claimed by the demon king

Chapter 2

I woke up face down on wet sand with saltwater in my mouth.

I lay there for a moment just breathing. My lungs felt scraped clean. My hands were still trembling against the sand and the ocean behind me was completely calm which felt like a personal insult.

I pushed myself up slowly and looked at my hands.

They looked exactly like my hands. No glow. No light. Whatever had come through them in the water was gone leaving nothing behind except the fact that I was alive on a beach instead of at the bottom of the ocean.

I sat there.

"Okay," I said to nobody. "What was that."

Nobody answered because I was alone on a beach at midnight which was entirely my own fault.

I got to my feet unsteadily. The sky had lightning sitting inside the clouds without striking, just pulsing slow.

I was about to turn back toward the lodge when I heard footsteps.

From the direction of the water.

I turned around.

He was walking out of the ocean.

Not the way a person walks out of water. No gasping, no stumbling, just moving forward steadily, soaking wet, like the ocean was simply somewhere he had been. Tall. Dark hair flattened against his face. Dark skin. He was looking down at the sand in front of him and he hadn't seen me yet.

I should have moved. My legs didn't.

He stopped.

His head came up.

He looked at me and one word left him. Low and rough like it came from somewhere deeper than his chest.

"Mate."

I had no idea what that meant. I took a step back anyway because something about the way that word came out of him made every instinct I had stand at attention.

He started walking toward me.

"Stay back," I said.

He kept walking.

I turned and moved fast in the other direction.

The sound that came from behind me stopped me cold. Low and rough and not a word, just a sound that went through my ears and hit the base of my spine and my feet stopped before I told them to.

I stood very still.

Then I turned around slowly.

He had stopped. Standing with his jaw tight and one hand pressed flat against his chest and his eyes closed. His breathing was audible from where I stood.

I watched him and did not move.

His eyes opened.

He looked at me.

Then he moved toward me again and this time it was different not the forward pull from before but something more deliberate. More controlled. He closed the distance between us and stopped close enough that I had to look up at him and I could see the water still running from his hair and the specific way he was looking at me like I was the only fixed point in a world that had moved without him.

Something in my chest pulled toward him so hard I had to actively hold myself still.

He lowered his head toward my neck slowly. Deliberately. Giving me every opportunity to step back.

I didn't step back.

His face came close to my neck and he breathed in. Long and slow. And the warmth of that breath against my skin traveled from my neck downward through my entire body before I had time to object to it and I pressed my lips together and stared at a point past his shoulder and told myself I was not affected.

I was extremely affected.

"You smell like," he said, his voice dropping lower against my skin, "rain and cedar and something underneath both that I have not..." He stopped. Breathed in again. Slower this time. Like he was trying to keep something. "Something I have not smelled in a very long time."

I pushed him back with both hands. "What was that for."

My voice came out steadier than I felt. My hands on his chest did not feel like a good idea the moment they made contact because he was solid in a way that registered somewhere below rational thought and I pulled them back immediately.

He looked at me. Like I had said something that required genuine consideration.

"Don't you feel it," he said.

"Feel what," I said.

"The bond," he said. "Between a lycan and his fated mate."

I stared at him. "What stupid bond are you talking about. I don't know you. I have never met you. Get away from me mister."

He looked up at the sky.

"f**k my luck moon goddess," he said. Low. Rough. Like a man who had just been handed a situation he had not budgeted for.

I watched him say it and did not know what to do with any of it.

He looked back at me.

"You are mine," he said. "As the moon goddess has destined it to be."

"I am nobody's anything," I said.

Something moved at the corner of his mouth. Not quite a smile.

He stepped toward me and lowered his head again and I realized what he was about to do half a second before he did it. His face angled toward mine, unhurried, completely certain, and my heart rate went from fast to somewhere it had never been before and I stepped back hard.

"Do not," I said.

He stopped. Looked at me. That almost smile still there.

My heart was going so loud I was certain he could hear it. From the way his eyes moved to my throat I was fairly sure he could.

"I am leaving," I said. "I am going back to my lodge and I am packing my things and I am getting out of this town."

"There is nowhere you can run to," he said. Quiet. Certain. "Remember that. Wherever you go I will find you." His eyes stayed on mine. "You belong to me now."

Then he stepped back.

And I turned and walked away fast and the pull in my chest was so loud it was almost a sound and I broke into a run the moment the darkness covered the beach behind me.

"I need to get out of this town," I said between breaths. "Right now. Tonight."

My heart didn't slow down for a single step of the way back.