Chapter 3: Claimed by the Alpha
The growl that vibrated against her neck wasn’t human. It was a sound from somewhere deeper, older, a tectonic shift in the quiet boy who preferred books and cigarettes. Jennie felt it in her teeth, in the marrow of her bones. His words—this is what you wanted—were not a question. They were an accusation, a verdict, and the execution all at once.
His hands, which she’d only ever seen turning pages or holding a lighter, moved with a terrifying, efficient violence. They fisted in the thin cotton of her t-shirt and ripped. The tear was shockingly loud in the quiet room. Cool air kissed her bare skin a second before his palm, hot and rough, covered her breast, squeezing with a possessiveness that stole her breath. She arched, a broken sound escaping her lips, half-protest, half-praise.
“Leonid—”
He silenced her with his mouth, his kiss a claiming, not a caress. It was all teeth and desperate, searching tongue, tasting of smoke and the bitter caffeine of the coffee he’d drunk hours ago. She kissed him back with equal ferocity, her fingers tangling in his raven-black curls, pulling him closer, deeper. The taste of him was a drug, better than the whiskey, more potent than any suppressant. It went straight to her head, to her core, making her wet and aching with a need that was a physical pain.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged. His dark eyes scanned her face, her exposed torso, as if memorizing a landscape he now owned. Then, with a strength that made her gasp, he flipped her. One moment she was staring up at his stormy face, the next her cheek was pressed into the cool, dark gray of his sheets, the scent of him and her own desperate heat flooding her senses. His weight settled over her, one knee nudging her legs apart.
Her thin shorts were gone with a single, harsh tug, the elastic band snapping. The air hit her bare ass, her soaked cunt, and she shuddered. She felt exposed, vulnerable in a way that sent a thrill of fear and white-hot excitement through her. She tried to push up on her elbows, but a large, hot hand splayed between her shoulder blades, pressing her down.
“Stay.” The word was a graveled command.
She heard the rustle of clothing, the rasp of a zipper. Then the press of him, bare and insistent, against her. The head of his cock, blunt and searingly hot, nudged through her folds, slick with her own need. He was massive. She’d known it abstractly, had felt the hard line of him through his sweatpants, but feeling the actual, veined, iron-hard reality of him against her entrance made her whimper. It was impossible. It would break her.
He didn’t care.
With a grunt that was pure effort, he pushed. The stretch was immediate, agonizing, exquisite. Her inner muscles clenched, trying to rebel, to accept. He was thick, impossibly so, and every inch he fed into her felt like a conquest. She cried out, the sound muffled by the sheets.
“Fuck,” he groaned, the curse a shredded thing. “Jennie… you’re so fucking tight.”
He didn’t stop. He sheathed himself to the hilt in one long, relentless slide, until his hips were flush against her ass, until she could feel the heavy, tight weight of his balls against her clit. She was full, stretched to a burning, perfect limit. The air left her lungs in a long, shuddering sigh.
He didn’t let her adjust. He drew back, almost all the way out, the drag a fierce friction that made her toes curl, and then slammed back in. The impact jolted her whole body. A sharp, sweet pain flared, instantly consumed by a wave of blinding pleasure. He set a brutal, piston-like rhythm, each thrust punching a ragged noise from her throat. The sounds in the room were obscene: the wet, rhythmic slap of his flesh against hers, his guttural breaths, her own choked sobs.
His hand left her back, tangling in her hair instead, fisting it to hold her head in place. The other hand gripped her hip, his fingers digging in, sure to leave bruises. The pain was an anchor in the storm of sensation. She was dissolving, coming apart under him.
“Is this it?” he snarled, his voice twisted with a fury that was also a kind of reverence. “This what you schemed for? To get fucking ruined?”
She couldn’t answer. All she could do was take it, the tears streaming from her eyes onto his sheets. With every drive of his hips, he touched something deep inside her, a place that ignited stars behind her closed eyelids. The coiling tension in her belly tightened, a spring wound to breaking.
She felt a change in him. A thickening at the base of his cock where it joined her, a swelling that stretched her even further, locking him to her with each inward stroke. His knot. The realization sent a fresh, helpless wave of slickness between her legs. He was going to tie them together. Claim her completely.
His thrusts became shorter, harder, more frantic. His breathing hitched. The hand in her hair tightened.
Then his mouth was on the back of her neck, not a kiss but an open-mouthed press of lips and teeth against her scent gland. He inhaled, a deep, shuddering drag, and then he bit down.
The world exploded.
The pain was sharp, bright, a lightning bolt that fused directly into the core of her pleasure. At the same moment, his hips gave one final, grinding thrust, his knot swelling and lodging deep inside her, locking them together as he came. She felt the hot, pulsing rush of him filling her, and it was the trigger for her own climax. It tore through her, violent and endless, wringing a scream from her raw throat. Her body clamped down on him, milking him in rhythmic, convulsive waves that seemed to go on forever, each one echoing the fierce, primal pulse of his release.
Slowly, the world reassembled. The frantic sounds gave way to heavy, ragged breathing. The scent of sex and sweat and their mingled, permanent mark hung thick in the air. Leonid’s weight was a solid, warm pressure on her back. His teeth slowly released her neck, his tongue swiping gently, almost apologetically, over the mark he’d left.
He was still inside her, tied, his softening cock twitching occasionally within her oversensitive walls. She felt… hollowed out. Branded. His.
For a long time, neither of them moved. The only sound was their breathing slowing, syncing. The neon glow of her desk lamp painted their tangled, sweaty forms in stark relief.
Eventually, Leonid shifted his weight off her, careful not to jostle the tie. He rolled onto his side beside her, his arm slung heavily across her waist, keeping her close. He looked at her profile in the dim light. Tears had tracked through the sheen of sweat on her cheeks. Her eyes were closed.
He reached out with his other hand, his movements slow, almost hesitant, and brushed a damp strand of hair from her forehead. His fingers lingered on her skin.
“Jennie,” he said, his voice a rough, ruined version of its usual quiet tone.
She didn’t open her eyes. A single, fresh tear escaped, tracing a new path down her temple and into his sheets. She swallowed, her throat clicking dryly.
“Yeah?” The word was barely a whisper, raw from screaming.
He was silent for another long moment, his dark eyes tracing the sharp line of her cheekbone, the sweep of her lashes, the new, dark bruise blooming on the pale skin of her neck.
“Nothing,” he finally murmured, his thumb stroking a slow, absent pattern on her hip. “Just… nothing.”
Outside, the distant sound of a car passing faded into the night. Inside, they remained locked together, two points of heat in the dark, the careful architecture of their previous lives lying in ruins around them, as tangible and shattered as the glass from her suppressant vial glinting on the floorboards.