“I’ve got you,” he growls, his voice breaking. “I’ve fucking got you.”
He doesn’t just lose control; he incinerates it.
His large, calloused hands slide down from my waist, fisting into the meat of my ass with a bruising, primitive strength. He hauls me upward and then slams me back down onto his cock, the impact echoing through my very marrow. The rhythm isn’t a dance anymore; it’s a collision. It’s a rhythmic, bone-deep stabbing that makes the headboard crack against the wall.
“You think you’re the only one who’s drowning?” he rasps, his face a mask of sweating, beautiful agony.
Suddenly, one hand flies up, his fingers wrapping around my throat. He doesn’t just hold me—he squeezes. Not enough to kill, but enough to turn the world into a red-fringed blur, enough to make my lungs burn and my pussy clench into a desperate, starving knot around him.
I’m gasping, my mouth open in a silent scream, my eyes locked on his as he fucks me with a feral, terrifying speed. I’m a wreck of honey and champagne and his scent, my body arching like a bow about to snap.
“Look at me,” he snarls, his voice a guttural, viral command. “Tell me you’re mine while I take the air out of your lungs. Tell me you want the monster.”
He leans in, his teeth sinking into the juncture of my neck and shoulder. He isn’t nipping; he’s claiming. I feel the sharp, electric sting of his teeth breaking the skin, the copper taste of my own blood filling the air as he bites down hard, his growl vibrating through my collarbone.
“Oh god… Peter… please…” I choke out, my hands flying to his wrist, not to pull him away, but to hold him there. To keep the pressure. To keep the pain.
“I’m going to ruin you,” he pants, his thrusts becoming shallow, violent, and impossibly fast. He’s bottoming out, hitting my cervix with every brutal shove, his cock a hot, pulsing iron that’s stretching me to the point of breaking. “I’m going to make it so no other man can even look at you without smelling my mark on your soul.”
The friction is a wildfire. I’m sobbing, my hips jerking in a frantic, uncoordinated rhythm against his lap. I’mso close I can feel the edges of my vision fraying, the pressure in my pelvis building into a tidal wave.
He lets go of my throat only to grab both of my wrists, pinning them behind my back, forcing my chest out, exposing me completely to his hunger. He’s losing it—the witty, calm Peter Hale is dead, replaced by a beast that only knows how to occupy.
“Now, Wendy!” he bellows, his voice cracking as he hits his own ledge. “Now!”
I hit the peak with a jagged, lung-tearing shriek, my internal walls spasming around him in a rhythmic, crushing sequence. It’s too much. It’s too bright. It’s too violent. I’m shaking, my forehead hitting his shoulder as I fall apart, my entire world reduced to the feeling of him filling me, claim after claim.
He lets out a low, animalistic roar, his body stiffening as he finally spills into me. He’s bucking under me, his hands shaking as they grip my thighs, his head falling back as he pours everything he is into the ruin he made of me.
We stay like that for an eternity, tangled in the ruins of the bed, the smell of sex, honey, and blood heavy in the air. He’s still inside me, his heart thundering against my ribs, the only sound the jagged, broken rhythm of our breathing.
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark, blown out, and utterly, terrifyingly obsessed. He leans in and licks the blood from the bite mark on my shoulder, a slow, filthy gesture of victory.
“Welcome home, Wendy,” he whispers.
Peter
The steam in the master bath is a thick, white shroud, turning the Italian marble and gold fixtures into a blurred, opulent ghost of a room. It smells of expensive eucalyptus oils, sulphur, and the lingering, copper tang of the blood still drying on our skin.
I don’t let her walk. I carry her, her limp, honey-slicked body draped over my arms like a broken offering. She’s weeping—not the loud, performative wailing of Clara, but a low, rhythmic keening that vibrates against my chest. It’s the sound of a spirit finally realising the bars aren’t made of steel, but of her own pulse.
I kick the door shut. The click of the lock is a gunshot in the silence.
The tub is a monolithic slab of black granite, deep enough to drown in. I’ve already filled it, the water steaming, a dark mirror reflecting the overhead chandelier. I step into the water with my trousers still on, theheat soaking into the fabric as I sink down, pulling Wendy with me.
She gasps as the hot water hits the bite marks on her shoulder, her body jerking against mine. I wrap my arms around her, pinning her back to my chest, my chin resting on her wet shoulder.
“Shhh,” I murmur, fisting a sponge and soaking it in the scalpel-hot water. “We’re cleaning the world off you, Wendy. We’re starting over.”
“I want to go home,” she sobs, her head falling back against my collarbone. “Peter, please… just let me go back to my life. I won’t tell anyone. I’ll vanish. I’ll?—”
I press the sponge against her neck, wiping away the streaks of honey and the ghost of Mikhail’s blood. I do it slowly, firmly. I’m not just washing her; I’m erasing her.
“There is no ‘back,’ Wendy,” I say, my voice a low, melodic rasp. “The girl who lived in that apartment is dead. She died the moment I saw her across that table. She died the moment you let me taste your hate.”
I reach down, my hand finding her thigh underwater. I pull her leg over my lap, forcing her to sit astride me in the dark water, her face inches from mine. Her eyes are bloodshot, her lips swollen, her mind a fractured ruin.
“Listen to me,” I command, my hand sliding up to the back of her neck, my fingers tangling in her wet hair to keep her gaze locked on mine. “There are rules now. The architecture of your new life. You will learn them, or you will break until you do.”
