Prologue: Wholly yours

~Liam~

I stare at Adriana like she has gone completely insane. Her green eyes are full of need and hope. We have had this same argument for weeks on end and I never thought she would get me to change my mind. This fucking mate bond has been pulling at me for years. Years of aching for her in ways she will never understand. The day they changed her from human to werewolf, everything shifted. The slack in our bond was pulled taut, and now she is feeling the effects in full force. And so am I.

“I want to complete the mate bond, Liam,” she demands, wincing as she stomps her foot to punctuate her anger.  

I frown as I step toward her, but she pins me with a pointed stare. 

Her proclamation should make me happy. It should make me jump for the moon and sweep her up and mark her right here, right now. But she doesn’t understand the weight of the mate bond and all it entails. Adriana was physically broken and human not so long ago, and though she was my mate, I never told her what I was. Or about the mythical creatures that aren’t really all that mythical. 

I kept her in the dark to protect her, but fate is cruel and dragged me into a fucking dog fight that wasn’t mine. This is where she learned my true nature, what I am. It’s also where she met the rare ultima who changed her to save her life. We have worked through some of those problems, but the rest stem from me and my past, a dark past that I know will keep her from wanting me. 

Not that I’m hiding it, I try to tell her, to explain to her that I truly was not a good person, my views, my actions… No one can look at them and ever love the man I was. Yet, she claims what happens in the past stays in the past… But I wasn’t just some random dick. No, that’s putting it lightly. 

I was Alpha Asshole Supreme, taking what I wanted from who I wanted and even pulled mutiny on a now committee member, the most loved and prestigious one. My past landed us in the precarious position of her having a new pack and me never being allowed to be a part of it. They stripped me of my title of Alpha. My dignity and my pride. All of it was wiped clean when I was exiled and forced into the life of a rogue.

A life I didn’t plan to live long until I saw her. Bold, determined, and broken, just like me. But so much better on the inside. 

I shake my head.

“Adri, I love you. And there is nothing more in the world that I want than to be with you, mind, body and soul…”

“But you think I’m fragile.” She scoffs as she lowers herself gingerly to the bed.

“No!” She is right. I may not have said it, but it is true. Her injury from when she was nearly paralyzed as a human still lingers.

“Ok, so you aren’t attracted to me because of my legs?” She says, her tone turning sour.

“Fuck.” I run my hand through my hair, practically pacing a hole in the bedroom floor. Is there a way to win this conversation? Or at least come out unscathed? 

Adriana had been close to paralyzed before turning into a werewolf, an injury from her old life. An injury that to me, made her beautiful. She has always been stronger than she gives herself credit for. Even though she is a werewolf now, she still struggles with her previous injury. The doctor said it would heal much faster since she is a wolf. But it has still been weeks, and she walks with a limp and though her pain is less, I can still see it in her face after a long day. 

“You know it’s not that.” I narrow my eyes on her, walking closer and kneeling at her feet.

“Then what? Because all I’m getting from you are frosty vibes and it’s making me think you don’t want me” Tears stain her cheeks and my resolve breaks. I can’t watch her like this. It kills me. I use my knuckle to wipe away her tears and take her perfect face in my hands, boring my eyes into her emerald orbs. 

“I want you to accept me because you want me,” I say with every ounce of my body. “All of me. The good, the bad, everything. Adriana, I want you to know what you are getting into.” I tilt her chin and my eyes flit to her bottom lip that she is nervously chewing on. I will never grow sick of kissing those plump pink lips. She knows how her nibbling drives me wild.

“I hate that you don’t see that I DO want this. I want you.” She whispers.

I drop my hands from her face, looking down at where she opens her legs for me to come closer.  

“You refuse to see what’s in front of you.” I plead. 

“What’s in front of me is who you are now. Not the man from your past. Do you think I haven’t heard the rumors? You think I don’t know that Alpha Wade gave you that scar on your face just years ago when you tried to kill Francis?”

I freeze and stare at her. Then slowly I drop my head to her knee, breathing deep. The past she mentions is the most minor of my sins, my most recent and most scarring maybe, but nothing compared to how I acted, who I was when I was younger and believed myself invincible. Adriana grabs my cheeks and tilts my head so I can see her. The only thing I see is how much she believes her words. I sigh and stand quickly, lifting her and taking her place on the bed, placing her on my thighs.

She shifts in my lap, making sure I have to look at her. There is no escaping her eyes with the weight of this conversation. 

“I’m the villain, Adri baby. How can you not see that?.” I sigh.

“You were the villain. In THEIR story, babe. Not in ours. In our story, you’re my prince charming. You are my white knight. The man who swooped in when I was nothing when I was so broken that even my broken pieces were cracking.”

I shake my head no and she chuckles dryly. 

“Listen” She licks her lips and my eyes follow them. 

Fucking hell, I want her so bad it hurts. 

“I loved you when I was human, and I love you now. I want this, more than I have ever wanted anything.”

I’m breaking. Giving in. I can feel it. My wolf is crying, begging me to just give our mate what she wants, what we want. I know she loves me, but am I enough? Will I be enough when later down the line, she realizes what I am? When she faces having to choose between me or her new pack? I am exiled from the very community she has just found, one she loves and thrives in. 

