24
LYSSA
I'm waiting by the cave entrance when Thorrin emerges from the forest, and immediately I know something is wrong. He moves differently—not with his usual careful grace, but with predatory flow that reminds me of Kaerith and Elira.
Blood stains his claws. Not his own.
"Thorrin?" I rise from where I've been sitting, but he doesn't meet my eyes. Just stares past me into the cave with expression I can't read—hunger mixed with something that might be self-loathing.
He brushes past me without speaking, his massive frame radiating tension like coiled spring about to snap.
"Where did you go?" I follow him deeper into the cave, heart clenching at his silence. "Thorrin, what happened with Kaerith?"
Nothing. He strips off his bloodstained shirt with mechanical precision, movements sharp and efficient in ways that make my stomach turn. There's lake water in his hair, mud on his boots, and the smell of death clinging to his skin.
"Talk to me." I reach for his arm, but he flinches away from my touch. "Please, you're scaring me."
His amber heart-light flickers erratically—not the steady glow I'm used to, but chaotic pulses that speak of internal war between what he was and what he's becoming.
"Thorrin—"
"Don't." The word comes out harsh, desperate. "Don't ask me anything right now."
He turns suddenly, and the look in his eyes stops my breath. Raw hunger mixed with desperation—not just physical need but emotional starvation for something that isn't blood or death or whatever lesson Kaerith taught him tonight.
"I need you," he says, voice dropping to something barely human. "Right now."
There's no explanation, no confession, no gentle seduction. Just desperate demand from creature who's discovered something about himself that he can't voice but needs to drown in contact with something pure.
He reaches for me with hands still stained with innocent blood, and I understand without words what tonight cost him. What boundary he crossed. What piece of himself died beside whatever lake or forest clearing Kaerith chose for his demonstration.
"I need to touch you," he whispers against my throat. "You need to remember what I am."
His mouth crashes into mine, brutal and starving. Teeth split my lower lip; copper floods both our tongues. He growls into the kiss, a sound that isn’t pleasure, isn’t love; it’s ownership. Proof. A creature trying to claw something back from the edge he just stared over.
I should be afraid.
I’m not.
I bite him back hard enough to make him bleed.
That breaks the last thread.
He spins me, shoves me chest-first into the wall. My palms slap stone for balance. One clawed hand fists in my hair, yanks my head back until my throat is bared. The other tears my smallclothes away like they offend him. I hear the wet sound of him freeing himself; then the blunt, scalding head of his cock is dragging through my folds, not asking, just taking inventory.
I’m already soaked. I hate that I am. I love that I am.
He doesn’t ease in. He drives forward in one merciless thrust that punches the air from my lungs and lifts me onto my toes. The stretch burns; I’m too tight, he’s too big, and he doesn’t care. He pulls back and slams home again, deeper, harder, until his hips bruise my ass and the head of him kisses my cervix like punishment.
“Mine,” he snarls against my ear, voice shredded. “Still fucking mine.”
Every thrust is a claim. Every thrust is an apology he can’t say out loud.
He sets a brutal rhythm, hips snapping with centuries of restrained violence finally let off the leash. The cave echoes with wet slaps, my broken moans, his guttural growls. My tits scrape stone with every stroke; the pain is bright, perfect, grounding. His claws rake down my sides, leaving raised welts that sting and throb. I welcome every mark. I want to wear the proof that I can take whatever monster he’s becoming.
He yanks my hips higher, changes the angle, and suddenly he’s battering that spot inside that turns my legs to water. My knees buckle; only his grip and the wall keep me upright. I come with a raw scream that scrapes my throat, cunt clamping down on him so hard he curses in old Waira.
He doesn’t slow.
