pick would be someone I found myself attracted to, not just my instincts drawn to him. But everything about him repulses me. He is meant to be our savior, my beacon in this dark world, but now I fear I’ve walked into the demon’s den.
“I can taste your slick on the back of my throat. You have no idea how insane you make me.” He releases me, and I drop back onto the bed, my breath jammed in my throat. I clamp my legs shut and pull at the fabric to cover my exposed breast. This isn’t how I pictured this. Not like this.
Martell pulls his shirt up and over his head before tossing it behind him, revealing a hairy body covered in cuts and bruises. The bulge in his pants makes me dizzy.
I shudder. “Please, can we take this slower?”
His laughter is like claws dragging down my back.
“Strip,” he demands, his voice holding no tenderness.
I curl my knees up to my chest and hug them harder while scanning for the nearest window, which I find at the back of the room. It looks big enough for me to climb through, if I’m fast enough. Except, then what?
This is for my future and my sisters’ safety, but I don’t know if I can go through with it. Sobs catch in my throat as I stare wildly at this monster. My arms shake as I hug my bent knees, fear spreading quickly.
He kneels on the bed, the whole side of the mattress indenting from his sheer mass, and he snatches my ankle. He drags me closer, my dress riding all the way up to my waist. I whimper, wriggling to scramble out of his reach. He breathes heavily like a wild boar, his gaze falling to my underwear. He hastily slides a hand up between my legs.
Fire floods my skin from that single touch. My insides are at war between panic telling me to run for my life, and my wolf whimpering for him. Primal instinct claims me, and all I can think is how he’ll rut me, bite me, hit me, hurt me. I hate my body and wolf for wanting this.
“Please, no.” I push him away, but in response, the bastard backhands me across the face.
The strike has me flinging back down on the bed, and I clutch the side of my face, tasting blood. My face burns like someone’s pressed fire to my skin, and tears spring to my eyes.
This isn’t how it should be with a soulmate. Mother and Father never fought. Never.
Martell’s hand once again shoves up my legs, rougher this time, before I can clench them shut. He fists my underwear and rips them off me. I scream in response at his aggression and scramble to get away from him.
Rage jolts through me. With it comes sparks of power racing down my arms, lifting the hairs on my nape. Power rushes through me so fast I don’t react in time.
Yellow threads of my magic suddenly snap over my fingers and strike outward, biting his hand like vipers.
He shouts from the shock and jerks backward, wrenching his hand back so fast it startles me. He stares at the dark burn marks crawling up his hand, the color from his face draining.
“Goddess, no!” I cry out, frozen in the bed, staring at his hand, at his panic-stricken face.
He’s going to report me. He’s going kill me.
Wolves don’t possess magic.
Cursed are feared and loathed and butchered.
“What the fuck are you?” He scrambles to his feet, unable to get away from me quick enough.
I wrench my gaze to the dark stains on his hands as he tries to rub them clean, the pain clear on his face. I’ve just burned him, and those marks will never come off. Shit! “It’s nothing. Please, let’s try again. I’ll cooperate.”
He stares at me with an empty gaze, like he no longer sees me as his soulmate, but as a stranger. “I asked you a question,” he barks, squaring his shoulders, his good hand curling into a fist.
I don’t have a clue why I have messed-up magic. I hurry off the bed on the other side, putting something between Martell and me. My hands tremble as I tug the torn fabric of my sleeve back up my arm.
“I’m a wolf. Your soulmate,” I answer, unsure of what else to say. My parents always told me to hide this part of myself, to not tell anyone, but with time, it feels as though the