My mistake had been denying this part of myself, and it had left me vulnerable.
Never again.
Without waiting a moment longer, I pressed her forward, lowering us both to the bed so her face was pressed to the mattress, wrists trapped behind her back. She let out a breathy sound, and her scent spiked.
I stayed close behind, propping myself up with one elbow as I adjusted her hips, then tugged my length free. Using my shins to keep her legs pinned, I pushed lace aside.
I drove into her from behind, and she let out the sweetest whine of shock. I almost groaned as she squeezed around me, her tight little cunt stretched to take me in.
The bond was still locked down from my end; I couldn’t risk any feeling she had undoing me, but I thought about it for a moment.
I wanted to feel her break in submission, but I might risk losing control.
I withdrew, re-grounding myself, focusing on the way she was shivering in my grip, arms bound, crushed against me as I used her.
I drove back in, ecstasy soaring through my veins as I found a rhythm, my free hand drifting back to her breasts, teasing her body as I claimed it.
Her struggles became fiercer, another muffled whine sounding.
“I don’t want to hear a word from you, Omega,” I breathed in her ear, taking my time, pumping into her for a few more strokes, before I let her go and drew out.
I flipped her on her back, pleased to be met by a shocked expression as she caught her breath. I took the blade I’d found in the kitchen from the bedside drawer and tossed it beside her. Her eyes darted to it nervously. I was resentful that I was forced to resort to weapons. I despised them, but the knife wasn’t really for me. It was to keep her on edge, or to cow either of the others if they chose to show their faces.
They would, if her side of the bond opened—so weak Rogue was at the faintest hint of her fear. As if she couldn’t handle me.
If they came in, and I was her, I would be insulted.
I stared down at her for longer than I planned to, fist gripping my rigid cock as I drank in the sight of her bound body. Destiny or not, I wondered if, should I have wound up here a different way, it would have been possible not to be mesmerised by the sight of Thistle Maverick. She was a siren. A perfect collision of nerves and god-given beauty.
Her violet eyes were wide, darting between the knife and me. Her chest heaved, goosebumps rippling her skin, one small breast peeking from the bralette I’d all but destroyed.
She’d freed me, in a way. I wasn’t chained to the pretense that she meant nothing. This connection, as despised as it was, was natural.
I took a breath, caught in the tempest of a raging storm as I curled my fists around her thighs, dragging her to the edge of the bed and lowering myself back over her, palm splayed beside her hair. I pressed my tip to her entrance and watched as her back arched slightly, her body going still.
I wanted her watching me as I claimed her. I wanted her to see this muzzle had no stake in her leverage.
But instead, those bright violet eyes ripped me into an unwelcome memory.
I should be dead, but a fresh lightning storm choked me instead.
Agony shook me from flesh to marrow. It rippled from behind—from a rut in chains. Now my life was in her hands.
Teeth dug in.
The mark of my mate.
Her knife at my flesh.
I should be dead, but instead of a reaper, I was offered a claim.
A claim amidst agony.
She let out a whine as I drove my length into her brutally.
“You think you won, Omega?” I asked. “That you get to decide on a pack withoutmysay? That what’s mine is yours to choose?”
I slammed into her core again, and she let out another whimper.