⋆ Chapter 197

⋆ Chapter 197
My palms pressed against the table, slick with sweat and wine. The wood was cold beneath me, but my skin burned where Cillian’s body met mine. My breath hitched as Cillian thrust into me from behind, his grip steady on my hips. The food we never finished littered the floor—fruit rolling underfoot, torn bread flattened beneath our steps, a spilled bottle of wine bleeding into the cracks of the table.
I didn’t remember who reached for whom first. It hadn’t mattered. It never did when the weight in my chest grew too much. When words wouldn’t fix the ache, I only wanted to feel something else. Something real. Something that could drown the void for just a little while.
“Bite me,” I said, breathless.
It wasn’t a question, and it hadn’t been for a while now. Every time we lost ourselves like this, I asked for it. I needed the pain. Needed the burn and the rush and the way it tore everything else to pieces inside me.
Cillian leaned over, his chest pressing against my back, and I felt his mouth at my neck. His fangs brushed against my skin before they sank in, just above my shoulder.
The pain came fast, sharp, and deep, but I welcomed it. My scream punched out of me as my body convulsed, my climax crashing through.
Behind me, Cillian groaned, his grip tightening for one final thrust before he buried himself inside me and came with a low, broken sound. His breath shuddered against my skin as we stilled, our bodies straining for those last seconds before everything collapsed again.
He didn’t speak. He just stood there, then slowly I felt his arms slide around me. I let him. I let myself fall into the warmth of it.
He lifted me and carried me to the bed. The sheets were cool, silk catching beneath my skin as he lay me down beside him. We sprawled across them, tangled and bare, the sound of our breathing louder than anything else.
Soon, the pounding in my ears had softened. My thighs ached, my skin tingled from every place Cillian had touched and bitten, but it was the quiet that crept in now—the stillness that followed every high. That was when the ache always returned, finding its place again beneath my ribs like it never left.
I stared at the ceiling, my fingers absently brushing the curve of my breast where his hand had been moments ago. The carvings above me blurred, the shadows of flickering candles dancing across the beams, and for some reason, I heard myself say—
“I’m a lycan now,” I murmured. “And you’re a vampire.”
Cillian’s body shifted beside mine. He didn’t answer right away. Then, in that low voice, he said, “You should know, Matilda… lycans and vampires have always had this strange, unresolved… distaste for each other. Some say it’s instinct. Others call it a curse. Whatever it is, it’s natural.”
I turned my head toward him, my cheek pressed into the pillow. “Do you feel any of that for me now?” I asked.
He let out a quiet scoff, but his mouth pulled into a familiar smirk.
“Oh, yes,” he said dryly. “I’m positively repulsed.”
It made me smile. Not because it was funny, but because that was him—always pulling me out of my head for a second, giving me that one breath of space where the ache didn’t feel so heavy.
I let out a soft hum and returned my gaze to the ceiling, that old ache tightening again behind my ribs.
In the aftermath, Rafael stepped in as the unofficial pack leader of Silver Moon, guiding the pack through the long, messy process of rebuilding. Somewhere along the way, II was formally welcomed into the pack. No longer an outsider.
Rafael and Wanda organized a full-scale celebration — both to honor the rebirth of Silver Moon and to mark my official joining.
But I didn’t go. That night, instead of standing in front of the pack and pretending I knew who I was supposed to be, I came here. To Cillian. We made love until the sun rose, and I never went back.
And for months now, I have stopped talking to my friends. I stopped answering calls. Even my mother’s messages went unread. I moved into my new apartment, and I told myself it was temporary. That I just needed time.
But weeks turned into months, and all I really did was come here, again and again, to feel something that wasn’t grief. With Cillian, it was never about talking anymore. We didn’t need to. And every time we touched, it was like feeding a hunger I didn’t know how to silence.
But deep down, I knew what this was. I’d spiraled before, and I drank myself numb, night after night. Now, I didn’t drink. I had Cillian. And I hated what I was becoming.
I turned toward him, brushing my fingers down the curve of his arm.
“Can I tell you why I came tonight?”
Cillian shifted closer. His mouth found mine before I could say more. His lips moved over mine like he already knew what I wouldn’t say. When he pulled back, his voice was quiet, teasing.
“Isn’t it for this?” Cillian asked.
I didn’t answer.  His mouth was on my neck again, his tongue gliding over the wound he’d left there earlier. Slow. Possessive. As if he could draw out every ache I tried to bury, as if he could taste the grief.
His hand moved to my breast, cupping it before his thumb brushed over the already-sensitive skin. My breath hitched. Not from surprise. But because it still worked. Even now.
“Tell me you didn’t come back for this,” he murmured, his lips brushing my jaw now, coaxing, tempting.
My hands found his chest, fingers splayed against the warmth of his skin. I wanted to push him away. I should’ve. But I didn’t. Instead, I let the heat of him soak into me, letting the ache bloom in my belly.
“Cillian…” I whispered, but it was already too soft, too wanting.
He tilted my chin up and kissed me. God, he kissed me like he always did—like he knew every broken part of me and didn’t care that they would never fit quite right again.
His tongue slipped into my mouth, and I let him in. And for a moment, I sank. For a moment, I almost let him win.
Because it would’ve been so easy to fall back into him—to let him take and give and make me forget for a little while longer. I wanted that. I wanted to disappear into him again.
But I came here for something else. Something I couldn’t say if I let him kiss me again. So I pulled back, breathing hard, my hands still against his chest, but now holding him at a distance.
His brows drew together, eyes searching mine like he already knew—like maybe he had known the second he saw me walk into the room.