Claimed by the Demon Alpha

Chapter 10: The Hunt

Rex POV

The dragon let me have control?

For the first time in twelve years, the beast retreated enough to let me touch her without killing her. Let me taste her, pleasure her, bring her to the edge of ecstasy.

I don't understand it.

The dragon has never allowed me this. Never given me even a moment of peace with a woman. But with her---with that girl with golden eyes and moonlight skin---it purred. Content. Almost docile.

Until it wasn't.

I feel the shift the moment I position myself at her entrance. The dragon stirs, no longer content to watch. It wants more. Wants to surge forward, to claim her completely, to sink its fangs into her throat and mark her as ours forever.

'No. Not yet. She's not ready. She'll die---'

The beast doesn't care. It pushes against my control, demanding dominance. My eyes burn. The world tints red.

I fight it. Clench my jaw until my teeth crack. Force it back down with every ounce of willpower I possess.

For a moment, I win. My eyes clear. Blue again.

I kiss her desperately, trying to anchor myself in her taste, her warmth. My fangs extend. The claiming mark---if I can just complete it, maybe the bond will satisfy the beast, maybe---

She pushes against my chest. "Wait---I'm not ready---"

The hesitation is all it takes.

The dragon roars inside my skull. My control shatters like glass.

Red floods my vision. Black veins spread across my skin. My fingers elongate into claws that dig into her shoulder.

'No. NO. Get her out. GET HER OUT!'

I use the last shred of humanity I have left to throw her off the bed. Away from me. Away from the monster that's about to tear free.

"GET OUT!"

The voice that comes from my throat is barely mine. The dragon is too close to the surface now, too strong.

She runs. I hear her footsteps, her ragged breathing, the door slamming.

Gone. She's gone.

And the dragon goes berserk.

I slam my fist into the wall. Stone cracks. My knuckles split open, blood running down my arm. The pain helps---barely. I grab the bedpost and tear it free, hurling it across the room. It smashes through the window in an explosion of glass.

Not enough. It's not enough.

I rake my claws down my own chest, trying to bleed out the rage. Deep furrows open in my skin. Blood pours. The dragon howls, furious that its prey escaped, furious that I denied it what it wanted.

'She would have died. You would have killed her. Is that what you want?'

The beast doesn't answer. Just keeps roaring, keeps demanding I go after her, bring her back, claim her.

I grab the dresser and flip it. The mirror shatters. I'm on my hands and knees now, claws digging into the floor, spine arching as the dragon tries to force the full transformation.

I won't let it. Can't. If I shift completely, I'll hunt her down and there will be no stopping what comes next.

The door bursts open.

"My King---" Keanu stops in the doorway, taking in the destruction. Blood everywhere. Furniture in pieces. Me crouched in the center of it all, barely holding human form.

"Out," I snarl.

He doesn't move. "You need---"

"BRING ME SOMETHING OF HERS!" The words tear from my throat in a roar that shakes the walls. "Anything. Anything with her scent."

Keanu's eyes widen. But he's been my Beta long enough to obey without question. His gaze sweeps the room, searching.

There---on the floor near the door. A scrap of white fabric. The dress I tore from her body.

He picks it up and brings it to me carefully, like approaching a wounded animal.

I snatch it from his hands and bury my face in the fabric. Breathe deep.

Vanilla. Jasmine. Moonlight. Her.

The dragon stops mid-roar.

I clutch the fabric tighter, inhaling until my lungs burn. The beast inside me uncurls slowly, its rage banking to embers. Not gone. Never gone. But manageable.

"Selene," Keanu says quietly.

The name hits me like a physical blow.

"What?"

"Her name. The girl. She's called Selene." He pauses. "From Ice Moon Pack."

Selene.

I say it once inside my head. The dragon rumbles---low, possessive, satisfied in a way that makes no sense.

Mine.

And there it is again. That word, that certainty the dragon keeps insisting on. I've been turning it over since last night, pressing on it the way you press a bruise to see if it still hurts.

She calmed the beast. No woman has ever done that. Her scent reaches into me and pulls something quiet out of the chaos. Those are facts.

But the mate bond---the real bond, the one the Moon Goddess carves into your bones---it's supposed to feel like recognition. Absolute. Unquestionable. Like you already knew.

What I felt when I looked at her wasn't that.

What I felt was hunger so violent it scared me. Possessiveness with no name attached. Something that wanted to take and hold and never let go---but nothing that said: this is the one. Nothing certain. Nothing clean.

"She calmed the beast," Keanu says, watching me carefully. "I've never seen it retreat like that. Never seen you able to control it in the presence of a woman."

"I know." My voice comes out rough.

"Then she must be---"

"I don't know what she is." The words scrape coming out. "I don't know. The dragon says mine. But the bond---" I stop. Press her dress against my face again and breathe. "Something isn't right. Something about it isn't right."

Keanu is quiet for a moment. "What will you do?"

I don't have an answer for that. I only know one thing with any certainty.

"Bring her to me," I say. "Send for Istha. Tell her to bring Selene here. Now."

He leaves.

I pace the destroyed room, her dress still in my hands. My wounds are already healing---faster than they should. That's her doing too, somehow. Her scent, her presence, whatever she is to me---it quiets something in the curse itself.

Mate or not, I need her close.

Mate or not, I am not letting her go.

Footsteps in the hall. Keanu returns, but he's not alone. Istha glides in behind him, her skeletal face unreadable.

"Where is she?" I demand.

Keanu's expression darkens. "She's gone, my King."

The room goes silent. Even the dragon stills.

"What?"

"The girl---Selene. She's fled. Escaped through a window in the waiting room. The guards say she ran toward the forest."

Rage explodes through me. The dragon roars back to life.

"Find her!" I grab Keanu by his collar, lifting him off the ground. "FIND HER NOW!"

"My King." Istha's voice cuts through my fury like ice water. "Perhaps the girl ran because her heart belongs to another."

I drop Keanu. Turn on her.

"She came from Ice Moon Pack, did she not?" Istha's smile doesn't reach her eyes. "Young women often have... attachments. Lovers they left behind. Perhaps she didn't run from you." A pause, perfectly timed. "Perhaps she ran toward him."

The thought hits me somewhere I wasn't expecting.

Not just rage. Something underneath the rage that I don't have a word for. Something that tightens in my chest and won't let go. The idea of her running toward someone else. Wanting someone else. Belonging to someone else.

I don't understand why it matters this much. She might not even be my mate. I told myself that not five minutes ago.

And yet.

"I'll kill him," I say. The words come out very quiet. "I'll kill anyone she ran toward."

A guard bursts through the door. "Your Majesty! The girl---we've spotted her. She's heading toward the eastern forest."

Keanu's face goes pale. "That's where the rogue attack is happening. The battle---"

I'm moving before he finishes the sentence.

The dragon surges forward and I let it. Not fully. Not the complete transformation. But enough. Bones crack and reform. My spine curves. Claws extend. My jaw elongates, fangs filling my mouth.

Half-man, half-dragon.

I tear through the castle in this hybrid form. Guards scatter. Servants scream. I don't care.

Selene is running toward a battlefield.

Mate or not---she is not dying tonight.

I burst through the palace doors and leap from the steps. The forest stretches before me, dark and wild. Rain lashes my face. Thunder rolls.