the confines of my pants like a feral beast demanding release.

She stared up at me — and I knew she saw it. The battle. The hunger. The darkness coiling beneath my skin like smoke in a sealed chamber.

Her scent only worsened it. Every time she exhaled, I was hit with waves of want

. Not just hers. Mine. Ours. This magnetic pull that had only grown more volatile since this cursed heat hit me like a storm.

My eyes raked her body slowly, possessively.

And when they returned to hers, I saw the flush climbing her throat.

She was trembling.

I couldn’t tell if it was from anticipation... or fear.

Or both.

"Elena..." My voice was wrecked. A whisper tangled in gravel and ash.

She didn’t speak.

Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

I could hear her heart — hammering wildly, like war drums beneath her ribcage.

Her pupils dilated, her legs shifting restlessly, like her instincts were pushing her to submit, even while her mind screamed to resist.

And that’s what made this so fucking dangerous.

Because I didn’t want her to submit.

I wanted her to choose me.

Even now. Even here. Even with everything inside me screaming to pin her down and claim her, I waited.

For her.

Just barely.

"Say it," I rasped. My voice was almost unrecognizable — raw, primal. "Tell me to stop. Or tell me you want it."

A beat of silence.

Two.

Her chest rose with a shuddering breath.

And fuck... I was losing control.

The next moment, I was kneeling on the bed, hovering over her like a predator seconds from pouncing. Her thighs brushed my hips as I caged her in. My hand slid beside her head, gripping the sheets tight enough to rip.

She whimpered.

The sound undid me.

"Elena..." I groaned, my forehead pressing to hers. My breath tangled with hers, sharp and uneven. "You have no idea what you do to me."

She swallowed thickly.

"I want to taste you," I whispered, my voice desperate now. "I want to fuck you until you forget your name and only remember mine. Gods, I want to mark you. Tie your soul to mine and make sure no one ever looks at you again without knowing you belong to me."

She gasped — whether from desire or defiance, I wasn’t sure.

Her scent spiked.

It was too much.

I groaned, my body vibrating against hers, but I didn’t move — not yet. Not until she said the words. Not until she let me.

"Elena..." I pleaded, barely holding back. "Tell me to stop... or tell me to keep going."

Her nails curled into the sheets. Her legs shifted around me.

But her voice—still silent.

And if she didn’t speak soon, I was going to lose it.