Chapter 154: Beast

Magnus

Clenching my jaw so hard my teeth ground together, I stepped toward the bed and sank to my knees before her, my legs trembling violently from the sheer surge of adrenaline. I was shaking, consumed and torn apart by raw, ravenous desire.

"Magnus..." Her voice scraped ruthlessly across my nerve endings, settling in electric shocks that made me jerk as if struck by a current.

Her body arched violently off the mattress, thin fingers clutching the sheet until her knuckles turned stark white. On her ring finger, the engagement ring gleamed, too—yet another silent declaration that she belonged to me.

"I’m here. I’m right here, baby," I forced past my throat.

Reaching out, I carefully laid my hands on her burning skin. The instant my cool fingers slid over her bare shoulders, a long, ragged moan of agonizing relief broke from her lips.

That sound struck straight into my core, coiling my lust into a tight, unbearable knot. The heat radiating from her body was abnormal; it felt molten enough to liquefy bone and sear my palms, yet I didn’t pull away. Instead, I hovered over her, completely covering her form with my own, pressing every inch of myself against her to absorb her agony.

"Help me... please," Jane whispered, straining her head off the pillow. Her feverish, clouded gaze pierced straight into my soul. "I can’t take it anymore..."

Alan’s words echoed through my mind like searing acid: "Her breeder is crying out for you. This heat is a desperate plea, a call for your bond."

All those past heats, when she had writhed in torment while I summoned doctors to suppress it... I had been slowly killing her inner nature. She had simply been calling for me. Her body had been screaming for its Alpha, and I, too blind to understand, had only felt anger at her apparent frailty. The realization hit me with a wave of self-directed fury, blending with animalistic lust until my self-control shattered completely.

"I’ll take the pain away. I swear to you, I’ll take it all," I growled against her parted, bitten lips. Without holding back for another second, I captured them in a fierce, ravenous kiss.

I consumed her with the desperate aggression of a dying man in a desert. I crushed her lips beneath mine, driving my tongue deep into the sweet, feverish heat of her mouth. Jane responded with the same desperate, primal need. She moaned directly into my mouth as her hands flew to my neck, fingers tangling wildly into my hair to pull me closer, even though there was no space left between us.

Ripping the sheet away from her body, my trembling hands mapped every curve of her form, feeling the liquid fire pulsing under my palms. Every single centimeter of her skin was perfection. She had been created for me.

I dragged my lips down the column of her neck, nipping the sensitive skin just above her collarbone as I inhaled her scent. It had shifted. The familiar, delicate notes were now laced with a heavy, intoxicating pheromone of pure arousal. The scent hit my senses like a physical blow, obliterating whatever remained of my human logic.

"Magnus... more..." Jane shifted restlessly beneath me, her hips rising instinctively to meet mine, grinding against the painful, throbbing hardness straining against the fabric of my trousers.

Pulling back sharply, I stripped away the rest of my clothes with a single movement and hurled them onto the floor. Air whistled through my lungs in ragged gasps. I looked down at her sprawled across my silk sheets—flushed from the heat, breathing heavily, completely undone by arousal—and felt my heart hammering against my ribs as if to break them.

Parting her knees, I settled myself between her thighs. I slid a hand downward, touching her slick, sensitive core. Electric shocks rippled across my skin—she was impossibly wet, scalding, completely ready to yield to me. At the mere touch of my fingers against her swollen flesh, Jane arched her back, crying out as a sharp, piercing wave of pleasure finally began to drown out her pain.

"You are so hot. So incredibly sweet," I rasped, working two fingers deep inside her, feeling her muscles pulse and contract tightly around me, craving more. Every stroke drew out a slick, wet sound that painted an even deeper crimson flush across her cheeks.

Will I ever manage to teach her how to take her own pleasure without shame?

Clenching my jaw and shaking my head to force my vision back into focus, I hovered over her, bracing my weight on my hands on either side of her head. I had intended to ease in slowly, desperate to be as gentle as humanly possible so as not to frighten her. But the sight of my future wife, so thoroughly undone and wicked in her surrender, obliterated my restraint.

In the next heartbeat, I thrust forward, sinking deep into her tight, scalding heat.

