Chapter 8

Rome

Rome woke up in the dead of night to soft, tortured whimpering.

He was instantly alert, but the pain roaring through him when he was fully conscious brought back his reality in an instant. He stayed perfectly still, not giving away that he was awake. He was in Brooke Wind's cabin and that moaning wasn't someone being tortured.

It was someone experiencing pleasure from right beside him, and it sure as fuck wasn't Brooke in the bed with him.

A soft moan shot through him. Despite the fact that his arm and leg felt like they'd both been chainsawed into oblivion, he was hard.

The only woman who'd ever made him take notice was Lila. She'd captivated him. He was instantly focused, instantly smitten. He'd never wanted anything in his life like he'd wanted her.

Love was poison. It would kill a person slow and sure. It spread through to every limb, a cancer that couldn't be stopped. He'd been at the mercy of it, and he hadn't enjoyed it. It wasn't just love that he didn't want. It was that hopeless, senseless attraction that took a man by the balls and the lungs and changed his brain chemistry until he might as well have had a lobotomy.

After losing Lila, he assumed that he'd never find another woman attractive again. No woman would stir his blood, no woman would make him hard, no woman could make him lose himself or make him a stranger to his own body.

It had happened the first time Seren tattooed him. She was beautiful, but that terrible poisonous sensation hadn't settled into him until he was flat on his stomach, having ink pounded into his back for hours. The initial pricks of pain had turned into a numbness, and he'd found himself in an almost meditative state in which his simmering anger at the world dulled and his mind started going to places. Places he'd sworn never to revisit. The warmth of Seren's body close to his as she tattooed him, the sweet scent of female wolf… Inexplicably, he'd lain there for hours with his hard, aching cock pressed into the tattoo table, wondering what the fuck was happening.

Seren was the first woman he was hard for after Lila. She was the only woman he'd ever been hard for since his banishment. And right now, she was lying in the bed beside him because he'd forced her to as both an asshole and a checkmate powerplay.

She was unmistakably masturbating.

Loudly .

There was no way that such a sweet, reluctant woman who found a white pair of cotton panties to be the most offensive thing since whatever she found utterly offensive would be touching herself and moaning right next to him, even if she thought he was asleep. She didn't want to be sharing this bed. There was simply no chance she'd be getting her rocks off beside a man she detested.

It didn't make any sense. It was a trap, and one he wasn't going to step into. He made sure his breathing didn't change. There was nothing that gave away that he was awake. He let her go on, making those soft breathless sounds.

She wasn't faking it, that was for certain. He couldn't just smell how wet she was. He could hear her fingers gliding through her soaking wet folds. Was she sticking them inside herself? How many? Was she close?

He groaned.

And immediately cursed himself. Idiot.

She froze so fast that he nearly believed she truly had believed he was asleep.

"Rome?" Her breath hitched. Her tone had a slight edge of guilt. "Are you okay? Are you in pain? Brooke said you'd be out until at least morning. All your family went home. Waverly is on the couch. When I came to bed, you were sleeping like you were unconscious."

"You're still awake."

"Y-yes. I couldn't sleep."

"And you thought that getting off would help?"

She gasped. He couldn't shake the feeling she was playing him, twisting his own advantage around, and that he was setting his neck straight into her noose. "I-I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Were you thinking about me? Imagining me punishing you? Bending you over that desk in my office so hard you'd have indents from whatever was on top of it set into your skin for hours after? Did you imagine me turning your ass red?" She made a sound of sharp protest. He wasn't letting her off the hook. She wanted to play? So be it. "Or were you thinking about me fucking your ass? Or stretching that tight pussy until you creamed all over my dick, screaming my name?"

"Absolutely not. For one, you stink. You smell like hospital and bleach and herbs and barf and bandages."

"Yet you were still working your clit like it was going to detach from your body and run away by morning. Did you think you'd never get another chance? That it had to be now?"

"Go to bed." She rolled over in disgust.

"I'm in bed. If you mean go to sleep, that's not going to happen until you finish what you started, darling."

"What I'm going to do is go sleep on the couch where I should have been all along. Or in one of those chairs. Anywhere but near you."

"Even if I stink, you like it. You might hate me, but your body doesn't. It likes domination. You crave submission. You're no alpha female."

"You think you're an alpha male?" She blew out an undignified snort.

He couldn't see anything, the dark was so absolute. It must be the herbs, because even in human form, he should have been able to make something out. It gave him an eerie, detached sensation, like he was floating in a sea of black. That dark could be water. It could be the depths of hell. He didn't feel fear, but his chest tightened slightly.

