Episode 2
1428 Words
# Chapter Two
The Fall
Glass detonated inward in a glittering storm of silver knives.
Dante didn’t think, didn’t breathe.
He simply moved.
Black wolf exploded out of his skin mid-leap, coat swallowing the tailored suit like night swallowing stars.
He crashed into the first Russian, jaws closing on fur and muscle and hot arterial spray that tasted of gunpowder and betrayal.
Dominic was already a golden hurricane of claws and teeth, tearing through two attackers at once.
His snarl was raw, shredded, the sound of a heart that had been ripped out ten years ago and still refused to die.
Blood painted his face like warpaint.
He looked beautiful and ruined and entirely Dante’s.
Seraphina spun at the shattered window, silk dress plastered onto every lethal curve by rain and wind.
White-gold hair lashed loose from its braid, strands whipping across her face like living flame.
Rainwater traced the line of her throat, slid between her breasts, disappeared beneath torn fabric.
Her crimson eyes found Dante in the c*****e and locked.
The mate bond detonated again (harder, crueler, impossible to ignore).
It was a fist around his heart, squeezing until his vision tunneled to nothing but her.
He felt everything.
Her fear, sharp as broken glass.
Her rage, molten and ancient.
And beneath both, the moment her wolf rolled over and bared its throat for his teeth.
A Russian lunged for her back, silver blade flashing.
Dante moved faster than thought, faster than breath.
He shifted mid-stride, human again, slamming into her chest-to-chest.
One arm was locked around her waist like an iron.
Her breath punched out against his lips (warm, wet, tasting of storm and jasmine and gunpowder).
For one suspended heartbeat the world narrowed to the crush of her body against his, the sting of silver cuffs pressed between them, the way her hips fit perfectly into the cradle of his.
“Hold on,” he growled in her mouth.
Then he jumped.
They fell thirty-eight stories wrapped around each other.
The wind screamed past like a living thing.
Rain lashed their faces.
Her thighs clamped his hips in a vise, legs locking tight around his waist.
She buried her face in the curve of his neck and bit (hard, savage, exactly over the pulse).
Fangs sank deep.
The claiming mark seared straight through skin and muscle and bone into his soul.
Pleasure so violent it felt like dying ripped through the roar from his throat.
He twisted midair, forcing her beneath him, so his body would take every ounce of impact.
Dominic’s furious, heartbroken howl chased them down through the storm.
Gold fur flashed above, reaching, desperate, fingers brushing empty air.
They hit the opposite rooftop in an explosion of pain.
Dante took it all.
Spine cracked against steel and glass.
Ribs screamed.
Vision whited out for a heartbeat.
Then Seraphina was astride him, palms braced on his bloody chest, soaked hair curtaining them both in white-gold.
Rain slid down her throat, traced the hollow between her breasts, dripped onto his lips like communion wine.
He tasted it (tasted her) and his wolf went completely feral.
She stared down at him, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and parted.
“You bit me first,” he rasped, voice shredded.
Her answer was a slow, deliberate roll of her hips that dragged a broken, involuntary sound from his throat.
Heat flared white-hot where they joined through soaked fabric.
Her nails raked down his chest, leaving five perfect lines of fire.
Dominic crashed down beside them a heartbeat later, human again, golden eyes wild with rage and something far more dangerous.
“Get the f**k off him,” he snarled.
His hand clamped on Seraphina’s shoulder, claws pricking skin hard enough to draw blood.
She snarled back but didn’t move, thighs tightening around Dante instead, pinning him to the wet roof.
“Make me,” she breathed, never looking away from Dante.
The bond between them was a live wire (singing, burning, begging to be touched).
Dante sat up slowly, every movement agony and ecstasy.
His hands slid to her waist without permission, thumbs brushing the strip of bare skin where her shirt had torn completely away.
She shivered violently.
So did he.
Dominic’s grip on her shoulder turned bruising, possessive, shaking.
