I find him at the settlement’s edge, where the tree line bleeds into true wilderness and the dark feels deep enough to swallow a man whole. He’s staring into it like he’s calculating the trajectory of his own disappearance—one step, then another, until the forest claims him and the bond can’t find him anymore.
"Go away," he says without turning. His voice is ash and gravel.
"No."
He spins. In the faint moonlight, his green eyes blaze with supernatural fire, predatory and furious. "I said—"
"I felt it." I step closer despite every instinct screaming retreat, despite the memory of his hands bruising my wrists against bark just hours ago. "When you pushed me to shift. When you were grinding against me and screaming about ghosts. The bond cracked open, Hrollok. I felt everything."
He goes dangerously still. The wind rustles his auburn hair, wild around his shoulders.
"What Sera did to you," I continue, my voice steady even as my knees shake. "The way she looked through you like you were glass. How much it broke you. How terrified you are of letting it happen again—with me."
His face contorts, fury masking devastation. "You don't know anything, little girl."
"I know rejection." I stand my ground, close enough now to smell pine and smoke and the sharp scent of his anguish. "Not the same flavor, but close enough. My grandmother raised me for fourteen years knowing exactly which night she’d slaughter me. Every cold dinner, every withheld birthday, every time I called her 'Granny' and she flinched—I thought I wasn't lovable enough. Turns out I was just livestock being kept alive until the knife came out."
Hrollok’s breathing grows ragged. His fists clench at his sides, knuckles white as bone. "That's not—"
"You push me away because if you reject me first," I reach out slowly, giving him time to retreat, time to bolt into the dark, "then it won't hurt as much when I eventually disappoint you. When I leave. But I'm not Sera, Hrollok. I literally cannot leave without killing us both. I’m chained to you just as tight as you’re chained to me."
"That's not comforting," he chokes out.
"It wasn't meant to be." My hand touches his chest, feeling his heart hammer beneath my palm—a trapped bird beating against the cage of his ribs. "It’s just true. You're stuck with me. I'm stuck with you. So maybe... maybe we stop fighting it."
The kiss isn’t like the others.
It’s not Rhett’s devastation or Theron’s heat or Jarek’s precision. Hrollok kisses me like a drowning man breaking the surface, desperate and furious and aching. He growls—a wounded animal sound—and his hands fist in my hair, wrenching my head back to claim my mouth with violent hunger. His teeth catch my lip hard enough to draw blood, and I gasp into his mouth, my fingers clawing at his shirt, tearing fabric to reach the scalding skin beneath.
We crash backward into the trees, a tangle of violence and need. He shoves me against an oak, the bark rough through my thin shirt, his hips pinning mine with brutal pressure. I can feel him—hard, thick, straining against his jeans—and the bond screams between us, finally, finally flowing open, raw and unfiltered.
"You wreck me," he snarls against my throat, his hands ripping at my clothes, buttons scattering into the dirt. "You fucking wreck me, Abby."
"Good," I snarl back, yanking his shirt over his head, my nails raking down his back hard enough to mark. "Show me."
He does.
We tear at each other in the dirt, anger and desire indistinguishable, a war fought with tongues and teeth and grasping hands.
He pushes me down onto the pine needles, looming over me with feral intensity, his eyes glowing in the dark. I arch up to meet him, wrapping my legs around his waist, pulling him down into the cradle of my hips.
"Mine," he growls, the word ripped from his chest. He doesn’t ask permission. He takes.
His fingers find me first—rough, hurried, sliding through slick heat with a groan that sounds like surrender. "Fuck. Fuck, you’re soaking."
"For you," I gasp, my head falling back, my hips bucking into his touch. "Only for you, you bastard."
He removes his fingers with a cruel twist that makes me whimper, then frees himself with shaking hands. When he enters me, it’s not gentle—it’s a claiming, a punishment, a homecoming. He drives in to the hilt in one brutal thrust, stretching me around him until I scream into the night air, my fingers digging into his shoulders deep enough to draw blood.
"Look at me," he commands, his voice guttural, ruined. "Don't you dare look away."
I obey, staring up into his burning green eyes as he begins to move—deep, savage strokes that hammer me against the earth with primal rhythm. The pine needles dig into my back, the air is cold enough to bite, but where we’re joined burns like a brand. He fucks me like he hates me, like he loves me, like he’s trying to crawl inside my skin and stay there forever.
The bond opens wider with every impact, flooding me with his terror and his worship, his rage and his desperate, starving adoration. I feel him—truly feel him—no walls, no armor, just the raw truth of Hrollok finally, finally yielding to the inevitable.
"Please," he chokes out, the word breaking against my lips. "Please, I need—"
"I know," I gasp, tilting my head, offering my throat, offering everything. "Do it. Seal it. Make me yours."
He strikes without hesitation, his fangs piercing the left side of my neck—high, near the jaw—sinking deep with a savagery that detonates through us both. The pain blazes white-hot, instantly swallowed by pleasure so intense my vision whites out, my back arching off the ground as I climax around him, screaming his name into the dark woods.
Hrollok follows with a roar, spilling inside me with pulse after pulse, his hand fisting in my hair, his teeth still buried in my flesh as the bond snaps into place—a fourth star igniting in my chest, wild and fierce and finally, finally complete.
"Fuck," he gasps against my neck, lapping at the wound, sealing the claim with trembling reverence. "Fuck, Abby."
We collapse in the dirt, tangled together, his weight heavy and perfect on top of me. The forest is silent except for our ragged breathing and the distant howl of a wolf that might be celebration or might be warning.
From his jacket pocket, his hand withdraws a crumpled sheaf of papers—Jarek's notes, the severance ritual he'd spent weeks perfecting, the one he'd declared would kill her and free them.
He doesn't look at them. With a savage jerk, he tears the pages in half, then again, letting the pieces flutter down into the blood-stained pine needles between us.
"Burned the maps this morning," he rasps, his voice shattered. "Threw the athame into the ravine." His eyes meet mine, green and unguarded. "I chose you over survival."
I run my fingers through his auburn hair, feeling the new bond blazing bright—savage, intense, and irrevocably sealed.
"Still want to run?" I whisper against his sweat-damp temple.
He growls, low and possessive, his arm tightening around my waist like he’ll never let go.
"Too late," he murmurs, his voice rough with emotion he no longer bothers to hide. "You’re stuck with me now, little sacrifice."
________________