Wolf's Bane (Monstrous Hearts #2)

Chapter Eleven

"Won't happen." The rough edge in his voice turned soothing as he settled his weight against her, the pressure easy, calming.

Still, her body shivered against his as another laugh left her, this one short and bitter. "Once upon a time, her attention felt like being blessed by a higher being. The idea of being needed by her—forever—didn't scare me like it should have. I was that deluded. And she was that good with words."

Her cheeks burned over admitting such stupidity, especially when she could feel the bruises pulling at the flesh of her neck with every word.

Then Colton cupped her face, coaxing her to look at him. "Hard to understand what forever means until you get a taste of it. What was yours?"

It was so rare to hear a question from him that at first she only blinked, mind blank for a few breaths. Then the answer came to her. "The first time she slept with someone else. We'd gone to a party thrown by... I can't remember. Either her agent or her editor. Magdalene was drunk, and she found a fan of The Chrysalis and went home with her before we'd even hit the second hour of being there. I had to stand there and pretend nothing had happened. That it was normal. And then the next morning, when she came back to our apartment, I looked at her face and knew it really would become normal. She'd crossed a line, and I hadn't left, and so she'd keep crossing it. We both knew it."

Then Alice swallowed hard, realizing her voice had started to tremble. Not from grief, no—from sheer fury. At Magdalene, at herself, at the sad, twisted thing that had become their relationship. The rage seemed to sink down to her bones as she looked up at Colton, again, their noses brushing. "I can't go back to that. I can't go back to her."

"You won't," he said, his voice savage and sure.

Then he kissed her, slow and intent, as if he liked the taste of her rage as much as everything else about her. In contrast, her mouth was desperate against his, her limbs tight and twining while every inch of her body declared the words that she still couldn't say. I want to live.

As his attention shifted, the rasp of his beard teasing a path down the hollow of her throat, she arched, already feeling his cock grow heavy and hard against her. But she was still angry at herself, and at his first thrust, her fingernails ripped at her thighs instead of the sheets. He growled at that, a brusque warning reverberating from his chest to hers, rumbling against the sensitive skin just over her heart. But she didn't stop, long-repressed feelings now seething to the surface as if her earlier words had smashed the cage that had kept them still and quiet. Her nails bit into her flesh again, and within another breath she found her arms pinned above her head.

She met Colton's glare without flinching, met his lingering growl with a snarl in her own voice. "I was so stupid. How could I have fallen for her? Stayed with her? There were so many times I could have left or made a different choice. I could have avoided all of this."

"Anyone can say that about themselves. I could've gone down a different path and died like any other man." Colton's hands remained unyielding against her arms, but he leaned in until their mouths brushed. "We are what we are, Alice. You're vulnerable, caring. The wrong person noticed. That's all."

She released a shaky breath, feeling her fingers relax from where they had curled into her palms. "And what are you?"

Something softer than anger glittered in those feral eyes as he began to move against her again, hips grinding against hers in a slow, hard rhythm. "Uncontrollable. Hungry. A hunter who made the wrong people realize they were easy game."

The words left her clenching against him, and he gave her that short, quiet growl that was the closest he ever came to catching his breath. His next words came out rougher. "You're supposed to be scared by that."