Page 65 of Fated Wolf's Redemption

There’s blood on my hands. His blood. It coats my fingers as I clean the slash with water from my canteen, and the contact—skin to skin—sends something crackling under my skin. Not magic. Not stormlight. Just… him. The feel of him. Solid. Present. Mine.

I feel him watching me.

“You’re shaking,” he says.

I glance up. “Adrenaline.”

His gaze drops to my mouth. “That’s not all.”

I sit back on my heels. “Lucas…”

“No,” he says, catching my wrist before I can stand. His grip is firm. Not rough. Just final. “Don’t run from this.”

“I’m not running.”

“You’re backing away,” he says with a half-smile. “Same thing.”

The look in his eyes is darker than anything I’ve seen from him. Not angry. Not demanding. Just… burning. Considering everything we haven’t said… with everything we just foughtthrough… with the storm still boiling under our skin, we’re both too close to the edge.

The others are occupied—Max is muttering glyphs, Kylie is stitching herself up, and Oscar is sitting near the far wall with a blade across his knees, eyes closed. This space is small, but for a moment, it feels like it’s only ours.

“I need to touch you,” he says quietly. “Now.”

I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I just look at him, and whatever he sees in my eyes makes him stand. He pulls me into a tiny alcove, barely big enough for both of us. He backs me into the wall, step by step, his body crowding into mine. My back hits the cold stone, and I gasp, but he’s already there, bracing one arm beside my head.

“You saved me,” he says, voice pitched low enough that only I can hear. “Again. You looked into the gate and didn’t break. You saw Lina and came back. You fought beside me like you were born for this.”

I swallow hard. “I was born for this.”

His mouth brushes my jaw. “Then let me remind you who you belong to.”

My breath stutters, but I don’t push him away. I press into him. I grab his shirt and drag him down into me, and when his mouth crashes over mine, it isn’t sweet. It’s furious. It’s need sharpened by blood and battle. He kisses me like he wants to consume me whole—and maybe he does.

I part my lips. He takes it as permission.

His hands skim under my sweater, fingers pressing into my hips, my ribs, the small of my back. When he pulls my sweater over my head, he doesn’t bother being careful. I’m panting by the time his mouth finds the hollow of my throat, and when he sucks hard enough to bruise, I hear myself moan.

“You feel that?” he mutters. “That’s mine.”

I know what he wants. I’m lost to keeping a distance between us. Instead, I give in to the reckless nature of wanting him and knowing destiny fated us to be one. “Then take it.”

He pins me with his body, hand on my throat—not squeezing, just holding. Controlling. Every instinct I’ve buried claws to the surface, and I arch into him, biting his jaw, his shoulder, anything I can reach. I want marks. I want reminders. I want war on my skin and him in my blood.

His mouth returns to my throat. Lower. Then lower still.

He drops to his knees, shoving my pants down as his hands trail fire along my thighs. His mouth finds the heat between them, and I nearly cry out. One hand against the wall, one in his hair. I try to stay quiet. Try to stay in control.

Fail.

Lucas moves down my body, nudging my legs apart. When his mouth finds me, his lips press to my labia, and then he gives my clit a quick lick that has me gasping. I'm already wet, my body more than ready for him. I know he can smell it—my arousal thick in the air—and the way he groans tells me it's driving him wild. Then he's eating me like he’s a starving man and I’m his last meal. His tongue plunges into me again and again, tasting everything I give. I can feel how much he wants me in every greedy stroke of his tongue.

He doesn’t stop until my whole body is shaking, my legs barely holding me up.

Then he rises with a predatory grace, lifting me effortlessly. He slams me back into the wall, a growl rumbling low in his throat, resonating like a dark promise and a whispered threat. His hands grip my thighs and spread them wide, his touch demanding and possessive. He takes me—deep and slow, each movement deliberate and consuming, filling me until thought is a distant echo, movement an impossibility, until I am nothing but his and his alone.

I coil around him, clinging as if he is the only solid anchor in a world swirling with chaos. "Say it," he growls, each word punctuated by the rhythmic force of his body driving into mine. "Say you’re mine."

"I’m yours," I whisper, my voice a breathless confession as my nails rake across his back, leaving trails of heat and desire. "I’ve always been yours."

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