Carnage Island (Reject Island)(26)

Part of me knows it’s what I needed.

Part of me understands that he had to do this to break Alpha Canton’s hold.

But that part of me is no match for the living wrath building inside me. The need to lash out. To make him kneel. To make him bleed.

I lunge at him, my hands resembling fingers and nails instead of paws and claws. But it doesn’t matter.

I slam my palm against his face, my other going to his chest to scratch jagged grooves down that flawless skin.

He doesn’t fight me.

He doesn’t even retaliate.

He lets me slap him again.

Lets me drag my nails down his pec a second time.

And doesn’t budge when I try to shove him.

His eyes are no longer icy, they’re full of heat, the blue orbs resembling a deep ocean of need that makes my knees weak.

I suddenly want to attack him for a whole new reason.

He’s almost a foot taller than me and solid muscle. All pure Alpha male. It calls to a foreign part of me that has only awakened in the last few days. A part of me that inherently trusts this male and considers him hers.

I don’t understand it.

Fated mates don’t exist for my kind. It’s why we have arranged matings.

Yet I feel an undeniable pull toward him. One I’m helpless to ignore.

He growls, this time the sound more sensual than aggressive. It causes my stomach to clench, my thighs slickening with need.

This is so much more intense than the arousal I felt in the field with Canton.

This is visceral. All-consuming. Carnal.

His palm wraps around the back of my neck, pulling me to him. There are no words. Just savage heat.

He’s bleeding because of me.

And I like it.

I want to lick the marks, to stake my claim.

So I do.

It’s natural. It’s necessary. It’s glorious.

He growls again as I lap at the wound on his pec, his grip tightening around my nape. I have no idea what I’m doing or why I’m doing it, but I’m following the urges of my inner animal, allowing us to function as one.

She wants him.

Therefore, I want him.

No, it’s more than that. I need him. There’s an ache inside me that only he can soothe. I feel it now, throbbing between my legs and demanding I take this Alpha and make him mine.

He’s a perfect specimen. The right kind of male. The one I should have met all along.

My spirit guides me in this discovery, forcing me not to think about anything other than this beautiful male and the power emanating around him.

Except we’re not alone.

I can feel their eyes on us, their hunger a palpable wave that brands my skin and makes me that much hotter.

They’re not marked.

They’re not bleeding.

I want to claw at them, too. Sink my nails into their flesh and tear, then drink from their wounds.

What is wrong with me? I marvel, my mind clouding with foreign urges and intense feelings.

I feel reborn. Like a brand new shifter. Like I’m finally the wolf I was always meant to be.

It’s freeing and suffocating at the same time.

Lively and deafening.

Overwhelming and right.

A finger trails down my spine, the touch molten against my skin. Lips caress my shoulder, Caius’s warm breath against my ear as he says, “You’re stunning, Clove.”

The praise goes right to my heart, causing it to skip another beat.

I can barely breathe.

And yet, when I inhale, it’s a cloud of musk and male. Peppermint. Pine trees. And coppery ash.

My thighs clenches. Those scents are undoing me, making me want to kneel for reasons I can only begin to understand.

This is what my claiming should have felt like.

The day I embraced my mate.

Not all the pain and death.

But this beautiful heat filled with renewed life and meaning.

I lean forward to lick Tieran’s chest again. He rumbles in response, the sound part growl, part purr. I sigh, utterly captivated by that vibration. I want to melt into him. Do whatever he needs so long as he quells this storm brewing inside me.

His hand remains on my nape, holding me close to him.

He’s aroused.

I feel the brand of his heat against my lower belly through his jeans. It takes restraint not to remove them. Somehow I know that’s the wrong thing to do.

He’s in charge now.

Hell, he’s always been in charge.

And while part of me wants to defy that, to challenge him, another part of me longs to bathe in that superiority and allow him to be my guide.

It’s a conundrum I don’t understand.

A mixture of fates that don’t blend well with each other.

How can I want to submit and challenge him in the same thought?

Volt’s mouth meets my opposite shoulder, his identity easily known because of his scent. He’s the source of copper and ash.

Death, I think. He reminds me of death.

But addictive and right.

Caius is the spicy one, the refreshing mint I crave to taste on my tongue.

And Tieran is the source of masculinity and grace, the one filling my lungs with a pine-like scent. He’s the master of the forest. The pack Alpha. The leader who demands my submission, yet craves my fire.

It’s all incredibly intoxicating, this knowledge and power and intimate union.