Betrayal Under The Blood Moon

Chapter Five

She burns against me the entire ride back, fifteen minutes of white-knuckled torture. Every pothole makes her whimper, the vibration of the truck sending her deeper into heat. By the time we reach the compound, she's clawing at the blanket, at her skin, at me.

"Please." The word breaks on a sob. "It hurts. Everything hurts."

I carry her to the safe house, the one we use for newly turned wolves who can't control their shifts. Reinforced walls, minimal furniture, nothing she can destroy when the fever peaks. She's already fighting me, not to escape but to get closer. Her legs wrap around my waist, and the scent of her arousal floods my system like a drug.

"Need you." Lips at my throat, teeth scraping. "Need—I can't—why won't you—"

"Because you don't know me." I set her on the bed, try to step back. She follows, predator-quick despite being new to her body. "Because heat makes you want any Alpha, and you deserve better than biology choosing."

"Not any Alpha." She presses against me, naked under the blanket that's long since fallen away. "You. Watched you. Wanted you. Before."

"You watched me on C-SPAN." Even as my control frays, even as my wolf howls to claim what's offering itself so sweetly. "That's not knowing someone."

"Know you saved me." Her hands map my chest, nails leaving marks that heal too fast. "Know you gave me your blood. Know you smell like home."

Home. The word guts me. This woman who's never had one, who spent twenty-six years poisoned by people who should have protected her. Now she's here, burning with need I could satisfy so easily.

Too easily.

"Three days." I catch her wrists, gentle but firm. "Give me three days to help you through this without—"

"Without f*****g me?" Crude words from someone who probably never swears. The heat stripping her down to base needs. "That's what I need. What my body—" She shudders, another wave hitting. "Please. I'll beg. Is that what you want?"

"No." Yes. My wolf wants her begging, wants her marked and claimed and bred. Wants everyone to know she's mine. "I want you choosing with a clear head."

"My head will never be clear again." Truth in that. The mate bond hums between us, incomplete but undeniable. "Everything smells like you. Tastes like you."

She lunges, faster than I expect. Her teeth find my shoulder, not deep enough to claim but enough to mark. The pain-pleasure shoots straight to my c**k, and I'm hard enough to hurt. When I pull her off, she's grinning with my blood on her lips.

"Mine." Certainty in the word. "Even if you won't admit it."

I flip her onto her stomach before she can bite again, pinning her to the mattress. She arches back, presenting like her wolf knows exactly what position to take. The sight nearly breaks me—all that pale skin marked with her own dried blood, the elegant line of her spine, the way she pushes back seeking what I won't give.

"Please." Broken now. "It hurts. Empty. Need—"

"Shh." I let my weight settle over her, giving the pressure she craves without penetration. "I've got you."

"Don't want got. Want filled. Want—" She breaks off on a keen that makes my teeth ache.

I slide one hand beneath her, finding her soaked and swollen. Just touching her makes her convulse, orgasm ripping through her with violence that would terrify someone who didn't understand heat. But it's not enough. Never enough without knotting, without the biological completion her omega body demands.

"More." Demanding even in desperation. "Need more."

I work her through three more climaxes, each one drawing blood from my shoulders where she claws at me. My control hangs by threads. She's so responsive, so perfect, made for my touch in ways that transcend accident. When she comes the fourth time, she screams my name like prayer and prophecy both.

"Sleep." I pump pheromones into the room, Alpha command that her omega instincts can't fight. "Let me take care of you."

"Don't leave." Drowsy now, the worst of this wave passing. "Everyone leaves."

"Not me." I gather her against my chest, her furnace heat almost painful. "Never me."

She's unconscious in minutes, body exhausted from fighting its own nature. I hold her while she thrashes through dreams, whimpering for things she's never had. Family that doesn't poison. Home that doesn't come with conditions. Touch that isn't transaction.

The heat builds again around midnight. Worse this time, her skin literally steaming in the cool air. She wakes clawing, past words now. Just need made flesh, omega instincts screaming for an Alpha to fill the aching void.

"River." I make the decision fast, before she can drag me under with her. "We're going to the river."

She fights me the entire way, but not to escape. Trying to climb me, mouth seeking skin, hands everywhere. I carry her at arm's length, Alpha strength the only thing keeping her from getting what she thinks she wants.

The Columbia runs ice-cold with mountain melt. I wade in without hesitation, dragging her with me. The shock makes her scream, then cuts through the heat-madness enough for reason to surface.

"Cold!"

"Good. Cold helps." I hold her in the current, letting ancient water do what I can't—cool the fire without feeding it. "Breathe through it."

"Can't. Need—" But she's already calmer, the freezing water interrupting the feedback loop of heat hormones. "Oh god. Did I—"

"Nothing you need to apologize for." I keep her anchored as the current tries to claim her. "Heat makes everyone feral."

"I bit you."

"I noticed."

"Drew blood."

"It happens."

"You're being very calm about me attacking you."

"You didn't attack. You claimed." Important distinction. "Your wolf recognized what your mind isn't ready to accept."

"That you're mine?" She says it so simply, like it's fact rather than question. "I can feel it. This... pull. Like invisible thread between us."

"The bond. Blood exchange creates connection." I don't mention how unusual it is that she initiated, that her omega tried to claim an Alpha. White wolves really do play by different rules. "It'll settle with time."

"I don't want it to settle. I want—" She shivers, from cold or renewed heat. "This is insane. Yesterday I was human. Engaged. Normal."

"You were never normal. Just caged."

"Same difference." She lets the current support her, and moonlight turns her into something mythical. Water spirit. Rusalka. Selkie without seal skin. "What happens when the heat ends?"

"You decide who you want to be."

"And if I want to be yours?"

The question hangs between us like spider silk. Delicate. Unbreakable.

