Claimed By The Wolf (Werewolf Fever #2)

by Juno Blake

  He hesitated.

  “Will you give me more?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “More?” Lucy was still panting from the rush of her orgasm, and the electric sparks that arced from Ciaran’s teeth on her neck. “What—what else is there?”

  “Everything.”

  Ciaran’s fangs grazed her neck again, pressing harder against her skin.

  Everything? Lucy didn’t pull away, but she licked her suddenly dry lips. “I—haven’t I already given you everything? My body? My… my life?”

  Ciaran chuckled. The vibrations made his teeth prick her skin. “You’ve been very generous, sweetheart.”

  The touch of his breath on her neck gave her goosebumps.

  “Then what—”

  “One last gift. One final surrender.”

  “Wait,” Lucy gasped. She tried to sit up, to pull away, but Ciaran was too strong.

  “Don’t be so dramatic. I already told you I wouldn’t kill you.”

  “You told me you wanted to hear me scream,” Lucy retorted.

  Ciaran raised his head so she could see his toothy smile. “I do, precious one. And I will. Your scream in my ears, your blood in my mouth… I can’t think of anything better.” His expression grew dark. “Your pain will not be for nothing, sweetheart. With my mark on you, no other werewolf will be able to touch you. You will be safe. Protected. What happened last night—it would never happen again. Whether I was by your side or not.”

  He bore down on her again, his breath hot on her neck, the needle-sharp points of his fangs barely touching her. Teasing her.

  There was a strange warmth in his voice as he continued: “The bite marks you as part of my pack. It conveys a protection so strong, any werewolf who tried to harm you would be torn to pieces by the moon’s power.”

  Lucy’s skin prickled. So this is what it comes down to. Your choice. Pledge yourself to the werewolf who claimed you, who tore your life away from you… or leave yourself vulnerable to any other wolf whose path you stumble into.

  Lucy thought back to Delauncey and the other two werewolves who had attacked her. “Do it.”

  Ciaran’s eyes glittered. “You sound very sure.”

  “I am sure.” Lucy gritted her teeth. Ciaran’s proximity, his body pressing against hers… it was having an effect. Her blood was heating up again, her skin tingling. The frustration almost made her snarl. “Better you than those monsters from last night.”

  Ciaran snorted, biting off the noise before it could become a laugh. “How romantic.”

  “Is anything romantic about this? For anyone?” Lucy couldn’t keep a burr of anger out of her voice. Ciaran lifted his head, staring at her with his golden eyes narrowed. She couldn’t read the expression on his face.

  “For some people,” he said at last. “But not, perhaps, for us.”

  Lucy’s heart clenched at his words, even though she knew they were true. Nothing about this was romantic. Everything she had done, everything she was doing, was driven by need, fierce and sharp. There was no warmth. No gentleness. Only the hungry need of her body.

  And the terrified need of her mind, for anything that could keep her safe from people like Delauncey. Something close to panic gripped her.

  “Do it now,” she urged Ciaran. “Please.”

  Ciaran lowered his head to her throat. Lucy’s whole body tensed as the waited for the pain. She felt his breath again, the scrape of his teeth—

  And nothing else.

  Ciaran groaned, dropping his head on the pillow beside hers. Lucy twisted, and got a glimpse of his face, twisted with agony.

  “No,” Ciaran whispered. His voice trembled, and beside Lucy, his hands twitched spasmodically in the sheets. “No. I can’t do it. Even this one thing…”

  His weight lifted from Lucy’s body. She thought at first he was getting up, but then she realized he wasn’t pulling away from her. His body was changing. His overwhelming, over-sized wolf-man form stretched and cracked as his bones re-set themselves.

  Lucy watched, amazed. Ciaran’s neck-muscles stood out as he transformed, and his jaw set, as though it hurt but he didn’t want her to see how it affected him. The wiry black hair that covered his body disappeared, revealing smooth, tanned skin over knotted muscles.

  Watching him transform, only inches away from her own bare skin, was strangely intimate.

