LOGINChapter 25Christian's POV"And why aren't you stopping me?"I already knew the answer. I could feel it in the way her fingers curled into the waistband of my sweatpants instead of pushing me away, in the way her breath caught instead of breaking into another argument. But I needed more, needed some proof, however small, that she was still here, still breathing, still warm beneath my hands instead of cold on a forest floor with her blood soaking into the dirt.I hadn't stopped seeing it since I found her. The state of her being so helpless, so scared, shivering and trembling. I couldn't unsee the blood at her throat, dark and wet in the moonlight. I thought I would lose her again. I thought I had.Hell no. I'd go through hell before I lost her again."I hate you," she whispered, the words already losing their teeth the moment my mouth found her jaw. I had heard the words too often. They echoed in my head while I worked, distracted me during pack meetings, haunted my sleep and kept me
Chapter 24Scarlett's POV"Mate?" The word came out cracked, barely more than breath. "I don't understand."Alpha, full moon and now…mate? What sort of delusion had these people trapped themselves in? Either everyone had lost their minds... or I was slowly losing mine.He didn't answer. His hand stilled against my neck as he watched me in silence."It doesn't matter," he finally looked away, as though dismissing whatever thought that had crossed his mind."It clearly matters. You said it like it meant something." My voice shook, more from fear than from the pain radiating down my shoulder. "Please, just tell me who you are, where I am. Why did that thing listen to you?"He studied me a moment longer, and something in his face closed itself off entirely. Whatever softness had lived there a second ago folded back into something more guarded."It's better if you don't know me," he said quietly. "Better for both of us.""That's not an answer."He drew back slightly, and panic flared hot
Chapter 23Scarlett's POV“Christian!” The pain came first, sharp and impossibly intense, blotting out every other sensation in my body. A sharp pain radiated from my neck through the rest of me. My eyes stung with tears as I screamed so loudly, my throat burned. All I could think of was Christian. Where was he? Hadn't he noticed I was gone yet? Would he find me?I heard a sound from the beast. A growl, low and close enough that I felt it in my chest before my mind registered it as noise at all, vibrating through my ribs, through the marrow of me. What was I thinking, leaving a mansion situated in the woods? Christian didn't know where I was. Nobody did. My whole body was trembling with fear, my heart pounding, my head throbbing, especially at my temples.I braced for the second bite, my eyelids clamping shut. My body wouldn't listen to whatever was left of my will to fight. My hands lay useless at my sides, fingers twitching weakly against the cold, wet forest floor. Was this how i
Chapter 22Scarlett's POVLife had always been fair to me. I was the one who'd been unfair to myself. I spent years chasing the things I couldn't—shouldn't—have, until I destroyed everything I'd once been given.I lost my perfect childhood as my father's princess the moment I chose Christian over every warning my instincts tried to give me. I lost my old life the day I fled to Chicago with nothing but a growing belly and a name I refused to speak.I used to think I was simply unlucky. But standing frozen in that hallway, staring at the wall while someone had just caught me, I understood for the first time that everything I lost was because I was never content. Maybe if I'd married Damian instead, Leo would've grown up with a present father. Maybe my own life would've stayed intact. I would never know. All I knew was that everything I did, I did because of my sick obsession with Christian.I just had to choose him.What would Christian do to me if he found out I'd tried to leave him?
Christian's POV I looked at her a moment too long before I turned my eyes away. Looking away alone was torture, but it was nothing compared to losing her warmth. She sat on the desk where I'd left her, hair falling loose over one bare shoulder, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen, and even like that, broken open by everything I'd just done to her, she was the single most beautiful thing I had ever let myself want. Four years hadn't dulled it and more years never could. If anything, those years had only sharpened it into something closer to hunger than memory. She was mine, every soft, furious inch of her. I'd known that since she was too young for me to admit it, and I'd spent half my life since then either fighting it or drowning in it, and I still hadn't found a version of myself that could simply have her without also destroying something in the process. The fact that I could never completely have her was heartbreaking. I hated that, hated myself even more. I tore my eyes away
Chapter 20Scarlett's POVOf course I wanted to go again but after everything I had seen, the voice of reason in me was louder than my bodily desires. I needed to know so many things and I knew that after another round, I would be too exhausted to say anything.So suppressing my need, I tore my eyes away from his erect length, buried inside me and into his eyes, still filled with need and want.“No. Tell me the truth." I said, my voice still unsteady. "After everything, don't I deserve that much?”I felt the shift happen immediately the last word left my lips, somewhere between one breath and the next. His hand still rested against my hip, his forehead still pressed to mine, but within seconds all the warmth behind his touch was gone. He pulled back from me slowly, his eyes angry and leaving mine like I had burned him, his hard shaft slipping out of me slowly. I stared at him, legs wide apart, my eyes fixed on him while he crossed the room to retrieve his shirt off the floor.The ten







