The air in the forest had changed. It was no longer the crisp, pine-scented refuge of my childhood memories; it had curdled into something heavy and metallic, like the taste of blood on the back of my tongue.
Luca moved with a fluidity that mocked human anatomy, his body a shifting shadow against the encroaching twilight. Behind us, the forest canopy thrummed with the sound of snapping branches and low, guttural growls. The pack. They weren't just hunting the territory anymore; they were hunting me.
"Don't look back, Beatrice," Luca commanded, his voice a low vibration that seemed to echo in the marrow of my bones. He caught my wrist, his grip iron-tight, pulling me into a rhythm that forced me to stumble over the uneven roots of the Carpathian floor.
"You said you’d protect me," I spat, pulling against him, though my feet betrayed me, following his lead because the darkness outside his shadow was far more terrifying than the monster holding me. "You’re the one who brought this onto me. You marked me—you made me a target!"
Luca stopped so abruptly I collided with his chest. He didn't flinch. He didn't even breathe hard. He smelled of rain-drenched earth and that sharp, ozone-tinged scent of a storm about to break. He spun me around, pinning me against the rough, lichen-covered bark of a spruce tree.
His hands came up, bracing against the wood on either side of my head, effectively caging me. The hostility in his eyes was replaced by a smoldering, terrifying intensity. He was close—close enough that I could feel the erratic beat of his heart against my ribs, or perhaps it was my own heart, racing in synchronization with his.
"I marked you to keep you anchored to this world, little biologist," he growled, his gaze dipping to my throat where the faint, silver-tinged scar he’d left years ago pulsed with a dull, rhythmic heat. "If I hadn't, the change would have torn your humanity to shreds by now. You aren't just a catalyst. You’re the foundation. And if you aren't with me, you are prey."
"I am not your possession," I hissed, though my hands had curled into the front of his flannel shirt, holding on for stability as the forest floor seemed to tilt.
"Aren't you?" He leaned in, his nose brushing the sensitive cord of my neck. He didn't bite, but the brush of his stubble against my skin sent a treacherous, electric jolt down my spine. "Your body is already learning the truth. It knows whose scent keeps the tremors away. It knows whose touch silences the voices in your blood."
He was right, and that terrified me more than the wolves circling us. My pulse was a frantic bird in a cage, and every instinct I’d honed as a scientist—every urge to observe, analyze, and distance myself—was failing. I was burning up from the inside out, the fever of the infection he’d given me years ago finally demanding payment.
He leaned closer, his lips hovering mere millimeters from mine. The hostility in the air had thickened, curdling into something sharp and undeniably carnal. It wasn't love—it was a territorial claim, a desperate, violent possessiveness that made my lungs ache.
"They’re getting closer," I whispered, my voice breaking.
"Let them come," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my lips. His thumb moved, tracing the line of my lower lip with a pressure that was almost bruising, yet infinitely gentle. "They need to see who you belong to before I tear the throat out of anyone who dares look at you the wrong way."
He shifted, his knee sliding between my thighs, forcing them apart. The intimacy of the gesture was so sudden, so unapologetically dominant, that I gasped. My head fell back against the bark, my eyes fluttering shut. I hated him. I hated this entrapment, this forced proximity that turned my blood to liquid fire. But when he leaned down, his mouth finally ghosting against mine, the protest died in my throat.
The kiss wasn't a question. It was a collision. It was possessive and raw, tasting of salt and secrets. When his hand moved to the nape of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, he exerted just enough pressure to pull me closer, pinning me into the tree as if he were trying to fuse our bodies together.
I resisted for a heartbeat, my hands pushing against his chest, but he didn't yield. He absorbed the resistance and turned it into fuel, his mouth demanding, hungry. A moan escaped me—an involuntary surrender I despised the moment it left my lips. His posture softened, a flicker of something raw and deeply vulnerable crossing his features as he felt my resistance shatter.
"Mine," he growled against my mouth, a vibration that shook my very soul.
Suddenly, he pulled back, his eyes flashing with a predatory gold that seemed to illuminate the dark woods. He didn't release me, but he turned his head sharply toward the shadows behind us. The growling had stopped. The silence that followed was worse—a predatory, predatory stillness.
"They aren't here for the pack politics anymore," Luca whispered, his voice dangerously low, his hand sliding from my neck to clamp over my mouth, muffling my breath.
He pressed his forehead against mine, his gaze searching my face, his eyes wide and uncharacteristically frantic.
"Beatrice," he breathed, his voice dropping to a rare, broken tremor. "Stay perfectly still. They didn't come for me. They came for the girl I saved sixteen years ago. And they know exactly what you are."
He turned his head toward the darkness, and a soft, melodic whistle echoed through the trees—a sound that made Luca’s grip on me tighten until it bordered on painful.
"It’s not the pack," he whispered, his voice trembling with a realization that clearly chilled him to the bone. "It’s the hunters."