"You're just a bully. You're a man who throws his power and his money around. You're that man who was banished from his pack. You're no longer one of them. You're barely a wolf any more than I am. You could have been an alpha, but now you're just a total douchewad. No one likes you and you like that because you're pathetic."

If she thought she could hurt his feelings, she was so wrong. He'd have to have feelings worth being stepped on in the first place.

He chuckled, even though it made the roaring pain turn into an inferno. He was flat on his back. He wouldn't undo Brooke's careful work. He didn't want to heal with a mangled leg and a useless shoulder, but if any kind of threat entered the household, he'd tear it apart, broken bones and pain and all. He was far, far from helpless, and if Seren thought he was any less dangerous now, she was wrong.

"Put your fingers in your mouth, darling. Tell me how you taste."

"How about I put them in your mouth? How about I break your stupid rules? Would you like to be violated that way? Would you like me to cause you pain and be thoughtless and wound you like that? Would you like me to be mean like you?"

"I said I wouldn't touch you. I never said you couldn't touch me."

He had more than a small thing against it. He couldn't touch her because then she would be real. She'd wreck him if she ever got close enough, and he'd fully intended to hold her at arms' length. The contract was always more about picking her apart, breaking her, punishing her for being something to him so he could purge her in the end and move on. She affected his body, and for almost two years he'd tried to figure out why and how. What power did she have over him? Why her and no one else? Why her at all, when there should have been no one?

He was losing control and he was losing himself, and that simply wasn't acceptable. He was the hunter. He'd have her and he'd figure it out. He'd figure her out, break her, and that would allow him to go back to feeling nothing at all, and then he'd forget her.

It was not supposed to feel like this. Not like he'd been out of his body for decades and he'd been slammed back into it so abruptly that the living was excruciatingly agonizing.

"Is that right?" she challenged. She might have started this as a way to one up him, but it had quickly spiraled out of her control. Maybe the whole thing was spiraling. "I'll think about how I want to touch you exactly when I'm running with your pack tonight and you're here. Maybe you should be ruminating on your life choices because I think that's a pretty shitty—"

He wasn't supposed to move, but he wasn't going to take that lying flat on his back. He rolled over in an instant even though the pain in his leg was so great he nearly blacked out when the wave of agony shredded his muscles, rolled through his stomach, and exploded in his brain. His body became an inferno, the eternal damnation he deserved reaching him early.

Seren gasped when he pinned her to the bed. His shoulder gave him warning twinges to let him know it wasn't going to bear his weight, but he was able to grasp her hands by balancing most of his weight on his knees and force them above her head in a single motion far smoother than she clearly thought he could. She bucked in protest when he moved them above her head, pinning them with his good hand. He bore all his weight on that arm and his good knee, relieving the parts of him that were held together with bandages, herbs, and Brooke's skill.

He'd judged the distance correctly, trusting in senses that weren't just human. He was close enough to caress the shell of her ear with his breath. She was splayed out beneath him, utterly still and submissive except for the heaving of her breath which she couldn't seem to get under control. Agony punched through him, but it was worth it. Even if Brooke had to fix him all over again in the morning, break his bones again to set them straight, it would be worth it.

"I was banished because I killed those wolves. You know that, but what you don't know is why. They took something from me." He'd vowed he'd never speak of it again, but here he was, pretending he was in full control when he was spiraling right the fuck out.

She'd changed the game. Stretched the parameters. He found himself responding, against his will.

"I'd do it again and again and again. My only regret is that I didn't make them suffer longer." He didn't touch her, but he let his hot breath drench her cheek. She tried to melt into the bed, flexing her spine into the mattress to put distance between their bodies, but they were still connected. He had his knees around her, her wrists with her thrashing pulse locked in his hands.

"You're a monster," she seethed. Her anger was delicious. He drank it in. Even her rage had a sweet scent. She was like a tropical escape. He never could have appreciated the full beauty of her until he was there.

He ignored the accusation. They both already knew it was the truth. "I tore them apart. Ripped out one's intestines with my teeth. I blinded another before I tore out his throat so brutally that his head nearly detached from his body."

She didn't gag, but she did stop breathing.

"I wished I would have torn out the beating hearts of every single one of them. Feasted on them. Made their souls mine for eternity." It was a dark memory, but a darker promise.

This wolf trapped beneath him, so beautiful and potent, yet so innocent and mild and good? She deserved the best things from life. From the world. It had given her shitty hands, over and over, and she'd made the most of them. He'd dealt her a killing blow, but she was here, still alive, facing down with him. He was almost sorry that he'd manipulated her into this. She deserved far better than him, but there they were anyway.

She was supposed to be nothing but a memory after he purged her from his system, but his words seared them both. He'd do the same to anyone who harmed her. Apparently, himself not included.

