by Lexy Timms
I have to get her to see that my father isn’t a bad man.
The men are surrounding the table and Clarissa is in the middle of all of them. I can smell her from the doorway as my body leans against it. I know if I approach, they’ll stop talking. They always do. If it’s not talk about battle plans or war or food, then they don’t talk to me about it. I’m an outsider, despite my strength. I’m a loser, despite my status in the Wolf world.
I don’t like it, and I can feel my anger bubbling within me.
Clarissa looks up and catches my eye. I feel my heart beginning to pound in my chest. That feeling takes over me again. The strong pull I felt toward her the first time we met. The incessant need to have her. To kiss her. To claim her. To sink my teeth into her and rake my tongue over the wounds so I can feel her pull me deeper.
Closer.
I force my eyes away from hers as I shake my head.
“What?” Clarissa asks.
I whip my head back around to her as she steps away from the guys.
“What is it?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“It’s something. I can see it in your eyes.”
“So you look into my eyes now?” I ask.
I hear a growl emanate from across the room. Sebastian always makes it very clear to us whose she is. Despite the fact that Kyle’s still alive and despite the fact that I can tell Toshi and Theo are both hurt at their consummation efforts, Sebastian still tries to own her.
Doesn’t he get it?
He can’t own a woman like Clarissa. She’s different. Like us, but better. She was made to be claimed by many, and I want a piece of her. I want to leave my mark on her and be a part of her world. I look into her eyes as she slowly approaches me, her smell pungent and her hips swaying.
If she is the future, then I want every part of it imaginable.
With her at my side.
“Knock-knock,” Josie says.
I push myself away from the door and open it for her. I have to get Clarissa to back down. The more she approaches me, the more I can feel myself careening out of control. Images of all the things I would do to her are flashing through my mind, and I can’t contain myself. I feel my cock throbbing and my nostrils flaring. I feel my claws itching to get out. I lock eyes with Josie, and she smiles up at me. A ginger little smile that gives me an idea.
I wrap my arm around her and draw her close, and the motion stops Clarissa in her tracks.
“Um, what are you doing?” Josie asks.
“How was training?” I ask as I look down into her eyes.
“Good? Is something wrong?”
“Why would something be wrong?”
“Because you have your arm around me.”
“Why would affection from a man mean something’s wrong?” I ask.
“You’re hardly a man.”
“Is that a challenge I hear?”
Our eyes connect, and I watch as Clarissa backs off. She retreats back to the men. Her scent dies as the moment recedes. I breathe a silent sigh of relief. But then a goofy smile crosses Josie’s cheeks, and I know I’ve dug myself a hole. I’ve got no intentions of curbing my appetite enough to palette the stench of lying with a human female.
But she does feel good in the crook of my arm, and I suppose she would be a decent way to pass the time.
I look up and watch Clarissa snuggle underneath Sebastian’s arm. But her eyes are still glancing at me. I turn my back to her and focus solely on Josie, trying to listen as she rattles off her day. Training. Some nursing. Picking herbs and vegetables for dinner. I nod and smile, casting her the shining grin that seems to knock every woman off her feet. Her eyes grow more illuminated with every word that pours from her mouth, and my hand falls to her hip.
Cupping it and gently caressing it as she regales me with her boring ass day.
“What about you? How was your day?” Josie asks.
“A little bit of this and a little bit of that,” I say.
“Have you gone on a run at all?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know. A run. Shifted and gone out for a bit.”
“Not today, no,” I said.
“What’s it like?” she asks.
“Shifting?”
“Mhm. Does it hurt?”
“Not really. Though it does ruin a lot of good clothes.”
“Do you always carry a spare or something?”
“I try,” I say.
I also suppress the want to roll my eyes. This is why I don’t take up beds with humans. All they want to talk about is shifting. Does it hurt? What does it feel like? How much do you spend on clothes? Can I fuck a human in my Primal form?
I’m not a fetish.
“Could I see sometime?” Josie asks.
“If you’re a good girl,” I say with a wink.
I hear a snicker come from the other side of the room, but I brush it off.
“Well, I better get started on dinner. Sit next to me?”
“I’d love nothing else,” I say with a smile.
I watch as Josie makes her way into the kitchen. I catch Clarissa staring at me again, only this time she averts her gaze. Like I don’t know she’s looking at me. But watching her pressed against Sebastian with his possessive grip and his gnarled teeth, it makes me sick. She isn’t his. She isn’t anyone’s. She is only who she is, and if Sebastian keeps up this trend with trying to claim her, he’s going to lose her.
And I’ll be there to help with the fallout.
I’ll be there to dry her tears and explain to her how primitive Sebastian really can be.
I need away from this camp. The idea of a run sounds good. I open the front door and step out into the cold and allow it to cascade over my body. Humans always want to talk about shifting, but never the emotions behind it. The rage that flows through my veins. The memories it conjures. When a Primal shifts, it taps into a reserve of feelings we don’t allow to fly normally. It’s what gives us our power. It isn’t the out-of-control emotional state that allows the ability to shift. It’s the control of it that provides a strength over our own being.
