Primal Instinct

14- ACHE

My vision swam again, their words fading. Eventually, the pain eased. ​​Somewhere, far from my room, the phantom images stopped—no more flashes of foreign hands, of his mouth on someone else. The sharp ache in my chest dulled to a steady, throbbing bruise.

But the heat remained through the night and stretched on without mercy. The suite had been stripped to silence with the lights dimmed, curtains drawn, a bowl of something called crushed silverleaf and melting ice releasing faint curls of smoke that cooled nothing.

The air shimmered. My body burned.The sheets clung to me, damp from sweat. Every shift of fabric against my skin sparked tiny fires. My pulse beat between my thighs, behind my ribs, in my throat, too fast, too hard.

I threw the blanket off, then dragged it back again, shivering though I was burning. The air felt heavy, thick with the scent of rain and pine, threaded with something I couldn't name—him. I could still smell Trenton, like smoke had soaked into my skin.

When I closed my eyes, I could almost feel the warmth of his breath at the back of my neck. The thought alone made my stomach twist. Lyric hovered near the bed, her braid coming loose, worry etched into every movement. Her mother—poised, elegant even in the half-dark—stood at the foot of the bed with a calmness that didn't reach her eyes.

The fever was a living thing, a second skin of pure need that dripped and shimmered under the moonlight. I was a vessel for it, my own wants smothered beneath a primal, biological scream.

"Please. Just stop."

Lyric's murmuring voice was a distant shore. "She's trembling so badly. It's climbing again," pressing a cold cloth to my forehead.

"She's fighting it," her mother said softly. "The body doesn't like to be denied what the bond demands.The bond doesn't ask for permission," her mother replied, her tone laced with a fear I could taste in the air, sharp like ozone before a storm. "It simply is. And it will burn her alive to get what it wants."

What it wants? The thought was a key turning in a lock deep inside me. A lock that held back an ocean. Him. Trenton. The name was a ghost on my tongue, a brand on my soul. His scent of cedar and wild, cold nights wasn't just in the room; it was in me, seeping from my pores, a cruel perfume my own body was manufacturing to torment me.

"Will someone please just tell me what is happening? Please, I just want it to stop." I whispered to the dark, my voice cracking.

But it didn't. The ache only grew sharper, spreading through me until it bordered on pain. My hands shook. Every nerve in my body wanted—something. A touch, a weight, a release I couldn't find. My hips jerked off the mattress, a useless, involuntary search for a pressure that wasn't there. A choked sob escaped my throat. I didn't recognize the sound. It was raw, desperate, completely devoid of the person I thought I was.

I bit my lip, desperate to quiet the sounds escaping me, but they slipped out anyway—soft, broken pleas that filled the room and made me flush even though no one was there. His name almost formed on my tongue. I swallowed it down before it could leave my mouth.

Lyric's mother knelt, her cool hands steady on my shoulders. "Breathe. Don't chase it. The more you reach for it, the stronger it grows."

"I can't," I whispered. "I just—please, someone—"

Lyric went still, her hand tightening on mine. "Don't let her call him," her mother said sharply.

"She's not—" Lyric began.

"She will. The need will form the call without her even meaning to. If he feels it... if he comes... there'll be no stopping either of them."

The words barely reached me. The need was too loud, too consuming. The moonlight through the curtains turned silver against my skin, painting every curve, every tremor. I pressed the heel of my hand against my chest, trying to steady the pounding beneath it. It didn't help. My body didn't care about logic or shame; it only cared about him—the one scent, the one heartbeat that seemed to live inside mine.

The room pulsed with it. The rest was lost. Their fear was a dull throb against the screaming symphony in my blood. I didn't care about the consequences. I only cared about the fire. It crested again, a wave of pure, undiluted sensation that was neither pleasure nor pain but a terrifying, exquisite combination of both. It was a pulse, a deep, internal rhythm that beat in time with a heart I'd only heard once, thundering against my ear.

Too much. My fingers, slick with sweat, clawed at the damp cotton of my nightshirt, yanking it up and over my head. The cool air on my overheated skin was a fleeting, cruel blessing. It lasted a second before the heat within roared back, twice as fierce. The silver light painted my body, making my skin gleam, highlighting the frantic rise and fall of my chest, the tense curve of my belly, the desperate tremble in my thighs.

I couldn't be still. The ache was a physical knot, a fierce, throbbing emptiness centered low in my core, demanding to be filled. My hand moved of its own volition, sliding down my quivering stomach. My own touch was a pathetic imitation, a whisper when I needed a roar, but it was all I had.

