The burn between her legs shifted—still there, still sharp, but something else bloomed alongside it.Pain blurred into heat, into pressure, into—oh.Oh.Hot.Urgent.Wrong in how right it felt.She gasped, couldn't stop gasping, each breath shallow under the weight of his palm.The stretch of him inside her bordered on too much, but her treacherous body softened anyway, welcoming each brutal thrust.His fingers flexed against her throat—not squeezing, just there, heavy and possessive—and she couldn't look away from his black eyes even as tears pricked at the corners of hers.The solid weight of him pressed her into the mattress, surrounded her, consumed her.
Everything narrowed to sensation—the drag of him inside her, the ache that sparked into something electric, the way her body opened for him despite the burning stretch.She tasted copper where she'd bitten her lip, felt sweat beading between her breasts, heard the obscene wet sounds of their joining.His hand branded her throat, thumb stroking over her rabbiting pulse while he watched her face.Each thrust punched little "ah, ah, ah" sounds from her that she couldn't hold back, didn't want to hold back.
The room filled with harsh breathing, skin against skin, the creak of the bed frame protesting their violence.Elizabeth's world contracted to this—to him inside her, his hand at her throat, his black eyes boring into hers.
"Who am I?"
She heard herself keening—high, desperate noises that belonged to someone else entirely.
"Alpha," she managed between gasps."Alpha, alpha, alpha—"
He growled—pleased, possessive—and somehow found a way to push even harder into her.
There—pressure building at her entrance.Swelling.Stretching her wider still.She understood without thought what it was: Darcy's knot forming.What it would mean.Bodies locked.Her fate sealed and them sealed as one.
She wanted it more than anything—almost anything.
"Bite me."Hot tears mingled with sweat as she sobbed for his mark, for the belonging that would make this complete."Please, alpha, bite me, claim me, I need it, please—"
Elizabeth arched her neck back further still, surrendering utterly, presenting the vulnerable junction of shoulder and throat.The spot that belonged to his claim.The spot that belonged to him.
Darcy bent toward her, the hard press of his teeth finding her throat.Sharp canines dimpled her skin, a promise of all she ached for.
Yes.Finally.They would belong to each other.No more cold mornings, no more distance.Just this—them, together, forever.Her heart soared even as her body burned.All the desperate omega instincts that had driven her so far fell away, and what remained in that moment was purely Elizabeth—Elizabeth who loved him, who wanted him not because her body demanded it but because her soul did.She wanted to wake beside him.To argue with him over breakfast.To behis.
"Please," she whispered, the word carrying everything she couldn't say.I love you.Choose me.Keep me.
Darcy snarled—a sound of pure anguish—and jerked away.
He pulled out of her abruptly, the loss so sudden and shocking that Elizabeth cried out, reaching for him.Empty.She was empty and he was—
Darcy took himself in hand, and with a roar that shook the walls, spilled hot and copious over her most intimate flesh.His seed coated her entrance, her thighs, marking her without claiming her.
The relief was immediate and terrible.Her body cooled, the burning need retreating like a tide pulling back from shore.But with it came understanding, sharp as glass.He'd given her everything except what mattered.His control had held.Even lost to his own instincts, even with her begging beneath him, he'd denied them both the bond.
Elizabeth lay stunned, his spend cooling on her skin while he knelt between her legs, chest heaving.His knot had already begun to subside—wasted, useless, meant for her but spent alone.The mark on her throat throbbed where his teeth had pressed but not broken skin.Another almost.Another not-quite.
CHAPTEREIGHT
"Why?"The word came out broken, barely audible.
Darcy remained deaf to her broken question.Instead, Darcy's fingers moved with singular focus, rubbing his spend into her skin, her entrance, compulsive in his attention.His breathing came harsh and uneven.Frantic, almost.As though he couldn't stop marking her—his scent, his seed, claiming what he wouldn't take.Elizabeth lay stunned beneath his touch, watching through glazed eyes as he worked his release into her flesh over and over.
Her body responded as it had before: the burning retreated where he touched, bringing blessed relief, the same relief as those other nights—but the hollow ache remained in her core.Still wanting.Still empty.Beneath that cooling lay an ache nothing could reach—a need that went beyond flesh.She'd been so close to having him completely.Now that lost possibility carved through her, and the nearness of what they'd almost shared dragged her deeper into a grief that consumed her from within.
Empty, unknotted, unclaimed.
Worse, she'd begged.Not just for his touch, but for his teeth.For his mark.For forever.She'd thrown herself at him with complete abandon, demanded he bind them together permanently.Bite me, claim me, please.Each one a nail in the coffin of her dignity.
Darcy still knelt between her thighs, his fingers working his cooling seed into her skin.His jaw locked so tight she could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin.The wild darkness had left his eyes, replaced by something harder.Angrier.His hands shook—actually shook—as they moved over her flesh, and his breathing came too harsh, too controlled.
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth whispered, her voice cracking.Tears welled, spilling hot down her temples."I'm so sorry.It is unforgivable of me— "
"Stop."Darcy's voice cut through her apology, curt and harsh.He finally stilled his hands but didn't pull away."Omegas crave the bite during heat.It's biology.I understand that."
His words came clipped, almost cold, each one dropped like ice into the space between them.But his hands—his hands couldn't seem to stop touching her.Fingers traced the curve of her hip, smoothed over her belly, tangled in her hair.The contradiction twisted something in Elizabeth's chest.He sounded angry, distant, yet touched her like she might shatter, like she was something precious he couldn't bear to release.
“You need to leave Netherfield as soon as you can.”
