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None of that knowledge meant a fucking thing.

I didn't even get the chance to pump. The exact second my cock seated fully inside her, my body exploded. It was the deepest, longest, most earth-shattering climax of my life.

White-hot pleasure erupted from the base of my spine. It ripped through every nerve ending in my body, burning out my thoughts and leaving me senseless. The sheer intensity of it made my vision go black. I doubted anything in my life would ever top it.

For those few endless seconds, there was no room left in my head for anything. No pack. No enemies. No responsibility.

Twenty-five years I'd been alive. I'd broken bones. Spilled blood. Taken lives. I'd thought I understood exactly what a body was capable of. I hadn't known mine could feel like this.

I came back to consciousness in slow, disorienting stages. First came the feeling of my softening cock still buried inside her. The ache in my empty balls. The heavy rise and fall of my heaving chest. The sound of my own ragged, desperate breathing filling the dark room.

And then I felt the shuddering.

No—not shuddering. Shaking.

Beneath my massive frame, Rosalind was trembling violently. Muffled sobs vibrated through her chest, breaking the silence of the room.

She was crying.

I made my wife cry.

I lifted my head, my heart taking a sickening nosedive into my stomach. "Rosalind?"

Her pink sunglasses were askew. Her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Her head was turned sharply to the side, her jaw clenched, tears streaming silently down her golden brown cheeks.

And then the smell hit me.

Copper. Fresh, metallic blood.

My eyes snapped down to the space between our bodies in the pale moonlight. Dark, slick blood was smearing across my white sheets, pooling beneath her hips where my massive cock had just ripped through her innocence. My wife had been bleeding while I was nutting inside her.

I was a fucking brute. A mindless, out-of-control monster. Just like everyone thought. Just like my brothers warned me I’d be. I had spent the whole night worrying about breaking her, and then the first chance I got, I let my wolf take over and impaled her like an animal.

"Fuck... fuck, Rosalind," I choked out, horror clawing at my throat. "I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry."

She didn't respond. She just kept her eyes closed as she tried to slow her breathing, her small body trembling beneath mine.

I scrambled off her, my knees sliding on the bed as I pulled out of her wet heat. I reached up with frantic fingers and grabbed the hem of my shirt. In one fluid motion, I yanked it over my head, ripping the fabric in my desperation. I folded the cotton and tried to press it gently between her legs to stop the bleeding.

"Stop," she gasped out, her legs jerking closed as she flinched away from my touch as if I had burned her.

The rejection hit me so hard that I couldn't breathe. My hands hovering in the air, covered in her blood, my own sweat, and my jizz.

Her black-tinted sunglasses had fallen off during the struggle, lying somewhere on the mattress. Her eyes remained closed tight, her long lashes wet with tears, her lips pressed into a thin, agonizing line.

"Rosalind, please tell me what you need. Tell me what I can do."

"I'm fine," she gritted out, her voice thick, raw, and completely flat. "It's done. I'm going to sleep now."

Before I could say another word, she rolled over onto her side. Her knees were pulled tight against her chest, arms wrapped around them as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her hair was tangled around her face. The ridiculous pink dress she'd worn all night was bunched around her thighs, the frills crushed and wrinkled.

There was blood on it. Her blood. Because of me. She looked like a broken doll.

I knew the way a body folded around an injury instinctively, protecting its softest parts. The trembling that came after a shock. The shallow breaths. The tears the body produced, whether the person crying wanted them or not.

I'd seen men curl up exactly like this at my feet. I'd never thought I'd see my wife doing it.

I had promised her. Standing in that church, I'd looked down at this small, fragile woman and promised I would take care of her. That no one would hurt her. That no hand would ever touch her with violence while she belonged to me.