  Some part of her knew that objectively, the process was horrific, a painful-looking rearrangement of bone and sinew. But Lucy wasn’t horrified or disgusted. Her heart twisted at the sight of Ciaran gritting his teeth, brow furrowed, as his human form took over.

  “Even this,” he growled, his human voice as gravelly as his wolf-man form’s. “After everything, I cannot even offer you…”

  He stopped and raised his eyes to meet her wondering gaze.

  There was no sharp, predatory glint of superiority in his eyes. He looked subdued. Wary. Almost… defeated.

  “Ciaran,” Lucy began, her voice uncertain. “What’s wrong?”

  The predatory Ciaran had frustrated her, terrified her—but seeing him like this put a cold knot in her stomach.

  “I can’t do it.” Ciaran’s voice was a harsh whisper. His eyes were wide, and deep, endless black. “I can’t protect you.”

  Lucy felt her neck. Her skin was tender where Ciaran’s fangs had scraped it—but he hadn’t drawn blood. He hadn’t even broken through the top layer of skin.

  Her pulse throbbed under her fingertips. “Why not? What’s wrong?”

  Ciaran’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I am.”

  He turned away. “I’m sorry, Lucy. You deserve better. Better than a cursed half-wolf. With my mark on you, you would be safe. Without it…”

  He didn’t need to say more. They both remembered Delauncey’s casual entitlement to her body the night before.

  “Without the mark to protect you… Humans, werewolves—our worlds are both dangerous, and most lethal where they overlap. And I will not be able to protect you.”

  Ciaran went entirely still. When he looked back into Lucy’s eyes, he was still human, but there was something entirely animal in his eyes.

  “A pity you already made your choice.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The door clicked shut behind Ciaran, taking Lucy’s breath with it.

  For a moment, there was the noise of his footsteps in the corridor beyond, and then a silence that seemed to wrap around Lucy like chains.

  She fell back like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  A pity you already made your choice.

  But it hadn’t been a choice. Not really. The only choice she had made was to seek shelter from a storm in that silver-walled castle, all those years ago—and then, she hadn’t known what her choice would lead to. She had been innocent. Naïve.

  Foolish.

  And what are you now? Still that stupid, naïve girl, running headlong into trouble wherever you go?

  Lucy wrapped her arms around her knees. No. Those thoughts—they stung, but not because they were accurate.

  Maybe they had been once. But not anymore.

  Lucy’s stomach churned. She was sick of lying to herself. It wasn’t going to help, not now.

  She’d only made once choice? What a joke. Every action she had taken since the castle had been a choice. Right down to taking the job at the Blackpaw Pack event.

  Lucy groaned and closed her eyes. Who had she been trying to fool? The fire that filled her veins… it made her reckless, but not stupid. Some part of her had wanted to lose control again.

  To have control taken away from her.

  Not like Delauncey had done. Never like that. But Ciaran, with his burning, gleeful delight in her body—in her…

  She could admit it now. That was what she had wanted. Him.

  And now she was his.

  Tears pricked at Lucy’s eyes. She still wanted Ciaran. She wanted him more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life, and by now she wasn’t sure whether it was he
r heart or her body talking. The longer they were apart, the more she ached for him.

  But she was frightened. The way he looked at her made her heart quail at the same time it made her most private parts thrill with anticipation. He wanted to hurt her. And Lucy… Lucy didn’t know whether she wanted to be hurt, or not.

  She just knew it didn’t matter.

  She was a werewolf’s mate, and her life was no longer her own.

  Lucy waited for the tears to come. She had cried enough, these last few months. Tears of frustration, tears of fear and terror, tears of confusion. But now, even though her eyes stung, she didn’t cry.

  Lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, Lucy felt every ache in her body. The needle-point punctures at her waist where Ciaran’s claws had dug in. The scrapes on her neck, where the skin was hot and her pulse beat so dangerously close to the surface. And the deep, satisfied ache inside her.

  She was sick of lying to herself. Maybe she was sick of running, too.