"A-a-ah!" Jane threw her head back, her nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. The sharp bite of pain was a welcome relief—it offered a single second of clarity before I was swallowed whole by the haze of pure lust once more.

She took every inch of me, right to the hilt. I froze above her, squeezing my eyes shut as the sensation verged on absolute madness.

She sheathed me so tightly, so perfectly, as if we had been crafted for the sole purpose of fitting together like this. As if two halves of a severed soul had finally fused back into one.

"Does it hurt?" I gritted out, breaking into a heavy sweat, terrified to move lest I break her.

"No... Magnus, please, don’t stop..." Her eyes, usually so bright and calm, were clouded with a dark, primal haze. Fuck. If just her heat could reduce me to a mindless beast, I dreaded to imagine what her full awakening would do to my sanity.

I couldn’t lose control. I couldn’t hurt her. I had to maintain a grip on myself.

I began to move. At first, the pace was slow and heavy, withdrawing almost entirely before burying myself back into her pulsing warmth. Every deep thrust wrung a sweet, trembling moan from her chest that scraped ruthlessly over my nerves, driving me further toward the edge. I forgot everything... there were only her moans, and her supple body arcing in ecstasy beneath me.

I picked up the rhythm, driving into her harder, deeper, more relentlessly. Jane met every impact, her hips arching to take all of me. Her fever was no longer destructive; the agony had melted into a torrent of liquid passion that consumed us both.

Slipping out of her for a brief second, I hooked my hands beneath her thighs and flipped her onto her stomach. Obeying her raw instincts, she immediately arched her back, pressing her chest flush against the mattress and lifting her hips to welcome me back. She opened herself up so completely that whatever paper-thin wall of restraint I had left disintegrated into ash, leaving my girl entirely at the mercy of my darkest desires.

I drove back into her in one brutal, powerful motion, knocking a deep, guttural moan from her throat. Gripping her hips tight, I surrendered completely.

And she sang for me. Her cries were completely unfiltered, each one an undeniable proof of the pleasure tearing through her. She clamped around me as if she never intended to let me go.

I pinned her firmly against the mattress, accelerating into a feral, animalistic tempo, pounding into her yield as the air in the room suddenly erupted. Her scent flared into something so potent, so overwhelming, that it cut the oxygen straight from my lungs. Her pheromones hit me like an avalanche. I could feel it—she wasn’t fully there yet, but her awakening was right on our doorstep.

An electric, chilling thrill of wild ecstasy rippled down my spine. Deep within my chest, my wolf roared in triumph, calling out to its mate as it felt her nature finally stirring from her long slumber, reaching back toward him in answer.

The mate bond, which for so many years had remained broken and one-sided, suddenly flared to blinding life in my mind, locking into place like an unbreakable cable of steel.

I felt her. I felt her very essence—her very soul—reaching out to my beast, surrendering to his dominance, his protection, and his love.

"Mine. You are mine—only mine," I growled, shedding the last remnants of human restraint as I surrendered entirely to the beast.

"Yours... Magnus, I’m your mate..." Jane whimpered, and those words became the final spark that detonated my sanity.

I drove into her with pure frenzy, blind to everything in the world except her wet lips, her burning skin, and her cries that echoed through the bedroom. Every thrust hit like a bolt of lightning. I wanted to reach her very heart, to brand her from the inside out, and to prove that no one would ever dare cast even a glance in her direction again.

The tension coiled tight in my lower belly, a pulsing spiral demanding release. Jane shrieked as a violent orgasm ripped through her frame. Her muscles clamped around me in powerful, rhythmic contractions, wringing the very soul from my body. Feeling her break, I could no longer hold back. With a guttural roar, plunging into her to the very hilt, I poured myself deep within her hot, pulsing core.

We froze together, gasping and ragged, utterly deafened by the sheer magnitude of what had just transpired. Collapsing beside her on the tangled, sweat-dampened sheets, I instantly pulled her flush against me, tucking her underneath my side and burying her in my embrace.

Her erratic breathing gradually began to slow. Closing my eyes, I pressed my lips to her damp temple, deeply inhaling her newly awakened, vibrant scent. The fever had broken. The dangerous heat had vanished, leaving only a soft, soothing warmth in its wake.