BENEATH THE SILVER HOWL

CHAPTER 2

She gasped as his hand cupped her breast, her thumb grazing over her n****e. Her back arched, her body aching for more, and his growl vibrated through her skin.

“You are fire,” he murmured. “And I am already burning.”

His hand moved lower, between her thighs. She was already wet for him, and when his fingers slid over her, teasing, testing, her cry caught in her throat. He swallowed it with a deep kiss, devouring it while he circled her gently, slowly building her need until her legs trembled.

“Veyne…” she gasped, pulling at him. “Please.”

That was all it took.

He entered her in one smooth, deep thrust, filling her completely. Her body opened to him like it had been made for this moment for him. They froze there, just for a second, breathing each other in. His forehead pressed towards hers, and for a heartbeat, it was not about desire. It was about recognition.

Connection.

He began to move with slow, deliberate strokes that made her whimper beneath him. Each thrust was precise, unhurried, like he was savoring every second inside her. His control was a razor’s edge, but Ivy could feel it unraveling with every moan she gave him, every roll of her hips into his.

“You feel…” he choked out, voice breaking, “so good, Ivy…”

Her name in his mouth sounded like sin. Like reverence.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him deeper. Their bodies moved in sync, her fingernails raking down his back as the pleasure built. He kissed her like he was starving for her, like this was the last time he’d ever touch her.

And maybe, deep down, he believed it was.

His pace quickened. Their breaths came in ragged gasps. Her body tightened, and he felt it sensed her close to the edge. He reached between them, rubbing her with the pad of his thumb until she shuddered around him with a cry that echoed through the manor.

He followed her seconds later, groaning low in his throat, body trembling above hers. As he spilled into her, she felt the shift, not just physically, but in something deeper.

And as they collapsed together in sweat-slicked skin, Ivy felt a warmth not just in her body but in her soul.

And it terrified her.

Because at that moment, she was not sure who he was.

But she knew somehow, irrevocably, that she was his.

And he was hers.

Ivy woke up before dawn.

Alone.

The bed was still warm, the scent of him lingering in the sheets, but Veyne was gone. No note. Just a raw ache between her ribs and something burning low in her belly that felt too strange to be just lust.

Then she saw it.

A mark on her shoulder. A crescent-shaped scar, faint but unmistakable. A bite.

Her fingers hovered over it, and her breath caught.

It wasn’t a dream.

Something had happened to her last night, something more than s*x, more than emotion. She felt it in her bones. In her blood.

And outside the window, beneath the rising sun, a low howl echoed in the distance.

Three days passed.

The mark on Ivy’s shoulder did not fade. If anything, it deepened pale at the edges but darker in the center. A crescent of something more than flesh. It wasn’t sore. It pulsed.

She had not told anyone. How could she?

“Hi, I slept with a masked stranger and woke up with a bite that glows under moonlight. Also, I might be losing my mind.”

That would not exactly go over well in the staff room.

She stared at herself in the mirror of the gallery’s staff bathroom. Her pupils looked… off. Larger. Her irises are almost silver in certain lights. She blinked hard and splashed cold water on her face, heart pounding. She was unraveling, and yet, she didn’t feel weak. She felt alive. As if something inside her had awakened, and now it wanted more.

Every footstep outside sounded louder. Every heartbeat in the room next door throbbed in her ears. She could have walked past a man on Princes Street earlier and smelt his fear.

That wasn’t normal.

Neither was the dream from last night the same dream as the night at Rothmoor.

She ran barefoot through the forest, naked beneath a silver moon, her body moving too fast to be human. She howled at something in the trees, and a deeper, mournful howl answered.

And she always woke up with his name on her lips.