"What do you want, Rabbit?" His green eyes levelled on me in that way that felt like they were cutting through me. "Do you want my mark?"
He made it sound horrifyingly intimate.
I couldn’t think of a single time that Vanquish had ever asked me for anything. He was always the terrifying presence commanding me. Dictating my movements. Forcing me to leave my hut, to eat, to socialize. The one insistent on knowing my every thought.
"Wh-what d-does that m-mean?" I stuttered out. Thinking I knew what it meant, but even more desperate to know for certain.
I barely remember who I am.
Do I even fully understand any more, what it really means to be mated? I’d heard all the terrifying things the she-wolves spoke of.
Being killed during mating or marking. And some of the brutality of their mates under the Mating Moon.
But I also knew it meant other things. It means never being hungry. Never wondering where I might get my next meal.
I knew how they’d been taking care of me as the pack stray. How would Vanquish take care of me as his mate?
It also meant having someone there to defend me against others that’d harm me. Or mark me.
Would having this powerful terrifying male as my mate be so bad? I understood the gentleness he’d just tried to exhibit. I had some concept of how hard he was trying to control himself to make sure I wasn’t hurt.
Despite that my whole body ached anyway, I had an idea of what it took for a male wolf to contain himself under the Moon.
He won’t be so kind later. I reminded myself.
"It means you're mine. To possess, to mount, to protect, to breed, to care for. And that you'll willingly allow no other male to have you."
I chewed my lip.
He growled low in his throat before snapping. "Stop that!"
His brow was knitted with irritation and his mouth had tightened so much there was white around it.
"Why do you get so angry with me?" I stared at him worriedly.
His face relaxed and he straightened. "I'm not angry with you, Rabbit. I'm aroused and want you again. So, if you don't want me throwing you to the floor, I'd suggest you stop tempting me."
He warned me so calmly it was hard to believe he'd seemed so aggressive mere moments ago.
"Now," He asserted. "Decide quickly if you want my mark. My Brothers are coming for you."
He sniffed the air pointedly.
"M-mark m-me, Vanq-Vanquish."
"I like the sound of that." He growled again as he descended on me. Scooping under my knees to toss them up on the bed as he turned me.
Ripping the blanket from my grip and stripping it from between us so his bare chest landed on mine. Suffusing me with his heat.
Without further warning, I felt the sharpened points of his teeth sink into the tender skin of my shoulder where it merged into my neck.
I yipped at the sudden attack, but the pain was mild and was quickly banished by a pleasant sensation spiraling through me in warm, tingling.
I knew the sudden pain made my eyes flare yellow. The pupils narrowed to slits. The reaction of my wolf to being marked.
When he tossed up his head and snarled, I heard the reciprocating whines of other males in the pack.
Saddened that I'd been claimed.
I wasn't surprised when in only seconds I heard the thud of a boot against my door.
"Vanna Rae!" Racer snapped. "Who's in there with you?"
"Let us in!" Hunter shouted. "Who has claimed you? We want a word with him."
"If he's dead you’re free to claim again..." Racer said decisively.
Rising onto a knee, Vanquish brushed his dark hair back from his forehead and smoothed it down the back. Giving me a long look.
"You're mine now, Vanna Rae. And I'm going to tell them so."