Chapter 6: Claimed Under the Blood Moon
The world dissolved into a nauseating swirl of light and sound, the ballroom’s cacophony stretching and snapping like a rubber band. Jennie felt a violent lurch in her stomach, the sensation of falling without moving. Then her back hit something rough and unyielding, cold bark digging through the thin silk of her dress. The air, thick with perfume and sweat, was gone, replaced by the damp, pine-sharp chill of the forest night.
She gasped, the shock of the transition cleaving through the drug’s fever for one lucid moment. Silver birch trees stood like sentinels around them, their peeling bark glowing in the moonlight that filtered through the skeletal canopy. The moss under her bare feet—her heels were gone, lost in the teleport—was wet and spongy.
Leonid stood a foot away, having landed in a predatory crouch. His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt ripped at the shoulder where her claws had torn through it in the ballroom’s final frantic second. His dark red eyes burned in the gloom, fixed on her.
“Jisoo,” Jennie panted, the word a ragged plea into the silent woods.
“She’s gone,” Leonid’s voice was a low rumble, colder than the forest air. He straightened slowly, his gaze scanning the shadows. “A tactical retreat. Leaving me to deal with you.”
The word ‘deal’ sent a fresh wave of the potion’s heat crashing over her. It was a living thing now, a serpent coiling in her belly, its venom spreading through her veins. Her nipples hardened painfully against the silk of her dress. A slick, aching warmth pooled between her legs, so intense it was a physical ache. She clenched her thighs, a tremor wracking her body.
“Get away from me,” she snarled, but it came out strangled, breathless.
He took a step forward, not menacing, but deliberate. “Or what, little wolf? You can barely stand.” He sniffed the air, his aristocratic nostrils flaring. “Crimson Mandrake. Strong batch. Kai’s a bastard, but he doesn’t skimp on quality.”
The casual analysis enraged her, cutting through the haze of lust. “Don’t… don’t say his name.” Her claws slid free, gleaming in the moonlight. A growl built in her chest, but it sounded weak, desperate.
“Why? He’s the one who did this to you,” Leonid murmured, closing the distance. He was now within arm’s reach. The scent of him—old books, cold stone, and a sharp, metallic edge—cut through the forest smells and flooded her senses. It was the most intoxicating thing she’d ever inhaled. “He wanted you like this. Weak. Needy. Begging.”
“I’ll never beg,” she spat, baring her teeth.
“We’ll see.”
He moved faster than sight. One moment he was in front of her, the next his body was pressed against hers, pinning her to the rough bark of the birch tree. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. His cold hands wrapped around her wrists, slamming them against the tree above her head. His strength was absolute, inhuman.
“Let go!” she thrashed, but her struggles were uncoordinated, her body arching against him not in protest, but in a shameless search for friction.
He leaned in, his lips beside her ear. His breath was cool. “You stole from me.”
The journal. Her secret, her shame. The heat in her face was no longer just from the potion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Liar.” He ground his hips against hers, and the thick, hard length of him, even through his trousers and her flimsy dress, made her cry out. “You read my words. You know what I want. What I see in you.” He released one of her wrists, his hand sliding down her side, over the curve of her hip. His touch was like ice and fire. “This isn’t you. This is the poison. But your scent… your real scent, underneath that chemical filth… it’s been driving me mad for years.”
His confession shattered her last defense. A sob ripped from her throat, part agony, part release. Her free hand came up, not to push him away, but to fist in his torn shirt. She dragged his mouth down to hers.
The kiss was a collision. It was teeth and tongue and desperate, hungry noise. He tasted of iron and whiskey and a dark, endless night. She kissed him back with every ounce of her frayed will, her claws tearing fully through the fabric of his shirt, scoring the impossibly hard flesh of his back. He groaned into her mouth, the sound vibrating through her entire body.
He ripped his lips from hers with a snarl. With a brutal tear, the delicate straps of her dress gave way. The fabric fell to her waist, baring her to the waist. The cold night air pebbled her skin, and she instinctively tried to cover her small breasts, her deepest insecurity screaming to the surface even in her delirium.
Leonid caught her hands, forcing them back to the tree. “No,” he commanded, his voice thick. “Let me see.” His gaze was not mocking, but fiercely reverent. “Perfect. Fucking perfect.” He dipped his head, taking one tight peak into his cold mouth. His tongue swirled, his fang grazed the sensitive flesh, and lightning shot straight to her core. She screamed, her head thrown back against the tree.
He released her wrists then, but only to grab her waist and spin her around, facing the tree. He yanked the ruined dress down over her hips until she was bare from the waist down, the cold moss under her feet, the rough bark against her cheek.
“Please,” the word escaped her, a broken whisper. She didn’t know what she was begging for. Stop. More. Everything.