“What do you want?” I whisper, begging her to say the wrong words. The words that will keep me resolute.

“You, Liam. All I want is you.” She says. 

And that’s all it takes to break me.

I grab her by the nape and yank her lips to mine, kissing her deep, catching her off guard as she quickly melts into my embrace. Our lips move in sync, a fine-tuned ballet of passion and need. I open my lips and she is the one who takes the helm, exploring my mouth with her tongue, hot and searching.

She tastes better than the last time we kissed. She tastes like everything I need. Never in my life have I been this starved for someone’s love. Adriana whimpers as she tries to bring her legs around my waist so she is straddling me. 

I move to pull away, to check on her, but she grabs my hair and keeps my mouth on hers. My hands find her ass palming the soft flesh that awaits me and I growl in need. Her hands are stroking through my hair and up and down my neck, her nails scraping along my skin.

My fingers tickle the hem of her tank top and—no longer able to control what my wolf is doing—I rip it in half. She gasps as I sit back and take in her beautiful olive skin. Her back arches, her way of telling me to touch her and who am I to deny this beauty anything she wants in life? 

My palm rests on her tone, smooth stomach, my fingers instinctively spreading out for the most surface area possible. I’m so lost in the feeling of the sparks and the goosebumps on her skin, I don’t realize she is laughing at me. I peek up at her as she looks at the ripped tank and raises a brow.

I give her a sheepish shrug and she reaches down to the hem of my shirt and lifts it over my head. Her hands roam my chest and my shoulders kneading into my muscles. Each firecracker feeling from her fingertips zips through me and elicits a rumble from my chest as my hunger grows unbearable. She brings her lips back to mine as I stand, holding her against me and spinning her to the bed. 

I inch her up the bed until we are close to the headboard and run my hand under her back, pausing for a split second when I find the scar where she was shot, the one that broke her, and nearly killed her. She makes a noise that I can’t identify as pleasure or pain and I realize I need to be more gentle.

Slow down. 

What if I hurt her? 

She growls as if she knows what I am doing, and I open my eyes, looking down at her. 

“I am fine. You are not hurting me.” and then she yanks me down roughly by my face.

I inch my hand up and under her sports bra, feeling her soft, supple skin and the heat she is putting off, and I grin. I did this to her. We have done things together before, nearly everything other than actually sealing the deal. But there is no stopping me now. No, I’m committed to making her completely and irrevocably mine tonight.

I yank her joggers off and stare at her in awe. She sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, nibbling on the pink plump flesh. Her eyes are dark and swirling with desire as she lies in wait. My wolf snarls in desperation, coaxing me to lean down and sniff the crook of her neck. Her sweet scent is intoxicating and I can’t keep my tongue from flicking out to lick her from collarbone to ear.

My chest rumbles with a growl as I nuzzle the very spot my mark will mar her perfect neck. Adriana writhes under me, gasping for air, and then she reaches out and frantically pushes my waistband down, trying to free me from my two-legged prison.

I comply with her request and lift my hips, allowing her to roll the waistband down my thighs as I step out of my workout shorts. Adriana’s hands linger at my waist, feeling my skin and sending shivers wracking through my body in pleasure. I ease her legs apart as I move my way back up between her, and she winces when her hip pops. Instantly I freeze, my right hand running up and down her thigh, watching her face as she tries to breathe through the pain. 

After a moment, I lean down and drop a kiss on her inner knee and she reaches for my hair, stroking her fingers through my dark hair before giving me a small tug.  

“Mark me,” she whispers desperately. Her eyes have tears as she searches my face in fear of me pulling away. 

“Promise me you’ll stop me if your legs hurt too much after I mark you,” I demand. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Adriana just bites her lip and silently nods. My hands roam over her body, feeling every dip and grove of her hips, her breast, her ass, all of it—pinching and pulling until she is panting again and wrenching my hand away. She pulls my palm to her cheek and leans into it.

“No more foreplay, babe. I’m going to explode.”

“That is kind of the point, Adri” I grin at her as she bucks her hips trying to find me on her own. She whimpers at the pain of her movement and all playfulness flies out the window. “Shh, I’ll do the work, just lay back, ok?”

I lower my body so she is flush against me and position myself, preparing to take her in more than one way. I lick the spot where my mark will be and follow the wet motion by plunging my teeth into her neck. The coppery taste of her blood hits my tongue and spurs me to move faster, harder.

Adriana mutters sexy Italian words in my ear and then when she is bucking against me, ready to scream out my name, she rears her head back and finds the crook of my neck, breaking through my flesh. My vision tunnels out like I’m traveling through space at light speed as our souls finally collide, forming one solid unit. 

No longer am I my own. I am hers and she is mine and with that; I find my way back to her and make her mine in body. The sting of the mark spurs our love-crazed movements on as Adriana clings onto me for dear life, panting and meeting my movements with her hip rolls.

My name tumbles from her lips, a dousing of gasoline to the flames as we complete the mate bond screaming out each other’s names and panting as I roll to the side, and take in the one woman in the world who wants me. The only person who can break me.