Layla
He didn't carry her back from the ruins.
He half dragged, half carried her.
One arm clamped tight around her waist in a vise, her feet barely skimming the forest floor as he prowled through the trees—a beast of barely leashed rage and potent male hunger.
The ruins had fallen away behind them, now swallowed by mist and silence, replaced by the deep quiet of the woods.
She struggled against him; furious and humiliated by the primal terror that had made her run, half-wild still from the way he had claimed her, still strung out from the adrenaline zinging through her.
But he only growled low in his chest, the rumbled sound vibrating through her, jerked her closer, until her spine arched pliantly against his chest.
"You would run from me?" His voice was a rasp of broken velvet at her ear, raw with a heated vulnerability she couldn't understand. "After what I gave you? After what you are to me now?"
She twisted in his arms, striking him, scratching, biting—anything, anything to break the terrifying, overwhelming force of him, the inescapable reality of his claim.
But he just chuffed, sounding more animal than man. Caught her wrist mid-air with effortless speed, laughing low and dangerous, the sound absorbing in the quiet woods, and turned sharply off the barely-there trail.
The world blurred. The trees closed in around them.
Stone gave way to a cavern of black roots and cool, damp earth, hidden from the sky—a den carved deep into the very bone of the land itself.
His lair. A place of wildness.The moment they crossed the threshold, he slammed her against the rough earthen wall, caging her there with the inescapable weight of his body.
Breathless. Helpless.
Mine. The silent command echoed in the small, dark space, undeniable.
He said nothing at first—only stared down at her, chest heaving, golden eyes flickering dangerously in the dimness, reflecting the beast's hunger.
There was blood on his jaw from the fight, already dried to a dark stain. Blood that was not his. Blood from those that had tried to take her from him.
"You don't even know," he said, voice shaking with something deeper than anger, something scathing.
"What you are to me. What you have become."
He ripped the cloak from around her shoulders, the dress followed soon after, torn away like paper under his clawed hands, as if they were an affront to his sensibilities.
She hissed, pushing against his chest, raw defiance the only thing she had left.
He smiled—sharp teeth flashing in the dimness—and bit down on the curve of a shoulder, a deliberate marking bite, not gentle this time, adding a brand to match the other one. The moan she let out couldn't be suppressed.
The heat between them ignited like dry tinder, instantaneous and consuming.
Belstram's hands roamed without restraint, rough and demanding, bruising paths down parted thighs, up ribs, branding every inch of her that hadn't already been marked as his own.
She tried to curse him. To scream and rage her defiance.
Only a broken moan escaped, ripped from her by the heat, desire and undeniable need that rose.
"Good," he growled, one hand fisting in her hair to force her head back, exposing the slender line of her throat, lapping at the blood with a wet tongue that felt both soft and rough.
"Fight me, little queen. Show me you are not easy prey. Show me."
She bared teeth at him in answer, introducing a slender leg to his balls. Hard, with what little strength remained.
He only laughed—a wicked, bloodthirsty sound—and pinned her harder to the wall, dragging her hips flush against his, letting her feel the hard, desperate demand of his body, the wild hunger that was consuming him.
His mouth crashed down over hers, bruising, punishing, overwhelming—swallowing all her fury, all her fear, until she was drowning in him, in the taste of amber and musk, in the taste of blood that still lingered, in the sheer, brutal need of him.
He turned her roughly, pressing palms flat against the warm stone wall, parting her legs apart, leaving her exposed, vulnerable, and all his.
He didn't ask. He didn't hesitate.
He took.
A sound ripped from his throat—half-snarl, half-moan, full of raw, visceral and desperate need—as he thrust into her from behind, hard enough to rattle her bones against the stone wall.
She cried out, head snapping back, but there was no air left to breathe. No world outside this small, dark den.
Only him.
Only Belstram. Claiming her piece by brutal piece.
The rhythm he set was fast, brutal, relentless—a claim not of tenderness or shared vulnerability, but of raging possession, of absolute dominion.
His hands—no, his claws, rough and demanding—gripped her hips, not breaking skin, anchoring her, guiding, forcing her to meet every punishing thrust, every brutal slide of skin against skin that echoed like a drumbeat in the tight, earthen space.
A vow hammering into flesh.
Mine.
He bent low, lips brushing the shell of her ear as he rutted into her, claws moving to cup her boobs, breath ragged against skin.
"They came for you," he snarled, voice raw with heat and need.
"But they only found a queen. A queen claimed in blood, teeth and flesh."
She whimpered in answer, the sound breaking apart as pleasure built and broke inside her, fierce and wild and uncontrollable, echoing the breaking of her will.
Belstram thrust deeper, teeth scraping her nape, licking the skin there.
And then—with a final, guttural roar that shook the very foundations of the den—
He nipped her with teeth. Not to draw blood this time.
Her knees buckled beneath her, he was there catching her, holding her up suspended as he pulsed inside her, branding every piece of her that hadn't already been claimed, hadn't already surrendered.
Then he finally cum, it was a snarling bellow of triumph she unconsciously echoed. When he stilled, forehead pressed to her back, breath sawing rough against her skin, there was nothing left between them but the frantic sound of their heartbeats beating in tandem.
One body joined as one.
A soul marked by the Wolf King.