Chapter 9: The Beast Within
1411 Words
Selene POV
His hands move to his waist. The last barrier of fabric falls away.
I see him---fully bare, impossibly hard, and fear spikes through me so hard my lungs stop working.
Too big. He's way too big.
"Wait---" I press my hands hard against his chest. "Your Majesty, stop---"
His eyes flicker. Blue to red. Red to blue.
Somewhere distant, I hear that roar. The dragon.
"No." His voice comes out strangled. "Not now---"
He leans down to kiss me but I jerk my head to the side. His mouth lands on my cheek instead.
"I said STOP!" I shove at him with everything I have, my nails raking down his shoulders hard enough to draw blood.
He freezes. His whole body trembles violently. When he looks at me again, his eyes flash between blue and red---struggling, fighting something I can't see.
"Mine." The word is barely human. His mouth moves toward my neck. "Need to mark you---"
I feel fangs press against my throat. Sharp. Too sharp.
"Your Majesty?" The word comes out as a terrified whisper.
His hand shoots out---but it's not his hand anymore. The fingers are too long, joints bending wrong, ending in black claws that sink into my shoulder.
Pain explodes through me. I scream.
He throws me off the bed like I weigh nothing.
I hit the floor hard. The impact knocks all the air from my lungs. My shoulder burns where his claws tore skin. Blood trickles hot down my arm.
"GET OUT!"
The voice isn't his. It's layered---something ancient and furious speaking through him.
I scramble backward on the cold stone. He's on the bed, on his hands and knees, his whole body convulsing. Muscles ripple and shift beneath his skin in ways that shouldn't be possible.
His eyes burn pure red now. Black veins spread like cracks from his temples down his neck.
Bones crack. Pop. His spine arches impossibly.
He's changing. Right in front of me.
"I SAID GET OUT!" He grabs the bedside lamp and hurls it.
Glass explodes against the wall next to my head. Shards rain down.
I don't think. Just move.
I run.
My legs barely hold me. My body is still trembling from everything he did to me, from the arousal that hasn't fully faded. Each step feels wrong---my muscles weak and uncoordinated.
Behind me, the King roars again. The sound shakes the walls. Furniture breaking. Glass shattering.
Something massive hits the door. The wood cracks.
I burst into the corridor, naked and bleeding. Guards turn to stare---their eyes wide with shock.
I don't stop until I reach the waiting room. I slam the door behind me and collapse against it, gasping.
Every woman in the room turns to stare.
"Oh my God." Someone breathes. "She's alive."
I slide down to the floor. My whole body shakes---fear and adrenaline and the lingering echoes of pleasure I have no right to still be feeling.
What just happened? What was that?
I wrap my arms around myself. His touch is everywhere---fingerprint bruises on my hips, bite marks on my breasts, the half-finished claiming mark on my neck still bleeding.
Shame burns through me. Not because of what happened.
Because part of me wanted more. Even now, even after those red eyes and those claws, my body still aches for him.
I don't understand it. I've never felt anything like it before.
The other women haven't moved. They're all staring.
"You were with the King." A blonde woman speaks first, her voice sharp with disbelief. "And you're alive."
I don't answer. I need to clean up. Need to think.
The bathroom. I stumble toward it, ignoring their questions.
"Look at her," someone hisses. "She's covered in his marks."
"w***e," another spits.
I slam the bathroom door behind me and turn on the cold water. My hands shake as I splash it over my face, my neck, my chest. The water stings the claw marks on my shoulder, the bite on my throat.
It doesn't help.
I brace my hands on the sink and stare at my own reflection.
His scent is still on me. That deep, dark smell---forest and iron and something without a name---it clings to my skin and won't wash off. Every time I breathe in, my chest does that thing again. That involuntary pull.
I know what the mate bond is supposed to feel like. I grew up hearing about it. Every wolf girl does. They say it's like recognition. Like coming home to a place you've never been. Like something in your chest finally exhaling after holding its breath your whole life.
What I felt when I walked into that room---that jolt when his scent hit me, the way my pulse tripped over itself, the way my body responded to his touch in ways I couldn't control---
I press my hands harder against the sink.
No. That wasn't it. That couldn't be it. He's the Alpha King. He's cursed. He kills people. He just threw me across the room with claws that aren't even human.
The mate bond is supposed to feel like safety. What I feel when I look at him is the opposite of safe.
And yet.
That scent won't leave me alone.
I close my eyes. Try to think clearly. I don't even have a wolf. Wolves without their other half can't form a mate bond---everyone knows that. Whatever this is, whatever my body is doing, it doesn't mean what I'm afraid it might mean.
It can't.
A pounding on the door makes me jump.
"Come out, princess." The blonde woman's voice drips with venom. "We want to talk to you."
I force myself to stand. Wrap a thin towel around my body. When I open the door, they're all waiting.
At least a dozen women surround me. Their faces twisted with jealousy and something uglier underneath.
"How did you do it?" One of them grabs my arm. "What did you give him that we couldn't?"
"Did you use magic?" Another yanks my hair hard enough to make my eyes water. "Are you a witch?"
"Let go---"
Someone shoves me. I stumble back against the wall.
"Look at these marks." A woman with sharp features traces a finger down my neck, over the bite marks. Her nail digs into the claiming mark and I hiss. "He wanted her. He actually wanted her."
"She's nothing special," the blonde snarls. "She's not even pretty."
But there's no conviction in her voice. The marks on my skin say everything she won't admit.
"We're all going to die here," I say flatly. I push away from the wall, meeting their hateful gazes. "Every single one of us."
"At least you got to feel something," someone whispers. The anger in her voice has cracks in it. "At least he touched you like you mattered."
The door slams open.
Every woman in the room goes silent.
Istha stands in the doorway, her skeletal frame wrapped in black robes, those dark bottomless eyes sweeping over the scene.
"You should not be so loud." Her voice is soft. Deadly. "The King needs his rest."
The women scatter. The room empties in seconds.
Istha doesn't move. Her gaze stays locked on me.
"You survived." A pause. "Interesting."
"I was lucky," I manage.
"No." She steps inside and closes the door behind her. We're alone. Her eyes travel over the marks on my skin. The claw wound on my shoulder. The incomplete claiming mark on my neck.
She looks at me the way you look at a problem you're still calculating.
"He thinks you're his mate," she says.
Something tightens in my chest. I don't speak.
"He's wrong." Her voice is flat. Final. Like she's correcting a simple error. "What he feels for you is not a bond. It's obsession. There's a difference." She tilts her head. "One fades. One doesn't."
"What happens when it fades?" My voice comes out smaller than I want it to.
Istha smiles.
"What do you think happens," she says, "to the thing he can't have anymore?"
She leaves without another word. The door clicks shut behind her.
I stand alone in the empty room.
His scent is still on my skin. My pulse is still doing that thing I can't explain. The claiming mark on my neck is still bleeding.
Not his mate. Just an obsession.
I think about the rotting bodies on that hillside.
I think about what obsessions do when they burn out？
- Writer