"Then we discuss it when you're not burning with fever." I guide her to shallower water as another wave builds. "When you can think beyond need."

"I thought about you before." Confession in darkness. "Used to watch your treaty negotiations and wonder what your hair felt like. If your voice sounded different in private. Whether you were as controlled in bed as in committee."

"And?"

"Hair's softer than expected. Voice is deeper. Jury's still out on the bed thing."

Despite everything, I laugh. "Patience."

"Easy for you to say. You're not burning from inside out." But she's smiling now, some human-Sadie surfacing through omega-need. "How do wolves survive this?"

"Usually with mates helping. Alone..." I guide her from the water, her skin pebbled with cold but still fever-hot underneath. "Some don't."

"Die from horniness. What a way to go."

"Die from biological imperative. Less funny."

"Everything's less funny when you use proper terms." She stumbles, legs weak. I catch her, and she burrows into my chest. "You smell so good. Is that weird? That I want to live in your scent?"

"It's the bond. And the heat. Makes everything intense."

"No." She pulls back to meet my eyes, and hers burn silver in moonlight. "This was already there. The heat just stripped away reasons not to feel it."

I carry her back to the safe house, her body temperature already climbing. She'll have maybe an hour of clarity before the next wave. An hour to remember she has a life outside these walls, people who care about her.

"My friends." She startles like she forgot. "Are they—"

"Safe. Treated. They've been asking to see you."

"They can't. Not like this. I can barely control—"

"After you sleep. When the worst passes." I settle her on fresh sheets, having burned the blood-soaked ones. "They need to know you're alive."

"Do they know what I am?"

"Julie figured it out. The others are processing. But they haven't left. Been camped in the medical wing driving my staff crazy with questions."

"They stayed?" Wonder in her voice.

"Family doesn't always share blood." I tuck blankets around her, though she'll kick them off within minutes. "Sometimes it's the people who refuse to leave when your world implodes."

She catches my hand before I can move away. "You're staying too?"

"Nowhere else I'd rather be."

Lie. I'd rather be buried inside her, knotting her until she can't remember any name but mine. Rather be claiming her properly, marking her as pack and mate and mine. But that's not what she needs. Not yet.

"Liar." But she smiles, seeing through me. "Thank you. For being noble when I can't be."

"Thank you for not making it easy."

She sleeps fitfully, and I stand guard. When dawn breaks, the worst has passed. Still in heat, still needing, but human-mind more present. Enough to be horrified at dried blood under her nails—mine—and the destruction she caused to the bed frame.

"I'm a monster."

"You're a wolf. We're all monsters sometimes."

"Philosophical for someone running on no sleep."

"I dozed." While she tried to claw through the walls. While she begged for things that made my control snap and reform a dozen times. "Ready to see your friends?"

"Do I look ready?" She gestures at herself—naked, hair matted, skin marked with her own scratches. "I look like I escaped from a horror movie."

"You look like you survived." I find clothes in the closet, soft cotton that won't irritate hypersensitive skin. "That's all that matters."

She dresses slowly, every movement careful. The heat simmers rather than burns now, manageable if not comfortable. When voices drift from outside, she freezes.

"That's Julie. And—" Her face crumples. "They all stayed?"

"Told you. Family."

I open the door to find five women in various states of exhaustion. Julie leads, looking every inch the lawyer despite yesterday's blood. The others cluster behind—doctor, teacher, publicist, cafe owner. Human women who faced down rogues for their friend.

"Sadie?" Julie steps forward, careful. "You okay? We've been—"

Sadie crashes into her, sobbing. The others pile on, group hug that makes my wolf nervous even as I recognize pack behavior. They don't care that she smells like predator, that her eyes flash silver, that she's something other than what they knew.

They just care that she's alive.

"I'm so sorry." Sadie pulls back, wiping tears. "You could have been killed because of me."

"Because of rogues." Jinsoo corrects, doctor-precise. "You didn't ask to be attacked."

"Or to be secretly a werewolf." Melanie adds. "Which, by the way, is insanely cool. Can you shift again? Is it like the movies?"

"It's... different." Sadie glances at me, and I nod encouragement. "I'm still figuring it out."

"We'll figure it out together." Ella squeezes her hand. "That's what we do, right? Georgetown girls against the world?"

"Even if one's now a supernatural creature?"

"Especially then." Suki smiles. "Though we're keeping the whole throat-ripping thing between us. What happens at the bachelorette party..."

"Stays at the bachelorette party." They chorus it together, inside joke that makes Sadie laugh through tears.

I step back, letting them have their reunion. But Sadie catches my retreat, reaches for me without thinking. The gesture is small—just fingers brushing my wrist—but her friends notice.

"So." Julie's lawyer voice sharpens. "You're the infamous Dante Byrne."

"Infamous?"

"Sadie's C-SPAN crush. We've heard about you for years."

"Julie!" Sadie goes red, and it's beautiful. Human embarrassment through omega heat, proof she's still herself despite everything. "We don't need to—"

"Oh, we definitely need to." Melanie grins. "She used to make us watch your treaty negotiations. For research."

"Educational purposes." Ella adds. "Very educational."

"I hate all of you."

"No you don't." Suki pats her shoulder. "You love us. And we love you. Even if you're now part of the supernatural government complex."

"That's not a thing."

"It could be. Melanie, make it trend."

They dissolve into banter, and I see Sadie relax by degrees. These women ground her, remind her who she was before fangs and claws. Who she still is, underneath.

When the heat spikes again an hour later, they help me get her back to the river. No questions, no judgment. Just five human women helping their friend survive something they can't fully understand.

Family, like I said.

Sometimes it's the people who refuse to leave when your world explodes.

Sometimes it's the Alpha who won't take advantage when you're begging.

Sometimes it's both.