I walk past all of the huts and hunker down behind a tree before I close my eyes.
I think about my father. Caged and unwilling to fight for himself. I think about my first encounter with Clarissa. How I was uncontrollable and wild. I hate that. Being uncontrolled. I pride myself on my ability to keep a lid on things, but with her, it’s close to impossible. I feel the hairs on my body standing up. Multiplying and growing coarser as my claws protrude. My clothes rip and shred, falling into tatters at my feet. I throw my muzzle to the sky and let out a shrieking howl. A howl filled with pain. With torment.
With desire.
Then I take off deeper into the woods, feeling the snow shooting out behind me. I dash through the trees and run down the embankments, allowing everything to flow out into the night. It’s all too much, and usually never enough. That is the plight of a Primal. Stuck between a world we look like we belong to and a world we might not ever fit into. Blood is rushing through my veins and saliva is dripping down my fangs. Faster and faster I run, through the bushes and over the rabbit holes, until I have nothing left except the screaming voice in my mind.
And as I come to a stop and turn around, night falls around my body. Leaving me with nothing but worries for my father and an insatiable lust for Clarissa.
Fuck.
I’m never going to be able to shake her.
Chapter 14
Clarissa
“D on’t worry about them . Their jealousy will settle out.”
“There’s nothing to be jealous about, Sebastian.”
“I know they care for you, and they don’t like the fact that we’ve mated.”
“We had sex, Sebastian. It isn’t like we’re exclusive.”
“That isn’t what your scent says, Clarissa. I know it’s hard to stomach now, but that’s okay. I’m here for you, no matter what. Now pay attention. Joel’s talki
ng us through plans.”
I roll my eyes and look back over long enough to see Vlad leave the house. I need a break. Sebastian is making all this noise about being exclusive after one night of sex, Joel won’t stop cornering me and asking me to stay back with them, and this pregnancy has me scared. I haven’t told any of the guys yet, and I swore Josie to secrecy. I knew if they knew they wouldn’t let me fight, and that isn’t an option. I am going to fight in this war, and I am going to protect my child, and I am going to make this world a safer place for him or her to live in.
And no one can stop me from doing that.
“Clarissa?” Joel asks.
His voice rips me from my trance as my eyes whip over to him.
“What?” I ask.
“Can I talk with you for a second?”
“Not a chance,” Sebastian says.
“Really? I have to ask your boyfriend for permission?”
“No. The only permission you need is mine, and Sebastian isn’t my boyfriend,” I say.
“I’m her mate.”
“No, you're not,” I say as I throw my gaze up to his.
His face hardens, and I know he’s upset with me. But I don’t care. Just because we fucked a couple of times doesn't mean he gets to claim me or control me or indulge in whatever fantasy he wants to believe about us. I peel myself away from his warm body and suppress the shivers already running down my spine. This pregnancy is making me stronger, but it’s also robbing me of every ounce of heat I can muster.
But if it’s what my child needs, then they can have it.
Always.
“I need a moment,” I say.
“Where are you going?” Sebastian asks.
“Will you back off?” Toshi asks.
I throw him a grateful look as I make my way for the door.
Clarissa.
I whip my head around and glare at Sebastian as a low growl rumbles from his chest. I can feel the sound reaching out to me. I can feel my body wanting to cave to him. And I don’t like it. I don’t enjoy this control he seems to have over me. But if he thinks my base instincts will somehow make me weak against him, he has another thing coming. If he wants to be my mate, then he will have to see me as his equal.
Not as some slice of pussy he can control whenever he wants.
I slam out of the house and shut the door closed with a thud. My body immediately begins shivering as I walk through the snow. I feel smothered by them. All of them. Joel. Sebastian. Even Josie at times. And it doesn’t help that I’m not sleeping well. If it isn’t nausea, then it’s flashes. Images of Kyle in a cage and flashes of the Council dying between my teeth. My nightmares are in full swing, drenching me in cold sweats in the dead of night.
I need some time away.
And I think Vlad needed the same thing.
Shivering uncontrollably, I suck it up and begin to walk around the camp. I take in all the greenhouses seemingly unaffected by the weather around them. I wave to a few of the kids running around outside. So innocent. So tender. Full of life and laughter and love. It pains me to think about what’s coming. It makes me sick to think the Council might want to harm them. Kill them.
Or worse, turn them into me.
Or into whatever the hell they’ve done with Kyle.
My hand falls to my stomach as I breach the woods. The snow is shin-deep, slowing me down. But my mind isn’t clear, and I don’t feel far enough from the cottage to be able to breathe, so I press on. Through the fog and the snow and the powder blowing in my face, I deal with the cold penetrating my bones as I head deeper into the darkness of the thicket.
But a sound catches my ear.
Growling. Thrashing. The cracking of a few bones. I whip my head around and sniff the air, and I recognize the scent.
Vlad.
Is he hurt?