She heard the rustle of his clothes, the clink of a belt. Then his hands were on her hips again, pulling her back. She felt the blunt, massive head of his cock press against her dripping entrance. He was huge, impossibly so, a thickness that promised splitting pain.
“Look what he did,” Leonid growled in her ear, one hand sliding around to cup the fevered wetness between her legs, making her jolt. “Look what you let him do. Turned you into a soaked, desperate little thing. But it’s my name you’ll scream.”
He drove into her.
The stretch was brutal, exquisite, a feeling of being utterly filled and owned. She shrieked, a raw animal sound that echoed in the silent glade. He didn’t stop, didn’t gentle. He seated himself to the hilt inside her, a deep, claiming invasion that stole her breath. He was so deep she felt him in her throat.
“Fuck,” he hissed, his body shuddering against hers. “So tight. Like a fucking vice.”
He began to move.
It was not making love. It was a ravaging. He pulled almost all the way out, the cold air a shock on her sensitized flesh, before slamming back in with a force that rocked her whole body against the tree. The bark scratched her skin. Each punishing thrust pushed a choked cry from her lips. The pain spiraled into a piercing pleasure, the potion and her own long-denied desire amplifying every sensation into blinding white noise.
His hand left her hip and tangled in her hair, pulling her head back. “Whose?” he demanded, his pace relentless, the slap of their flesh a lewd rhythm in the sacred woods.
She couldn’t speak. The world had narrowed to the feeling of him pounding into her, splitting her open, the coiling tension about to snap.
“Say it!” he roared, his fangs grazing her shoulder.
“Yours!” she screamed, the admission tearing itself from the deepest, most secret part of her soul. “Yours, yours, yours!”
The sound of her submission unlocked something feral in him. With a final, guttural groan, he released her hair and wrapped both arms around her waist, lifting her completely off the ground. He turned and fell to his knees, landing in the thick moss with her straddling him, still impaled. He lay back, pulling her down on top of him, his hands gripping her ass, guiding her as she rode him with a frantic, broken rhythm.
The new angle hit something unimaginable inside her. Her claws dug into his chest as she rode, sobbing, her small breasts bouncing, her body taking all of him, again and again. His eyes watched her, hungry and dark, his hands squeezing her flesh.
“Come for me, Jennie,” he growled, bucking his hips up to meet her downward strokes. “Come on my cock. Show me what you keep hidden.”
The coil snapped. Her orgasm ripped through her like a supernova, a silent, seizing wave of pure ecstasy that blanched her vision. Her inner walls clenched around him, milking him violently.
It triggered his own release. With a shout that was more beast than man, he arched beneath her, his hips stuttering. She felt the hot, shocking pulse of him deep inside, filling her, a claim more intimate than any bite.
For long minutes, the only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant sigh of the wind. The potion’s fire had burned out, leaving her hollowed, trembling, and devastatingly clear-headed. She was still straddling him, his softening length inside her, his seed leaking out. Shame, acute and paralyzing, washed over her, cold and final.
She scrambled off him, collapsing onto the moss beside his supine form. She curled into herself, trembling violently. The cold was immediate, biting into her sweat-slicked skin.
She felt him shift beside her. Then his suit jacket, surprisingly warm from his body, settled over her. He didn’t try to hold her. He just lay there, staring up at the sliver of moon through the branches.
“The potion… it’s gone,” she whispered, her voice raw.
“I know,” he said, his tone flat, unreadable.
“That wasn’t me,” she said, the words choked with self-loathing.
He was silent for a long time. “Parts of it were,” he finally said, turning his head to look at her. His eyes were no longer burning, but weary, ancient. “The parts that kissed me back. The parts that said ‘yours’. The potion doesn’t create desire. It just strips away the walls.” He sat up slowly, wincing slightly. Four parallel claw marks, gleaming with a trace of her blood, ran down his bare back. “My journal. Do you have it?”
She nodded, not looking at him, pulling his jacket tighter around her nakedness.
“Keep it,” he said, standing up. He began dressing with slow, deliberate movements. “Consider it a translation guide.”
He finished buttoning his torn shirt, not bothering with the ruined jacket she wore. He looked down at her, a fallen queen in the moss and moonlight. “Kai will be dealt with,” he stated, as if discussing the weather. “Tell your father whatever story you need to. But know this, Jennie Kim.” He knelt, his face level with hers. “What happened here tonight is between us. The game is over. You are in my blood now. And I… am in yours.”
He stood, a dark figure against the star-flecked sky. Then he was gone, moving into the shadows between the trees with a vampire’s silent speed, leaving her alone with the scent of sex and sin, the physical ache of his possession, and the echoing truth of his final words.