Zavan
Iris was crying.
My mate’s blood pulsed hot, a hairline prick away from my teeth. She turned her neck within my open jaw, body submitting instinctively to expose more soft flesh.
Phantom was howling to life, wild from the need to mark, poised to claim.
And yet, my teeth and hands remained still.
I felt her– her emotions were always clanging through the bond to find me. She was terrified. She was unwilling.
She was crying.
With every last fibre of restraint holding myself at bay, I pulled back. Iris stared up at me from where she lay across my desk, sniveling with tear–filled eyes, and flushed skin that belonged to my touch yet flinched away from me.
At once, I was reminded of the pup I had found in the middle of a m******e of my own making.
Nine years later, and she had once