  Lucy stood up before her nerve failed her. She found her clothes where Ciaran told her they would be, neatly folded in the chest. Pulling them on felt strange. Like she was putting on someone else’s clothing. Pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  Heart thudding in her chest, she poked her head out the door into the corridor. It was decorated in the same luxuriously simple style as the bedroom. There was no sign of Ciaran.

  It was hard not to compare what she was doing now to her exploration of the castle all those weeks ago. The castle had been dark and forbidding, but this apartment was nearly as mysterious.

  Like most people, Lucy had grown up thinking of werewolves as creatures of the night and the wilderness. The castle had fitted perfectly into those preconceptions.

  But the more she found out about werewolves, the more she realized how little she had known of their reality, especially in this part of the world. The stronger packs all owned lots of land in the countryside, but of course werewolves would own property in cities, as well. She’d never thought about it before, but it made sense—why would people stay inside at full moon in the cities, if werewolves only lived in the wilderness?

  They were human, and animal. Country and city. And Ciaran’s apartment was a strangely intimate insight into his human side.

  It was unexpectedly light and airy, wide windows letting in the morning sun. Lucy froze once as a pedestrian outside looked straight up at the window she was staring out of, but the businessman’s eyes passed straight over Lucy as though she wasn’t there.

  That made her pay more attention. She looked closer at the windows. The glass was tough, at least an inch thick. Reinforced? she thought. And one-way, maybe, if that guy outside couldn’t see me in here. Mr. Mallory values his privacy.

  She thought again about how thick the glass was. This place looks open, but it feels like a fortress.

  The apartment was the penthouse suite, with views on all sides. At last she found Ciaran, in the dining room.

  A frisson of déjà vu shivered down her spine. She’d found Ciaran like this before, at the castle. And what had happened over that meal had changed her life forever.

  This morning, though, there was no carefully prepared meal laid out on the table. He was sitting with his head in his hands.

  Ciaran had dressed while Lucy explored, in a dark suit that fitted him like a glove. His wild curls were smoothed back. Lucy could almost feel the sense of control he was trying to exert with his appearance—but what was he trying to control? The way the world saw him—or the way he saw himself?

  He stilled under her gaze, and she knew he sensed her presence. But she kept quiet.

  Lucy could see tension build in his shoulders as the silence drew out longer. Finally, he raised his head from his hands and met her eyes.

  Lucy clenched her fists. She’d made up her mind—but she still had questions.

  “What were you doing at the Blackpaw pack-meet, last night?” she said eventually.

  Ciaran lowered his eyes. She could feel his gaze burning on her collarbone.

  “Trying to get you out of my head,” he said huskily. “I thought…” He stopped.

  “Tell me,” Lucy urged him.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Ciaran turned doubting eyes on Lucy, and indignation rose hot in her heart.

  “Talk to me, Ciaran Mallory. We’ve done far too little talking, and far too much of… of everything else, in comparison. So tell me. Why were you at the pack-meet?”

  He gave in. Lucy waited while he sat up straighter, eyebrows furrowed. She watched his expression darken—and then saw the change in his features as he gave in.

  Ciaran groaned. “I was trying to get you out of my head,” he admitted, his voice rough. “I thought… No. I should explain from the beginning.”

  He took a deep breath. Lucy leaned against the doorframe. Ciaran was staring straight ahead, his black eyes boring into thin air. His face was stern; or was it stiff with anxiety?

  “You know already that I am unable to fully transform. To the werewolf community, this makes me… dangerous. An unknown. My full-moon form is stronger than a human, and larger—all the power of the wolf, but none of the simplicity.” He paused. “In some ways, this has been a blessing. My un-mated brethren are a danger to humans and others of our kind during the full moon. If I am a danger, it is of my own will, not that of the beast. But, never being able to take wolf form, I have never felt… whole.”

  Lucy longed to reach out and take his hand, offer some support; but she didn’t want to interrupt him. This was what she had wanted for so long: answers. Some way to make sense of the madness she’d lived through.

