Midnight Drafts and Shadowed Throats

POV SIENNA

The drive back up the mountain highway was a minefield of unspoken tension. Killian did not speak a single word the entire way, yet the air inside the Porsche hummed with such heavy pressure that the reinforced windows seemed to vibrate. His knuckles remained white against the leather steering wheel, his grip so tight it looked ready to leave marks. I huddled against the passenger door, pulling my knees to my chest and pretending to watch the fir trees blur past like dark silhouettes beneath the fading twilight.

When we passed through the manor gates, Marcus and my mother were in the rear greenhouse, examining floral arrangements for Saturday’s formal dinner. Their presence spared us the need for explanations, a relief that lasted only a moment. I took the stairs two at a time, locked myself in my room with both latches drawn, and slid down the wood until I sat on the floor. My hands would not stop shaking. The weight of his fingers tangled in my hair, the heat of his palm against my neck, and every word whispered millimetres from my lips replayed in my head like a stuck recording.

"You insufferable brute," I hissed into the darkness.

My inner she‑wolf disagreed. She stretched, settled deep and contented, still lingering on the scent of cedar and storm he had left clinging to my skin.

At two o’clock in the morning, the house was utterly silent. I switched on my bedside lamp, its amber glow soft and warm, pulled on an old worn t‑shirt, and sat cross‑legged in the centre of my bed with my laptop open. I typed my twelve‑character password, navigated past hidden folders, and opened my author dashboard.

Profile: Nyx_V

Current Work: Chained to the Eclipse

Active Readers: 612,450

I had more than two hundred unread messages asking where the weekend update was. For the past three years, writing anonymously had been far more than an income; it had been my sanctuary, the place where I poured everything I could not say aloud. I opened a blank document and began Chapter Thirty‑Four. My fingers flew across the keys, driven by raw anger and a restless heat I could not put out.

"The Alpha never asked permission to enter. He never did. He carried with him the metallic stench of absolute power and the arrogant certainty that the world should bow when he breathed. When he backed me against the wall, there was no reason in his grey eyes, only the hungry obsession of a beast who would rather see everything burn than admit one single spark does not belong to him.

'Tell me you are mine,' he demanded, and his hand at my throat was no chain, but a lit match.

'I would rather be torn apart,' I lied, while the bond devoured us both in the shadows…"

I stopped short, breath catching in my throat. I stared at the screen. The words were raw, sharp, a mirror of what had happened in the café twisted into dark fantasy. The keys clicked in the dim light like a speeding clock. I was so absorbed in the next sentence I did not hear the soft creak outside.

The balcony latch gave an almost imperceptible metallic click. Before I could react, the glass door slid open. A gust of cold mountain air swept through the room, rippling the linen curtains, and Killian’s tall broad silhouette filled the frame against the night sky.

Panic froze me for a heartbeat. Then instinct took over. I slammed the laptop lid shut with a crack that echoed like a gunshot and pressed it tight to my chest.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" I whispered, scrambling off the bed and backing away. "You climbed in through the balcony! There is a door in the hallway, you fool!"

Killian stepped forward, moving from shadow into the warm circle of lamplight. He wore only black athletic trousers, he was barefoot, and his torso was completely bare. His chest and abdomen were sculpted with almost unreal definition, marked by three pale scars across his ribs and a faint faded runic mark over his left collarbone. His black hair was damp as if he had just stepped from an ice‑cold shower, yet the heat radiating from his skin was stifling. He smelled of fresh night air, plain soap, and cedar. So much cedar.

"Your door is locked," he said, his voice rough and deliberate, slow enough to raise goosebumps along my arms. "And I cannot sleep with that infernal noise."

I frowned, confused.

"What noise?"

"Your fingers striking the keys," he took another step, closing the distance with dangerous calm. "You have been hammering at that keyboard for two hours. My room shares the chimney breast with yours. I hear every tap. And my wolf will not settle."

I swallowed hard, hugging the laptop tighter. If he opened that screen, if he read even one line about grey eyes and a beast’s hunger, I would rather climb over the railing than face the humiliation.

"I am catching up on coursework," I lied, holding his gaze despite the cold sweat trickling down my neck. "I have finished. Go back to your room."

He did not move. His gaze swept over my face, down my exposed throat, and fixed on the computer I held like armour. One dark eyebrow lifted slowly.

"It is half past two in the morning," his voice dropped an octave, thick and heavy. "You are trembling, Hayes. And it is not from the cold."

"I am not trembling because of anything to do with you, Thorne."

He took the final step. There was nowhere left to retreat. His right hand closed around the top edge of the laptop and pulled gently toward him. I pulled back with all my strength, gripping the cold metal.

"Let go," I gritted out.

Instead of wrestling, he used his weight. He stepped closer, guiding me back until the edge of the bed hit the back of my knees and I sat down. He did not stop there. He planted one knee on the mattress between my legs, trapping me completely in his shadow. His bare torso was centimetres from my face. I could feel the searing heat of his muscles and the heavy, frantic beat of his heart keeping the same wild rhythm as my own. Bond‑sparks flared where his knuckles brushed mine on the laptop lid.

"What are you hiding in here, little stray?" he whispered, leaning so close his breath brushed my lips. "Messages from your café friend? Or has the border boy found another phone to cry to you from?"

"It is none of your business," I got out, refusing to loosen my grip even as his touch unravelled me. "Leave my room. If my mother or Marcus find you here…"

"Marcus sleeps in the west wing with earplugs, and your mother notices nothing that happens in this house," Killian’s free hand rose slowly, and his broad fingers curved around my throat. He did not squeeze. He simply rested his palm against my skin, right over my racing pulse. The contrast between the cold metal I clutched and the fire of his touch tore a strangled gasp from my throat.

His pupils dilated instantly, swallowing the grey in a wash of wild gold.

"Tell me what you are writing," he rasped, his thumb brushing slow along my jawline to rest at the corner of my mouth. "Or I open this thing myself and find out what keeps you awake when you should be dreaming of me."