I pressed my palm flat against the slick heat between my legs, a groan tearing from my lips at the contact. Yes. There. Please. But my own fingers were wrong. They were mine. They weren't rough and demanding. They didn't smell of the forest. They didn't have the strength to pin me down and claim me.

Frustration boiled over, mingling with the desperate need. My movements became frantic, clumsy. I pushed two fingers inside myself, a sharp, gasped breath punching from my lungs. It wasn't enough. The stretch was insignificant. The friction was a fleeting spark that died instantly, leaving me emptier than before.

"She's trying to finish it herself," Lyric whispered, her voice thick with a pity that felt like acid on my skin.

"It won't work. The bond demands its other half. She's just stoking the flames."

I blocked them out. I had to. All that existed was the relentless, pounding need and my failing, pathetic attempt to answer it. I found the swollen, hypersensitive nub of my clit and circled it, my back arching sharply off the bed. A broken cry echoed in the room. Mine. The sensation was too sharp, too direct, a lightning strike of almost-pleasure that teetered on the edge of agony. I was chasing a peak that kept receding, a phantom orgasm that my body was incapable of reaching alone.

My rhythm faltered. My wrist ached. The muscles in my arm burned with exhaustion. Sobs wracked my body, great heaving things that did nothing to dislodge the deep, coiling tension. I was so wet, so ready, a flood of want that only emphasized the profound emptiness. I needed a weight on top of me. I needed to be filled, stretched, and claimed. I needed teeth at my throat and hands that could leave bruises, a possession so complete it would finally, finally, silence the screaming in my blood.

I tried again, f*****g myself on my own hand, my pace becoming ragged, desperate. The bedsprings squeaked a pathetic accompaniment to my gasps and whimpers. I was close. I could feel the familiar coiling deep inside, a fragile promise of release. I focused everything on it, my breath catching, my entire body tensing like a drawn bowstring.

And then... nothing.

The tension shattered, not into bliss, but into a thousand shards of frustrated agony. The peak dissolved before it could break, leaving me spasming around nothing, a hollow, aching vessel. A raw, devastated sound was torn from my throat. I collapsed back onto the soaked sheets, utterly spent, my limbs leaden. The fire hadn't abated; it had simply banked, a smoldering coal waiting for the slightest breath to erupt again.

I was exhausted, trembling, covered in a fine sheen of sweat that did nothing to cool me. The emptiness was a physical pain now, a deep, throbbing wound. My hand fell away, limp and useless at my side. I could hear my own heart, a frantic, lonely drum.

From the corner, Lyric's mother let out a soft, shuddering sigh. "She's pushed herself past the edge. It will grant her a few moments of peace, but it's a deception. The fever is just gathering its strength."

I turned my face into the pillow, the fabric smelling of me, of sweat and salt and desperation. The scent of cedar was fainter now, a ghost that had retreated to the deepest part of my mind, waiting. The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by my own ragged, exhausted breathing. I had failed. And the worst part was the knowledge, cold and certain, that it was only a matter of time before I tried again.

When it was over—or when I no longer had the strength to fight—the room smelled of rain and smoke and something sweeter underneath. The sheets were tangled, the bowl of ice melted to water.

Lyric sat beside me, face pale, her hand still around mine. "You're through the worst of it," she said quietly, though her voice shook.

Her mother placed a hand over my heart. The touch was cool, grounding. "It will come again," she said simply. "And each time, it will know him better."

I wanted to ask what that meant, but my throat was raw. My body trembled with fatigue, every breath a whisper of relief and shame and something dangerously close to longing.

"Sleep," Lyric murmured. "We'll keep you safe until it passes."

I nodded weakly, closing my eyes. The fever had dulled to embers, but beneath the calm, a pulse still lived—steady, patient, echoing in the dark like a promise waiting to be answered.

It turned inward, no longer punishing me for his distance but demanding something only he could give. I shivered under a thin sheet, skin slick, nerves raw. Lyric dozed in a chair beside the bed, her mother sitting vigil by the window, eyes on the rising moon.

Every few minutes, another little shudder would roll through me, my body trying to find release in small, helpless movements. At some point, embarrassment stopped being a factor. There was only need and the struggle to breathe around it.

Sleep came in broken snatches. When dawn began to gray the sky, the worst of the fever finally loosened its grip. I lay there, exhausted and hollow, trembling in the quiet. The bond, they kept speaking of, pulsed faintly under my skin, stubborn and alive.