Shivs entered with the subtlety of a tank: big, unapologetic, his knuckles bruised, and his hair spiked like he’d run a hand through it in the parking lot. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, the only concession to summer, but the wolf’s jaw tattoo on his bicep was visible as a fuck-you to the dress code. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it, arms folded, eyes roaming the office until they locked on mine.
“You okay?” he said, the words falling like a challenge. “Should I kill Marcus?”
“Fuck, Shivs, no!”
He tried for a smirk, but it didn’t stick. Something was wrong in the air—thicker, hotter, the tang of a storm. My mark was throbbing so hard I could hear it in my bones.
I stepped away from the desk, kept my back to the windows, and took a deep breath. “We need to talk.”
He didn’t move. “About what?”
I yanked the collar wide and jabbed a finger at the new ink. “This fucking brand.”
For a moment, the wolf in him blinked—surprise, maybe, or something closer to shame. Then he covered it with a laugh. “You knew exactly what would happen.”
“No, I didn’t. I knew you’d fuck me. I didn’t know you’d turn me into… this.” I closed the collar again, the heat from the mark leaking up into my jaw, my eyes. “What did you do to me?”
He shifted, the pose gone from confident to caged. “It’s just a mark. All shifters have it. It’s not a leash, Carrie.”
I grabbed the nearest object—a crystal rocks glass, etched with the company logo—and hurled it at the wall. It shattered, bourbon-stained shards flying in a radius of three feet. “Bullshit!” I shouted. “It feels like a leash. It’s burning a hole in my neck. And every time I close my eyes, I see you. I fucking smell you.”
He advanced, slow, careful. “That’s the mate bond. It’s normal. It fades if you want it to.”
I laughed, a sharp, ugly sound. “You know what else fades? Nerve endings. Empathy. Self-control.”
He reached out, but I batted his hand away, hard enough that his knuckles cracked together. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
He let his arms drop. “You want me gone, say the word.”
I tried to say it, but the mark clamped down on my throat, every syllable a new wave of fire. I doubled over the desk, gasping, seeing stars. When the spasm passed, I looked up at him, tears pricking the corners of my eyes, and wanted to murder him with the stapler.
“What the fuck did you do?” I whispered.
He watched me, eyes gone green-gold and strange. “I told you: It’s the wolf. It doesn’t let go, not once it’s chosen. That’s what keeps packs alive.”
I sucked a shaky breath, then straightened, daring him to look away. “Well, this isn’t a fucking pack. It’s a company, and I’m in charge. So you listen to me: You are not welcome here, not until I say otherwise. Do you understand?”
For a heartbeat, I thought he’d refuse, or challenge, or try to dominate me the way he had in bed. But something shifted in him, and the heat drained out of his posture. His jaw flexed. He nodded, once.
“Understood,” he said.
He turned to leave, the set of his shoulders so rigid I heard the doorframe creak as he yanked it open.
When the door slammed shut, I let myself collapse to the floor, my knees thudding against the hardwood. The mark pulsed, hotter than ever, but now there was a new ache—a cold hollow in my chest, exactly the shape of him.
I stayed there, clutching my own throat, until the lights flickered and the world outside finally remembered to keep spinning.
The fever hit before midnight.
It started as a shiver under my skin, the kind you get right before the bourbon really takes hold, and the world goes friendly and loose. Only this wasn’t friendly. It was a burn, starting at the base of my skull and radiating out to every nerve in my body, until my fingers tingled and my knees wobbled just fromstanding. I stripped off my clothes and crawled into bed, shoving my face into the pillow and hoping it would pass.
It didn’t.
The hours dragged by in ten-minute increments, each one marked by a new symptom: first the sweats, so bad I soaked the sheets and left streaks of salt on my chest; then the aches, bone-deep and sharp, like a hangover you could feel in your teeth. I rolled onto my back, every joint throbbing, and watched the ceiling dissolve into shifting patterns of shadow.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him. Shivs, shirtless and laughing, or sometimes on all fours, fur and muscle, green eyes gleaming in the dark. He spoke to me in the language of touch—fingers on my collarbone, lips at my throat, teeth grazing the marks he’d left. Even asleep, my skin remembered every second. I twisted the sheets tighter, hoping I could wring the ghost of him out of my head.
At 2:54 AM, I gave up on sleep and staggered to the bathroom. My reflection was a monster: face pale, eyes ringed in red, hair pasted to my forehead in greasy whorls. The mark at my neck glowed, or seemed to, a bruise so dark it looked like the first stage of rot. I splashed water on my face, but it did nothing. The heat was inside, and nothing would cool it.