“Later,” Dante said, voice nothing but gravel and smoke.
He meant the fight.
He meant the claiming.
He meant every filthy, impossible thing the bond was screaming at them to do right there on the rooftop while the city burned below.
Sirens wailed far beneath them.
Russian howls rained down from the broken penthouse like curses.
Lucian’s voice carried on the wind, cold and furious and promising retribution.
They ran.
Fire escape.
Alley.
Street.
Every step Seraphina stayed half a pace ahead, but the bond dragged Dante after her like a leash of fire around his throat.
Dominic stayed glued to his side, shoulder brushing shoulder, the ghost of old touches and older promises crackling between them with every stride.
The subway entrance swallowed them whole.
They vaulted turnstiles, metal crumpling like foil beneath claws and desperation.
Commuters screamed and scattered, phones raised in shaking hands.
The train screeched in on a wave of sparks and ozone.
Seraphina shoved inside first.
Dante followed, his chest slamming into her back as the doors sealed with a hiss.
The car lurched forward into the tunnel.
Lights flickered blood-red.
For one endless, perfect second, the three of them were crushed together in the swaying dark (Dante’s front welded to Seraphina’s spine, Dominic’s chest sealed to Dante’s back).
Heat rolled off them in waves that had nothing to do with the fight.
Blood and rain and raw, aching want.
Seraphina’s head fell back against Dante’s shoulder, exposing the long line of her throat.
He could feel her pulse racing beneath his lips, frantic and alive.
Dominic’s hand slid around Dante’s waist from behind, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise (mine, mine, mine).
His mouth found the shell of Dante’s ear, teeth scraping the lobe until Dante’s breath fractured.
Outside the windows, Russian wolves streaked alongside the train, claws screeching across the glass in showers of orange sparks.
Inside, no one moved.
No one dared breathe.
Seraphina turned her face until her lips brushed Dante’s jaw, slow and deliberate.
“You rejected me,” she whispered, so low only he and Dominic could hear.
“But your wolf is licking my throat right now.”
She pressed back harder, grinding until the rigid line nestled perfectly against the curve of her ass.
Dante’s hands clamped on her hips (to hold her still or drag her closer, he no longer knew).
Dominic’s mouth moved to the claiming bite Seraphina had left on Dante’s neck.
His tongue traced the punctures, tasting her on Dante’s skin.
“If you’re going to take her,” he growled, voice absolutely shredded, “do it where I can watch.”
Jealousy and lust braided so tight the words came out broken and bleeding.
“Or I swear on every moon I’ll kill you both just to stop the ache.”
The train plunged deeper into the tunnel.
Emergency lights died one by one.
Absolute black swallowed them.
Seraphina’s hand slid down Dante’s chest, nails dragging fire through soaked fabric, lower, lower, until her palm cuped him through his pants with deliberate pressure.
Dominic’s arm locked tighter around them both, pinning them together in the dark like he could fuse the three of them into one creature.
Three heartbeats thundered as one.
Three wolves panted the same ragged breath.
Then the train slammed to a violent halt.
Metal screamed.
Sparks showered.
Doors exploded open in a roar of cold air and gunpowder.
A new scent flooded the car (cold iron, old blood, and something achingly, impossibly familiar).
Seraphina went rigid against Dante’s chest.
Terror spiked down the bond like liquid nitrogen.
Her claws dug into his forearms hard enough to draw blood.
From the darkness ahead, a voice drifted back (low, amused, and utterly merciless).
“Hello, daughter.”
Valente Senior stepped into the red emergency glow, flanked by a dozen wolves in human skin, silver chains swinging from his fingers like rosaries.
His gaze slid past Seraphina with lazy possession, then locked on Dante and Dominic with slow, terrible satisfaction.
“I believe,” he said softly, “you have something that belongs to me.”
His smile widened.
“Actually… you have two things.”
The silver chains snapped open like hungry jaws.
And every light in the tunnel died at once.
- Writer
