Chapter 6: Lethal Touch

Liana pov

The dead wolf lay at my feet, black veins spreading across its fur like poison.

I stared at my hands, trembling and deadly, unable to process what had just happened. One touch. That was all it took. One desperate attempt to defend myself, and now a wolf was dead, killed by something inside me I did not understand.

"Everyone out." Dominic's voice cut through the stunned silence like a blade. "Now."

Marco hesitated, his eyes flickering between the corpse and me. "Alpha, if she is unstable."

"I said out." The growl in Dominic's voice made every wolf in the room flinch, including me.

 His Alpha command rolled through the space with crushing weight, and Marco retreated with the other wolves, leaving us alone with the body.

The door clicked shut. Silence pressed down like a physical weight.

I could not stop staring at what I had done. "I did not mean to, I just touched him and."

"Look at me." Dominic's hand caught my chin, forcing my gaze up to his. His eyes were still amber, his wolf riding close to the surface, but the rage I expected was not there. Instead, I saw something more complicated. 

Fear. Wonder. And beneath it all, that possessive hunger that made my stomach flip. "Breathe, Liana.

 You are not going to fall apart on me."

"I killed him." My voice cracked. "With a touch. What if I, what if I hurt you?"

"You will not." His thumb traced my lower lip, the gesture both tender and claiming. "The mate bond protects me. Remember?"

"You said partially protected." I pulled away from his touch, wrapping my arms around myself. 

"You said the consequences were unpredictable. What if the bond is not enough? What if I."

"Then I die." He said it so casually, as if discussing the weather rather than his own death. "And you become the most dangerous weapon in the supernatural world. Is that what you want to hear?"

"No." The word came out broken. "I do not want any of this. I do not want to be a weapon. I do not want this bond. I do not want."

"Me?" He closed the distance between us in one stride, backing me against the wall. His hand slammed beside my head, caging me in.

 "Say it, little wolf. Tell me you do not want me."

I could not. The words lodged in my throat, refused to form, because they would be a lie. I hated him. I feared him. 

But I wanted him with a desperation that terrified me more than my lethal touch ever could.

"That is what I thought." His free hand caught my wrist, bringing my deadly palm to his chest, directly over his heart. "Feel that? My heart is racing because my mate just killed to protect herself. 

Because you are magnificent and terrifying and mine."

"Stop calling me that." But I did not pull my hand away. Could not. His heart thundered beneath my palm, steady and strong despite the poison that should be killing him. "I am your prisoner. Your revenge. Not your mate."

"You are all of it." His forehead pressed against mine, and the mate bond flared between us, hot and insistent. "My prisoner. My revenge. My salvation.

 My damnation. And whether you accept it or not, you are my mate."

A knock on the door shattered the moment. Dr. Volkov entered without waiting for permission, her silver eyes sweeping over the scene with clinical detachment.

"The body needs to be removed before rigor mortis sets in," she said, already moving toward the corpse with a medical kit. "And we need to run tests immediately. If her Sanguis abilities are activating without the suppressants, we have less time than anticipated."

"How much less?" Dominic's hand remained on my wrist, his touch the only thing keeping me grounded.

"Days. Perhaps hours." Dr. Volkov pulled a syringe from her kit. "I need a fresh blood sample.

 The toxin that killed this wolf came from her system, and I need to understand its potency."

"No." The word escaped before I could stop it. "No more tests. No more needles. I am not your experiment."

"You are not an experiment." Dr. Volkov's voice held surprising gentleness. "You are a miracle, child. The last of a bloodline that should not exist.

 But miracles can be dangerous, especially when they do not understand their own power."

Dominic's grip tightened on my wrist. "Will the bond hold?"

"I do not know." The doctor's honesty was brutal. "Sanguis hybrids were designed to kill Alphas. The mate bond creates immunity, yes, but we are in uncharted territory.

 If she were to bite him, scratch him during an intimate moment when her control is compromised."

"Then I would die happy." Dominic's words made my breath catch. "Better than living without her."

"You barely know me." I turned to face him, desperate to make him understand. "This bond is not real. It is just biology, fate playing tricks. 

You do not actually want me, you want the memory of whoever I used to be."

Something dangerous flashed in his eyes. "You think I do not know the difference between you and Sera? You are nothing like her, Liana.

 She was gentle, kind, everything good in my world. You?" His hand slid into my hair, fisting the strands. "You are sharp edges and defiance. You fight me at every turn. You would rather die than submit. 

And that makes me want you more than I have wanted anything in three hundred years."

The confession stole my breath. Before I could respond, his phone rang. He answered with a snarl, listened for three seconds, and his entire body went rigid.

"When?" His voice dropped to lethal calm. "Where?"

He ended the call and looked at me, and what I saw in his eyes made my blood run cold.

"Your father just sent another message. He has three more Sanguis hybrids in captivity." Dominic's jaw clenched. "And he is willing to trade them for you."

My world tilted. "That is impossible. You said I was the last."

"I was wrong." His hand cupped my face, and for the first time since I met him, Dominic Voss looked uncertain. "Which means everything I thought I knew about your bloodline, about what you are capable of, is wrong too."

The implications crashed over me. I was not unique. I was not alone.

I was replaceable.

And my father had just proven he never needed me at all.