I wanted him.
I needed him.
Now!
A savage growl echoed in his throat. The wolves surrounding us answered back, a symphony of snarls and yips.
Goosebumps prickled me, activating my lust a thousandfold. My thirst for him was maddening, terrifying. “Sully.”
Holding me in his massive paws, cords of power etching his reptilian skin, his features remained vicious but a soft glow appeared in the snake-slit eyes. “I found you.”
My stomach clenched as he brought my hand to his icy lips.
“I love you, Eleanor. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry for what you’ve endured. But this is the last time you’ll ever be hurt this way. I give you my word.”
His voice wasn’t just a voice. It wasn’t a bear’s growl or wolf’s howl, it was a blend of all of them. A thick thunder of gravel and hurricanes.
Another orgasm threatened to split me in two.
I was turned on by his sheer potency. The fact that he could kill me with a single misplaced touch. He was so dangerous in this new form. It made every feminine, female part of me spread her legs and beg.
I wanted to be ridden and claimed.
I wanted him to take me for his own, and if he killed me while doing so, I would gladly give him my life forever.
“Sully...” More tears fell. “Thank God, you survived.”
“I did.”
“You came after me.”
“I’ll always come after you.” He nuzzled my nose with his. “You’re mine and I’m yours and I have so much to atone for.”
My heart smashed against my ribs, triple beating, failing. “I need you.”
He pulled away, his slitted eyes flashing with regret. “I can’t fuck you, Eleanor. Not like last time.” His voice rumbled, stroking me with fiery licks.
His denial hurt me worse than anything. “Please...it hurts. My heart...I need. Please, don’t refuse me.”
“I can’t feel you almost die in my arms again.” His talon-tipped thumb stroked my knuckles, his massive paw skating higher up my arm. “I can’t be the reason you suffer.”
My limb looked like a twig in his grasp. A silly little twig that he could snap at any moment. I gasped as my heart fisted and suffocated, making me breathless. “But I won’t be able to—”
“I’ll help you, Jinx...” With his strange eyes locked on mine, he hurt me. “I’m sorry.” His claw punctured my skin, driving the sharp tip into my vein, poisoning me with whatever venom he carried. “I love you, Eleanor. Please...please forgive me.”
“Forgive you...?” My eyelashes fluttered.
My heart heaved a final lurch.
Tiredness.
Heaviness.
Nothingness.
Chapter Eight
I MIGHT WEAR THE FLESH of a beast, but my heart was still that of a man. A heart that stuttered and howled as Eleanor turned limp and lifeless in my hold.
She hadn’t been able to see the syringe. The illusion keeping her firmly in the spell of my new conjuring. I hadn’t been able to see the injection either, but I could feel it in my unsensored hands. I uncapped the needle and punctured her arm, plunging the sedative into her veins.
In the fantasy, my claw was what pierced her.
Her shock at my causing her yet more pain made my stomach seize. Her rapid unconsciousness did its best to cleave me out of Tritec’s icy control.
I’d taken a gamble.
I’d used a sedative that I’d thought would be used for my failing heart and shielded hers instead. Sleep was the only gift I could give her.
It has to work...please.
She turned into a ragdoll.
No longer haunted by elixir. No longer at my brother’s mercy or mine.
She’s free.
It was the only solution I could think of to protect her.
Take her mind out of the fantasy and that solved one deadly consequence. Put her to sleep, and elixir could no longer play havoc with her heart.
But my theory hadn’t been tested...
Yet again, I’d put her in grave danger just like I had since we’d first met.
I’m so sorry, Eleanor...for everything.
Cradling her gently, I placed her on the forest floor. Her gorgeous hair swept over her face as she sprawled at my feet. Her lips parted, her features utterly serene, her eyelashes thick stencils on her cheeks.
Was her mind free?
Was her heart calm?
Had I saved her or killed her?
I wanted to stand vigil. I needed to ensure I’d done the right thing by knocking her out. But I didn’t have the luxury to stand guard.
I’d entered this hallucination for two reasons.
One, to save Eleanor from being raped by my sibling.
And two...to kill that sibling motherfucking dead.
Sweeping her hair away from her face with savage gleaming claws, I stood. The bat wings spread from my spine, heavy and pulling on muscles already fatigued. The sensation of being ten feet tall and controlling a frankensteined creation of reptile, carnivore, and chimera made my body throb within its new skin.
My eyes remained on Eleanor, flinching as she suddenly disappeared.
Her mental awareness of the fantasy completely shut off in sleep, extracting her from all the lies I’d coded. She was gone simply because her mind was no longer reachable.
I stared at the empty dirt, missing her. I would give fucking anything to be beside her in the lounge of my parents’ estate. To collect her from the floor and carry her to a soft bed. To lie down beside her and keep her safe.
But...for now, I was locked in this mirage until it ended.
Time to play.
Balling my fists, feeling the sharpness of my talons embedding into my palms, I cricked my neck and turned away from Eleanor and love, and focused on my brother and hate.
He stood on the opposite side of the fire, his face illuminated by flickering flames, darkness thick behind him, a ring of wolves penning him in a trap made of teeth.
So that was why he hadn’t approached me. Why he hadn’t been a nuisance after I’d thrown him off Eleanor.
He can’t move.
My lips spread over fangs as
