Page 53 of Reign of the Beast

In all the pleasurable chaos, my wolf teeth dropped, and I found myself leaning into her.

Her eyes shot wide as she saw what I was on the razor’s edge of doing.

She shook her head.

She wasn’t ready.

She wouldn’t accept my claim.

Her refusal was like the jarring impact of a sudden ice-cold shower.

But it was exactly what I needed to get a hold of myself and hold back.

I shot myself across the other side of the room with a burst of wolf-speed, slamming my back hard into the drywall in my panic to get away from the temptation of it all. Just like the first day we’d met back on Silverwood Wolf Pack lands.

“It’s okay,” I heard her sweet voice reassuring me. “I know you’re struggling to control the wolf. A lot has beenhappening, putting your emotions out of whack, and this… thing between us is intense.”

She held her hands out to me, wanting me to come back to her.

I hesitated.

She smiled and came to me and threw her arms around me, holding me tight to her.

“The intensity of the pull between us has eased,” she spoke softly against my chest.

I encircled her in my arms. “For a while, yeah. Sex will take the edge off for a bit, but it’s going to keep coming back around, until we do the claim and complete the mating bond.”

She murmured her understanding, then sank against me.

And, fuck, having her against me like this, taking her how I’d needed to for so long… now I knew what it was like, the idea of sharing her with the others seemed worse than ever.

I got that it was necessary for the Covenant and that whole greater good bullshit, but it burned deep down just thinking about doing it, letting them in like that, allowing them to take my mate.

She was mine.

The wolf knew it.

The fates knew it.

How the hell was I going to stand for all this sharing?

It was against my nature in every fucking way.

11

~Mia~

I was in hysterics.

Laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe, I noticed Jaxon grinning from ear-to-ear, highly amused by my laughing fit over a hilarious coming-of-age story he’d told me about his younger days as a wolf pup when he’d been figuring things out and understanding his nature and power.

It felt so good to laugh like that. It had been far too long since I actually had. My life was all seriousness, stiffness and duty.

But right now I was relishing the sensation of being light and carefree. It was only a brief window through all the darkness and brutality, but I was going to take it and cherish the limited time we actually had to be this way.

I was on a date with Jaxon.

After what had happened between us in the kitchen, we’d established a connection. It had kind of just snapped into place. It felt amazing and invigorating. I needed more, needed so much more of him. So, wewere spending some quality time together, having a picnic out on the safehouse grounds.

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