The kiss is nothing like gentle.
This is possession given physical form—my lips crashing against his with desperation and demand, tongue sweeping into his mouth without asking permission because permission is for people who haven't already decided they're taking what they want. I taste him with the same hunger I felt for blood moments ago, consuming his breath, his control, his smug certainty that he's the one in charge here.
He doesn't push me off.
Gods, he doesn't push me off.
Instead, his hands rise to my hips, gripping with strength that will definitely leave bruises, pulling me tighter against him as if I'm not already as close as physics allows. His shadows surge around us both—not restraining butencouraging, darkness wrapping us in cocoon that blocks out everything else.
I moan into his mouth.
The sound is pure possessiveness, pure need, pure declaration that this man ismineand I will destroy anything that tries to suggest otherwise. My teeth catch his bottom lip—harder than intended, maybe not entirely accidental—and the taste of his blood mixing with the kiss makes something feral and satisfied purr in my chest.
Air becomes necessary.
The biological need for oxygen finally overrides the psychological need to consume, and I break the kiss with a gaspthat feels like surrender. My eyes—wild, burning with power I can feel but don't fully understand—lock onto his face beneath me.
His expression would be irritating if it wasn't so goddamn attractive.
The fucker issmirking.
As if he hadn't just been kissed within an inch of his life. As if there isn't a bead of blood forming where I bit his lip. As if being pinned by a blood-drunk hybrid queen is exactly what he expected to happen and he's merely pleased that his predictions proved accurate.
"Guess that worked," Zeke observes from somewhere beyond our shadow cocoon. "But if you two are going to fuck, I'm gonna go stretch."
Atticus groans—the sound carrying exhaustion and something that might be jealousy. "Zeke, at leasttryto seem fucking bothered by that display of powerplay, or else I feel like the horny vampire in the room."
"More so because she bit you," Mortimer's voice joins, carrying the particular dryness of scholarly observation. "And that triggers sexual appetite."
The voices are pulling me back toward awareness.
Each one carries familiarity that's slowly connecting to names and faces and relationships I should remember clearly but are still sorting themselves through the fog in my brain. I'm starting to recognize everything—the people around me, the situation I'm apparently in, the fact that I just tackled and kissed one of my bond mates like some kind of feral creature?—
Wait.
What the fuck happened?
I'm trying to remember, trying to piece together how I got from wherever I was to here, straddling Cassius on what appearsto be some kind of floor while multiple people watch and comment on my behavior?—
Cassius distracts me.
His hand rises to cup my cheek with tenderness that contradicts the smirk still playing on his lips. His touch is cool against skin that's finally starting to lose its fever-heat, grounding in ways that help my scattered thoughts begin to organize.
His tongue trails across my bottom lip.
The sensation makes me shiver, sending sparks down my spine that have nothing to do with temperature. He cleans away the blood still staining my mouth with deliberate slowness, tasting what remains of Atticus and himself combined, claiming evidence of my feeding as if it's his right.
"Little Mouse."
The nickname settles over me like a blanket.
I stare at him for a full minute, awareness slowly piecing itself together. The silver eyes watching me with patient expectation. The shadows still coiling around us both. The particular sensation of rightness that comes from being exactly where I'm supposed to be.
"Cassius?"
His name emerges as a question, confusion threading through the recognition that finally clicks into place. I know him. Iknowhim—not just intellectually but bone-deep, soul-deep, in the way you know things that have become fundamental to your existence.
But then the world fractures.
