Layla
The ruins loomed like broken effigies against the storm laden sky; the ancient remains of a forgotten civilization, still steeped in power.
She stumbled back a step, heart hammering against ribs as Belstram's body began to tear itself apart before her eyes.
The shift was violent, brutal, the popping, snapping crackle of bone reshaping, the tearing of tendons and muscles, flesh ripping to accommodate claws, snout,fangs and tail. Soft dark fur covering his skin and two elongated wolf ears, strained proudly where his ears used to be
A monstrous wolfman rose where he had stood moments before, impossibly tall and savage, and his jutting member was already spilling seed, all corded muscle and hunger given form.
The air still crackled with the raw power of the transformation. This was no man, it was the animal in control.
Oh shit, he is a wolfman she thought and turned to run—instinct taking over her reflexes, the primal command of flight or fight overriding everything else, he caught her on her third step, he was that fast.
A rough growl tore from his throat, a sound that vibrated in the air as he pinned her to the wall of the ruin. Her cloak fell away, sliced neatly off.
"What the fuck…" She yelped, thrashing against him, teeth bared, a wild, half-feral thing herself, meeting his savagery with her own desperate fear and fire. She slapped him on his snout, glaring madly. She would not yield. Not without a fight. She would treat him like the bad doggy he was.
He snarled in approval—gods, he liked it, the terrible, glorious bastard— shoved her down onto her hands and knees in one move, dragging the shredded remnants of her dress from her body with a single ruthless tug, leaving her bare ass to the biting air.
The air hit her skin, sharp and cold. Pebbling her nipples instantly. His massive clawed hands were there instantly, blisteringly hot where they touched her, trembling with a restraint she knew with certainty he wouldn't be able to keep for long.
His massive wolfman body was shaking, his body radiating heat and barely contained power. One hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back so he could breathe against her ear, his voice a low, guttural growl that rumbled deep in his chest, promising both pleasure and pain:
"You fight like a queen, little one. You'll take me like one too." He said, long wolfy tongue licking a flaming path from ear to neck, she shivered in heat, bucking against him, trying to throw him off, to break free—and he laughed, dark and low, a triumphant sound.
He ground against her bare backside, letting her feel the hard, insistent demand of his body, letting her know there was no escape.
"No running now," he rasped, the sound ragged with need. "No hiding from this, From who you are."
His other hand splayed beneath her stomach, claws digging in, dragging her up so her back arched against him—fully exposed, vulnerable, fully his. She bit back a cry of desire, surprised by its nature.
Not fear.
Need.
He pressed his muzzle to her throat, breathing her in, tasting her desire and her unexpected heat. His chest vibrated against her back with a deep, rattling sound somewhere between a deep purr of satisfaction and a low snarl of hunger.
And then—
He bit.
Sharp teeth pierced the tender place where her neck met her shoulder—not deep enough to maim her, not deep enough to truly break the skin, but deep enough to mark—deep enough to claim. Deep enough to draw blood and pain, and an orgasm that ripped through her core, suffusing her whole body.
She screamed, the sound torn from her throat, a raw cry that was half pain, half blinding, shattering ecstasy, as her body convulsed under his.
The scent of blood and want filled the air, thick and intoxicating, mingling with the ancient power of the ruins and the raw scent of him, sweet amber and animal musk.
Belstram growled against her skin, a wild and lost sound, and rutted into her in one hard, punishing thrust, breaching her body.
Only need. Only hunger. Only them. Only the wild, untamed feeling of what they were together.
She fought him, still bucking, gasping his name, fighting the surrender that threatened to consume her—but it only seemed to drive him higher, rougher, faster, pushing them both towards the edge of a cliff she hadn't known existed.
His claws raked her hips, anchoring her as he pounded into her ruthlessly, the air sizzling with their cries, bodies against the stone, the savage heat of him inside her, claiming every inch, the wild music of their snarling, panting, gasping cries echoing into the cold, indifferent heavens above the ruins.
When she broke—when the pleasure finally shattered her into a million glittering pieces—it was not with a whimper of surrender.
It was with a scream that tore itself raw from her throat, wild and triumphant, meeting his own.
