She laughs, bitter and sharp. "You think I want you?"
"I know you do. I can feel it, your body's reaction every time I'm near. The way your pulse quickens. The way you lean toward me even while your mind screams to run."
"That's just biology."
"Is it?" I press my thigh between her legs, and she gasps. "Just biology making you wet right now? Just biology making your body arch toward mine?"
"Fuck you," she breathes, but she doesn't pull away.
"You keep saying that like it's a threat instead of a request."
Her control snaps. She grabs my face and crushes her lips to mine, the kiss all teeth and fury. I respond instantly, pressing her harder against the wall, my body covering hers completely.
This isn't like the almost-kiss in the library. This is war. She bites, I conquer. She claws, I restrain. Shadow tendrils wrap around her wrists, pulling them above her head while I devour her mouth.
"Is this what you wanted?" I growl against her throat. "To make me lose control?"
"Yes," she gasps, then bites my shoulder hard enough to tear shadow.
The pain ignites something primal. I tear her shirt with one sharp pull, the fabric parting like paper. She's not wearing anything underneath, and the sight of her bare skin makes my form solidify painfully.
"Look at you," I murmur, running one sharp finger down her sternum, leaving a trail of cold that makes her shiver. "So eager to provoke the monster."
"Stop talking and fuck me."
The crude words from her pink lips undo me completely. I tear the rest of her clothes away while shadow tendrils explore her body, finding sensitive spots that make her gasp and arch.
She's not passive. The tendrils release her wrists, allowing her hands to roam freely, finding the places where my form is most solid, where shadow becomes something like flesh, and she scratches deep enough to leave marks that shouldn't be possible.
I lift her easily, her legs wrapping around my waist. The position presses her against the wall, vulnerable and open. A shadow tendril slides between us, finding her center, and she cries out.
"Still hate me?" I ask, watching her face contort with pleasure.
"More than ever," she pants, then pulls my face down for another brutal kiss.
I enter her in one thrust, no warning, no gentleness. She screams, not pain but recognition. Her body knows mine already, accepts the invasion like coming home.
I don't give her time to adjust. I fuck her against the wall with all the desperate hunger of dissolution, all the fury of her defiance, all the need that's been building since she stood on that platform.
The shadow tendrils are everywhere, around her throat, her breasts, between her legs where we're joined. She fights them even as she moans, the struggle part of what we both need.
"Mine," I snarl against her throat.
"Never," she gasps, then cries out as I angle deeper.
My form shifts, anatomy changing to lock us together. Ridges form along my length, ensuring she can't pull away, that she has to take everything. Her eyes widen as she feels it.
"What?"
"Monster, remember? This is what monsters do. We claim. We keep. We make sure our mates never forget."
The ridges pulse as I move, hitting places inside her that make her see stars. She stops fighting then, just holds on as I take her apart piece by piece.
"Say it," I demand. "Say you're mine."
"Fuck... you..."
I slow down, grinding deep but not giving her the friction she needs. She snarls in frustration.
