Chapter 12

TWELVE

CARVER

F uck.

The scent that bloomed from between her thighs was heavenly. She smelled good before, but now the aroma crawled into my nostrils and filled my lungs like a drug.

My wolf went rigid and eerily still for a moment. On the next beat of my heart, it was clawing at my insides, trying to take control.

"Fuuuuck. Smell that sweet, juicy pussy calling to me. Begging me to fill and knot it."

No. No. No.

I focused all my strength on keeping it together, pushing the monster back down.

This rabbit shifter had to be punished for what she'd taken from me.

Though, the instant I touched her, I knew I couldn't go through with strangling her. My wolf wouldn't let me. I was maintaining control, but the idea of killing her this way felt wrong.

Even with that slutty look on her face—her forehead scrunched in pain and ecstasy, her eyes glazing with lust and hatred.

"Poor little thing," I tutted in mock sympathy. "Your heat cycle is making you enjoy this."

I kept the cruel expression on my face like a mask. She couldn't know how much her scent was affecting me.

I'd scented plenty of she-wolves in heat before. This was different.

Bunny shifters had a reputation for being fervent breeders. The females often went into heat to attract a mate, although they didn't have things like mates—not the way we did. All that mattered was that they found a male to fill their little wombs and keep their burrows full of kits. Strength in numbers, that's how they survived.

They went into heat, and often.

I didn't think it would be anything like this. My mouth salivated. My cock was painfully hard, and I couldn't resist moving my hips to rub against her thigh. Even the barest friction was sweet relief.

The perfume bleeding from her cunt was more than good. It was a goddamn trap, a lure meant to ensnare me like I was the prey animal and not her.

The sheer look of horror on her face told me this wasn't orchestrated. She was more afraid than anything. The scent of fear was unmistakable underneath the heavy musk of a female in heat.

"Maybe there's a different way to punish her. She's so small. She'll probably break when we give her our knot."

Liquid fire tore through me at the wolf's suggestion. I shook my head. No, I knew what it was doing. It didn't give two bunny fucks about my revenge. It was trying to trick me into letting it out so it could mate and claim her.

"Come on," the beast crooned like a devil in my ear. "Don't you want to make her scream?"

Gritting my teeth, I tried to tighten my grip around her throat, but my fingers wouldn't move.

"I'm not going to let you kill her."

Fucking traitor. If I was going to make this bunny pay, I had to stay one step in front of the wolf.

Distant howls shook the night beyond my bedroom window.

That was it. My wolf might prevent me from ripping her throat open, but my pack mates wouldn't have that problem. Sending Ruth back into the woods would be her death sentence.

"No! They'll catch her heat scent before she reaches the road."

That was the point.

I shoved off the bed with a growl. "Get the fuck out."

Ruth sat up, rubbing her throat. I averted my eyes. The impression my hands left on her dainty throat did dark things to me.

"Wait. You're letting me go?"

My gaze drifted back to her. I couldn't help it.

Nestled there in the center of my huge bed, wearing nothing but my shirt and my brother's blood with the moon lighting up her hair like a halo, she looked like a dark angel sent straight from Hell.

The moment I laid eyes on her, I was damned.

How could something so small and fragile-looking crawl beneath my skin and hold my entire being captive? I had a heart of ice, and here she was, melting it with that flame in her eyes.

While the other sacrifices flocked to their doom with complacency, she'd smuggled a knife into the woods and tried to cut my heart out.

She'd managed to run away, find my ax, and chop down one of the biggest males in the pack.

Sure, I hated her. But it was damn near impossible not to be impressed at the same time.

Case would've been impressed, too. Hell, he probably would've thought this whole thing was kind of funny.

"Yeah. I'm letting you go. Leave before I change my mind." I went to my dresser, where I'd left the bottle of whiskey and knocked back another shot.

Just like that, the atmosphere in the room transformed.

I felt her relax some now that she sensed that I wasn't going to kill her. But she didn't run. She remained where she was, nestled in the center of my bed, looking as though she belonged there.

"I can't leave…"

I stiffened and glanced at Ruth over my shoulder. My wolf believed she was my true mate, so instincts prevented me from killing her with my own hands. But she didn't know that. From her eyes, she'd nearly died. Now she didn't want to leave?

"This is the wolf's den, Bunny. You can't stay unless you want to be my dinner."

"Better than being ripped apart by the rest of your pack. Plus, I'm in heat. They might do worse than rip my throat out."

I turned around and leaned against my dresser to eye her on my bed. "You don't know that I won't do that too."

"If you were going to force yourself on me, you would have by now."

If only she knew the fucked up shit my wolf was thinking of doing to her.

I shrugged as I set down the alcohol and picked up a lighter and a pack of Marlboros from my dresser. Pulling a cigarette out with my teeth, I lit the tip, the cherry-red glow crackling as I took a drag. "You drive my wolf crazy. I don't know how long I can control it."

"All werewolves are supposed to have batshit instincts. It's the whole point of this stupid ritual, isn't it? Rabbit shifter blood sates you for the rest of the year."

"I've always had control over my beast. Well, until now. You're the only thing that makes it go wild. It hasn't even spoken to me until tonight."

Her doe-eyes widened. "Ever?"

I exhaled, smoke swirling around my head in a thick cloud. "Ever."

"So… what does that mean?"

"It means you've awakened something." My eyes drifted shut, and I breathed in the smoke, but it didn't mask her pheromones. The monster inside me lurked just beneath the surface, ready to act out all the dark thoughts shadowing my mind. "You'd better leave now before I shift."

