Page 82 of Aine
DAMIEN
Alex is toobig for this hospital bed, his long limbs looking dumb as they dangle off the sides. I hardly remember carrying him here, this entire night a blur I wish to forget.
My eyes slam shut, and I throw my head against the wall as I recall Freya taking off my clothing. I like to sleep naked, and I thought she was helping so I’d be comfortable. She’s helped me change thousands of times before, my limbs uncoordinated after a night of too much drinking.
I didn’t think anything when she began to take off her clothing, too. I assumed she was going to throw on something of mine before going back home. She probably just got sick or spilled a drink on herself.
Nudity is normal. We see one another naked all the time when we shift. I looked away politely as she stripped and moved around my room. I shut my eyes and relaxed into my mattress as she sorted herself out. I thought she was going to leave.
Why linger when your mate is waiting for you back at home?
It wasn’t until she was climbing on top of me that I realized something was wrong. I remember trying to speak to her, to ask what she was doing, but I couldn’t get the words to form in my mouth. She looked me in the eye as she grabbed me, her mouth moving to form words I didn’t listen to and can’t remember.
I think it was in that moment I realized I’d been drugged.
I shook my head. I tried to tell herno. I tried to yell and kick her away as she stroked me until I was hard enough to be shoved inside her. Things went hazy after that, her movements rhythmic and blurry as she forced me into a place I didn’t want to be.
I don’t know how long she was on top of me, but the next thing I remember was her shouting, her face contorted into an angry scowl as my body refused to stay hard. My beast was screaming at me to get up, to fight back as she crawled between my legs.
My cheeks grew wet as her mouth caused my body to betray me for the second time. I closed my eyes and willed for it to be over as she began to kiss my thighs, her teeth scraping against the skin. I was only able to knock my knee into her face.
She held her nose and cried out but was back a second later. I was able to get up on my elbows and was so proud of myself for being able to move. Freya shoved me back down, the action disorienting as I struggled to find the strength to get up again.
Her teeth on my thigh had me fighting even harder to get away, my mind panicked and frightened. Touching teeth to my skin is sin, an even worse one than had already been committed. What if she accidentally marked me? What if she stole from me the one thing I had to give my mate? She was robbing Alex and me of our dignity.
She laughed as I tried to fight back, claiming the fates made a mistake pairing her with Alex. She smiled and told me I was hers, that I’d give her a child tonight and we’d be mates. I’ve never seen her so crazed before.
Her hands were on my hips before I could register what was happening, her mouth on my thigh and her teeth in my skin. I thought I was dying as they sank inside, marking me as her own.
My beast screamed for me to let him take over my body, to let him move me and kill her. I tried to drop down the barrier in my mind, but I couldn’t focus enough to see it through. Freya was everywhere at once, and it was overwhelming.
I couldn’t get her off me. I cried and begged and pushed at her thighs as she forced my soft penis inside her. She tried so desperately to make me hard, rocking and whispering dirty words I refused to listen to.
Before I could register what I was doing, my beast sunk his claws into her abdomen.
He didn’t care if he killed her. The one thing on his mind was ripping out her uterus. I’d die before I allowed her to carry my child.
She froze as my fist closed around whatever part of her innards I could grab and screamed as I tore them from her body. It wasn’t enough to kill her, but it served to be enough for her to back off. Losing the ability to ever conceive a child must have been a shock.
She was long gone by the time I stumbled my way downstairs, the woman not even bothering to help me find her mate and bring him to the hospital.
Tears trickle down my cheeks at the memory of him on the ground halfway between our houses. He’d been coming to us and must have collapsed when she’d marked me.
Avia pulls me from my self-loathing as she drops a pair of shorts on my lap, her demeanor cold as she tends to Alex. I’d be cold too if I were her. For all she knows, I just happily fucked my own brother’s mate.
I should have killed Freya. I wish I would have killed her.
Chapter Twenty-One
AINE
The silence betweenus is long and tense as Damien absorbs what I’ve just said. His mouth opens a couple of times as he prepares to speak, but he snaps it shut before anything comes out.
I already regret my words and grimace as I watch him search for a response. It isn’t my place to force him to confide in me and, despite my anger, I should’ve waited until he brought it up himself.
I can practically see the cogs turning in his head as he tries to make sense of the fact that I know Freya marked him. I’m about to speak up and change the subject when he lets out a loud sigh and drops his hands to his lap.
“What, specifically, did she say?” he asks.