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I block out everything, retreating into the vault in my head, the place I hide when the tide of dominance inside of me tries to escape. All that does is trigger memories of punishments from my father for losing my grip. Him using his bark on me, forcing me to stay still while he beats me or hurts people I care about. Forcing me to execute his enemies with the weight of his dominance. Locking me away. Starving me more than I already was. Trying to use his bark’s compulsion to fuck with my head, or the last time, when everything went to shit, and I ended up exiled from the only home I’d ever known. Thrown out to die or be adopted by an army of Biters.
My mental torment abruptly stops when a tendril of wet, verdant leaves and warm, spicy honey pops and sizzles across my skin like a charge of lightning. The scent creeps around me like arms in an embrace, holding tight and sparking against my exposed skin. It’s equal parts comforting and challenging, a call to answer, if I dare. My body immediately relaxes, melting back into my seat, and my breathing finally evens out as my brain empties to refocus on the sensation of Dair’s scent.
My gaze returns to him, finding him still looking at me with eyes so light gray they look silver. My body heats again, but this time not with embarrassment or anxiety. This time, my blood boils with something disturbingly like excitement. Like something inside of me wants to go head-to-head with whatever wildness is inside of him. He makes me want to fucking dominate him or submit while trying. The smirk on his face says, bring it on.
I abruptly rise from my chair and the voices around us stop. I clear my throat and look at River. “Excuse me, I need to return to the guard house.”
He purses his lips in disapproval, but instead of it making me nervy and tense, for the first time, his anger rolls right off like raindrops.
I feel Dair’s gaze until the door slams behind me, cutting off that tendril of connection.
I run all the way to our cabin, not stopping until I rip through the front door to find Raine sprawled across the ratty couch in the main room. Gods, why? She’s always here, in my space, looking at me, filling my lungs with her scent, tormenting me with her sweet freckles and piercing eyes. Why is it that she’s always the one to see me undone? She’s not the only one, my alpha reminds me, and my blood buzzes with the reminder that Dair saw me too and somehow managed to calm me.
“What are you doing here?” I pant. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”
She sits up, those sharp eyes assessing me. “Well, Soline is in meetings with River, so she told us to take the day off. Why are you here? I thought River wanted you with him?”
Ignoring her question, I pace the floor between the main room and the small kitchen. Her scent gets closer, surrounding me in sweet spiciness and calming warmth. I stop and spin, a growl bubbling up my throat. She’s standing close to me, watching me. Everyone is always watching me. “Ferris,” she whispers, “what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” I bite out, a cruel laugh spilling from my lips. “You know damn well what’s wrong. All of this is wrong. Me, you, River, this whole fucked-up situation!”
Hurt flashes across her face, slicing my heart wide open. “There’s nothing wrong about us,” she insists. There’s an urgent, hard look in her eyes, daring me to disagree. “There’s never been anything wrong with our connection, and you know it. You’re just too much of a coward to make it right.”
I take a step forward—never able to stop myself from getting in her space—and her nostrils flare wide. Immediately, her scent thins into burnt sugar. She hisses, “You smell like omega.”
I frown, confused at first, but then I remember sitting next to Leigh, close enough that our clothes brushed a few times. And she perfumed, trying to calm me down. Fuck, I probably reek of her.
“So this is how it is now?” she snaps. “We’re really going to go the rest of our lives hurting each other?”
“Yes,” I growl, hating every word from her lips. “You know we can never be together.”
Her finger pokes me in the chest as her scent burns and burns. “So you wouldn’t care if I went and found Clay right this second, took him into one of the storage sheds, and bent over for him? You wouldn’t lose your mind to smell his cum dripping down my legs?”
An inhuman growl rattles from my chest, and I feel my body getting bigger, wider, as my muscles swell with blood. “Raine,” I warn, “leave right now.”
“Or what?” she spits. Anger paints her rosy cheeks red as her breasts heave and her hands shake. She makes me fucking crazy, standing there looking like a little warrior. I watch as her tongue wets her lips, leaving them glossy with spit. Fuck.
I can’t speak over the growl lengthening my canines, so I simply walk forward, herding her against the wall. The anger in her eyes transforms into something hotter as her scent takes on the signature vanilla of her slick. I groan and use my body to squash hers against the wall.
I gather her wrists and pin them above her head so that I have free access to her body. It makes me so fucking hard that I feel dizzy and drunk. Wrist to wrist, I pump out pheromones, dousing her delicate scent glands in my scent. Then I bend down and rub my bearded cheeks across her neck and chest. I can’t help myself from nipping at her jaw and sneaking a lick across the scent gland on her neck.
She writhes and whimpers where I have her pinned, her sweet noises and breathless voice begging me to take this further and finally give us both what we need. I use every ounce of strength I have to resist.
As soon as I have her bathed in me, I release her arms and step away from the soft strength of her body. Drugged out and without my support, she slides down the wall and onto the floor. Her wide, gorgeous eyes peer up at me like I’m her god, and I have to swallow down the sweet words I want to paint across her skin. Instead, I force myself to say, “Try getting him to fuck you now.”
Her face breaks into devastation, and I force myself to remain still instead of scooping her into my arms to make it better. This is my fault. It’s always my fault, but she knows we can’t do this. Whatever we are, we’re fated to burn up like a falling star.
She stands on wobbly legs, tears threatening to spill from her glossy eyes. “Stay the fuck away from me,” she snaps. “Don’t ever touch me again.” And then she storms out of the cabin, slamming the door in her wake.
[ 9 ]
RAINE
Grand Prairie Compound
Days Since Last Attack: 85
Anger pounds through my veins as I move across the compound, skirting the main paths to avoid others. I smell almost entirely of Ferris now that my own signature is masked by his excessive scent-marking. I’m going to have to rinse off before anyone smells me, or else it will be really awkward to explain why I smell like a mixture of our leader’s packmate and my own slick. I should have made Ferris leave instead of storming off myself, that way I could have showered in our cabin, a luxury not many have.
