Chapter 13: The Alpha’s Claim
Damian was past the point of control.
Every growled plea from her lips, every breathless and reverent whisper of “Alpha”, shattered the fragile remnants of his restraint. It stripped him down to something raw and ancient, a creature shaped by instinct more than thought, by the pull of something deeper than want. Isla was writhing beneath him, her soft curves pressed to his chest, her skin burning and her breath hitching with every brush of his fingers. Moreover, her scent, oh god, her scent was maddening. It flooded the space between them, thick and warm, the kind of scent that called to something in him older than memory.
His fingers moved for a second time within her, slick and purposeful, coaxing the kind of need that left her gasping, trembling, clinging to him with wide eyes and parted lips. But it wasn’t enough. Not today and not for him. Not for what she had awakened, no, better said, unleashed inside him.
With a low, guttural growl, he withdrew his hand. She cried out, body arching into him in protest, but the sound barely left her mouth before he caught her up in his arms. In one fluid movement, he pinned her to the wall, her legs instinctively wrapping around him, locking them in place. Their bodies aligned, hearts thundering in tandem, heat and desperation pulsing in the narrow space between them. But then he stilled once again. What was wrong with him? He just had to make sure she was fully aware and onboard with this.
His breath was ragged as he leaned in, dragging his mouth across the delicate skin of her throat, nipping, tasting and marking her with everything but the one mark that would seal them forever.
"You feel it, don’t you?" he murmured against her skin, voice hoarse, almost broken.
Isla’s hands fisted in his shirt, her nails biting into his shoulders. Her body was on fire, caught between confusion and desire, between what she knew and what she didn’t understand, but her soul, her blood and her bones… they knew him and responded instantly.
"The bond," he growled again. "Tell me you feel it."
Her breath hitched. Her entire world had tilted on its axis in the span of days. A week ago, she hadn’t known werewolves were real. Now, she was caught in the arms of one, the one, who made every piece of her feel like it had been waiting for this very moment to come alive.
"I feel it," she whispered, the words shaky and wrecked, but true. "I don't understand it… but I feel it."
Damian’s jaw clenched, the strain visible as he fought the instinct clawing at him to claim her. To sink his teeth into the soft space where her shoulder met her neck. To mark her, bind her and make her his in every way that mattered in his world. But this wasn’t just about him.
He eased back a breath, enough to search her eyes. "You don’t know what you are, do you?"
She blinked, confusion flickering through the haze of heat. “What I…?”
"You belong in this world, Isla." He pressed his forehead to hers, trying to temper the hunger in him with the gravity of what she needed to hear. “You’re not just mine. You’re one of us.”
Her lips parted, stunned. “That’s not possible. I would have known.”
“Would you?” he asked softly. “You’ve been kept from this, hidden from your blood, your instincts, albeit, your truth. Someone buried it deep enough you never even felt the pull. Until now… until you met me.”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t look away from him. “Why… why would someone do that? Do you think my father knows?”
“That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since the moment I caught your scent,” he said, his voice low, vibrating with a darker undercurrent. “There’s a reason you were kept from your kind. From me and whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing.”
Her chest heaved. The gravity of it all was crashing into her now. The bond and the overwhelming need. The inexplicable pull toward a man who should have been a stranger, but somehow felt like something far more essential than home.
He brushed his nose against her temple. "The mark... it's not just sex, you know? It’s a bond for life. Soul-deep. It’ll change you, forever. It’s not something I can undo."
A tremor ran through her.
“I won’t take that choice from you,” he said, voice thick with restraint. “Not even now, when every instinct in me is telling me to bite, to claim and to seal what we already feel.”
Isla’s gaze locked with his, her heart pounding in her throat.
"And if I say yes?" she asked.
A sound rumbled from his chest, dark and primal, as his hands slid to her hips, gripping her as though she were the only thing anchoring him to reason.
“Then I’ll mark you so deep your soul will never forget what it means to belong to an Alpha. You’ll be mine in every way the old laws recognize and the bond between us will never break.”
She swallowed hard. Her entire life had been based on a lie. A carefully constructed reality that had somehow kept her from the most intimate part of herself. But now… this man, this beast, this Alpha, was offering her a door into something ancient, powerful… and real. Even though fear stirred within her, it was dwarfed by the truth that pulsed in her blood:
She didn’t want to run from it, for him.
He rocked his hips against her once, slow and deliberate, teasing her with what still simmered between them. Her head fell back against the wall, a moan slipping from her lips.
"You’re mine, Isla," he whispered into her ear, the words a vow, a promise, and a warning all at once.
And though no mark had yet been made, she already felt it in her soul.
She always had been.