"But…" She lifted her head, a frown on her face. "I'm in heat. There's no way your pack won't scent me now."

I nodded and took another puff of my cigarette in contemplation. "You're right. Your scent is just begging for any male within a mile radius to breed that little bunny womb of yours. And your dripping pussy will leave a trail."

My words had her lips parting with a breathy gasp.

I didn't miss the way she clenched her thighs and squirmed her hips, all while glaring daggers at me. Oh, she hated how much I was turning her on. Her line of sight dipped to the obvious bulge in my pants. She had to know the feeling was mutual.

"I have to wait for my heat to end. It will take three or four days."

I shook my head. "Well, you can't stay here."

Ruth swallowed, appearing to gather her courage to say the words burning on her tongue. "Why not? You've decided not to kill me, right?"

"I haven't decided fucking shit."

"Or maybe you can't kill me…" She climbed off the bed, heading for me. "Maybe your wolf won't let you since it seems to like me."

I growled at her in warning to keep her distance. The deep rumble froze her in her tracks but also seemed to make her pheromones spike in potency.

"She has to be so wet. So ready to take my cock. Ready to take my knot and every last drop of cum I pump into that tight little cunt."

She prowled forward, her eyes hooded and her steps purposeful. "Back in the woods, when you got pervy with my knife and decided to play your little counting game with my body jewelry… Your beast told you to claim me."

Every muscle in my body pulled taut as she approached.

"Your deepest instincts chose me. What if we really are true mates?"

My upper lip curled. "A wolf and a bunny can't be true mates. Shit like that only happens in books, baby."

"Guess you'd know." Her attention darted to my bookshelves and she looked back at me with a brow arched skeptically. "Do you actually read all these?"

My eyes narrowed. "Why else would they be here?"

I didn't like the casual shift in her demeanor. It was an act, and I knew it because her heart was beating hard enough to hear it across the room.

Picking her up and dumping her out on the lawn would be the easiest way to get rid of her. But fuck me, I was curious to know what she was up to.

"You're a werewolf," she said with a shrug. "You're into guns and booze and flirting with your food only to mount their heads on your walls amongst the other innocent creatures in your collection. Books don't exactly fit that aesthetic."

"Pretty spot on for the rest of my pack. I'm a little different."

"What? Is this like the ‘I'm not like other girls' trope?'" She picked up my current read on the nightstand, flipped through a few pages and put it back down with a snort. "You're special? Is that why you live way out here instead of in your pack's house?"

More like broken, but I didn't correct her. "My wolf doesn't crave bunny blood like my pack mates. That's why I don't participate in the Hunt. Which pisses the alpha off. In fact, I don't get along with anyone in my pack. So, I live out here."

"Why do you stay then?"

"My brother," I rasped.

"Oh… Shit. I'm—I'm sorry. I was just protecting myself. I didn't ask to be here, and I didn't ask to watch my cousin get torn apart."

"The blonde-haired girl?"

She nodded, her bottom lip trembling. "Yeah. I saw your brother and some of your pack mates kill my cousin. I ran, but… When I had no choice, I killed your brother. The way I see it, we're even."

"We're not even," I snarled. "There's a truce in place, and you broke it."

"What do you care about the truce? You said yourself that you don't need rabbit shifter blood. You're different from your pack. You need something else."

I could see she was scraping up her courage as she stole closer to me, closing that precious distance between us.

With every step she took toward me, her scent grew in potency.

Was she trying to get me to shift? Of course… If we mated, her heat cycle would end. She'd be covered in my scent, which would allow her to sneak through the woods undetected by my pack.

Clever bunny.

"I know what you're up to, and it's not going to work," I growled.

Ruth inched even closer with an innocent smile cresting her perfect lips. I'd never seen a smile so fake. "And what am I up to?"

"You want me to fuck you so your heat will end. My cock is your ticket out of here."

"So what? You were gonna let me go anyway. This way, you get to mate a bunny. We're not just good at making babies, you know. We're really, really good at it."

She was dumping on the charm. Though, by her scent, she was inexperienced. I'd bet that worthless male she'd rode in with was the only partner she ever had. Not that it mattered to me.

"Wolves and bunnies don't mate. It's unnatural. It's?—"

She closed the last stretch of distance between us and plucked my cigarette from my fingers. "Forbidden? A crime against nature? An abomination?"

Ruth put the cigarette to her mouth, and her thick lashes fluttered when the taste of my saliva hit her. She blew the smoke from her nose, reminding me of a bull—especially with that septum piercing. "That makes it kind of hot, doesn't it?"

It did.

This whole situation was so wrong. She'd come here to die in some horrible ritual put in place by our ancestors hundreds of years ago. She'd nearly been ripped apart and instead killed my brother to save her own hide. Her pale skin was still crusted in his blood. If I mated her and the pack found out, I'd be disowned at best.

Fuck. That only made me want her more. And admittedly, I was getting tired of holding my wolf back.

"If you stay, if we do this, I won't be able to control my wolf. You'll be at its mercy."

Goosebumps pebbled her flesh, and her fake smile wavered. To bite her would mean to claim her. If she survived our mating, she'd be branded as mine forever. No matter how much distance she put between us, she'd always feel me. Maybe that was punishment enough.

Her eyes lit with determination, and she donned a deadly grin. With that, she leaned in and pressed the cigarette's burning tip to my chest. "Then bite me."