Chapter 3: The Claiming

Larry's private quarters were a study in controlled power,dark wood, leather furniture, and floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the pack's territory. It was beautiful, luxurious, and felt exactly like the prison it was meant to be.

I stood in the center of his living room, still wearing my mother's too-large dress, while he circled me like a predator deciding where to strike first. The mate bond hummed between us, a constant reminder of the cosmic joke that had bound us together.

"Shower," he commanded, pointing toward a door I assumed led to his bathroom. "You smell like blood and defeat."

The casual cruelty in his voice should have stung, but I was learning to read the emotions flowing through our bond. Beneath his cold exterior, Larry was fighting a war with himself,his wolf's desperate need to care for me battling against eight years of carefully cultivated hatred.

"And then what?" I asked, not moving toward the bathroom.

His eyes flashed with silver fire. "Then you learn what it means to be mated to a man who despises everything you represent."

"I already know what it means to be despised," I replied evenly. "I've had nineteen years of practice."

He stopped circling and faced me directly, his presence overwhelming in the confined space. "You know nothing. What you've experienced until now was merely the pack's justice. What you'll experience as my mate will be personal."

The threat in his words was unmistakable, but I refused to let him see my fear. "Then get on with it, Alpha. I'm tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Something flickered across his face,surprise, maybe, or frustration that I wasn't cowering. Through the bond, I felt his wolf's approval of my defiance, which only seemed to infuriate him more.

"Go. Shower. Now." The Alpha command in his voice was impossible to resist.

I walked toward the bathroom, feeling his eyes on me with every step. The space was larger than my entire former living quarters, all black marble and chrome fixtures. I caught my reflection in the mirror and barely recognized the woman staring back at me.

Gone was the broken, defeated girl who had knelt in the servants' quarters. In her place stood someone with fire in her eyes and steel in her spine. The mate bond had awakened something in me, something that had been sleeping under years of oppression.

The hot water stung my wounded back, but I welcomed the pain. It was clean pain, honest pain, not the calculated cruelty I'd endured for so long. As I washed away the blood and dirt, I felt like I was washing away the old Lyra,the victim, the scapegoat, the girl who had survived by making herself small.

When I emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel, Larry was standing by the window, staring out at the moonlit forest. He'd changed into dark jeans and a black t-shirt that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders.

"There are clothes in the closet," he said without turning around. "Choose something that won't embarrass me."

I found the closet filled with expensive women's clothing, all in my size. The realization that he'd prepared for this moment,that he'd known this would happen,sent a chill down my spine.

"How long have you known?" I asked, selecting a simple black dress that was infinitely more elegant than anything I'd ever worn.

"Known what?" His voice was carefully neutral.

"That we were mates." I stepped out of the closet, noting the way his shoulders tensed when he caught my scent. "These clothes didn't appear by magic."

He turned to face me, and I saw the exact moment his composure cracked. The dress fit perfectly, hugging curves I'd never been able to showcase, and his eyes darkened as they traveled over my body.

"I've suspected for months," he admitted, his voice rough. "My wolf has been... restless around you. I told myself it was bloodlust, the need to finish what your parents started."

"But you knew better."

"I hoped I was wrong." The admission seemed to cost him something. "Do you have any idea what it's like to discover that your destined mate is the one person in the world you've trained yourself to hate?"

The pain in his voice was raw, real, and it echoed through the mate bond with devastating clarity. Despite everything he'd done to me, I felt an unwelcome stab of sympathy.

"Do you have any idea what it's like to discover that your destined mate is the one person who's dedicated his life to your destruction?" I countered.

He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Touché."

For a moment, we stood in silence, the weight of our impossible situation settling between us. Then Larry's expression hardened again, and I felt his emotional walls slamming back into place.

"This changes nothing," he said, his voice cold as winter. "You're still the daughter of traitors. You're still a reminder of everything I've lost. The only difference is that now you're mine to torment instead of the pack's."

"And you're mine to torment in return," I replied, letting steel enter my voice. "The mate bond works both ways, Alpha. Everything you feel, I feel. Every moment of hatred, every spike of desire, every second of this war you're fighting with yourself."

His eyes flashed with something dangerous. "You think you can use our bond as a weapon?"

"I think we're both going to suffer," I said, echoing my words from the ceremony. "But I also think you're going to discover that I'm not the broken little girl you've spent years creating. That girl died tonight when you claimed me."

He moved then, crossing the room with predatory grace until he stood mere inches away. His hand cupped my face, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with deceptive gentleness.

"We'll see," he murmured, his voice a promise and a threat. "We'll see who breaks first."

The mate bond pulsed between us, carrying currents of desire and hatred so intertwined they were impossible to separate. I could feel his wolf's desperate need to kiss me, to claim me completely, warring with his human mind's rejection of everything I represented.

"I won't break," I whispered, my voice steady despite the chaos of emotions flowing through our connection.

His smile was sharp as a blade. "Everyone breaks eventually, Lyra. The question is whether you'll shatter or simply bend."

"Then I guess we'll find out together."

He leaned closer, his breath warm against my ear. "Yes, we will. And I promise you, little wolf, it's going to be a beautiful disaster."

The words sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the dangerous game we were about to play. Because through the mate bond, I could feel the truth he was trying to hide,beneath his hatred, beneath his need for revenge, Larry Talbot was already falling for me.

And that terrified him more than anything else ever had.