between my thighs. In an instant, we were back there in the heat and the lust…and the hunt. My fingers trembled as I peeled the jacket from my body. “It’s freezing in here.”
“By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be on fire.”
The jacket hit the floor with a thud. The pullover was next, my hands shaking so bad I could barely get it over my head. Cool air invaded, sliding through the arms of the cotton t-shirt before I lowered my arms and dropped the garment.
“Pants,” Phantom urged. “I’m tired of waiting.”
He never touched me, never grazed my skin with the backs of those bloodied knuckles or those sinful lips. Just stood behind me barking orders like I was his to command. I closed my eyes as a wave of heat slammed into me.
You are, Phantom growled inside my head. And don’t you ever forget it.
I clenched my jaw as that battleground raged inside me, that darkness…and the Unseelie desire. Both felt the same…but were very, very different. A seething undercurrent raged through me, a dangerous slippery slope into the bowels of destruction. Still it touched me, stroked me, played with me. You need this…
My lips curled, as my teeth bared. Socks were next as we glared at each other. I lifted my foot and yanked, sending the garments flying behind me. I saw myself in his gaze, fierce and savage, as I shoved the sweat pants to the floor and stepped out of them.
“Are you finished?” One brow rose as he growled.
“I’m naked, aren’t I?” I tried to keep that sharpened edge from my tone.
Those blazing amber eyes sank lower, like he didn’t hear the change in me at all. My body betrayed me, puckering and trembling, desperate for more than a glance. I clenched my fists as that ache spilled through my chest, burning like a goddamn scald.
Fuck him, that animal urged. Ride him. Corrupt him. Claim him. CLAIM THEM ALL.
I flinched, and my heart slammed against my ribs as he lifted his hand and cupped the back of my neck. His nostrils flared. A warning growl followed, grating like gravel on my skin before the rumble in his chest quieted. He lifted his gaze to look somewhere behind me and kept that focus, dragging me closer by the strength of his hand.
Claim them…like a beast born to be marked.
His lips claimed mine in a savage crush. I whimpered as my body yielded in an instant, and my hands lifted to the corded muscles of his arms, touching, tasting. That ravenous hunger burning in my chest took hold. He didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t realize this was something other than me.
“No,” I whispered to that power watching, as Phantom froze.
“No?” the Alpha growled, his dark eyes glinting with a flicker of cruelty. “Are we back there so soon, Carina? Your pretty little mortal conscience putting up one last fight?”
But it wasn’t the fight he assumed.
No, this was a battle of beasts.
Unseelie beasts inside me.
I stared into his gaze as that animal inside me shifted under my skin. His hand slipped from the back of my neck, then both hands grabbed me around the waist and lifted.
There were no words between us. Nothing that couldn’t be said by his hand against my ass as he moved me to the bed. Timber groaned with our weight, the soft fur tickling my back as I sank into the thick pile.
He rose above me, his dark eyes glittering in the light, his waist trapped by the strength of my legs as he stretched my arms above my head, pulling my body taut. A wicked sound rumbled in my chest, venomous and cruel. I was animal in that moment. Wicked and vile, debased and inhuman.
I flinched with that consuming feeling, and for a moment…I was blinded by clarity.
Fight, part of me urged. Fight this…thing.
But there was another part of me that didn’t want to. And it was that part which rose like the dark of night. Unfathomable. Undeniable. Inhuman.
Movement came from the shadows in the room. I felt him more than saw him. “Church?” I turned my head. Phantom gently gripped my chin and turned my focus back to him. Fear and excitement raced through my body as the Alpha lowered his head, taking my nipple into his mouth.
The stench of blood lingered on his fingers, mingling with the heady smell of the rain that beat down outside. I closed my eyes with the sensation of his lips as he