"That's why I was banished. Think about that and all your life choices while you're lying next to me for the rest of the night and while you're under my thumb for the next five and a half months. Think about all the life choices that brought you here."

Seren hadn't started the war, but she was game to finish it. She'd found her backbone and her fight somewhere along the way. He liked the feisty bared teeth, gleaming in the dark. Liked that her scent changed. What he did not like was how his body responded, utterly beyond his control. He had no shield against this woman, no walls. He'd put himself into the most dangerous position possible with the idea of using her as a means to an end and getting rid of her when he'd had his fill.

Was the even possible? She was like salt water. The more you drank, the thirstier you became.

He prepared himself for a brutal response, but not for the lightning swift strike. He had her wrists pinned, but he didn't have her hips or her knees. She reared up, kneeing him right in the balls. It was hard enough to hurt, but not seriously. Just a warning shot. Even when she was pissed beyond reason, Seren was still good. Still kind. Still believed in mercy and justice.

He gave her his own warning shot back, pressing down harder on her wrists, tightening his fingers until he knew they'd leave marks on her skin. It wasn't enough. He had to get away from her. She was too much too soon. He kept thinking about all the marks he'd like to leave all over her. Strap welts on the peach ripe curve of her ass. Fingerprints around her throat, whip marks on her back and thighs. And his cum, painting her from head to toe. He hadn't seen nearly all of her ink, but he thought about his name there, and not unwillingly. Thought about her picking a private spot of her delicate porcelain skin and hammering that stark black ink in, marking her as his forever.

"Careful," he warned her, balls aching, but it was a pain barely felt above the level ten beast that was his leg and shoulder. He lowered his mouth to her throat. He intended to scare her, but she was intoxicating. He was already breaking his rule about touch, but he broke another and slipped the tip of his tongue out, finding her skin.

He could have died, except that he was sure there was only the here and now and nothing waiting for him but darkness and rot. She froze as his tongue travelled up the tempting column of her throat. Her skin was ambrosia, the sweetest and most divine nectar of all the gods. If she tasted so wonderful at just the juncture of her throat, what would her pussy taste like, ripe and ready, glistening for him? How much more delicious would it be to carve her apart with his tongue until she was screaming his name?

All along he knew that if he ever tasted her or touched her, he'd never get enough. He knew like a man sensing his own doom and walking straight for it. He knew he'd want her forever, and that wasn't part of the bargain. It wasn't part of sanity. Not for her and certainly not for himself. This was about letting her go, not getting more invested.

He released her wrists, needing to separate their bodies. He might be damned, but the flames couldn't take him yet.

She should have let him go, and gratefully, but she stunned him with her fingers plowed into his hair, wrapping and pulling so hard that his head jerked back. All the tight, abraded skin on his back felt her grasp like a blow. She wrapped one arm around his neck and pulled him in.

Their mouths met in a furious tangle. Her kiss wasn't about passion. It was about aggression. He'd pressed hard on her fight response, and she was giving him what he wanted. She was like a wild animal beneath him, but even though her kiss said she hated him and wished he was dead, her body had other ideas. He felt her hips jerk up, seeking his hardness.

He wasn't just hard. He was painfully engorged. His dick throbbed. He was wearing his boxers, and he could feel himself soaking the front of them. He was dripping for her. Was she as wet for him? She'd worked her pussy as a form of revenge, but was any of it real?

The second he got back to his house and had one minute of privacy, he was going to hurl himself into the shower and beat his dick back into submission. The fact that he hadn't masturbated once since Lila's death and now he figured he'd have to do it daily just to keep his balls and brain from exploding was far from lost on him.

She arched her back, but not to buck him off. All of it was to get closer.

Her kiss was vicious. She scored his lip with her teeth and then moaned like a little vampire at the taste of his blood. Was it real for her now?

She tore her mouth away and immediately replaced it with her fingers. She jammed them into his mouth before he could recover. He tasted her juices, tangy and maddening. He had rules and he was about to smash them all straight to the devil, but he didn't even care. He turned over ignoring the screaming pain in his body and scrabbling for her waist to pull her on top of him. He'd give anything to have her on his cock for just a single minute and he didn't have a single thought to spare for his self-control and everything else that he'd worked so hard for and wanted.

She escaped, slipping through his grasp like healing water. She denied him that sweet slaking of his thirst. She denied him healing.

He heard her gathering up her clothes, her fingernails scraping against the wooden floorboards in her haste, and then soft, frantic footsteps racing from the room.

He lay in the dark, panting against the pain, railing against the cage of his own body, his life, his circumstances.

If Seren had set out to prove to him just what a worthy adversary she could be, she'd succeeded.