Primal Instinct

17-REMUS

We stared at each other, the air between us thick and alive. The shower still hissed, water hitting the tile and spraying my calves, but all I really felt was him. His presence filled the room, wrapped around my frayed nerves like a storm. The wolf pushed forward again, subtle at first—the barest tilt of his head, the way his shoulders rolled back, claiming space.

"Introduce yourself," I said before I could stop myself. "If you're going to keep talking out of his mouth."

The silver brightened. His lips curled, not in Trenton's sardonic almost-smile, but in something sharper, hungrier.

"Remus," he said. The name came out like a growl. "I am what he's spent his whole life trying to leash."

"And I'm... what?" I asked. "Your toy? Your new plaything?"

His gaze dragged over me, heated and unashamed. "Our mate."

The word landed in my chest like a drop of ink in water, staining everything.

Trenton's fingers dug into his own forearms, fighting for control. "She is human," he ground out. "We will kill her, Remus. You know that."

"Does she look like she's dying?" Remus snarled back. "She's burning. She's calling. We hear her. We feel her. She's not breaking, she's surviving us."

Their argument hit me in waves, every word a jagged edge I still didn't understand.

"I am right here," I snapped, voice cracking. "If you two are done arguing about me, maybe you can try talking to me."

They both went quiet. Trenton dragged in a breath, shoulders shuddering. When he spoke again, the words came fast, like if he didn't rip them out now, he never would.

"I'm not just a wolf," he said. "I'm a Lycan Hybrid. My bloodline is tied to something older than this mountain, older than this pack. When I take a mate, it isn't going to be... casual. It isn't safe." His jaw flexed. "Once I mark you, once the bond completes, there's no undoing it. No divorce. No walking away. You'd feel me in your bones until the day you die. Every breath. Every thought. Every mistake I make, you'd pay for."

Ice threaded through the fire in my veins, chilling the edges of my heat. "So your solution is what? Let me burn?"

His eyes closed briefly, like the words tasted like poison. "My solution was never to have a mate at all."

Remus snarled. "You were given one anyway."

A bitter laugh escaped Trenton. "Yeah. I noticed."

Another wave hit me then, sharper than before. My knees buckled. The wall caught my back, but the world tilted. My lungs forgot how to work right.

He was at my side in an instant. Whatever argument he'd been having with his wolf, whatever self-control he'd been clinging to—it didn't matter when I sagged in front of him. His hands caught my arms, holding me up like I weighed nothing.

"Hey." His voice dropped, the Alpha command threading through it. "Breathe, Nahiry. In. Out."

"I can't," I choked. "It hurts."

His thumbs pressed into the inside of my elbows, grounding. "Look at me."

I did. Silver eyes, blown wide, locked on mine. For a second, the heat quieted, as if even the bond itself was holding its breath.

"If this keeps going like this, your heart will give out," he said softly. No drama, no threat. Just a fact. "I can't finish the bond. But I also can't... leave you like this."

"Then what do we do?" My vision blurred. "Because I'm pretty sure dying from unsatisfied magical wolf lust on day three of a new job isn't in my life plan."

Something like a strangled sound escaped him—half laugh, half pained exhale. "You're impossible."

"I'm in pain."

He shut his eyes, exhaled once, slow. When he opened them again, the silver had dimmed slightly, shadows of brown peeking through.

"I can... take the edge off," he said carefully.

The heat inside me roared in anticipation, shameless. My cheeks burned. "What does that mean?"

"It means," he said, like the words hurt him, "you're calmer when you're near me. My scent grounds you. You settle when you're in my space. We use that. Nothing more."

Remus snarled in protest. "Coward."

"Shut up," Trenton muttered under his breath, then looked back at me. "You don't leave this floor. You don't see another wolf. You stay where my scent is strongest until this cycle breaks. Then you go back to pretending I'm just your boss, and I go back to pretending I don't want to tear out the throat of every man who looks at you."

My heart stumbled. "Your... room?"

He grimaced. "Unfortunately."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," I shot back, because if I didn't lean on sarcasm, I was going to cry.

"It is," he said. "For both of us."

He turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around my shoulders without really looking at my body, like he was afraid one glance would cost him the last of his restraint. The towel smelled like him. The effect was immediate—the sharpest point of the heat dulled, settling into a heavy, throbbing ache instead of an all-consuming inferno.

He scooped me up before I could protest, one arm under my knees, the other braced along my back. The movement jostled everything inside me, sending a shimmer of want through every nerve.

"Put me down," I whispered, even as I curled into his warmth.

"You can't walk," he said. "And I'm not having you collapse in the hallway where every nose up here can get a whiff of what you're going through."

The estate's corridors blurred around us. I was vaguely aware of the muted lighting, the thick carpet swallowing the sound of his steps, the distant murmur of voices that went silent as we passed.

He shouldered his own door open.

His room was darker than mine. Bigger. The windows stretched higher, the view of the valley sweeping and endless. The air inside was thick with his scent—cedar, smoke, clean soap, and something wild that belonged purely to him.

My body reacted immediately. The heat rolled, then settled, like a restless animal finally catching a familiar trail. My muscles loosened bit by bit. My lungs remembered how to work.

He felt it. His jaw clenched.

"Of course," he muttered. "Of course it gets worse and better in here."

He set me on the bed. The mattress was firm, the sheets dark and soft, smelling like him. For a second, I just lay there, breathing, letting the scent wrap around me like another blanket. The ache changed. Less clawing, more... needy. Focused. My thighs pressed together on reflex. He noticed. His gaze dipped once, then jerked back to my face.

"We're going to sleep," he said, like he was trying to convince himself. "That's it."

"Sleep," I echoed, voice thin. "Right. Sure. Because that's clearly going to happen."

He made another strangled almost-laugh. "You'll rest. Your body will calm down faster with my scent in your lungs. That's all we're doing."

"Then why do you look like you're about to jump out the window?"

"Because I might," he said honestly.