The moonlight filters through the canopy overhead and paints silver patterns across a small clearing I’ve known since childhood. A place where pack members come when they need solitude, when they need to let their wolves run free without the weight of hierarchy and expectation. Tonight, I bring my mate here for an entirely different reason.
I set Fern down gently, her feet touching the soft carpet of moss and fallen leaves. She sways a bit, and I steady her with a hand at her elbow. The white dress clings to her curves, rumpled from being carried, and flowers are scattered through her hair where my fingers dislodged them during that kiss.
That kiss that’s still burning through my veins like wildfire.
She looks up at me with those pale blue eyes, and I see everything there—fear, confusion, anger, and something else. Something that might be desire if she’d let herself acknowledge it.
“Connor,” she starts with a warning in her tone, “we need to talk about—”
“No.” I take both her wrists gently and place her palms flat against my chest. “We’re done talking for tonight. You want to hit me? Go ahead. Push me, punch me, do whatever you need to do. I’ll take it. I’ll keep taking it until you finally admit that this is exactly what you want.”
Her hands tremble against my shirt. “You don’t know what I want.”
“I know it, and my wolf knows it.” I hold her gaze, refusing to let her look away. “It’s time for that stubborn human mind of yours to catch up.”
For a moment, she just stares at me. Then her face crumples, and she shoves at my chest with both hands.
“I hate you,” she says, pushing harder. “I hate that you dragged me into this. I hate that you didn’t give me a choice.”
I plant my feet and let her push, my body solid as stone beneath her hands. She’s not trying to hurt me—we both know she couldn’t even if she wanted to. This is something else. This is her trying to purge everything she’s been holding inside since the moment we met.
“I hate that you made me feel safe when I should be terrified.” She pushes again, and tears start streaming down her face. “I hate that you’re just like him. Just another man who thinks he can control me, who thinks he knows what’s best for me.”
That comparison to her ex cuts just as deep as the first time, but I hold my ground. Let her get it all out.
“I hate that I agreed to this. I hate that I’m so weak I couldn’t find another way.” Her voice breaks, and she shoves me harder. “I hate that you make me feel things I don’t want to feel.”
I start giving ground, taking one step back, then another as she drives forward. Her palms press against my chest with increasing desperation, and I let her push me across the clearing until my back hits the rough bark of an oak tree.
“I hate you,” she sobs again, but the words have lost their venom. “I hate—”
I can’t take it anymore. Can’t stand to hear her say those words one more time when we both know they’re not entirely true.
I lean down and kiss her hard, cutting off whatever she was about to say.
She freezes for a heartbeat with her hands still pressed against my chest. Then she makes a sound—half protest, half surrender—and kisses me back with a ferocity that steals my breath. She curls her fingers into my shirt, yanking me closer instead of pushing me away, and I feel the exact moment her anger transforms into something different.
I snatch her waist and twist, reversing our positions until she’s the one pressed against the tree trunk. She gasps into my mouth as the bark scrapes against her back through the thin cotton of her dress, but she doesn’t push me away this time. Instead, she arches into me, and her body fits against mine like it was designed for exactly this.
The bond hums between us; that new connection is singing with approval. I can feel her emotions bleeding through—confusion, desire, fear, need—all tangled together until neither of us knows where one ends and another begins.
I break the kiss long enough to look at her, but she yanks me back down, and her mouth finds mine with renewed hunger.
I kiss her like I’ve been starving for it, like she’s the only thing that can satisfy the hunger clawing through me. I roam her body with my hands, learning her curves through the fabric of her dress—the dip of her waist, the flare of her hips, the soft weight of her breasts. She responds in kind, and her fingers fumble with the buttons of my shirt until she gives up and just rips it open. Buttons scatter across the forest floor, but I couldn’t care less.
She flattens her palms against my bare chest, and I hiss at the contact. I know my skin must feel like fire beneath her human hands, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she traces the lines of muscle across my stomach, her touch tentative and exploring.
“You’re so warm,” she breathes against my mouth.
“That bothers you?”
“No.” She kisses me again, harder this time. “God help me, no.”
I slide my hands down to her thighs and lift her effortlessly before pinning her against the tree with my body. She wraps her legs around my waist instinctively, and the white dress rides up to her hips. The position puts us at the same height, lets me kiss her deeper, lets me feel every inch of her pressed against me.
“Connor,” she gasps when I move my mouth to her neck. “We shouldn’t—”
“Tell me to stop and I will.” I nip at the sensitive skin below her ear, and she shudders. “But if you don’t say it now, I’m not stopping until I’ve claimed every inch of you.”
