CHAPTER 104: ONE HUNDRED & FOUR

Moving hurts.

My muscles strain from being suspended for hours. Sleep lulls at me, seducing me slowly, but each time I relax, my insides clamp tightly around that steady, unmoving intrusion inside of me. The plugs on my nipples scrape against the stand, sending bolts of pain and pleasure through my aching points.

I’m wet. Wetter than I’ve ever been in my life.

It is obscene, feeling myself trickle down my legs and not being able to put myself out of my misery. My legs shakes, body ever stuck in that state of arousal.

Something inside me wants out, violently. My body is teetering on the edge of something, my core drenched. I shake with the force of it. It is overwhelming, spiralling out of control.

Eventually, my eyelids droop shut and I fall into an uncomfortable, discomfited sleep. Awoken this time by the soft, silent click of the door.

My bones tremble. "Lucien?" I mouth around the gag.

No response. Just the silent scruff of boots against marble. I gasp at the feather light touch of lips to my thighs, a wet tongue gliding higher, licking me. I pull at the restraints, trying to get his attention, but he doesn’t stop.

A throaty moan slips out as he pulls it out of me, my insides contracting around nothing. "Did you miss us?" he asks, fingers inching hauntingly closer to my entrance.

Us?

"Fuck you," I mouth, but it’s only garbled noises. Release me. Fuck me, then release me? Oh. Release me. Fuck me. Then die.

"We could smell you all the way across the house," he murmurs. "Everyone can. Had to stall the meetings, send them away. Couldn’t have every man within the five mile radius turned on by the scent of our mate’s arousal."

I finally catch sight of his boots. They’re coated in snow. Slowly, against the pain in my neck, I raise my head to glare at him. Only to stall at the sight of his face. At the sight of those black eyes staring down at me. At the dark veins spreading along each side of his face.

It may look like Lucien, but it most definitely is not. I may have awoken something I shouldn’t have.

And it should scare me. It *does* scare me. But gods, does he look beautiful. He grabs my chin roughly, a claw running along my jaw, drawing blood with it’s sharp point. *"Hello, again."*

Wolves, Lycans, the beasts inside each one of us possess sentience. There’s a certain law that states that they were formed before we ever were. Sometimes, we rule them. On few occasions, we *let* them have control, so in a way, it happens with all of our awareness. There are some things that should never be let out to have complete reign.

Lucien’s Lycan is one of those things.

The malevolence crackling in the air is something seismic. I know evil when I see it. I know ancient cruelty when I see it. I know mischief, rife, death when I see it. And I’m currently staring in the eyes of all of those things.

And death is holding my gaze. Touching me. Stirring want under my skin, with the trace of claws cuting me. Something about his appearance seems rawer. And it hits me then that Lucien must always place a damper on who he is, on what he is. Because I recognise this.

From my first few dreams of him. This terrible power that didn’t belong here. That frightening intensity that makes my eyes want to bleed tears.

My eyes search his, even if it is futile, for even the slightest glimpse of Lucien. Surprisingly, the Lycan cocks his head, silver brows softening as he soaks in every nuance of my reaction. "We are one. Two sides of a whole. We co-exist. We thrive and suffer as one. But when it comes to you, he won’t share. Selfish, isn’t he?" He smears my blood against my lips. "You are a pretty, little thing, Valka... Ironfang? Draemont?" He shakes his head. "Confusing, names. You. When I am with you, I shall call you Pet."

Goosebumps erupt across my skin. He notes it. "Do we frighten you, *pet*?"

"No," I lie.

His mouth turns up at the corners. "Do you know why humans and wolves despise us so much, redressing it with racial hate and politicking?" When I don’t say respond, he says, "Because we see right through them. We sense what they want, before they even know it themselves. We can hear the tempo of their heart, beating with need and fear of the unknown. Having that kind over power over anyone can be rather frightening."

He reaches down to take off the plugs. A slight moan leaves my lips on the release on the tension. For a moment, all I feel is fire, my buds swollen and red, pointing forward sharply like arrow points. "We can smell the wetness between their thighs, know when they are quickened. Our abilities let us know right where to touch them, and what they need the most. Having that kind of power over anyone frightens them."

He yanks me up by my neck, forcing me to rest on my knees as his dark gaze caresses my breasts. "And you are as frightened, as you are starving."

The height of the stand makes it easier for him to cup the back of my waist, arching my spine for his touch, and lower his mouth to his chest.