His howl answered, fierce and unrelenting, a sound of victory, of possession, of a dark, shared promise that shook the ruined temple stones beneath them.
Now his wolf counterpart had claimed her. Body, blood, and soul. He had marked her as his own. And God help her, in that moment, raw and bleeding and wild—she had claimed him too. She had marked him just as deeply.
The world spun in molten waves around her, a dizzying blur of stone and shadow and the raw, visceral scent of them.
Stone against her knees. Blood—her blood—drying where his teeth had claimed her. The thick, hot ache of him still inside her, pulsating with the last rough spasms of his release, his cock still anchored.
She sagged forward, utterly exhausted, body trembling, her palms scraped from the rough stones.
But before she could collapse, massive hands caught her—gentler now, trembling with the violence he had barely leashed, with the sheer force of the release he had undergone.
He gathered closer against him, lifting her as though she weighed nothing, gathering her into the solid, scalding heat of his body.
His great form curled around hers, a primal shield against the cold night, against the indifferent stare of the broken stars carved into the sky, against anything that would dare look at her wrong, that would dare look at his newly claimed mate.
His breath rasped harsh against her temple, still ragged, still more beast than man, still trembling from the immense, terrifying force of what he'd done—what they had released.
She felt the wet heat of his tongue then, slow, deliberate strokes as he licked the bleeding wound at her throat. It was an action meant to heal, an ancient instinct overriding the recent brutality.
A claim turned into care.
A low, rumbling sound vibrated through his chest against her ear, deeper than any human voice, a soothing, territorial noise that resonated with the raw power of the ancient place, with the wildness of the creature who held her.
She realized, dazed and aching, that he was… crooning to her. A broken, rumbling, primal lullaby, sung in the language of wolves and ancient earth.
As if she were something impossibly precious he didn't know how to hold without breaking. As if he hated himself for needing her this much—for being utterly unable to stop himself from taking, from claiming.
Slowly, his monstrous form began to recede, the unnatural tension easing. She felt the shift through bone and muscle, twisting back into the shape of a man.
Still enormous. Still majestic in his raw power and scarred beauty.
But his face—Belstram's face—was stripped bare, raw and exposed in a way that stole her breath all over again.
Wild black hair fell around a face etched with exhaustion and something profound. Gold eyes, molten moments before with savage satisfaction, now shone with something rawer than lust.
Something closer to fear. Fear for what he had done, for what he had unleashed. For what she was to him now.
"Did I hurt you?" he rasped, his voice cracked and guttural, ripped raw from the howls he'd torn from his own throat.
She could not speak. Her throat was torn from screaming back at him. She shook her head weakly against his chest.
His arms tightened around her until her bones creaked, a fierce, desperate hold that dared the world to try and pry me away.
"I would tear my own heart out if I thought I had," he whispered, fierce and broken and furious with himself, the words seared into her brain, her bones, the very soul he had just claimed.
He pulled back just enough then, holding her eyes captive with the intensity of his gaze, studying her face in the dim light, searching, demanding to find some answer there.
His thumb brushed the corner of her trembling lips with devastating uncertainty, as if he didn't know whether to kiss her or apologize with his body again, with the language of touch he seemed to know best.
"I want you to know it was I," he breathed, his voice rough, filled with the weight of something inevitable, "who could never choose otherwise. From the moment I saw you, Layla. It was already done."
His forehead dropped to hers then, the curve of his brow resting against hers, a connection that felt both intimate and terrifying. And she watched with amazement as a twining tattoo of intricate looped rune figures imprinted on her arm then flowed to his shoulder imprinting there too. It was beautiful, even though she couldn't read it.
They stayed like that, panting, wrecked, tangled together in the aftermath, while the broken stars carved into the fabric of the sky watched from their silent thrones, witnessing his claim, her breaking.
And she knew then. Whatever this was between them she was on her way with a one way ticket headed straight into it.
Whether she liked it or not. Every protesting inch of her and even though she was marked and bound and aching with the truth of it, she would still fight it. Still fight him.
This was just the beginning of a different kind of war.