Something akin to dread fills my veins, and it makes me confused. Why am I worrying over him? But my heart is drumming in my ears, my hands growing sweaty, and my feet carry me as fast as they can in the direction of the sound. Adrenaline is kicking in, and I can feel my claws trying to come out to play. My vision focuses, and my nose takes a big sniff before my body corrects its movements. I’m allowing my senses to carry me. I’m allowing the smells in the air and what I see to guide me. I give myself over completely to my instincts and dip down to all fours, running as fast as I can through the forest.
Then, I see it.
Vlad’s shadow behind a tree.
I rise up onto my feet and draw in a deep breath. But he steps out from beyond the trunk. Vlad’s eyes lock with mine, and I can see the steam rising from his body. The warmth turning to frozen vapors as the cold tries to wrap itself around him.
But my eyes are drawn to something else.
His chiseled abs drift into a lean and toned chest. His legs are long, pulsing with veins bulging from his thighs. His hands are clenching into fists, and his forearms are beckoning to me. He’s tall and lean, with pads of muscles that drape around his hips and broad shoulders encased in throbbing strength.
There are clothes in tatters lying in the snow, but I can’t take my eyes off him.
He’s beautiful, and I feel my voice getting caught in my throat.
“Clarissa? Is everything all right?”
My eyes shoot up to his, and I watch as he approaches me. My nostrils flare with his scent as his warmth engulfs me. I’m trembling at his mercy, no longer cold as the snow flutters around us. My neck cranes back to keep his beautifully wild eyes in my view.
I can feel my knees growing weak.
“Here, you must be freezing,” he says.
He opens his arms for me, and I willingly step into his grasp. It’s like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together after years of separation. I melt into his embrace. Into the strength of his sculpted muscles. His arms descend around my body, and his hands plant firmly onto the small of my back. I slide my hands across his skin as I breathe in his scent. It’s intoxicating. I can feel my head spinning. I can’t take deep breaths. My heart is threatening to burst from my chest, and all I can hear is the sound of blood rushing through my ears.
I try not to want him. But it doesn’t work.
“Is this better?” Vlad asks.
I nod, unable to find my voice as I nuzzle my head underneath his chin.
There’s too many of them. Too many men I want and too many of them that want me. First Kyle. The man I married. Then Theo, in Norway. Then Sebastian, twice. Unable to control myself around them. Now there’s Vlad, with his heat and his steam and his bare hands massaging my spine. Trickling up every vertebra and feeling all of them to make sure I’m okay. I know what he’s doing. He’s making sure I haven’t been attacked. His hands are slowly making sure nothing is out of place and that I haven’t been compromised in some way.
I wrap my arms around his body and pull him closer as my lips graze his chest.
My want for them is undeniable, and I can feel Vlad trembling with desire. I know he’s trying. I know every time he’s around me it’s a chore for him to hold back. I know it is for all of them, and part of me realizes it’s the way I’ve been bred. I’ve been made to be irresistible to them, and them to me.
Which means I’m not bred to be monogamous, despite how I was always raised.
One man for the rest of my life. That was the notion I was raised with. One man to take care of me and love me and provide for me and protect me. Yet here I am, thrown into a world I fit into more than I want to admit most days, and the idea of monogamy is only held by some of the races I’m compatible with. And I can’t deny what my body wants. What my body screams for in the middle of the night.
All of them.
Their hearts. Their minds. Their bodies.
All of them, completely.
All of them, mine.
The rules have changed in my life, and I can’t deny that. So, does that mean that me wanting all of them isn’t a bad thing? And if it isn’t, is there a way to get them to accept that? To get all
of them to accept the fact that I want all of them, wholly and completely?
I’m not sure.
And the thought makes my heart sink.
Vlad strokes my hair, filling my body with electricity. I’m trembling against him as my feet physically press me deeper. I feel myself caving to him, and I can feel his cock throbbing against my stomach. I whimper as he stumbles into the tree, dragging me with him. My strength is coming out. My claws are beginning to form. I look up into Vlad’s eyes and watch the darkness of carnal desire drip over them.
I lace our fingers together and pin his wrists to the tree, but his commanding voice rips through my debilitating thoughts of lust.
“Clarissa. Look at me.”
Electricity is surging through my mind as I claw through the haze. My vision clears, and I see the look of panic on Vlad’s face. Immediately, I take a step away from him. Away from his naked body and his leaking cock and his panicked features.
“Oh, my gosh,” I say breathlessly. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Vlad says. “I know. If there’s anyone who gets it, I do.”
Then, understanding dawns on me. The uncontrollable thirst. The haze of lust. The unassuming strength, and the insatiable need to claim him. To feel his lips against mine. To mark him with my teeth.
That was what Vlad felt back in his village. He wasn’t preying on me or teaching me a lesson.
He was out of control.
Like I was a few seconds ago.
I take a step back from Vlad, and I see him reach out for me. His hand encompasses mine, but a rush of desire shoots up my arm. I can’t control myself. I can’t contain it. I whimper as I slide my hand from his and take off in a dead sprint back to the village. Distance between us is good. Distance until this war is over. Distance until we can be free to live our lives. Maybe then I can have him. Maybe then I can mark him.
Maybe then, I can get the men I care for to stand by my side together.
