Page 72 of Below the Shadow of the City

“You gave up all too easily,” he snarls into my ear, it trickles down my spine and settles in my core. My heart is still pounding, I’m shaking from the cold, but the heat of his body is quickly putting that to rest.

“I can only outrun a predator for so long,” I pant. He grips tighter and kisses up and down my neck. Every time his lips meet my skin or a fang brushes against a goosebump my legs tremble. The deep rumbling in his chest grows louder the more kisses he gives. He’s devouring me. He works his way across my body, hot ragged breaths spread across my clavicle and down my sternum.

“Off,” he moans.

“What?” My heart rate is through the roof.

“Your bra,” he says brusquely. “I need you to take it off.” My trembling fingers clumsily unclasp the hooks in back and it drops unceremoniously to the ground. He grabs my hips and spins me until I’m facing the wall and he’s behind me.

“So…perfect,” he says with a pained whimper. The way it slips out of him sounds like it’s from a much lesser creature, as if I was captured in a forest by him and he had only learned English from hunters passing through. My body beside his brings out the animal in him, and it’s intoxicating. I squirm a bit underneath him pinning me against the wall.

“We don’t have time for me to knot you, even though I really, really want to,” he grumbles. “But I will be fucking you.”

He spreads my legs apart with a forceful swift motion I haven’t seen from him before.

Growls escape his mouth uncontrollably as he pulls his claw along in a line across my thigh. “In fact, he continues. “I’m going to fuck you just like my ancestors did, quick, and rough, and let my inner animal take over. You have to tell me that’s what you want, Sigrid”

Oh. Oh my god. I didn’t think that I’d want to be ravished by the beast like this. Holy shit, though, him saying it has swiftly changed my mind.

“Maddox,” I exhale, my voice is weaker than I’d expected, “yes. Fuck yes.”

“If you change your mind, you need to tell me, and I’ll stop immediately,” he says sternly. In a motion I can’t quite perceive, he shifts. Physically, nothing changes. Nothing major, at least. I notice his brows lower, his eyes grow dark, and his body feels like it becomes more imposing despite his height not changing. I know sweet, silly, dorky Maddox is still there, lingering below. But whoever this is, is really, really fucking hot.

He doesn’t speak. It’s only grunts, and growls, and needy moans that come out of him. Typically I love him talking to me, I love his voice punctuating his thrusts and telling me what I do to him as he fucks me. I don’t have words coming from him now yet I still know exactly how mad I drive him.

Maddox’s cock slides into me in a coarse motion that could best be described as him rutting me. I’m completely aroused, despite the sharpness of the entrance he slides in smoothly as I intake a short breath. He moves fast, and his balls slap against my skin as he thrusts.

His mouth encases my shoulder, and sudden, sharp pain explodes in me. His teeth don’t completely break the skin, but the idea of him marking me in such a manner is so fucking erotic.

I cry out for him, keeping myself from speaking any real words as well. Normally he’s so tender and gentle with me. His claws now dig deep into my shoulders and the idea of him creating indents in my skin is absolutely sending me over the edge. He pulls out, growls, and he thrusts again. He repeats this until he finishes inside me with an aggressive roar.

I come immediately after he does in a ragged, shaking, sobbing, manner. I’m far more spent than he’d made me before and I wonder if this creature was always lurking within him. I love how regular Maddox makes me feel. I just certainly wouldn’t mind if this monster came out every so often. And from the lazy satisfied smile he’s giving me, I sense he feels similarly.

“Do you know where we are?” I laugh as I push myself off of the cinderblock wall, our coordinated breathing slowing steadily. He eases back up and looks at our surroundings. We’re at the dead end of a long, dimly lit corridor. Not necessarily the most romantic of settings.

“Why, does it scare you being trapped here with me?” He snarls and drags a claw along the scratches he made and the pink throbbing bite marks.

I sputter a laugh and punch at his chest, “of course not, I just don’t know if my legs will stop feeling like they’re made of jelly to walk all that way.”

“Oh, well, I can fix that.” He sweeps his arm behind my knees and picks me up in a smooth motion. He carries me as we pick up our discarded clothes, and all the way back to the elevator.

CHAPTER 29

NOVEMBER 30

Thanksgiving came and went.

While the city is already gearing up for another jam-packed season of holiday tourists gawking at the tree in Rockefeller Center and gazing at decorated store windows, my quiet corner of Brooklyn has chaos of its own entirely unrelated to the upcoming holidays.

I’d spent Thanksgiving Day with Matthias, Declan, and Margo. My dad is still not back to his full health and my parents wanted a quiet day for just the two of them. I could hardly fault them for it, I envied that they didn’t have to clean or prep or cook. While I did love them, holidays with them always felt stagnant and sad, even. I would never tell them, but a day spent drunk in Margo’s living room while she shouted orders at Declan was practically idyllic. Save for the lack of one particular body in the mix of the people closest to me.

While watching a replay of the parade, I imagined a massive frame hulking in Margo’s kitchen. I know him well enough by now that he’d insist on helping, and Margo likely wouldn’t refuse. He’s impossible to resist with his cheeky grin, and maybe the pinky-length fangs also inadvertently help him be a tad more persuasive.

Instead, Maddox spent the holiday at his father’s lake house with his sister and extended family. We’d discussed my attendance, but between logistics and him unsure of how his family would react to a human at their family gathering, we decided to have a slower introduction.

In every previous relationship I’d avoided meeting family until I was positive without a shadow of a doubt that we’d be long term. When I think of Maddox, I have a deep sense of longing to be a part of his life. I actually want to be a woven into all of the chaos and camaraderie. And, curiously, I want to see this large gathering of monsters in a fancy lake house.

I’ve talked more with Inez a few times over video and twice in person when she’s come by Maddox’s apartment. She has a regal look about her that intimidated me the first time we met, but was immediately broken when she saw me in person again. She practically squealed with delight at the very sight of me in her brother’s kitchen. Her protective nature was shattered once she’d realized he and I were the real thing. Already she’s gotten my number, my Instagram, and coaxed out my life story. She’s as bold and effervescent as Maddox, and when she asked me to grab lunch, I didn’t run from the opportunity.