Don’t you, little one? You know what I am to you?
She is hunger.
Heat.
She is?—
With brutal certainty, I share the words with her.
Mo anam. Mo cara.
My soul. My mate.
Mo thúis ocus mo dered
My beginning and my end.
“Until we are nothing, no more, and God has no further need of us. Even in that end, and in whatever form I take, I will remember you.”
Anam-cheangailte
Soul bound.
The rightness of it vibrates through my bones, ancient and undeniable, as though the world itself exhales in agreement. This is fate, and in it, she is my divine right.
“Which makes you my Mo Ómega. And I your?—”
She lunges.
Instinct takes over.
I catch her midair by the waist and throat as she slams into me with bone-jarring force. We crash into the wall hard enough to rattle the room. Her strength shocks even me. She fights like something born of fury and wrath—claws raking. They sink in deep. Her own elongated teeth snap inches from my throat.
I spin, driving her back, caging her against a bookshelf. Wood creaks and then gives way as books cascade down around us. I pin her there, body pressed tight, letting the Alpha rise further, answering her violence with my own—measured, controlled, just enough to make her still.
“Challenge me again and you’ll regret?—”
She snarls in defiance, lifting a clawed hand.
I catch it and slam it back against the wood, caging her fully now. For a single heartbeat, she stills, surrenders.
I lean in to fill my lungs with her. She is everything wild between shorelines. Nature and its seasons wrapped into one being. All she is and has ever been carries a spark inside her and has helped to become an entity unlike any other.
And she is mine.
Fated so by destiny.
My nose brushes along her neck. She violently shivers. I do it again. It’s a mere ghostly touch, yet it draws a great gasp from her parted lips.
Near her ear, I murmur, voice low and deadly soft. “You are mine, little wolf goddess. Mine to fight beside. Mine to challenge. Mine to stand with when the world ends. There is no longer a need to face your days of hunger alone. Those sins you dream of… they will be mine as well. Shared?—”
As a vicious snarl rips from her, she shoves me with impossible force, sending me flying back into a nearby dresser. Wood splinters as it collapses beneath my weight.
Orán is moving instantly.
He reaches for her, and she whirls, striking blindly. Her claws rake across his chest, four deep slashes opening at once, blood blooming vivid and fast. He stumbles back but remains upright, hands flying to his chest, coming away slick with blood.
He lowers them slowly. Golden light ignites around his fingers. They curl, and suddenly, vines tear up through the floorboards, splintering wood. The window shatters. Branches tunnel in. Vines and branches begin to sneak toward her.
