“Bring her to me once she's pregnant,” Shaya murmured, her voice slipping into my mind like smoke. “I might be able to help.”
Her words barely registered as my mind leapt ahead to the woman my knot ached for. Somewhere in those trees, a human woman was breathing. Laughing. Living.
And the beast in me didn't give a fuck if she stayed that way.
The slow jog toward the tree line became a gallop. Above, the sky darkened streaks of crimson began to bleed through the pines. The moon wasn't out yet, but it was close.
Valor paced beneath my skin, claws scraping at my control. I didn't have long before he broke free. Before the chaos began.
We'd wait for the full moon and take her together.
I just hoped she'd survive us because only then would my bloodline endure.
???
From a distance, I saw her olive-green hiker backpack that covered most of her body. It wasn't looking good for the human if she was the size of a one-hundred-and-twenty-litre camping bag. I panted through my mouth, trying not to inhale the delicious scent of wildflower sweat and—
Valor stopped me and forced me to inhale. One deep breath, expanding our lungs until my tongue slithered out to lick the air.
To taste her scent.
Her vaginal discharge seeped out beyond her clothing and caused tremors to race through my body. She was ovulating. I’d come across she-wolves in heat before, but they never had this kind of visceral effect. Drool dripped down the side of my mouth.
Her weak, round pupils darted across the trees searching, but I was a shadow among shadows. She fumbled with her map, then bolted for the clearing like a rabbit sensing the hawk. I discreetly followed behind her until she stood in the clearing, capturing the last of the sun. Her bag landed on the forest floor, but my eyes weren't on the bag.
She might survive after all.
The dark beauty might be petite, but forged in muscle, her body was a taunt. A challenge. When she bent to stretch, her jacket rode up, revealing the twin curves of her ass. By the moon, they were built to take my weight, to meet every thrust.
Yes, she would take my knot. Again and again and again until her belly swelled with my seed.
BREED. MINE. TAKE.
Valor's roar split his skull. Claws tore into the earth, dirt packing beneath them like crushed bone. I gripped my knot, squeezing until pain blurred my vision—until all I saw was her stretching her other leg, those lethal thighs flexing, her breath a soft puff in the cold air.
Fuck the jacket. I needed to see all of her.
The African beauty wasn't just built to breed.
She was built to ruin.
I slithered closer untilhisscent assaulted me—a human male scent on what was mine. Valor raged, demanding blood.
All in good time. We’ll hunt and kill him slowly. Only our seed will flood her womb. His claws retracted, but the rage simmered, a low, endless growl in his chest.
Soon.
Chapter 2
Mercy
The map was a useless tangle of ink and lies. Somewhere, I’d taken a wrong turn, and now the fading sun painted the forest in long, grasping shadows. I cursed under my breath, my useless boyfriend’s name a venomous whisper. He’d bailed last minute, leaving me to haul my own gear through this suffocating wilderness. Three days’worth of supplies weighed me down, but the real burden was the silence. It remained thick and watchful, like the trees themselves were holding their breath.
A shiver prickled my skin despite the sweat slicking my back. The canopy above swayed, a slow, skeletal dance that choked out the last of the sun’s warmth. The air smelled of damp earth and rotting pine, sweet and cloying, sticking to the back of my throat. I folded the map with trembling fingers, the creases sharp as knife edges.
My head jerked toward the movement behind me. Not the wind. Something else.
There was nothing but the darkness of the forest.
