Leah's POV
Where am I? A hotel?
I woke to the weight of my own bones. I was like lead was being poured into a silk bathrobe.
Sunlight stabbed through bulletproof glass. My skull pulsed with the rhythm of last night's beer bottles shattering against pavement. Memory came in shards: sticky bar stools, Lucas' laugh cutting through smoke, my own laughter curdling into retching. No blood. No teeth. Just the sour aftertaste of survival.
The bathroom door hissed open.
He moved like spilled ink - Alpha Lucas with his tailored cruelty, holding a glass where effervescent tablets hissed like trapped wasps. I clutched the quilt to my collarbones. His smirk was a blade drawn slowly across leather.
"Decency's really unnecessary in front of me, since I've already seen everything," he grinned. The glass clinked on marble. "Drink."
I tasted ozone. My fingers trembled against Egyptian cotton. "Did you...?"
"Touch you?" He leaned into the bed's gravitational pull, cufflinks catching light like fangs. "Darling, if I'd fucked you, you'd still be screaming."
His palm scorched my back as he hauled me upright. The robe slithered open. I didn't fight. Fighting required believing skin mattered.
The water burned colder than betrayal. He forced it past my lips, thumb pressing the hollow beneath my tongue. Our breath tangled-his smelling of cologne and aftershave, mine of shame.
Something broke then.
My palms flattened against his chest. No heartbeat. No warmth. Just the terrible stillness of predator patience.
"Stop." My voice cracked. "Stop being so gentle to me."
His laughter vibrated through my spine. "What's the matter of being gentle?"
"I don't deserve it, so quit pretending." I lowered my head and put on my bathrobe. "Save it for the lady that you're looking for!"
He didn't say a word.
I continued, "You pretended to take me out for a ride, but what you're really doing is to use me like a stunt while beating the bush and prying around. Now, you want to know where the old lab is, so you can go there and look for her."
He leaned forward. "Oh, you're more to something than meets the eye."
I looked away and withdrew a bit, not feeling entirely comfortable to be so close to him. But his scent was so tempting. What kind of cologne was he using?!
I heard the flapping sound of wings from outside.
"Could you please... tell me something about her?" I mumbled. I regretted it as soon as I threw out that question. Men didn't like talking about their wives while being in bed with another woman.
He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. "She's my mate and my wife. She was carrying my child when she went missing. I've been looking for her."
"If she's your mate, can't you sense her?" I asked.
"The Moon Goddess cut off the connection between us," he replied.
I was horrified. "Why would the Goddess do something like that?"
"To punish me," he said. "For being a lousy mate and husband."
"Were you that bad?" I frowned.
"I wasn't available for her," he said. "And people thought that I might have killed her."
I turned silent. This whole conversation had gone way beyond my control.
He leaned forward and said, "Well, thank you."
"What's that for?"
He shrugged. "For not asking me if I had really killed her."
Of course, I wouldn't ask you something like that. I thought to myself. You're a jerk, but not a murderer.
Some birds were twittering outside. I could see morning breeze flickering the curtain. His tousled hair waving in the air.
"Was she a Lycan?" I asked.
"Are you a Lycan?" He stared at me, with his fingers gently stroking my hair.
The fever hit like a collapsing star. I couldn't hold it anymore. My nails tore his shirt. Flesh met flesh, and suddenly I was feral- rubbing my cheek against his pectorals like some starved thing scent-marking carrion. His hands slid lower, igniting nerve endings I didn't own.
"Still pretending you're Omega?" His teeth grazed my earlobe. "Still playing a whore?"
"I am not a whore!"
Pain exploded behind my eyes. Forest shadows flickered at the edges of vision- rusted laboratory equipment, white coats stained brown, a girl's scream swallowed by static. I clutched his throat.
"Shut up. Shut up shut up!"
He didn't flinch. His carotid pulsed beneath my grip, a mockery of vulnerability. "Here's my wild guess. You've always known what you are," he whispered. "You just prefer chains to claws."
I slapped him across his cheek. The slap echoed.
He just stared at me and smirked. "Scared of what you'll remember?"
I gave him another slap and roared in Lycan voice, "Shut up!"
"There she is." He wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth and smiled. "Are you scared of your past because it was so painful? More painful than being tossed around like a whore?"
"I said I'm not a whore!" I raised my hand again, but this time he caught my wrist mid-air, pinning it above my head. His weight crushed me into memory foam.
"Look at you," he murmured against my clavicle. "A hurricane in a champagne flute."
"You..."
"Pain can be addictive," he whispered in a chilling voice while taunting me with his lips. "When pain becomes overwhelming, people will call it happiness and indulge themselves in it."
His mouth traveled south. I became liquid, tectonic plates shifting beneath skin. When his teeth closed over my sacrum, the world dissolved into salt and screaming gulls.
In the white noise, I saw it- the beach from childhood dreams. Sand bled through my fingers, each grain a stolen memory. Waves kissed my ankles, whispering in a child's voice: Remember. Remember.
Trembling, I brought my legs together.
He noticed it, looked up to take a glance at me. Then, he lowered his head and used his fingers to pry me open.
I arched like a bowstring, muscles singing with ancestral violence. The climax wasn't pleasure but exorcism - a howl trapped between ribs finally breaking free. He watched me unravel, eyes reflecting the predator I refused to name.
"Good girl," he breathed against my thigh. "Now tell me where the lab is."
Tears carved canyons down my cheeks. His tenderness was the cruelest weapon.
"You'll use me," I choked, "then bury me."
"I promise that I'll be gentle." He wiped the salt from my lips and combed my hair with his long, slendered fingers.