I kiss her like I'm claiming her. Like I'm branding her from the inside out. My free hand slides down her side, over the curve of her hip, and grips her thigh hard enough to bruise. She arches against me, her hips rolling in a desperate rhythm that tells me exactly how badly she needs relief. The scent of her arousal thickens, flooding my senses until I can barely think past the need to bury myself inside her and make her scream my name.
But not yet. Not like this.
I tear my mouth from hers and drag my lips down the column of her throat, tasting the salt of her skin, feeling the frantic hammer of her pulse against my tongue. She whimpers when I reach the junction of her neck and shoulder, and I bite down, not hard enough to break skin but hard enough to leavea mark. Hard enough that she'll feel it tomorrow and remember who put it there.
"Stellan." My name comes out of her like a curse and a prayer tangled together. Her head falls back against the wall, exposing more of her throat in unconscious submission. "I hate you."
"I know." I lick the bite mark, soothing and claiming at once. "But you want me anyway. You're soaking through your dress right now, aren't you? Aching for something you won't let yourself ask for."
Her only answer is a broken sound that might be denial or might be need. I don't care which. Both taste the same.
I kiss her one more time, softer now, almost tender. A promise and a threat wrapped together. Then I force myself to step back, to release her hair, to put distance between us before I take her against this wall and ruin every plan I've spent years crafting.
She sags against the stone, lips swollen and wet, chest heaving, eyes glazed with a desire she can't hide. The mark on her throat is already darkening. Good. Let everyone see it. Let them know she belongs to me.
I close the door behind me and lean against it, breathing hard. Through the wood, I can hear her screaming, cursing my name, throwing things against the walls.
Good. Let her burn. Let her curse my name until her throat goes raw.
I push away from the door and walk toward my own quarters, where cold water and an empty bed await. The pills are heavy in my pocket, five small tablets that represent the last barrier between Iris and her true nature.
Tomorrow, I'll have them destroyed. Five small tablets reduced to ash, and with them, the last barrier between Iris and what she's becoming.
When she finally comes to me, and she will, I want her to remember this moment. I want her to remember that she fought, and lost, and came to me anyway.
5
IRIS
Icould run because the cold can only kill me once. Staying will break me a thousand times over.
My body is betraying me in ways I never imagined possible. Fever burns beneath my skin like molten iron poured into my veins, radiating outward from my core until even my fingernails feel like they're on fire. Every nerve ending has been scraped raw and exposed, turning the simple brush of my nightgown against my breasts into exquisite torture. My nipples strain against the thin fabric, so swollen and sensitive that each step sends jolts of unwanted pleasure straight to my clit. And between my thighs, where the ache has become a living thing with teeth and claws, I'm so wet that the slick has soaked through my undergarments and begun trailing down the inside of my legs. The scent of my own arousal fills the room, thick and musky and utterly humiliating.
The taste of him lingers on my lips like a brand. Copper from where I bit his lip, cedar and leather and something darker underneath, something purely male that makes my mouth water even now. Every time I swallow, I remember the way his tongue swept into my mouth like he owned it. Like he owned me. The memory plays on repeat behind my eyelids: his fist in my hair,the growl that vibrated through his chest into mine, the way his teeth scraped my bottom lip before he devoured me whole. My core clenches around nothing, desperate and empty, and a whimper escapes before I can stop it.
The mark on my neck throbs in time with my heartbeat. I press my fingers against it and hiss at the sensation, equal parts pain and pleasure, the bruised flesh sending signals to my brain that I don't want to interpret. He put his mouth there. He bit down and sucked until the capillaries burst, until his claim was written in purple and red across my skin for everyone to see. The thought should enrage me. Instead, my hips roll against the mattress, seeking friction that isn't there, and fresh slick gushes between my thighs.
If I stay in that keep one more hour, I'll do something unforgivable. I'll crawl to his door on my hands and knees. I'll beg him to fill the emptiness that's hollowing me out from the inside. I'll spread my legs and present myself like the omega my treacherous body insists I am.
I'll go to him. And I'll never forgive myself for it.
The east tower blind spot is exactly where Helena's notes said it would be. My grandmother must have spent years mapping the keep's weaknesses, cataloging every shadow and every gap in the patrol rotations. She meant it as insurance, a way out if the blood pact ever came due and I needed to run.
I don't think she anticipated I'd be running from my own body as much as from Stellan.
I drag on the warmest clothes I can get my hands—on trousers, a wool tunic, boots that pinch my toes. The fabric scrapes against my overly sensitized skin like sandpaper, but I force myself to keep moving. Layers mean survival. Survival means freedom.
The hours since he left have blurred together, broken only by fitful sleep that offers no rest. The fever comes in waves, eachone worse than the last. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive. Even the brush of fabric against my nipples sends lightning crackling down my spine. And the ache between my legs has become a constant throb, a hollow emptiness that demands to be filled.
Omega. I spent the hours after he left tearing through grandmother's notes, and now I wish I hadn't. Designed to submit. To crave. To need. And my body is screaming for the one alpha I despise most.
The word sits in my chest like a tumor. Helena never told me. She kept me drugged and ignorant while she searched for a way to break the pact, and now I'm paying for her secrets with my sanity. Part of me wants to rage at her grave, to demand answers from a woman who can't give them anymore. The rest of me understands. She was trying to protect me from exactly this moment.
She failed.
The blizzard hits me like a wall when I slip through the gap in the tower stones. Wind screams across the mountainside, driving ice crystals into my exposed skin hard enough to draw blood. The cold is brutal, savage, exactly what I need. It numbs the fever burning through my veins. It gives me something to fight that isn't my own biology.
My boots sink through the snow with every step. Helena trained me for harsh conditions, forced me to run through rain and cold until my lungs burned and my muscles screamed. That training keeps me moving now, one foot in front of the other, toward the mountain pass that leads away from Stellan's territory.
