Chapter 7 · The Feral Claim

"One reason," Vane said. His claws rested on the back of my neck like a collar. "Say it."

I couldn't. Every reason I had was either a lie or a knife.

The bedchamber was stupidly hot. Pine coals roared in the hearth. Furs were piled on the bed like a nest. An iron chain ran from the bedpost to the cuff on my wrist. Sweat slid down my spine, and his hand was hotter than any of it.

"Garrick brought a rope to your door," I said. My voice came out thin. "Which means the elders want me dead by morning."

"I heard him."

"So do it. Hang me. That's your thing, isn't it? Cut off whatever's inconvenient."

His grip tightened. Under the fur and iron and woodsmoke I smelled blood. It was his, old and fresh at once. Then a sound came out of his chest. It wasn't a word. It was low and wet, like something dragging itself up out of a pit.

"Don't," he said. "Don't say that tonight."

"Why? Does it bother you?"

He turned me around by the neck. Up close his eyes were wrong. The gray was gone, and what was left was molten gold with no pupil in it. Not a man's eyes.

My stomach dropped.

"Vane." I kept my voice flat, the way you talk to a dog you don't trust. "Look at me. It's Seraphina. You know who I am."

"I know exactly who you are."

He breathed me in. Right at the hollow of my throat, slow and shaking, like a man drinking after a week in the desert. Heat went through me. I hated it. My body knew him. It had known him for two years of pretending it didn't.

I jammed my free hand against his chest. "Back off."

His heart was going like a hammer under my palm. Way too fast. Nothing living should beat that hard.

"Can't," he said, and it sounded like it hurt him. "You smell like the only quiet place left."

Then the window died.

The stone mullion split with a crack like a gunshot. The blizzard punched through the gap and the whole wall of glass came with it. Snow hit the fire sideways. Half the coals went out in one gasp. Candles died, and the room went red and black and full of knives.

I screamed. I didn't mean to.

Cold slammed into my face. Vane didn't flinch. The wind ripped the furs off the bed and he just stood there, burning, with snow melting on his shoulders before it could land.

Something in him snapped. I felt it through my hand. A string pulled too tight, finally gone.

"Vane, no—"

He moved too fast to see.

My back hit the furs. The chain bit my wrist and yanked my arm over my head. His weight came down over me, huge and shaking, one palm pinning my shoulder to the bed. The fire threw his shadow up the wall, and it had too many edges.

"Get off me!" I kicked. I got a knee up and hit him in the ribs as hard as I could.

He didn't even grunt.

He caught my knee and pushed it flat. He slid between my thighs like he'd done it a hundred times, like my body had been left open for him on purpose. Wool and leather, then nothing but heat. My pulse was going so loud I heard it in my ears.

"Mine," he said into my collarbone. That wasn't a man's voice either.

"I'm not yours. You made sure of that in front of the whole pack."

His hand went to the neck of my tunic and tore it open in one pull.

Cold air. Then his mouth, right there, on the old scar at the base of my throat. The dead mark. The place he'd cut out of me with a silver blade while four hundred wolves watched me not cry.

It had been numb for two years. It wasn't numb anymore.

His lips dragged over it, and the scar lit up like a struck match. Heat ran down my ribs and pooled low. My back arched off the furs before I could stop it, and I wanted to bite through my own tongue for that.

His fangs came down. I felt the points scrape my pulse, slow and deliberate. One long drag from jaw to shoulder.

He was shaking. So was I.

"Say no," he rasped. Something almost human surfaced in it. "Say it now, Sera. Say it, or I can't..."

I opened my mouth.

The wind howled. The cuff burned my wrist. His hips were pressed hard against mine, and the cold, snowy dark closed in around the one place left in the world that was warm.

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I should have said no. I knew that.

What came out was his name, cracked down the middle.

He heard it. His whole body locked up, like I'd put a hand through the bars. For one second the gold flickered. I saw gray under it, and I saw him, and he looked wrecked.

"Sera."

"Don't," I whispered. I didn't know if I meant him or me. "Don't do this if you're going to throw me away again."

His forehead dropped against mine. His breath scalded my mouth. Our noses brushed. His fingers slid up my throat and wrapped there, not choking me. Just holding, like he needed something to hold.

"I never threw you away."

"Liar."

"I'm not," he said, and the gray bled out of his eyes again. "I can't prove it. Not with words."

A log cracked in the hearth. His hand dragged down, over my shoulder, over my ribs, and the torn wool gave up completely. I felt the fur against my skin and his palm spread flat at my waist. Every inch he touched went from numb to burning.

I grabbed his hair with my free hand. I meant to rip him off me. I swear I did.

My fingers closed. I pulled him closer instead.

He made a sound I'd never heard from him, half groan, half sob. Then he shoved me deeper into the furs and his mouth came down on the mark again, rougher this time. His teeth dragged over it like he was sharpening them.

My hips lifted. I felt how much he wanted this, and how little he was holding back.

"Vane, wait. Wait, I—"

"Mine." He licked the scar once, slow. "Mine."

"I hate you."

"I know."

We were both shaking now. The snow hissed in the hearth. My chain clinked against the post, steady as a clock. Out in the hall, far off, something heavy slammed against a door. Garrick, maybe. Maybe the rope.

Neither of us turned our heads.

His fangs found the scar and stopped there, like a held breath.

I felt him decide.

Razor teeth punched through my throat, and fire flooded the dead mark so fast my vision whited out. He snarled into my skin, hot and wet and shaking: "You're mine. You always were."