  The muscles in Ciaran’s neck tightened. “Not being able to satiate my animal side in wolf form, I feared that it would break through during my partial transformation, or even during the waning or waxing moon. I did not wish for harm to come to an innocent as a result of my—of my disability. Or so I thought, until I met you.”

  His dark eyes flashed, and Lucy trembled despite herself.

  “I know you must want your freedom, Lucy Abbotsford. Even with the fire of the mate bond running through you, you must fear the cage door closing.” He tipped his head back, regarding her through narrowed eyes. Waiting.

  “You’re right,” Lucy said softly. “It is terrifying. But there’s nothing I can do except give in to it.”

  Disappointment shadowed Ciaran’s eyes. He hid it well, drowning it in a sneer, but not fast enough for it to escape Lucy’s notice. Her heart fluttered.

  “I learnt my lesson at the castle, after all,” she continued. “I wouldn’t want you to treat me like that again. Now that I know I belong to you, I’ll be sure to behave myself.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Ciaran replied, his voice flat. He stared past her, at the wall. “The world you are entering will require quick thinking, if you are to survive it.”

  “I know.” Lucy watched him for another moment, and then:

  “Goodbye,” she whispered. She could hardly hear her own words over the deafening thud of her heartbeat.

  Ciaran’s eyes whipped up to meet hers. “What did you say?”

  “You heard me.” Lucy stuck out her chin, hands on her hips. “I’m leaving.”

  Ciaran narrowed his eyes. “You will do no such thing.”

  “Then stop me,” Lucy shot back, and ran.

  She hadn’t been able to find any shoes, and her bare feet slapped against the floorboards as she sprinted back down the corridor. There was a crash behind her as Ciaran flung his chair back.

  Lucy hadn’t wasted the minutes she spent exploring the apartment. She knew the layout of the rooms. The corridor made a dog-leg turn before the front door.

  She barely made it to the first corner before Ciaran caught up with her.

  He grabbed her by the arms and flung her against the wall. Lucy gasped, winded, her eyes wide with panic as Ciaran pinned her by the shoulders. Fire raced through her veins.

  “What do you thi
nk you’re doing?” Ciaran snarled.

  Lucy grinned back fiercely. “What you told me to do. Run.”

  Understanding sparked in Ciaran’s eyes. “That was a long time ago, Lucy.”

  “Have you really changed that much since then?” Lucy demanded.

  “You are my mate,” he growled. “You are meant to submit to me, and I am meant to cherish you. That is the way things are meant to be, for werewolves.

  “And what about for us?” Lucy challenged him. “You told me today that you wanted to hurt me. You told me back then that it’s no fun if I don’t fight back. What is the truth?”

  She waited until he opened his mouth and then hooked her leg around his and kicked the back of his knee. He stumbled, and she thrust herself sideways.

  With inhuman speed Ciaran recovered and slammed her back into the wall. His eyes flared gold. “This isn’t right.”

  “Says who?”

  Ciaran lifted one hand, stroking her collarbone, the smooth skin of her neck. His fingers paused over her pulse.

  “So says every rule of werewolf protocol. The fever is so hard on the women we choose, we must treat them well afterwards. A lifetime of care in exchange for the endless weeks of hardship.”

  “So treat me well,” Lucy hissed. “Make me happy. Make me scream. If you can’t give me your mark, then at least give me that.”

  Ciaran’s fingers closed around her throat. “Think about what you are saying, Lucy.”

  “I am. I have.” Lucy stretched her neck out. “And this is what I want. I can’t deny it anymore.”

  She whimpered as his grip on her throat tightened. He was pressed up against her, pinning her to the wall, and she felt him harden, his cock growing thick and hard against her stomach. Ciaran groaned deep in his throat.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Ciaran lifted his hand, forcing Lucy onto her tip-toes. She gasped and swallowed, her throat moving against his firm grip.

  His other hand moved quickly. Lucy heard him undoing his belt and pants, and then he moved onto her clothes. She was wearing tight jeans, the better to show off her ass as she ran. Ciaran yanked them down along with her panties. They stuck partway down her thighs and he grunted with frustration.