My body bows, the shock turning into delicious heat. An electric, dizzying pleasure steals my voice as his tongue circles, soothing, ruining.

Already, I’m there. My mind takes me back to that night when I’d been drunk and Lucien had been inside me. And that is the image I lose my orgasm to, a cry shattering from me, as I nearly take apart the stand.

His voice vibrates against my breasts on a command. *"Let her out."*

At first, I think he means Ilya. Because that’d make more sense, wouldn’t it? She’s the other presence clawing beneath my skin. But then the command hits deeper, sliding into the marrow of me, and my body... answers.

My lips part on a gasp as something inside me shifts. My pulse stutters. The air thickens, heavy and electric, and suddenly it’s like I’m burning from the inside out. My fangs drop, scraping my lower lip. My spine arches. Bones creak, not breaking but reforming, stretching toward something wild that has been waiting for permission.

My head falls back, a low growl slipping past my throat, one that doesn’t sound entirely like me.

I don’t even notice when his mouth leaves my skin. Everything is heat and pulse and the strange, liquid feeling of something inside me uncoiling. Then I’m wrenched upright, my back hitting a solid wall of muscle and warmth.

A hand closes around my throat, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me who’s there, and his breath ghosts over my ear.

"Submit," he murmurs, voice low and rough. "Let go. We can make you feel good."

The words ripple through me, a command and a request all at once. My thoughts scatter. My body trembles, caught somewhere between surrender and rebellion. The air hums. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere, even in the tips of my fingers.

Every breath I draw tastes like him. Dark, electric, intoxicating.

Clothes rustle. The metallic clang of a belt hits the ground. Hot, soft as silk, hard as a rock, he parts my ass cheeks with himself, pushing slowly between my thighs, teasing my entrance in precise, unhurried movements, and pulling back when his broad head brushes against my clitoris. I clench around nothing, a small growl climbing up my throat as I push back against him, seeking more of him where I need him.

My legs spread wider, my knees scraping against the wood and bruising. But he refuses to give me what I want. He wants me to submit. To say please. I think he’d be better off going to fuck himself.

He laughs, as if hearing my thoughts. "We do." His hot breath fans my neck. "To the thought of you strangling us."

And then, he’s pushing into me.

I die a temporary, small death.

The sensation, the image filling my mind, the very thought of Lucien’s fisting his cock and stroking, to the the thought of me... It is sick. It is hot. It shouldn’t be hot. It should be weird. And disgusting. But he’s Lucien. And that is answer enough.

And it’s suddenly too much, that thing under my skin finally crawling to the surface.

I bear down hard against him, crying out at the pain as he impales me. His hand leaves my neck, clamping tight around my waist so that I have nowhere to run to.

"Look at you," he says.

My eyes narrow at the faint glass plane, the reflection of us against the windows. His eyes flash between violet and black. He’s part beast. And me, I look no better. Surprise flickers in my eyes at the dull black veins spreading along my eyes. At the ring of gold that remains, still in the center, even as the black begins to encompass the whites of my eyes.

"Stunning," he murmurs, gaze locking with mine, and I feel him growing inside me. Harder, longer.

I gasp, forgetting completely that I look like a monster. "You can do that?"

He laughs, a hand sliding over my hip bone, to cup the heat between my legs, spreading my lips wider as he familiarises himself with my insides.

It’s incredible. He’s filling me up, gliding deep and deliciously inside me in places I’d never known existed before. Oh wow. "Oh... gods..."

"Quite so," he grunts, voice guttural, forced out around fangs, like I have called out for him instead.

I’d snort, but my neck cranes instead, eager to have him in me in every way possible. It hurts my neck, but in moments like these, the pain is inconsequential. He peers down at me, eyes black, then violet, and it’s like fucking two different people at the same time. He lowers his head slowly and captures my mouth in a punishing kiss.

His tongue is in my mouth, my jaw wide, and I can’t breathe, because it takes that one moment to realize it was always him.

One day, you meet a man who kisses you and you understand that you do not need air. Oxygen is fucking trivial. Hunger makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Hunger. Desire. Need. That is life. And I am truly alive in the moment.

And I don’t have him deep enough--Oh.

My stomach clenches once more on the wood as the length of him grows even deeper, his movements harder. More wicked. But I feel just as violent. Elastic around him, unbreakable, insatiable. Hungry for more. "Please," I whimper, chains biting into my wrist. "Gods, please, Luke."