Page 62 of The Forbidden Alpha

He’d used her love for me as a weapon—to take what wasn’t his. A low, vibrating thrum started in my chest—a sound that tore the humanity from my soul and replaced it with a beast. In this moment, logic died. The man died with it. The thin veil of Ethan—the civilized King who negotiated and waited—shredded, fed to the furnace of Erebus’s hunger. He receded. I didn’t want to comfort her; I needed to consume her. I wanted to peel the flesh he’d touched from her body, and replace it with mine—the monster who’d come to claim her soul. She reached for my hand, the touch electric.

“He touched you.”

Claim, mate, claim, the voices screeched.

“Ethan, please,” she sobbed, trying to pull the ruined sheets over her body.

“We know,” we rasped, our hands curling into claws that tore deep furrows into the bedpost. Our spine revolted, a sickening sequence of cracks that sounded like wood splintering. Brown fur erupted through our skin, a violent birth, as human skin stretched to its breaking point. The shirt gave way with a pathetic rip, baring shoulders that had doubled in breadth. Below, the transformation was just as ruthless—a thick, heavy dark weapon of instinct, thick with blood pumping toward our groin. We weren’t human anymore; we were the beast she’d summoned, two-legged god of fur, muscle, and rage.

Adea’s breath hitched, a scream dying in her throat as she watched the man she loved come apart. As she witnessed the birth of something long thought extinct. Her eyes, wide and fear-struck, tracked the ripples of brown fur and the predatory elongation of our jaw. She didn’t recoil; her entire body shuddered, her spine curling into the mattress as our overwhelming power pressed the air from her lungs.

“Wh-what are you?” she rasped, her head tilted back to look at me. Her hands clawed at the bed sheets before they found the coarse, thick fur of our hand. She didn’t pull away, her pupils blown wide with a terror that was slowly drowned by fascination.

Her voice was small against the growing roar within us, only feeding the beast. We wanted him dead—needed to erase every trace of his touch from her skin. Every mark was a blasphemy against our throne, a thief clawing after the treasure of her skin, a body that was forged for us alone.

The voices weren’t yelling anymore; they were chanting. An ancient command, RECLAIM. PURGE THE STENCH. STAMP YOUR NAME IN HER BLOOD.

We stared down at her, our muzzle inches from her throat, watching the pulse jump in her neck. The man was gone. There was only the hunger.

WASH HIM AWAY. MARK HER. MINE.

We moved over her, our massive weight pinning her into the mattress. The man we’d held onto vanished the moment we saw the fresh marks on her body. She’d been the only one who could quell the voices, but now, they rose up, louder than her pleas. We grabbed the sheets, tearing them from her body in one violent motion. We needed to see every inch of skin he’d dared to touch. We wouldn’t stop until we covered them with our own.

Her body had been desecrated. His hands had left his purple signatures. The caramel cream of her skin was marred by the rot of his scent, her breasts covered in his vile, stolen kisses, her thighs slick with his seed. The last of our humanity screamed in agony at the sight before it was drowned in the black tide of Erebus.

“Ethan?” she gasped, her hands coming up to our chest, fingers curling into fur. She wasn’t pushing us away. “Are you in there?”

We positioned ourselves between her legs, our cock heavy, knot throbbing.

“We are Erebus,” we growled as we entered her in one brutal, merciless thrust. Her channel was tight, a desperate plea for the weight of us to wash him away. Wetness oozed from her and we snarled against her neck, canines piercing flesh as we reclaimed what was ours. Adea let out a blood-curdling scream, her back arching off the bed as our powerful thighs drove us home. We didn’t slow; we were mad, driven by the image of him inside her, his lips on what was ours. We slammed into her again and again, her body spasming around us in a frantic, steady pulse of surrender, the heat of her climax radiating down our cock to our knot was electric.

We wouldn’t stop until we’d pumped her full of our seed and removed every trace of him.

Our claws sank into flesh, leaving marks that would overwrite his forever. We released her neck, and bit again, and again—on her shoulder, her breast. We didn’t want to kiss her, we wanted to mark her as ours, brand ourselves on every inch of her flesh. Her hands came up, cupping our maw as we held back from licking her—refusing to let it heal.

Straightening to our knees, we lifted her, her fingers curling into our fur as we bottomed out. We hit the mouth of her womb—the final sanctuary. Adea let out a choked, breathless sob as we stretched her to her limit, our knot beginning to crown against her bruised core. Her head fell forward against our chest, her tears soaking in our fur. She was a tight, bruising pressure that told both our bodies there was nowhere left for us to go. We had occupied every inch of her, claimed all we could.

But it still wasn’t enough.

We drove into her as she held on for dear life, tethering us through the storm of our rage. We held her to our chest as we sat back against the bedframe, our claws hooking into the mattress for leverage. We used her for our pleasure, moving her atop us before dropping her down. Again and again, she took every inch. Our knot pulsed, a gorged weight that demanded entry into our mate. She cried out, our name bouncing off the walls as we forced our knot in.

Her fingers slid down our chest and biceps, trembling as they tangled in our fur, but we would never drop her. She was our world, the start and end of all things. The only light in this tunnel of rage—our salvation.

“Ours,” we growled, into her ear, teeth grazing the lobe. “Every orgasm, every breath, every inch of you belongs to us.”

“Yours, yours, yours,” she moaned, her voice a broken vow as she milked our cock, her internal walls squeezing our knot in a desperate plea.

We lifted our hips again, driving deeper this time, chasing something the first release hadn’t touched. Adea whimpered as our knot swelled a second time, thicker than before. This was worse—better. A relentless pressure that left no room in her to hold anything but us. We pushed, a slow, unforgiving movement that forced her to take it. A low guttural sound tore from our throat—the deepest satisfaction at being buried this far inside her. Her walls squeezing tightly even as the head of our knot finally breached her cervix, Adea’s entire body went rigid. Her eyes rolled back, her fingers digging into the fur of our forearms as we seated the bulb of our cock where it belonged.

The squelch of her pussy swallowing us whole was perfect. The lock was absolute. The penthouse, the betrayal, the world outside—it all ceased to exist. There was only the searing, wet heat of the tie.

The knot was already a gorged, throbbing weight, but it swelled further. She whimpered at the expansion that forced her to claim every bit of the monster. We withdrew within her, before bottoming out again, grounding us together as the first wave of release tore from our lungs. We filled her until she was overflowing, erasing him with our touch; drowning out the rot.

Her body shuddered against us, but as we continued pulsing inside her, it still wasn’t enough. Reclaiming her didn’t break the fever. It fanned the flames.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered. She nuzzled her cheek against us. Our grip tightened as her words caused our heart to ache. Her hands slid down our arms, holding onto us with desperation.

As the knot slowly receded, we didn’t pull away. Every time our eyes swept over her skin, we saw what we’d missed, what still needed to be covered.