370- Bound by Risk and Desire
POV Viktor Averwyn:
“Are you okay?”
The concern was real, even if it came late.
I looked into her light eyes, her freckled skin dotted with water droplets, her hair slicked back. She sat in front of me in the bathtub. Her rounded breasts kept drawing my attention, rising above the surface now and then.
It was hard to keep my composure around her. I was satisfied and still wanted more. My cock swelling beneath the water, veins throbbing.
“Yes. Just a little sore.”
I fought to control myself, not to pull her toward me again. I had fucked her hard, bitten, gripped. She was human—delicate, small. Guilt wrapped around me.
Even after closing the punctures I’d made with my fangs, healing the wounds, the soreness remained. The same went for her fragile pussy.
Tense, I ran a hand through my damp hair, pushing it back, never taking my eyes off her.
“I’m not made of glass. I won’t break,” she said softly, as if she knew exactly how I felt.
“You’re not like me, Seraphine.”
“But I handled it.” Her cheeks flushed, lips swollen. “I can handle much more.”
That unsettled and aroused me. She didn’t know—neither did I. And that was the worst part.
Fuck. It was impossible to hold back the desire. Sooner or later, it would happen again. Stronger than me. But I shouldn’t have bitten her.
I hadn’t marked her, not the way wolves could. That was different—a bite between the shoulder and neck, piercing the vein, leaving a scar that never faded, showing everyone who the partner belonged to. It also carried the male’s scent. The female could do the same during mating.
After that, they were bound for life. It required caution—it was serious. The connection so intense that if one died, the other would too. That’s why many avoided it.
With humans, it wasn’t like that. They didn’t have fangs, couldn’t reciprocate. The worst part was that, in the heat of pleasure, I had almost marked her there, as mine. My wolf demanded it, growled for it. At least I managed to stop myself—because the consequences could be irreversible.
“Why are you like this, Viktor?”
Her voice pulled me from my tense thoughts.
“There are limits that need to be respected.”
“Which ones?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what you can withstand.”
Others had died just from sleeping with me.
She bit her lower lip, but didn’t seem truly afraid.
“All of them? The ones in the cemetery?”
I didn’t like talking about that, but Seraphine had the right to know. And maybe to stop me—for her own safety.
“All of them, one way or another.”
“Because of the different genetics?”
“The first ones I marked.”
“How?”
I sighed, adjusting my still-erect cock, which was becoming uncomfortable. The foam concealed it a little. I wanted her again, and that unsettled me, pulled me away from reason.
I rested my arms on the edge of the tub, holding her gaze.
“Our species evolved differently. Each pack has its own rules and laws, its ways of survival. In all of them, the goal is reproduction.”
“I heard that among the Tharnak, that’s only possible with destined mates.”
“Yes. But one can mark another without knowing if they are destined or not. A male marks a female as his mate through a bite near the shoulder that never heals and carries his scent. During mating, both do this and create a bond of life and death.”
“What does that mean?”
“They become one. They feel what the other feels. If one dies, the other dies too. Destined mates are rarer.”
Seraphine shifted, and her nipples rose above the water again, reddened from how much I had tormented them. I clenched my jaw, fighting the urge to go to her and suck them again.
They disappeared as she sank lower, and I exhaled slowly.
She seemed to realize she was tempting me, because she stayed still.
“So if destined mates meet and he comes inside her, she gets pregnant?”
“No.”
“So it’s even more complicated?”
“The female has to allow it. She opens her womb. The male swells and ties. He releases inside. Without that, there’s no pregnancy.”
She blinked, thoughtful, analyzing my words.
“But humans don’t open the womb. Is that why they die?”
“Probably. Or because of the bites.”
“Did you mark them?”
“Some of them.”
Her gaze seemed hurt.
“Did you love all of them?”
“That has nothing to do with love, Seraphine.”
I wanted to change the subject, forget that mess, how reckless and deluded I had been. It irritated me to admit it—and the harm I had caused. Still, I didn’t shy away from responsibility.
“You were looking for your destined mate? Why among them and not among she-wolves? And why gypsies from my village?”
“My mother. I didn’t remember the first eighty years of my life. Neither did the other alphas. We were raised by the Elders as if we had just appeared here. We accepted it. Until I started having memories.”
It was too personal to say. But it didn’t feel wrong. And Seraphine listened intently.
“I know I had parents and siblings, in a valley far from here. She appeared often—especially my mother. She told me things. Others I saw. At first, I thought it was madness. I even told the Elders.”
“And them?”